Hi everyone!
I've been practicing mostly calisthenics but I want to do a full Middle Split and Pancake really bad.
I know flexibility training is mostly strength training in end ranges, and for Middle Split, let's say, I need to strenghten the agonist, strengthen and leghten the antagonist and also spend time in that position to get used to it.
Will this routine get me there eventually?
Push/Legs day (2x week)

• Calisthenics stuff
  
• 5-Step Horse Stance: 3x30s (working on getting deeper first)
  
• W-Sit: 3x(10x3s) (active reps)
  

Pull/Core day (2x week):

• Calisthenics stuff
  
• Straddle L-Sit: 4x5-15s (band assisted)
  
• Straddle Leg Lifts 4x10s (unilateral)
  

Pure Flexibility day (1x week):

• Pancake Good Mornings: 3x(10x3s) (weighted and elevated)
  
• Copenhagen Plank: 3x(5-10x3s)
  
• W-Sit Stretch: 3x30s
  
• Straight Leg Fire Hydrant: 3x(10x3s)
  
• Butterfly Pose: 3x3-5 (isometric stretching)
  
• Standing Straddle Fold: 3x(10x3s)
  
• Pigeon Pose: 3x30s
  
• Supported Middle Split: 3x60s
  
• Assisted Pancake: 3x30s (elevated)
  

I train 5 days a week and leave at least 48 hours of rest between muscle groups.
I also focus on progressive overload. For example, in the Horse Stance, when I get at least 30s hold at the propper depth, then I can start to rep it out to make it dynamic. Then I can add weight to consolidate the position. And finally I can progress to a wider stance and start over again.
There's something I could be missing for my goals?
Thanks beforehand.

I'm two weeks post op today and I just feel useless. I was so active, I (kinda) worked at a barn for 6 hours a day, I could go non-stop but now all I do is sit around. I hate it.
Probably what makes me feel so bad is my barn went to a show and I'm seeing all my friends doing amazing with their horses and I don't even get to see "my" horses!
Even while I type this I know I should give myself a break, but it's so hard. I tried to go on a walk yesterday and I felt fine while walking but as soon as I got home I flared up, am I doing it wrong? Maybe I'm so used to chronic pain I can't feel my pelvic area until I'm resting and thinking about it.
I'm so done healing, I want to go back to my barn and see "my" horses and ride until my legs fall off!
I don't want to be patient, I'm so tired of sitting around. I can't even lift my cats to cuddle!
My pathology didn't even come back with Adenomyosis so what if I'm recovering for nothing? I don't regret it, my uterus needed yeeting, but what if it doesn't help?
I'm so tired, my legs hurt from not doing anything, and my muscles will easily decay (I might've forgot the term) and I'll have to build back up, but I don't want to. I want to be done!
Just a rant, I'm sure many of you have felt the same, thank you for being a safe place

I have devised this thread as some guidance for those people who have visited this forum and are concerned about specific symptoms that are effecting them and, in particular, those who are worried that these symptoms are an indication of neurological conditions such as Multiple Sclerosis (MS), Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) & Motor Neurone Disease (MND).
The first thing that must be realised is that NOBODY on an internet forum can ever diagnose you or truly give you any reassurance that you do not have these conditions. Should anybody experience any signs or symptoms that are new to them they should ALWAYS approach their doctor in the first instance in order for these to be examined. In the vast majority of cases a GP will be able to advise you that these symptoms are benign but some doctors will often refer you to a neurologist for their opinion, if this should happen it is not value laden as regarding a possible diagnosis but rather would be the standard format for how you present to the doctor.
This thread is good news, it is good news because it has had to be written, it is good news because hundreds, maybe thousands of people have logged onto this board and countless other anxiety forums totally convinced that they are suffering from a neurological condition despite being told by health care profesionals that this is not the case. All these people ask the same questions and all these people have the exact same worries as you are having now. If this is you, if you have been to the doctor, maybe even a neuro, maybe even two neuro’s, maybe even had an MRI, maybe even two MRI’s, well, you get the picture, if you have been told by your health care profesional that you are healthy but you are struggling to believe this you may find some help from this thread.
So, you have come to an anxiety board. I guess that is because your doctor has told you that you are suffering from anxiety. Actually, my guess would be that your doctor has told you that you are suffering from ‘just’ anxiety and, if you are lucky, you may have been given some leaflets, you may have had some books recommended and you may even have been given some medication.
So, what took you to the doctor? Was it the tingling? The pins & needles? That damned annoying twitching eyelid that just won’t let up? Was it that weird thing when you keep seeing the flashing in your periphiral vision? The strange sensation in your throat where you just can’t swallow? The constant muscle aches and cramps? The constant small joint aches and cramps? Do you have that weird internal vibrating feeling? Was it the percieved weakness in all your major limbs? What about the foot drop you have been noticing, the clumsiness, finding the car keys in the fridge? Was it the chronic constant fatigue, that feeling when you wake in the morning like you haven’t actually gone to bed? What about the myclonic jerking, that bizarre moment when your whole body jerks like you have had an electric shock? Was it that constant twitching in your calf muscles that looks like you have a bag of worms under your skin? It could have been the parathesia, the feeling on your skin where one moment it feels sunburnt and the next minute it feels soaking wet? Maybe it was the atrophy, you know, the muscle loss in your bicep, your thigh that is so obvious to you but what frustratingly nobody else can see? What about………are you bored? I’m bored!
So, you have had some of those right? Maybe like me you are unlucky enough to have had every one of them…not much fun is it! When you first started getting these weird and wonderful symptoms cropping up I bet one of the first things you did was run off to the all powerful internet and consult that all knowing oracle, the good lord GOOGLE. If you did this, if you searched for your symptoms on a search engine on the internet, congratualtions, you have taken the first step on developing this weird and wonderful anxiety disorder known as Health Anxiety. The reason we Google is because of a basic human need at a time of stress, we are scared and we want reassurance, the problem is nothing you ever read on the internet will give you the reassurance you need, you will unwittingly discard the plethora of evidence that tells you that you do not have a neurological illness and instead will latch onto and inflate those things which seem ambigous, why would you do this? I suggest that at this point it may be adavantagous for you to look in the Genaralized Anxiety Disorder folder on this forum and see the negative thought processes and over generalization and catastrophising that defines GAD, it just may ring some bells for you.
So, by the time you have gone to the doctor you are pretty much resigned to the fact that it is MS or if you are really unlucky ALS. You picture yourself in a wheelchair, the kids looking at you with pity as you can’t play sports in the park with them anymore, you picture your partner standing by you and caring for you but all the while you feel the resentment, they never signed up for this, you picture the scene in four years time, confined to a hospital bed with your family and friends round you with the fruit and flowers…..BUT WAIT!
Oh joyous news, the doctor has said you don’t have MS, you don’t have ALS, what you have is anxiety, well, just anxiety….oh believe me there is a BIG difference. You have got out of jail free! The doctor has examind you thoroughly, he has taken your history, he knows the patterns, he has seen people with MS and ALS and you are not one of those. With a skip and a step you are on your way, same time next year doctor, yep, no worries…so with a happy heart and an increased vigour you are off out of the surgery door to continue with your life that had been on hold up to then. MS, ALS how could you be so silly eh?
…and then it begins! Right, the doctor said this is anxiety, I’m not anxious though, why do I still have these symptoms if I’m not anxious….something just isn’t right here. The more you think about it the more it seems obvious, hold on, I saw the doctor on Friday afternoon, I bet he was just thinking about the weekend and wanted to get rid of me. I’m sure that the doctor should have done more tests than he did you know, crikey, I’m sure when I told him the numbness was down just the one side he didn’t listen to that, that bit is crucial and he never heard it. Hold on, this freakin eye twitch is getting even worse and I’m not even anxious, where is the telephone? What is that doctors number?……welcome to the loop!
If any of the above seems familier to you, believe me, you are not alone…as strange as it may seem the fixation on being convinced you have a neurological condition after being told that you are in actual fact suffering from anxiety in very common.
Firstly, you need to realise that both MS and ALS are rare disease’s. Not only are they both rare disease’s but they also tend to effect spefic groups based on ethnicity, age and sex so we are talking about rare disease with partial excluding factors. In contrast, anxiety is an incredibly common and debilitating condtion that effects people both physically and mentally.
Anxiety is generally percieved to be a mental condition, when we are anxious we are anxious in our head and this can kick in the flight or fight syndrome which in turn causes the physical reactions. These reactions are generally thought to be a racing heart and palpitations, sweating, increased adrenaline etc etc. Now, this is all well and good but how does this fit in with those symptoms that mirror MS etc so effectivly.
I personally believe that the reason most people fail to be believe that their symptoms are being genrated by anxiety is because the concept of anxiety is never actually expalined sufficently. A large number of doctors will often expalin to you that you are suffering from ‘just’ anxety and this usage of the term ‘just’ is supposed to make us somehow feel reassured. The problem is that this has the opposite effect, how can a ‘just’ something cause all these real physical symptoms. If anxiety is effecting me mentally how can it make me twitch, buzz and go numb?
For some people anxiety will surface in the tradional panic attack, much seems to be written on this side of anxiety and this is not what we are concerned with here. For a sizable group of people when anxiety starts to manifest itself physically it is through physical sesnations that effect various aspects of our nervous system. This is why the sensations of this physical anxiety so closely mirror the symptoms of a condition such as MS, they actually effect the same part of the body, now, here is the crucial and all important difference, the symptoms of MS are caused by an organic condition which whilst treatable is irreversable and the physical sensations of anxiety are caused by the mind and are of course reversable. In short, you have to understand and accept that the mind can actually generate these physical sensations.
Whilst for many people physical anxiety can strike out of the blue, I am of the opinion that for the vast majority of people anxiety starts to become physical after whay could be many years of bad stress and anxiety management. You may not have even noticed this. We all have an anxiety threshold and the majority of people will probably never approach the blow off point, yes, a sudden and severe stressor could take someone right over the point from the baseline (think Post Traumatic Stress Disorder & Conversion Disorder etc) but most of us operate at an anxiety level that our bodies can handle. The problem is that if we stress ourselves constantly over a period of time, we do not allow our thermostat to reset and one sunny day something will happen, some stressor which can be a bad or even a good event and which we may not even realise the significance of will push us over the limit and it is at this point that our anxiety will effect us physically and more often than not impact on our nervous system.
This also happens to bring us to another crucial factor and what for many is the paradox that holds us back form accepting the anxiety diagniosis, how the hell can this be anxiety when I am not anxious? It makes no sense to me! What we need to realise is that once we have crossed the anxiety threshold no matter what we do we have to surrender ourselves to our mind and body and accept that we are now operating to a timescale that WE CANNOT CONTROL! We can think we are being as cool as Fonzie but we need to accept that the damage whilst reversible has been done and it is just a case of closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. Our body is now in control of us and the physical sensations will only stop when our body and mind are sufficently recovered.
It is at this point where we commit the ultimate folly, do we do as the experts suggest and sit back and realx and float through this stage? Of course not, we do the total opposite, we monitor our body for every twitch and interpret this as a sign of a misdiagnosis, we become hypervigilant, paranoid, self absorbed…this behaviour just creates more and more anxiety and we do not allow our body and mind the time necessary to recover….we are, in effect, pouring gasoline on the fire and expecting it to go out.
If you read this forum you will find a variety of posts that will offer you suggestions as to why you are suffering from the physical sensations of anxiety. Some people will advocate medication, some Cognitive Behaviour Therapy etc etc but what you will realise is that there is no one right way. I am truly of the belief that recovery is all about acceptance and learning to respond to fear correctly but how we do this is very much an indvidual thing. It could well be that you have issues with GAD and you can see how patterns realting to that disorder resonate with how you currently feel about your health, for example, note how both MS and ALS are diseases with which we lose control of our bodies. It could also be that you have issues with OCD, traits such as reassurance seeking and body and symptom monitoring could suggest this. There may well be suggestions that you could be sufferring from elements of depression, there is as school of thought that believes that the mind will somatise physical sensations when there are aspects of your life that your unconcious is unhappy with etc.
I hope this has helped if you have just visited here convinced you have MS etc and you are feeling scared and confused. You may have noticed I have not mentioned anything specific about MS or ALS and that is because there is no reason to...you do not have those. Your doctor has told you you are suffering from anxiety and therefore you are in the right place. Refrain from researching about diseases you do not have and instead concentrate on dealing with what you have today. Of course, what you have today doesn’t guarantee you won’t have MS or ALS tomorrow and if that thought fills you with fear use your time here wisely and believe me, it becomes a lot more bearable.

Name: Hersheal D. Shabba Age: 20 Height: 6’0 Weight : 189 lbs Devil fruit: Saru- Saru no mi (Ape-Ape Fruit) Model: Stone Monkey Affiliation: Straw hats pirates, (True Mono Disciples) Positions: Lookout Epithets: Monochrome Gangsta Personality: Likes to talk to himself, sing to himself, Dance when he thinks he’s alone, Easily distracted by something obscure or minor (ADHD), ADD Neutral: street smart, hard headed, spiritual, artistic Positive: Humble, loyal, generous, passionate Negative: Short Fuse, awkward Appearance: half Lunerian white and black hair Afro Twists, slits in eyebrows, Red eyes, yellow camouflage zip up , Gold dripped headbands, Asterisks like scar on left cheek, Mini Black wings Height: pre-time skip 5’11 post time skip: 6’0 Build: pre time skip: Skinny lean and toned out with some muscle Post time skip: Hero built like BaKi Hanma Dream: To be The world’s strongest man, finding out the secrets of the celestial dragons and taking down the celestial dragons powers and techniques : Immense Strength Enhanced Speed Enhance Senses (especially sight) Enhanced Acrobatics Healing Factor Invulnerability Shape-shifting Cloning Cloud Manifestation Ape-like Practices Primate Communication Wizard form (Black Fur) Lunarian form(White Fur) True Monkey King (Golden Fur) Victorious Fighting Monkey King Conqueror’s Haki (Advanced) Observation haki (Advanced) Armament Haki (Advanced) Monkey King style Roast Session Hawk Arrow Eagle Kick Atom Smasher Twin Atom Smasher Divine Breaker(Atom Smasher + Advanced Conqueror + Advanced armament haki) Buster Cannon (Combined Atom Smasher) Great Sage Devastation (Combined Divine Breaker) Able to Travel Dimensions 72 earthly transformations Laser Eye beam Musical Attacks Spirit Geyser Heavenly Ragnarok Big Steppa One inch Punch Fourth wall awareness Immortal elixir Immortal peach Protagonist Summons Weakness: standard Devil fruit weaknesses Traveling to dimensions gives him splitting headaches till he passes out Magical Golden headband
Ruyi Jingu Bang: Divine Hawk Arrow Strike raid Supra Twister Great Sage Festival Longinus slash Calamity Falls Mega Flare Lethal Flame Raging Storm Holy rain White Horse Dragon Flame Great Sage Meteor Zettaflare Exoflare Terraflare
Clones: •Triple Power Bomb •GSDD (Great Sage Death Drop) •Gravesite Finisher •Replicamikaze •5 k Shabba Barrage •Roly Poly Slam •Poetry in Motion
Universal Transponder Snail

PC
Reddit Account: FatalisticBunny
Discord Tag: Freed#4998
Name and House: Bors
Age: 43
Cultural Group: Dornish
Appearance: Bors is a man with a square jaw, dark eyes, and a dark beard. He does not have as much hair as he had in his youth, though he is not balding, instead just preferring a short style. He is somewhat short, but has a bulky build with no shortage of muscle. He dresses plainly, like a worker, and his hands are calloused. https://imgur.com/a/vgOE1f2
Trait: Conqueror
Skill(s): Cunning[e], Tactician[e], Ambusher
Talent(s): Weaving, Propaganda, Nationalism
Negative Trait(s): N/A
Starting Title(s): Meria's Man, Commander of the Orphans of the Rhoyne
Starting Location: High Hermitage
Alternate Characters: N/A
Family Tree: Bors m. Arianne (d) Damon (d) Ynys Quentyn
AC
Name and House: Ynys
Age: 21
Cultural Group: Dornish
Appearance: Ynys is a tall woman, freckled and with blue eyes. She resembles her mother more than her father, and has a tendency to dress in bright, glorious colors. She is charming, and somewhat bouncy, far more than her somewhat dour father. https://imgur.com/a/PQPHPJM
Trait: Unscrupulous
Skill(s): Raider[e], Tactician
Talent(s): Sneakery, Bribery, Propaganda
Negative Trait(s): N/A
Starting Title(s): Daughter of Dorne
Starting Location: High Hermitage
Alternate Characters: N/A
Family Tree: See Above
Bio:
The deserts of Dorne are a hard place. Harder still, since the dragons came. Since you paid an extra hunk of silver on every coin so that the Princess could buy some jade amulets from Yi Ti, and another silver so that she could send it to her monarch. Since a thousand Dornish weavers and a thousand Dornish smiths were sent out to starve, because it became the fashion in courts to wear Reachman arms, and bear a sword in the shape of the Stormlords. Life was harder, in Dorne now, but the nobles didn't seem to bear any of it. Not most of them, anyways.
There were weddings, to be sure, but none that anyone less fortunate had ever been invited to. Grand celebrations, but all they meant to anybody real was that more men were coming south. And it was always men, because the way of things up there was that women were beneath. And of course, they brought that down with them too. The lords, and the princes, and their attendants and their households. These attitudes did not vanish into the air.
Not to the Queens and the ladies, of course, but to those who didn't have levies to protect them. Many knights had slapped a female servant for daring to speak out of turn, or refused to be taught by a woman master-at-arms. And that was just the tip of it. The Dornish were lustful by nature, the Westerosi told each other. They found that an excuse for all sorts of things, and for the sake of peace, one was just supposed to forget they had ever happened.
These were not the only attitudes that bled through. In Meria's age, the smallfolk had been respected. Not held so high as lords, but given bread and water in the case of famine. Some had risen high in Sunspear and the surrounding castles. But now, the Westerosi chafed to see the lowborn rise so high, and they swatted them down. It was not only birth that upset them. Certain things may be tolerated in a wife or husband who brought land or a dower. But to be served at a table by one with "shifty eyes?" To have your child nursed by a "dark-skinned" woman? All these lords, all these ladies, married in for the sake of peace, believed that the Dornish were lesser. That they were treacherous, wanton. Exotic, but untrustworthy, fickle and licentious. If left to their own devices, liable to poison you and eat your children. Perhaps they restrained these impulses for political gain, but the common people of Dorne were easy prey. And so, when given the chance, they were the ones that suffered.
Bors was not, initially, much of a soldier. He had fought against the Stormlands, in a great battle, although he had not known much about the war itself. He had been fighting for Dorne, and that was enough for him. He'd return home, and he'd become a weaver. One who had worked hard, and gotten employed at Sunspear. Who'd taken a wife, and had three children. He'd always been something of a good speaker, but he'd not had a mind for tactics, particularly. It had been a good life, and one in which he was well-satisfied. He was not an ambitious man.
Then, there had been a deal to bring in wool and cloth from some province in the Reach. Bors remembered when they had told him that they had a new weaver. His cheeks were pink, and he was a scarce twenty years old. A favorite of some Reachlord who had married a Toland, he heard. It didn't matter. He was out, and he needed to find some new work, or else he would be begging on the streets. He heard that they had started rounding up beggars. And so, Bors decided that he ought to join the fighting in the Stepstones.
It was a hard-fought campaign. Harder than the Stormlands. Bors saw good men die, drowning or stabbed. It was only because they were fighting for Dorne that he was able to push through. Princess Meria had died, and Bors intended to give her a grand farewell present. He came to be seen as something of a leader amongst the group, simply because he was a hard worker, and because he had an ability to rally the others, when they were uncertain.
What came of that war? Nothing. The Stepstones fell, but they held only one. The Dragon Queen constructed a grand citadel, with which to hold a knife to Dorne's throat forever more, with her wretched beat. And Deria Martell spat in her grandmother's face and bent the knee. She bowed, and every loyal man and woman of Dorne wept.
One might then decry the slow descent of Dorne into tyranny. The way Westerosi hatred and suspicion of one's neighbor crept in, poisoning the well. But it was not slow. They built up monuments to wealth in a city where their policies left people hungry, and thirsty. They took loiterers and debtors into the navy, forcing them to die to protect their rocks. Bors's eldest son, Damon, had liked to bet on horse races, on occasion, and hadn't had the funds to back it up. A pirate had put a spear through his face, eight days into his service. That same day, some cousin of Lord Drinkwater had paid his debts off, and they'd thrown a feast in his honor.
It was that day that Bors, and several of his men set off. And they burned a caravan, coming from the Reach. The bread that it carried, that which could be salvaged, was split amongst them. Any they could not carry, they left for the poor. That band has waned in sizes, over the years. And it's one by many names. The Orphans of Mother Rhoyne. Meria's Men. The Unbowed. It is not so strict an organization, as to have a roster. And its members are different, too. Some men fight, kill, and raid for a free Dorne. Some simply resist the Seven Kingdoms where they can. Some simply know that in their heart, the false king and his Queens will fall, and a free Dorne will rise again. All these are Bors's kin.
Bors himself would say that he is not important. That he is just one of a surging tide, hoping to free his fellow people from that which has been forced to see. But Bors has seen much, and he has learned to fight. He has learned to command. He carries within him a spirit unmatched by many. And that spirit is infectious. He had learned what it is to fight for Dorne, and he passes that spirit onto others. The skill in question is Conqueror, but that is not what Bors is, not truly. Bors defends his homeland, he defends his people, he defends the weak and defenseless from the true Conquerors. Bors is a liberator, in his heart, and he has honed his skills at that not only from his experience on campaign, but from his band, prowling the desert.
Some call Bors "The One Who Remains." And that is who he is, at heart. When the Martells pushed for Dorne to submit, Bors pushed for Dorne to remain. To remain free, to remain accepting, to remain Dorne. And when Bors pushed, with his skill and charisma, he found a great many more pushing with him. It is something of a misnomer though, after all. Those who fight for Dorne number far more than one.
Archetyped NPCs: Quentyn - General Mel - Bandit

Hey all,
I've adored the PC Port so far but, in my opinion, the default MKB controls suck horse piss mare's milk.
I've found the following setup works really well in the flow of combat so figured I would share:
Mouse:
MB1 Light Attack
MB2 Block
MMB Heavy Attack
MB4 Dodge
MB5 Focus
Keyboard:
TAB Aim (still allows you to block in between aiming with MB2)
Q Heal
E interact
F Quickfire
1,2,3,4 Stances
Caps Sheathe
The rest are up to you but these key ones make combat flow really well.
Obviously this is all user preference and relies on your muscle memory from other games but anyway, I figured i would share just in case you were finding it a bit clunky
Cheers
PP

I was just sitting at my desk when I felt a sudden twinge, popping pain in my right elbow/tricep (back side muscle between elbow and shoulder). It felt like a charlie horse and I cried out. I rubbed it and stretched gently and the acute pain subsided. It's been maybe 7 hours and my tricep is very sore to the touch and hurts to strain. Bending my elbow is uncomfortable as is extending my arm. Massage and stretches are not helping. Even texting hurts!
I was literally just sitting normally, had been for a few hours, no particular exercise in the past few days. I can't think of a cause but I know it's very uncomfortable and not going away!

Background
Dances With Dirt - Gnaw Bone is a long running race series in Brown County State Park in central Indiana, known for various amounts of mud. There are options for pretty much all distances from what they dub as the "hardest 5k in the world" to a 50M. At the ultra distances, they give you the option of dropping down to the 50k during the race, if you happened to underestimate the course.
While I live in Austin now, I went to grad school in Bloomington and have a good friend there whom I've coaxed into pacing a few of my 100 mile attempts. I saw this as a great chance to revisit Bloomington and get him to do his first ultra.
The trails in central Indiana also happen to be really nice - soft single track with nice forest coverage, a big departure from the crushed limestone and sweltering heat in Austin. Having done the 50 mile distance a few times in the past on the 100 mile attempts, I hoped this would be a good chance to get a solid 50M finish.
Training
Training leading up to the race was generally good - a solid base block, followed by strength, and finishing with endurance. The only hiccup was that I underestimated the family demands during the spring - kids' activities kicked into high gear and temps crept into the mid 90s, making weekend long runs a little challenging.
Regardless, with the strong early blocks I felt comfortable going into the race, albeit maybe slightly undertrained (which is fine, given that I've overtrained before and know that effect of that). The course is hilly (3,700 ft, mostly in 200-300 ft increments), so hill repeats in Austin were key to my strength and endurance blocks, which definitely paid off.
The week before the race was a mix of rain and sun, ensuring the course would be in "prime" condition.
The Mud Fest
The first (and last) four miles of the race are the most difficult and what gives the race it's muddy reputation. After a short jaunt over a river and through a field, we started the gradual climb up the to the aptly named Slime Top. The entire climb consisted of ankle to shin deep mud. As anyone who's done courses with water knows, there's always that point where you make the conscious decision to stop rock hopping and just get wet. There was no choice here, we just got wet and muddy.
It's also probably worth noting that any pace goals went out the window at this point.
The conga line snaked up to the top of the ridge and spread out on muddy horse trails to the first aid station in a campground (all the aid stations are in parks or campgrounds - how many ultras have real bathrooms?). A short road run got us back to the trails and heading down to the low point, at Ogle Lake.
I'll pause for a moment here and just reflect on how beautiful the forest is in the morning. It was misty, with sun rays cutting through the trees and glistening off the dew on the ferns. Ogle lake was covered in mist and the water just faded into it, as if in a partially completed painting. It was magical.
The next few sections were hiking trails with some muddy sections - very runnable and just a great time. My friend set the pace for most of the race, I thought about pushing it a bit early on and am glad I resisted the urge. At one of the aid stations, we got talking to someone who knew the course and he mentioned something about bushwhacking. We soon learned what he meant.
The course crossed a road and dropped into an area without official trails. Instead, the race organizers carved out a new trail, descending down a heavily vegetated hillside into a creek bed. Log and creek crossings dominated until we ascended out of the ravine - a few hundred feet straight up a leaf covered slope.
I still have no idea how I managed to come out of that scape and tick free. Needless to say, this was another section that took everyone's paces down a notch and was the point where I decided I had got the full value from the course and that a 50k finish would be just fine (I really didn't want to do that climb again 20 miles later).
Next, we followed mountain bike trails as they undulated just below the ridge line. My friend was feeling a little better than I was, and asked if he take of on his own. I had struggled early on with hydration and had just got it back under control, so I had no problem taking a different pace.
After the mountain bike trails, we had a mile or so of road through a campground (with a much appreciated bathroom). After the soft trails, the road hit the muscles hard and made me long for the mud.
At the next aid station, I let them know I was moving down to the 50k and started off on the final four miles back through the mud. With the hydration issues behind me, I was feeling good on this section. Navigating the mud was a mix of trusting that puddles weren't too deep and finding the exposed rock from the runoff. It wasn't fast, but it was fun.
The final descent is better described as sliding than running - a mile or so of steep mud where you just had to go for it. About half way down, a runner blew past me, leaping and bounding and slipping and sliding with reckless abandon (turns out he was doing the relay - team laps on the muddy section). Watching his "technique" gave me some confidence to push it a bit more and just go for it.
The final adventure is a slight deviation from the start. Instead of crossing a bridge, the course follows the river for a few hundred yards. Let me clarify "follows": it's in the river, not a trail on the side of it. I'll be honest, it'd be great if every race ended that way - the cold water on my feet and legs was exactly what I needed. Of course, getting out of the river required climbing a short, muddy slope, so any hopes of finishing mud free were dashed.
Finish and Takeaways
While not finishing the 50M or anywhere near my target pace, I still managed a first: a top three finish in my age group (yes, there were more than 3 people in the group :) ).
As for mud, I estimate we had 8-10 miles of various depths.
My only real misstep was getting behind on water early on. Without the constant heat of Texas, I tend to forget to drink enough, even while using Tailwind as my main nutrition. That slowed me down and took the middle of the race to recover from. I'm glad I had the presence of mind to catch what was going on and down an extra liter at an aid station. The first time I peed was around mile 24.
I got into ultras later in life (I'm a guy over 50, 6 years into my ultra adventure) and love challenging courses. I've done hard attempts in the Rockies and hot races in Texas, but nothing quite prepared me for the MUD in Indiana. It was truly a new and fun challenge.

The Zoo - A NoSleep story
***
Full job description:
Immediate Opening!
Night shift zoo managesecurity. All-weather foot patrol opportunity for a “night-owl”, who enjoys working outdoors and with minimal supervision.
Under general direction of the manager of the zoo, the Security Guard patrols the zoo grounds on a regular basis throughout the shift. Responds in a timely and professional manner to a wide variety of routine and emergency situations.
Requirements: BA in wildlife, biology, etc, which provides the required knowledge, skills, and background for this position. Valid Florida Driver’s License with good driving record is desirable. First Aid and CPR certification preferred.
The qualified candidate has the ability to use independent judgment in handling routine as well as the capacity to perform under stress when confronted with an emergency, unusual, or dangerous situation. Ability to oversee animals’ well-being, monitor conditions, create enrichment activities, and exercise safety precautions.
The Security Guard must be able to walk and remain on feet a full shift (up to 8 hours), and potentially up to 12 hours at a time. Must be able to exert a minimum of 50 pounds of force and able to lift, push or pull, or otherwise move objects that may exceed 50 lbs. Ability to negotiate all areas of the zoo in all weather conditions.
Note: Zoo is haunted.
***
Starting with the job posting makes sense, I guess. I spotted it on Indeed while making my daily check for anything and everything that would hire someone with my biology degree, and it seemed on the up and up. Their website looked decent, the guy on the phone sounded nice, and I was looking for anything even slightly related to working with wildlife. Being a nightshift guard at a zoo was fine, especially when I took the incredibly generous rate of $25/hr. into account. That’s eleven bucks more than my dad makes at the local grocer, and he’s been working there for thirteen years. Then again, from the P.S. on the posting, I thought there might be good reason for the rate.
When it comes to ghosts, they’ve never made much sense to me. Considering how badly our brains function from just getting jostled around on a football field, I’m not sure how ghosts could exist without a brain at all. I’d be excited as the next person to find proof, but YouTube videos are always fishy and the people on TV are essentially actors who only focus on the entertainment factor for their ratings. So, since I’d never seen anything that vaguely resembled a ghost, I’d say binge-watching Supernatural on Netflix last year was the extent of my experience in that department.
It seemed that the zoo hadn’t been here for long since it wasn’t even on Google Maps yet. There was a bit of a commute, it was half an hour away, but since I’d worked local jobs while I attended college online for the past four years, I’d saved up the money to buy a car. It wasn’t anything fancy, just an old Nissan sedan that I’d bought from someone in the next town over, with faded red paint and a mismatched back right door painted blue. It accomplished the job of transportation, though, which let me search the job market further away, a good thing considering how small a town I lived in. I really didn’t want to leave home yet, so moving for a job in a city or another state wasn’t an appealing option.
The website said very little. It had yet to fill in drop down menus that would excitedly describe their attractions. So far it only had some small sections about conservation and education, though that was intriguing because it mentioned that all the animals they had were endangered. I read that notation and wondered what the animals were. Mammals were always favorites of mine, which I know is a bit of a cliché, loving the furry ones. But when it comes down to it, I’ll take any animal over a person.
The employee entrance to the zoo was a door in the large steel fence that surrounded the property, a few yards down from the sliding gate that presumably opened to let visitors in. I pressed the button on a panel beside it, glancing up at the camera, and I was buzzed in. There was a short path that led to the building near the front and I knocked politely before going inside.
The interviewer, a plain metal nameplate on his desk describing him as Director of Security for the zoo, welcomed me in. He gestured to one of the two loveseats in front of the desk before he sat smoothly into his chair on the other side. His name was Andrew Higgs, and he had a British accent, which I thought was cool. I sat in one of the two loveseats in front of the desk.
Andrew was dressed business casual, with a blue Polo shirt, a thin black jacket, and I saw he was wearing slacks when he stood up to shake my hand. He was black, with dreadlocks that stopped just short of his shoulders, and a closely trimmed mustache. There was a tattoo, an artistic rendition of a hippo, on the right side of his neck, which bode well in my opinion. So many places hiring these days were overly uptight about their employees’ appearance, but it seemed that wouldn’t be the case here.
We went over the basics before he picked up the piece of paper off his desk, my resume, which he’d printed out. “Well, I spoke to all three of your references,” Andrew noted. “They had some good things to say. You were a great employee on the farm you worked last summer, your boss said. Punctual, hard-working, took instructions well…”
That was nice to hear. I’d spent this past summer working at a dairy farm, mostly assigned to the goats and cows they kept for milk. Aside from the staggering muscle pain that tapered from agony to merely miserable by the end of the summer, it wasn’t a bad job. I did have an old shoulder injury that I always had to work around, but it was my left shoulder and I was a righty, so it wasn’t that difficult to manage.
If anything, the muscle pain in my back and legs from being on my feet all day distracted from the typical issue I dealt with. My standard exercising day-to-day was typically either riding my bike or yoga, although yoga is mind-numbingly boring, so I need to listen to a podcast to pass the time. So, in fact, through the job, I was sort of grateful that my brain was focusing on a different area of my body that was in pain. Yeah, chronic pain is weird.
“He also said you don’t work well with others,” Andrew added, glancing up to me. “You kept submitting complaints about incompetent coworkers?”
I pursed my lips and let out a long breath through my nose, considering the most delicate way I was capable of replying to that before saying, “I dislike stupid people.”
Andrew gave me a half-smile and sighed, replying, “Well, I must confess I’m not fond of them either.” He looked back down to the paper. “This job will be a great fit for you.”
The job interview seemed like a formality, and I don’t know why. I was twenty-three and the ink had barely dried on my degree from the online college I’d attended. I’d been applying to jobs for months and had been thrilled when I’d gotten a call for an interview for this one, but also surprised. Call me a cynic, but I expected more invasive questions about any past work I’d done for a job in security, since I was a woman.
It's not like I was petite. Actually, the most common word I’d heard to describe me is ‘built’, and I fall short of being labeled overweight only because of muscle mass. One comment I recall from high school was being teased for being shaped like a rectangle. Even so, there was no good reason to look a gift horse in the mouth, but of course, me being me, that meant I examined its teeth closely.
“So, you’re hiring me? Just like that? Why?”
Andrew, chuckled. “Look, you’ve got BA in wildlife biology, and specializing in animal behavior is just the cherry on the sundae. That tells me you know animals are not people, and even if you feel like you know them, they can still be unpredictable. They can hurt you. But also, it makes me know you care.”
I suppose that did make sense, and it was true, so I’m glad he knew that. Most of my job on the night shift would be watching cameras and then walking around the place to make sure all the animals were as they should be, but it was more than that. Working at a zoo meant knowing where the line was, and sometimes it wasn’t exactly at the fence, but sometimes just putting a single finger through that fence meant losing that finger. As a whole, humans are generally idiots. Looking at you, anyone who really, honestly thinks that a bobcat would sense your boundless love enough to let you pat it.
“The website didn’t have much about the animals,” I said. “I know this place is new, so you might not have info on them up on the site yet. Do you have a map for me?”
“Oh, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Andrew said with a wave of his hand. At that point, it had seemed to be a reasonable thing for him to say, but I will tell you, the reason was not what I thought. “Just to confirm, you’re not an early bird, Miss Mason? This schedule isn’t a concern?”
I shook my head. “Nah, I’m pretty talented at sleeping in, actually. I never really got past that teenage talent of staying up until five and sleeping in until three. And you can just call me Ripley.”
That made him smile. “Good. Then I won’t worry about you falling asleep on the job, Ripley.”
“Oh, no way.”
“All right. So. You saw the note at the end of the job posting?”
He just stared at me and I was forced to answer, “That the zoo is haunted.”
“Right. What are your thoughts on that?”
There was no easy answer to that question, especially depending on how seriously he took it. “Do you know the best word the Brits gave to us?”
“What’s that?”
“Bollocks.”
Andrew slowly smiled and pointed at me with the end of the pen in his hand. “I think I’m going to like you,” he remarked. “Look…this is the part of the interview where we switch gears. If this was a regular zoo, you’d be a shoo-in for the job. But we’ve got other boxes to check. This outfit is…basically a preservation society. As you saw on the site, all the species are endangered, but what it didn’t say online is that the only people who come to visit are private parties.”
“So, that means…what?” I asked. “You bring in super-rich people who feel special when they get to see the animals you’re rehabilitating and taking care of? Then they donate oodles of money so they can brag to their rich friends about their charity contributions and having seen the animals here?”
Andrew raised his eyebrows. “Pretty much got it in one. It’s just more preservation and less rehabilitation. And a lot of our patrons really do care about the animals, or else they would just donate and not visit. You’ll see tourists a couple times a week, but we decided not to have anyone until we’re settled in here, and that means a person who’s on during the night shift that I can count on. And I don’t know if I can count on you yet.”
“Wait, I’ll see the tourists?” I asked. “They visit at night?”
“Everything we have is nocturnal,” he told me. That struck me as odd, but he continued before I could question it. “Listen up, and I’ll start with the basics. Have you ever seen anything weird? Possibly supernatural?”
“Nope,” I said with a shrug.
The fact is, I got along with my classmates, but I never did have any close friends. So, I thought maybe that’s why I missed out on all those reckless teen moments that started every horror movie. Maybe it left me without a bunch of exciting stories to tell. But hey, at least I didn’t break my leg falling through the floor of an abandoned building in eleventh grade.
Yes, that happened. It was a classmate of mine by the name of Brent. And yes, he’s just as much of a moron as you would imagine.
“If you see the ghost here,” he said, his tone emphatic, “will you freak out?”
I paused. “You’ve seen the ghost?”
“All the time,” Andrew told me. “It’s a young woman in a blue shirt and tan slacks, looks like she just walked out of a lake.”
“Do you have a picture?”
“No, and absolutely no photos or video are to be taken of her,” he said, his tone abruptly turning stern. “It’s cause for immediate dismissal. We have video cameras for security, but they all record off-site in a secure location, and Suzanne Cooper, the owner, manages it herself. Firstly, the ghost deserves privacy rather than exploitation, she’s not to be displayed like one of our animals, but secondly, people believe in ghosts. One leaked photo of her connecting it to us means we get overrun by ghost hunters, and if we trace it back to you, you’re done.”
Andrew seemed next-level serious about that, so I nodded. “Understood. That makes sense.”
The animals were the priority after all, I knew. I preferred them over people anyway, and that included dead people. Even if I could get a video of this ghost doing cartwheels back and forth through a wall, I would never post it and spread word of where I’d taken it. Andrew was right; the zoo would never get the paranormally-obsessed to stay away and would definitely have to relocate.
He continued, “If you’re curious, she’s never so much as tried to hurt anyone. But the zoo has moved before, and she moved with us.”
“She moved with you?” I asked, my eyebrows rising. “Is it like one of those stories where she’s attached to something in the zoo rather than a place?”
“More complicated than that,” he said. Then he grimaced. “She died because she was too ambitious with one of our animals. It never should have happened, but she… She was foolish, you’d say. Attempted to interact with one of the animals, got too close, and honestly, she should have known better. I thought she did.”
“Holy shit,” I whispered. “What killed her?”
He stared at his hands and shook his head. “It was before my time.”
It was clear Andrew was a true believer, but I still really wasn’t sure at that point. How was I supposed to react, though? Zoos have fences and tall barriers for a good reason. Not just to keep the animals away from us, but also the other way around, and ‘death by stupidity’ is not uncommon amongst humans. So, the story wasn’t outrageous, but still, I’d never so much as experienced something unexplainable. But if I saw a ghost, I suppose that’d be that.
“I just need to know, plain and simple, if you’re the kind of person who can handle things that are terrifying,” Andrew told me, splaying his hands. “Our last night shift bloke there was with us for years and years, but we spent months going through other employees. There were six we tried before we found him.”
“Six?” I exclaimed.
He snorted. “Yes, six. Let’s see…” Andrew counted off each one on his fingers. “The first two, the first night they saw the ghost, they lost it. One called me in a panic, babbling, and I had to get out of bed and drive to the zoo to send him home, and the second quit, although at least she made it to the next morning and didn’t drag me out here,” he said, his voice thoughtful. “They just thought I was blowing smoke up their bums with the whole thing.”
He shrugged. “Then, the third one was a bloke who was asleep when I got there in the morning, so I had to fire him. Then another ghost freak-out. The fifth bloke was someone who couldn’t deal with the animals, and then the sixth was so scared of the ghost that when I got here, he was already outside the zoo, pacing, waiting for my car. Apparently he’d said some stuff, rude or mean or whatnot, to try to get her to leave him alone and she had followed him back into the security room, so he fled. I need the opposite of those folks. Alright?”
At this point, I was starting to take it more seriously. Sure, this could just be Andrew’s thing, that he believed in ghosts and then made up these sightings to ensure I believed him. But if I saw her? What would I do?
Well, this would be my job, so I would have to take it seriously. Maybe that was why the pay was so good, to make employees think twice before ditching it. From Andrew’s perspective, if it really was haunted, he was the one who had to deal with applicant after applicant quitting as soon as they laid eyes on the guest who would never leave.
“So…honestly, I can’t say I won’t freak out, considering how next level this is,” I told him, feeling compelled to go with honesty, “but yeah. I think I can handle it, mostly because it’s important for someone to look after this place, look after the animals, so I’d do my best to work around anything that freaks me out. I mean, I have to say that I’ll believe it when I see it. But if ghosts really exist, as long as it isn’t some serial killer who stuck around to keep gutting people, I’ve always thought it’d be cool to find out we can exist after we die.”
The thing is, I think I did believe him. I thought there might really be a ghost there, because otherwise, why take it so seriously? It could’ve been that Andrew had only glimpsed her out of the corner of his eye a few times and could ascribe it to lack of sleep, but he was literally worried about word getting out. I thought that being halfway to believing him would give me the mental preparation I needed if I saw her. At least, I’d hoped so.
It turned out that most of my time would be spent at the security desk in the main building, near the entrance. Real-time footage from thirty-five cameras around the zoo all played on a large screen that was five cameras across and seven cameras top to bottom. The cameras were impressive. I would mention the resolution, say something about them being 4K, but Andrew explained some stuff about how it’s actually the lens that is the biggest selling point. Looking at these cameras on the giant screen, I could see practically every corner of the place, and if I brought up one camera in particular to encompass 2/3 of the screen, I could zoom in so far that it felt like I could use it to check if one of the animals had fleas.
The zoo was well lit, not surprising considering nighttime was apparently the zoo’s business hours, not all of the tall lamps had red bulbs. For those of you who know why, A+ to you. For those who don’t, fun fact, it’s because red is closest to the dark and your eyes don’t need to strain to adjust to it. That meant I didn’t need my flashlight all that often, and even that was red, a solid name-brand one that had been on my desk when I arrived. I kept the white lights on back in the security room, though, because I didn’t want to make my brain think it was time to get tired.
When I headed out for my first sweep on that first night, I had the folded map in my pocket, but I already knew my way around. The layout of the zoo wasn’t that difficult to memorize, since there were only eleven expansive enclosures, and after the interview I walked around for half an hour to start training my memory. I’ll admit, working in a dark environment was creepier than I thought it would be.
I do want to mention the high quality of the zoo. The size of each enclosure was considerable, and the greenery was natural, hinting that they’d hired a pricey professional just to do landscaping toward the front of the enclosures after buying the land. The backs of the enclosures backed up into forestry, and from the estimate I got from Andrew, it seemed each of the animals had plenty of roaming space, including the small lake at the northwest corner and a manmade lake for one of the animals in particular. When I considered all of that, the thought passed through my head about how horrible it would be if word got out about the zoo having a ghost and needing to relocate, because it’d be devastatingly expensive.
My orders were to walk the zoo once every hour. This was my first security gig, so I’m not sure if that’s more or less than typical, but I had my comfy hiking boots on, the ones I’d saved up for and invested in a couple years earlier and were perfect for a job where I had to do laps around an area. This job was one that I didn’t have to worry about my shoulder pain worsening, since it was mostly about being on my feet. I take one or two Vicodin a day, depending on how bad my pain is. It came in handy in high school, actually. With a flexible ‘take as needed’ prescription, I occasionally sold pills for extra cash.
There wasn’t much to step in and there weren’t even any dips in the concrete sidewalks that I followed around in a route that easily led me back and forth until I made my way back to the office. The first three nights were actually boring. I would have thought Andrew had been pranking me about the ghost, but like I said, it hadn’t felt like that. And he hadn’t been specific about when she showed up for new people, or even for him.
To keep myself busy, I’d brought my e-reader with me, and I got into a cycle of looking over each of the cameras every time I hit the end of a chapter. I’m a pretty fast reader, so it was a good system. Also, every once in a while, I looked up if something moving caught my eye, like an owl flying close enough for the camera to catch it, but that’s about it.
Then, every hour on the hour, I did a walk through. The fourth night, I was passing by the small lake at the back left corner of the property when I saw her.
People say that you can tell if someone’s staring at you, that there’s some sixth sense humans have. It’s not true; they’ve done experiments. But the thing is, all those experiments were of someone human looking at them. But now I think that the sixth sense that sends goosebumps down your arms, the one that makes you feel an intangible pressure, that slides your body toward fight or flight mode, might be true of…other things.
Slowly coming to a stop at the disturbing feeling, I hesitantly looked around, through the trees. Then my heart skipped a beat and my breath hitched. It was startling because she wasn’t moving. Just standing among the trees, staring at me. I broke out in a cold sweat as I stared back at her, unsure what to do. I didn’t run. I didn’t try to talk to her. I just stood there. So, there’s my answer to Andrew: I didn’t freak out. I just froze.
The woman was Latina, her skin tone pallid from death, and was dressed as he’d described her, in slacks and a silky blue blouse. And she was soaked, as if she’d just walked out of the lake. Beyond that, her shirt was drenched in blood from what looked like claw marks across her abdomen. Her eyes were dark and penetrating, boring holes into me, as if she were able to get any and all knowledge that she wanted about me simply by glaring. The fabric of her shirtsleeves clung to her skin and was dripping, as was her long black hair. Speaking of her hair, it appeared to have seaweed woven into it, or maybe she also grew seaweed along with hair. Not my area of expertise.
The look on her face was indescribable. There was something deep in her eyes, behind her closed-off expression, that made my heart beat rapidly. Maybe I would’ve projected some emotion into her face if I’d had any idea of what she was capable of, whether she could move objects, or possess me, or if all she did was hang around. As things stood, I was left just projecting my fears, which gave me the impression that she was cross with me simply for being present. It felt like I was trespassing, even though I was a dozen feet back from the fence that encircled the enclosure. And also, this was my job so I was explicitly allowed to be here.
She was disturbingly close, and remained unnaturally still. If she had attacked me, I wasn’t sure what I would’ve done. Ran, probably, but considering ghosts probably don’t follow the laws of physics, maybe she could’ve chased me at Usain Bolt speed. For all I knew, she could teleport.
After an amount of time that felt awkwardly long, I finally spoke up.
“Hi,” I croaked.
The woman slowly tilted her head but didn’t otherwise move. I’d forgotten to ask Andrew for her name, I realized, but he had mentioned her death had been before his time, so maybe he didn’t know.
Swallowing hard, I tried to take a slow, deep breath, even though it felt like there was a cinder block on my chest. “So, I, uh…I work here now,” I said slowly. “I’m night shift security.” Pausing, I kept trying to gather information from her demeanor but failed. “Is that okay?”
At that, I saw a hint of curiosity flash across her face. “Why would it not be?” Her voice sounded completely normal, which was an off-putting contrast to her appearance.
Good question. Hell if I know the answer. “I don’t know. I mean…you were here first. I don’t know if you feel like I’m…intruding…or something.”
“You’re just doing your job,” she said, her tone softening a smidge.
I waited to see if she wanted to say anything else before saying, “Right.” Can I get you anything? A towel? Some bandages? “I’ll be going now.”
The woman made no movement to come after me as I gradually took one step, then another, keeping her in my sights as I walked off. I finally had to turn to face forward, unable or unwilling to be seen by her foolishly walking away backwards. Instead of continuing my sweep, I took the path that would lead me back to the security room. I kept looking behind me and felt her eyes on me all the way back, though I didn’t see her following me. At that point, even if she hadn’t moved an inch, my brain was on red alert when it came to self-preservation and figured I would continue to feel like a wet hand might grab me from behind at any moment.
Finally, I returned to the security room, swiping my card across the panel at the back door with a beep. Opening the door, darting inside, and slamming it behind me, I walked to the far side of the room and turned around, putting my back to the wall. Until I’d gotten back, I hadn’t noticed how fast I’d been walking, how quickly I’d been gasping for air. Leaning back against the wall, my legs turned to jelly and I slowly slid to the floor.
And that was it. My first sighting of the ghost. I’d thought that if I had seen her, there would be some part of me that was skeptical, that would reason my way out of it, convinced it was a prank. But I knew. She wasn’t a person. At least, not anymore.

Chapter 4: El Diablo.
Page 77.
On the other side of the town, The Mama Moving Saloon.
( Visual: A lively saloon.)
Sfx: ROAAAR!
Random person 1: Another one? SHE’S GOTTA BE CHEATING SOMEHOW!
Random person 2: DON’T YOU KNOW? SHE'S Well KNOWN all across the Frontier for HER traveling saloon and the infamous drinking contests she holds there !
Random person 1: How come they’re infamous?
Random person 3: They usually always escalate into a bloody drunken stand offs between the contestants! -She has never lost once!
Random person 2: That’s how she earned the epithet of “the Drunken Darer”!
RANDOM PERSON 1: They have been going AT IT for hours now! THE STORIES MUST BE TRUE!
Page 78.
GLUG GLUG GLUG…
MADAME: AHHHH…
Madame: YOUR TURN BIG BOY! ANSWER ME!
( Big glass of alcohol slammed to table )
“Hiccup!” Glug glug glug “Burp!!!”
L.Pablo: Forget that useless train already!
(visual: Smacks a big empty pint on the table)
Page 79.
Madame: How is a person, so disinterested like you, involved with the train's security to begin with?!
Can’t you see all the benefits this will bring to poor 0* State and the Frontier? This is truly a historical breakthrough!
L Pablo: Y-yeah... "burp!" You said benefits? I'mma tell you something, little girl... The armor train wasn't funded with the intention of the public's welfare in mind... Glug glug glug…
MADAME: I never liked you conspiracy theorists, even less the drunken ones. But you do come up with the most entertaining answers to mundane questions. Glug glug glug… I have a simple question for you!

• For who or why was the train built for then?

L Pablo: …Why …who… was… What? YOU'RE MAKING MY HEAD SPIN MORE THAN THIS WEAK ASS BOOZE!!! SFX; KLASH "HICCUP!"
I need another drink. “Burp!” give us something mucho strong this time…
-MADAME: You're making no sense, you wide waffling drunk… ( Them drinks are definitely starting to have an affect on him )
Page 80.
L Pablo: You said the booze is for free if I can out drink you right? - “HICCUP” -Lets keep going and stop asking so many questions about the damn train. “ scratch”“ scratch”
(Visual: fleas fly off his head when he scratches his head.)
Random person 1 : The way she talks to him, It can't be. …Or could it be one of the siblings?
Random person 2: Him?? You mean “it”. Well the size seems to match. But don’t worry… “It” would have butchered that woman a looong time ago. It infamously does not like to be ridiculed…
Random person 1 : ...
MADAME: We have drunk this place almost dry… I guess you could call this the final round! Lemme get something special for the occasion. Even you will fold after this one… The last person who drank this went immediately blind!
L Pablo: Ooh! (Excited)
Madame: No man has ever drank this and left home with their own two feet!
L Pablo: Stop teasing me… Reckon I’d get scared?
Madame: You should. We commonly use this to light up the fireplace… and poison rats!
L Pablo: Glug glug glug! Finally some good booze!
Madame: WHAAAT???!!!
Page 81.
L Pablo: Look at this, Siuu! ( Takes a match out - Breathes ball of fire with the drink )
( everyone in the bar claps and laughs)
Madame: ( what is this numbskull made out from…) Stop that! You’ll burn this place down!
Random person 1: Hahahaha! No way that’s him!
Random person 2: Yeah! He seems like a cheerful fella! A good sport!
MADAME: (thinks in her mind) Gotta thank the person who decided to put this fool in charge of the train's security… Only problem is, he has the tolerance of a whale living in a sea full of alcohol.
Page 82.
Mama moving saloon: ( communicating through thought ) Somethings off about this man, besides the bottomless appetite of alcohol. I’m getting too old to be drinking like this… I can’t hold this much alcohol in any-longer the storages are already leaking and the pipes are overflowing with the liquid… Daughter we have to-
Madame: Just a little longer Mama. He got to have the tickets. Pass out already damn it! I'm going to snatch the tickets off his pocket and then…
Random person 2: What the hell? There's liquid dripping from the walls. Sniff sniff. Smells like alcohol!
Madame: We have had some trouble over with the pipes lately! Don’t cry about it!
L Pablo: Bartender… I have to admit. You’ve got quite a gut to be drinking in the same way as I do… “Hiccup”
MADAME: … Hih! I guess that’s thanks to my family line. Our way of survival has always been in keeping a saloon. And religiously emptying our worries into a bottle…
L Pablo: Ahh! A family full of existential drunks… I bet the holidays must be fun, siii? Kehehee…
MADAME: Hihihih… You would fit in for sure! Now where did we -
Page 83.
( L Pablo leans in closer, face to face )
L Pablo: Lies are the devil's tool, little girl. Your mother must have taught you better. What are you two scammers plotting in here anyways, eh?
Madame: …You should know your own limitations when it comes down to drinking. You have completely lost your head!
(Mama moving saloon: How does he know?? Madame: We have been found out Mama! )
Visual: (Saloons doors slammed open. Patrol of rangers step-in.)
Reck Lesley: Howdy everyone! Here you are!
Page 84.
L Pablo: Don’t you dare move a muscle… We’re not done here.
Madame: …
Reck Lesley: We have been looking for you all over the town! Wasting away state’s money on some cheap liquor I see. Mind if I join you guys?
Madame: It's not cheap for me! ( Damn it! This got even more complicated…)
L Pablo: Oh, please have a seat little fella… I couldn’t have found a better way to spend the chips that your lousy mayor gave me.
Reck Lesley: Wee-ell… It was given to you under a little condition. That you would take care of his safety in the opening ceremony.
L Pablo: So, how did it go?
Reck Lesley: Wee-ell… Mayor got a little bit shot at…
Page 85.
L Pablo: Hehehee! Siiiu! (Spits out a bigger ball of fire again. -people in bar clapping and laughing)
Random person: AGHH! My ass caught on fire!!
Public: HAHAHAHA!
Madame: AHHAHAH! -Wait a minute. Stop that already!!
Ranger corporal: What are you all clapping for! Extinguish those flames immediately!
-This is not a matter to be taken lightly you bastard bounty hunter!
L Pablo: Lower your voice when you’re talking to me!
Reck Lesley: ( Smiling )
L. Pablo: We are just pretending to be on the same team for now. But who knows? Maybe after finishing this drink I’ll get a little hungry and grumpy and I switch my mind! If that should happen I would start by feasting on your flesh first!!
Comprendo hombre?!
Page 86.
Ranger corporal: …(furiously stunned)
Crowd: sfx: Silence
L Pablo: Burp! Hiccup… When I’m drunk I can get a bit threatening. Do go on, you had some message from the mayor, sii?
Reck Lesley: You gotta work on your mood shifts, pall…
L Pablo: You’re not going to answer me, captain ranger…?
Reck Lesley: ( Ignores L Pablo) Mhm… Bartender you look eerily familiar. Like I have seen you somewhere before. Hope this big bully isn’t causing you any trouble in here?
Page 87.
Panel:
Madame: I do have a traveling saloon as a business sir. And no, we were just having a little drinking contest here between two old friends. ( Don’t recognise me from the bounty poster, Don’t recognise me from the bounty poster, Don’t recognise me from the bounty poster…)
Reck Lesley: That’s good ( madame:whew) Hm? (Oh no, Oh no, Oh no…) You should get your saloon pipes looked at.
SFx.Drip drip drip
Madame: Y-Yup! W-Work in progress!
Panel:
Ranger corporal: Tsk! We’re in a hurry captain! There! Inside the envelope is your next task.
Panel:
L Pablo: What are these supposed to be ?
Madame: (The Train Tickets!!!!)
Panel:
Ranger corporal: If you haven’t noticed, there's a massive train bound to head off in the same direction you came from. Those are the tickets for the said train in question. Consider yourself to be a lucky one… Mayor demands your assistance during the voyage.
L Pablo: Two tickets?
Reck Lesley: One for you and I guess the chauffeur of your choice.
Panel:
L Pablo: Do I look like a guy, who needs a chauffeur to open my god-damn doors?
/ Rec Lesley: I'm surprised that you even know what chauffeur means. /

• And what made y’all think I'm just willing to hop on that train all merely?

Panel:
Ranger corporal: Excuse me?
Page 88.
Panel:
L Pablo: You’re excused. I had time to kill so I accepted the mayor's money.
-Period.
Panel:
I’m not joining with the Frontiers most toxic personalities to this “sight-seeing-trip” in my own home world!
Ranger corporal: This is ridiculous!
-Who do you think you are!
Panel:
Reck Lesley: Calm down corporal.
Madame: Home world?
Panel:
L Pablo: Oh yeah! ”hiccup” I completely forgot the reason why I came here!
Madame: As if it wasn’t the booze…

• I'm here to find information about this one particular person who lives somewhere in this town…

Panel:
Madame:?
Reck Lesley: ?
Page 89.
Panel:
-I'm in search of the “Frozen child”. I’m here to turn this his life upside down.

• Do you or anyone in this magical saloon happen to know where this person might reside?

Reck Lesley: Doesn’t ring a bell. I'm not from here.
Madame: Frozen child… I came yesterday to this town, but that reminds me of a story I’ve heard…
Panel:
Random person 1: Frozen child?
Random person 2: Could he mean dat kid from the snowy hills…?
Panel:
L Pablo: You sure bartender? If you were to expose his location to me I’d happily give you these worthless tickets.
Panel:
( Visual: Ranger corporal bangs his fist on the table)
SFX: SLAM !
Page 90.
Ranger corporal: I’ve had just enough of your nonchalant disrespect… This! (visual: waving the task letter in L Pablos face) -This is no matter of choice! I’ll make this simple for a low life like you to understand!
/visual: L. Pablo takes a zip from the bottle./

• These are the orders from the Mayor himself! Refusing to follow the mayor's demands is an act of insubordination in its highest order!! And by accordance with the law, declining the task would result in the punishment of getting publicly hange-! SFX: D-KRÄÄÄSH!!!

L Pablo: ( Smacks the big bottle of alcohol on to the rangers face, the drink spills everywhere )
L Pablo: “Burp!”
Madame: Are you crazy!?
L Pablo: Sounds to me like he needed a relaxing drink.
Page 91.
(L Pablo being surrounded by rangers)
Ranger: Stop right there! No sudden movements or we’ll fill u with bullets!
Ranger: He hit the corporal and is not obeying the commands of the mayor!
Wojak: Arrest El Diablo immediately!!!
… silence
Page 92.
Random person 1: D-Did he just call him E-E-El D-DIABL-O-O-O… The one who ate all the people living in rocky port!?
Random person 3: One the three Boogieman brothers born and bred in the Wild World?
Random person 2: A Half Man! H-Half W-W-Wendigo!
Reck Lesley: That's one helluva love story… Heh! …Alright everyone let’s all calm d-
Page 93.
Random person : He’s going to eat us all! Run for your lives!!!
(Visual: Chaos erupts in the saloon. People stormed out of the saloon.)
(Visual: Madame and L Pablo eye contact.)
L Pablo: What? …I was young and really hungry back then.
Reck Lesley: (visual: facepalming) You loud mouths… His identity was kept hidden for a reason.
Wojak: awww… crap baskets… Sometimes I forget I ain’t the one calling the shots anymore. exhales…
People form the saloon: AAAAAHHH!
Madame: Y-Your that infamous monster…
Page 94.
L Pablo: Y'all turned so cold on me all of a sudden. That’s just my surname…
(Visual: silhouette of horns growing from his head piercing his hat as he keeps talking.)
On top of that you made me spill quality liquor everywhere.
Now that’s a real shame.
“Hiccup”
Wonder how I could lighten up the mood here… Oh I know! Everyone loved my fiery party trick… Keheheh… let’s see how y’all like it now… (visual: lights up a match)
Madame: (fuck, saloons full of alcohol! Mama moving saloon: If he does that again we’ll be grilled alive in here!)
SFX: Drip, drip, drip….(visual: saloon walls dripping from alcohol aggressively now)
Reck Lesley: Hold your horses everyone! Rangers retreat! Let’s settle this like men EL Diablo. Just you and me!
Madame: We ain’t done nothing wrong either so leave us out of this!
EL Diablo: Ye-Nah.
Page 95.
BANG!!!( Visual: Shoots cold heartedly Reck Lesley in the chest )
Reck Lesley: GHH !?
Madame: Stop!!!
El DIABLO: Liar Liar… Saloon on fire… KEEH HEH HEH HEEH!
(visual: Flames engulf inside the saloon.)
( Visual: full picture of saloon in raging flames with El Diablo walking out of the flames)
L Pablo: Brrr… ///: Naivi’s entrance to city causes L Pablo to shake/ //
-Damn, I got goosebumps all of a sudden. “ scratch, scratch”
Perhaps I underestimated this frozen climate. Need to get a new coat after this is done…

Today! Today issued forth these existential moments, when the absence of human activity is the defining feature of the landscape – not because there is a disaster or a change of heart about the human project but because, well, I don’t know, so I grab my backpack, which stands for aspects of the soul that only sprout in alternate realities – and charge into the day to find out. By noon, the heat is like a flickering color in the mind – unseasonably early for this sort of highlight, and then I remember the cicadas are appearing, which might explain the sudden interest by the rest of the universe. Not halfway down the block, I’m startled by the first cicada of the season – near the top of the tallest tree by the building that houses the renowned music program. The cicada makes music all by itself, and it is like a siren made of clicks, a drumstick pulled across bones.
This is just the beginning of the historical emergence, and the location where I live is one of the nationally recognized hot spots. The people, I don’t believe, have evacuated, but they certainly aren’t rubbing their hands over the trembling earth, waiting for bulging eyes and knobby legs to drag a dirt-stained cicada out of the ground, then off to a place to molt. The molting process is brimming with the sort of metaphor we associate with heaven – something below ground for its whole remembered life, save for a brief time after it hatches, falls out of a tree and into the grass, crawls down into the soil to find a tasty dandelion root to suck on. That original body, on the brightest day of the year, goes searching for a hard vertical surface to cling to, like the side of the tree it was feeding on, then escapes out of its body through the hind end of its own skull.
The heat seems to have its own sense of choice in evidence. While I’m standing there, listening for more clicks, the heat generates a crackling sensation across my shoulders, like patches of my skin are sparkling below my shirt. The clouds – more of those cumulonimbus dreams-come-true – are simultaneously isles and aisles – two bulging eyes – both work, so whichever, either one a somewhat brawny pronunciation, like the words have to walk with a slight bow about the legs, because of the pronounced thigh muscles. Just as I turn to walk away from the lone cicada at the top of the school of music’s tallest tree, the clicking begins again. I stop and turn back to the tree – it stops. I turn to walk, and the clicking sounds again. Maybe the cicada brood will be so large, the movie we call reality has given them final cut, at least for the next few months, so I carry on.
That cicada was a female – they make that clicking sound by rubbing their wings together, and I picture the males all hearing the clicking as a variation of – could some big strong male crawl on over and open this jar for me? The male call is the more familiar whooping siren, which is made with a spasmodic diaphragm on their abdomens – Jerry Lee Lewis at his most raucous – though I believe he did play piano with his feet, so there are dissimilarities, too. The big winners will be the birds and fish, which are looking forward to extra animal protein wherever they look for the next couple of months, second nesting seasons all but in the bag. At the height of his fame, Jerry Lee famously wedded his 13-year-old cousin. Myra Williams was her name, and she said later, after the divorce, she was always the adult in the relationship. They stayed married for 13 years.
Scientists speculate that cicada broods follow such irregular cycles – 7 years, 13 years, 17 years – because they are prime numbers and therefore difficult for predators to sync to over time in the performance of their own boom and bust cycles. I like this theory, though I wonder why the rest of the animal kingdom hasn’t likewise worked the numbers – like cicadas launched themselves into a probabilistic deep-space orbit inside the mind of nature, and never looked back. I picture Neil Armstrong on the ladder of the lunar module, freezing in place, mission command busy on the radio but no reply from Neil until, all wet and new, he bursts forth through the back of his space helmet, as naked as the day he was born, gets busy inflating his wing casings, as mission control cheers, and the scientists all light cigarettes to relieve the stress, maybe hand out cigars.
The heat is a measure of energy in the system – to the extent it also accounts for human absence, we stay huddled inside on hot days like today due to chronic overabundance – nature is giving us too much – which is also true for many allergies and fevers – but with the overabundance of energy, you can find relief through the judicious application of even more energy, which option I used to always forego on general principle – I want to feel the reality of days overabundant as surely as days where the molecules are all optimally excited. These days, I’m in charge of a mid-sized HVAC operation, and thus, feel part of my body living inside a factory of probability that stretches around the world. We humans, on days like today, take it as a given that temperature-controlled climates are part of the deal, that molecules should be in optimal states of excitement.
Which, with self-similarity across scale in mind, might suggest nature treat our excitability with similar regard. Oh to live the life of temperate climes, where fairness and passion are concerned! I’m on my way to the library to borrow a book about love and rage, written by a Buddhist, who examines the roll of anger in transformation. I have no truck with my fellow human sufferers – literally no anger at all – but with human systems? Disembodied intelligences? Those aspects of the hyperform that privilege torment and indifference? When it climbs to a high enough part of the tree to be heard, I can indeed hear my anger. What’s that? A false reality precipitates false authority? Yet knowing this, hyperforms readily believe wealth confers merit. The exaggerated accumulation of capital is an existential disease assuaged with the delusion of personal success.
A block from the library, I come upon two boys playing in a pile of sand beside a garden. The one boy seems to be trying to burrow inside it, and the other is battering the sand with the flat side of a child-sized metal shovel. He has the wrong shovel for the job, a fact I choose to keep to myself, especially since the one really is trying to thwack the tall pile just as hard as he can. The sort of thing kids do in a spirit of curiosity – what happens to the world when the force of one’s anger is applied to a giant pile of sand? Perhaps the urge to use force for no reason is the human behavior we end up with when ambient energy gets so overabundant. This is what life seems to be – the planet’s novel approach to dissipating heat. We are much more than that, of course, and fortunately, the kids have plenty of time and energy to prove it. Their parents tell them to stop.
When a cicada molts, the effect is more than just a body crawling out of a body – for instance, in the moments before this happens, the cicada is visibly squirming inside its former self, which is permanently clinging to the side of a tree, and all the while, it is feeling the pronounced effect of gravity for the first time in its life, not to mention terrestrial life in the trees, where the sap flows freely and sunshine dances on those giant globular eyes for the first time. Emerging cicadas first do a backbend, then hang upside down by their hind ends, letting the legs, wings and abdomen inflate and adjust to the atmospheric pressure, which pressure gracefully draws the body back to an upright posture. They stay that way, letting their wings inflate, flatten out, stiffen. Veins in the wings were veins, were flesh, before the flesh became the will to fly, a means of saying hello.
Nearer the library, I catch sight of someone squatting in the subsurface terrace of the Unitarian-Universalist peace church – I spot a bedroll and backpack, a forty-ounce can of something cold to drink on such a sweltering day. The guy is leaning against the brick wall, staring into space, and I picture him being the pile of sand from the block before – the one repeatedly hit over the head with the flat side of a shovel. At the library, they’re resetting the furniture after a musical performance. I don’t really know who it was – I just see my favorite librarian thanking someone with a violin case, the sort of hardened case they used to carry machine guns around in, and for a moment I hear the rat-a-tat-tat that stands for the sound of anger overcoming us – but then it becomes that highest cicada, back at the top of her tree, rubbing her wings, building railroads.
The heat on the walk home – neighborhoods still evacuated – is like a drunken horse I’m forced to ride. I can feel my body swaying from side to side a little more than usual, so I try to imagine some other time – for instance, when our bodies will be able to take the heat on a day like today and do something with it – cranial stimulation or micromachines to repair the body or even just a way for the body to stay cool without installing an HVAC system. A crow stops me cold when I hear it imitating the sound of a cicada – it doesn’t have the tone exactly right, but it’s doing the clicks, and I know this is true of crows – they acquire new elements of language from what they hear, and the crows must be hearing female cicadas calling out to the others. What a witness! I call up to the crow – or maybe it’s just got a cicada in its beak. In instant reply, the crow shrieks.

Link to Part 1 (Read This First)
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Something inside Rob's head clicked. He exhaled, cleared his thoughts, and concentrated. There was no time to plan – so he made some for himself.
Quick Thinking Level Increased! $^&$#*# → (@^$(#)&
The world went still, as if he'd pressed pause on reality.
Okay.
What Skills was he underutilizing? What stats was he underutilizing?
Go down the list. Reassess your preconceptions. Strength to deal damage. Vitality to survive. Endurance to fight for long periods. Dexterity to catch his prey. Perception to find his prey. Mind to shield his...well, mind. Magic to use certain Skills, especially Rampage. All necessary and important.
Yet not always treated equally.
He felt confident that he was getting the most out of his Strength, Vitality, and Dexterity. They were his bread-and-butter stats. Perception less so, but he couldn't exactly call time-out on the fight to go train his senses. Mind–
Actually, Mind was linked to a surprising number of abilities. Passive boosts like Heat Resistance, utility Skills like Speed Reading, and even things like...
Sense Mana.
He'd never been great at Sensing Mana. It didn't come naturally to him. Then again, what about any of this was natural? That ship had sailed the moment he started making numbers go up by killing squirrels. He wasn't here for an honest duel – he was here to cheat his way to victory over the inhuman despots of the divine realms.
And luckily, nothing cheated harder than Level 99 Skills. For example, this highly interesting bit he recalled from Never Forget Your Rage: 'Significantly increases the user's proficiency with Sense Mana.' He hadn't given it much thought before, simply because manipulating mana wasn't his forte. It didn't seem relevant to how he typically won battles.
Time to fix that.
Rob charged. It was a direct frontal assault with no bells or whistles attached. Quick Thinking slowed his perception of reality to a crawl as he watched Kismet prep his teleport.
In that same split-second, he focused on Sense Mana, expanding his awareness across the battlefield. I feel...Kismet. Myself. Riardin's Rangers. The lesser gods. Divine essence. Rifts leaking. Energy. Energy everywhere. Yikes. Is this what Malika senses all the time? How can she hear herself think?
Eyes twitching, Rob pruned out any unnecessary information, separating the white noise from what was important. He sharpened his awareness to a razor-thin point and searched. Amidst the clamor of magic, rifts, and divinity, he found...
A disturbance. No larger than a ripple in a vast ocean. Yet it was there. Something new.
Something that had started right when Kismet saw him charge.
The god weaved mana, initiating his escape.
{TEN! YOU–}
Rob smothered the static into a low whisper, rushing towards that tiny ripple. Kismet's teleportation spells were instantaneous, but to an Ascending HUMAN with unnatural Perception and Quick Thinking, nothing in the universe was truly beyond perceiving. He reacted in the space between moments, Sensing where the god's teleport would end up, then heading straight for it.
Which meant that when Kismet re-appeared, Rob was already mere inches away.
PURGE DIVINITY.
He aimed for the center of mass. Leveling High's static had gone silent, as if rendered speechless. Rob watched in slow motion as – without even a hint of resistance – his hand sank into the stunned god's torso.
GOOOOT. YOOOOU. Fingers clenched, energy pulsed, and laughter echoed. A thrill of triumph surged through Rob's veins, like adrenaline mixed with sweet ambrosia. For a brief micro-instant, he was allowed to believe that the battle had been won.
Then Kismet exploded.
It was more startling than harmful – like a Riardin's Special of divine essence detonating in Rob's face. Without warning, the god's mana-body abruptly burst apart, scattering in all directions.
The HUMAN was left in a state of baffled disbelief, holding his arm out towards nothing. Was that...it? Had Purge Divinity triggered the godly equivalent of an allergic reaction? Because it was supposed to eradicate their mana, not do that. And considering that the gods could shape their mana at will, how much would exploding realistically affect them?
What if this was no different than a lizard abandoning its tail?
His suspicions were confirmed when Kismet reformed a safe distance away. The god was clutching his wounded chest area, looking somewhat worse for the wear. Fear and outrage had overtaken his countenance. "How did you discern where I would appear? How?!"
Rob didn't respond. Instead, he stared at the fragment of divine essence clutched in his hand. It was all that remained from what should have been checkmate.
A consolation prize for his failed efforts.
{...Eleven.}
Leveling High said nothing else. It didn't need to. Rob couldn't even fool himself into thinking that he'd proven his point. While this was the most damage he'd inflicted on Kismet so far, it was hardly the decisive blow he'd wished for.
That wasn't enough to warrant another eleven fruitless chases. Not when both his body and the divine realms were treading ever closer to collapse. The ever-increasing weariness of his flesh was proof of that. Victory wasn't impossible, but it seemed increasingly unlikely that he could seize it before catastrophe struck.
I've still taken a step forward. If I make use of Sense Mana again, react faster next time...then Kismet would adapt as well. The slippery bastard wasn't going to be caught off-guard in the exact same manner. He would also be siphoning more mana from the rifts, gradually increasing his power – whereas Rob's had plateaued.
Unless...unless...{unless...}
Unless the HUMAN Ascended.
As if drawn by the pull of destiny, his gaze locked onto the fragment of divinity held within his grip. Rob shivered as a red haze began coating his vision. The essence called to him, singing a melody of transcendence, inviting him to throw off the restrictive shackles of mortality and become something greater.
He just needed to devour it. Accept its divinity unto himself. Embrace his metamorphosis, and gain the might of gods. With his full potential realized...he could save everyone.
At the cost of his humanity.
Maybe the distinction shouldn't matter at this point. Compared to the average Elatran, his mortality was essentially window dressing. What mortal could go toe-to-toe with the creators of a world? Besides, the Blight-child could've been wrong about Ascension changing him. Even if he went and made things official, 'preserving these worlds' would always be his goal. He would still be himself.
Probably.
Assuming that godhood didn't forcibly alter his personality.
Assuming that being subjected to infinity didn't splinter his weary mind.
Assuming that Leveling High wasn't misleading him in some way.
Assuming...a lot of things, really.
I shouldn't be hesitating. Rob glared at the divine essence as if it was a poisonous viper. Of \course* this is risky. It's still less risky than praying I get a lucky hit on Kismet in the immediate future. I've always preferred to roll the dice if it would better my odds, so why–*
{Your true emotions are laid bare to me,} Leveling High interrupted, hissing loudly. {These justifications mask a core of selfishness. You worry that Ascending will leave your friends behind.} It made a noise of distaste. {Apparently, that is more important than ensuring their survival.}
Rob froze. All at once, several puzzle pieces slotted into place.
Leveling High wasn't entirely wrong. He was being selfish. Rob knew that even in the best-case scenario, Ascending would turn him into an existence that was incompatible with living in the mortal realms. It would be like the disconnect he'd felt when visiting Fiend territory recently, only magnified a hundred times over.
None of that sounded remotely appealing. Ultimate power wasn't worth feeling eternally isolated. His visions of the Original Will, Second Will, and gods had made that exceptionally clear.
However...if that was all, he wouldn't be hesitating right now. Unlike the rest of his Party, he was totally allowed to make heroic sacrifices. Rules for thee and not for me. Rob would've discarded his humanity in a heartbeat if he thought there was no other way. Logically, he did think that.
Emotionally, he didn't.
Because he wasn't alone.
Even at his most fatalistic, Rob couldn't overrule the part of him that believed in Riardin's Rangers. If he kept faith...just for a little while longer...
They would grant him a miracle.
It was then that a warbling SCREECH resounded throughout the realms.
Rob and Kismet were unable to suppress their curiosity. Making sure to keep an eye on each other, they cautiously directed a portion of their attention to the screech's origin. Both were fully intending to ambush the other if they detected the smallest hint of carelessness.
They still almost lost composure after noticing what was going on.
At a separate corner of the battlefield, Zamira was tearing into her opponent with what could only be described as ruthless efficiency. The god flailed like a helpless lamb before a butcher, impotently thrashing about as a Skill-wreathed sword carved into it time and again. Mana erupted in a conflagration of panic, but Zamira sidestepped its reprisal with graceful ease, untouched and unfazed as she went back to one-sidedly dominating a literal deity.
Rob resisted the urge to rub his eyes. He was having difficulty understanding what he was watching. It wasn't just that Zamira was winning – it was the way she was winning. From what he could surmise, her stats hadn't increased. She didn't seem stronger or faster than before.
Yet her movements embodied the very pinnacle of swordsmanship as an art form. Precise, calculated, but flowing like water. She was a painter at work, and with every stroke of her brush on the canvas, her final portrait took shape.
One-by-one, all other battles ground to a halt. Seven mortals and seven gods stood transfixed as they bore witness to expertise not seen in many thousands of years.
Like a wounded animal, Zamira's foe – or more accurately, her training dummy – lashed out. Destructive mana surrounded her. Exhibiting zero concern, she dashed forward and imbued her sword with the light of a Skill.
"Lost Art: Moonlight's Mirror." In one swift motion, she sliced up through the mana in front of her. The light imbuing her sword repelled the god's energy, parting its magic like the Red Seas. Zamira immediately dashed into the opening she'd created and scored another vicious blow, disengaging before the god could retaliate.
Lost Art? Rob pondered. Okay, that's \definitely* new.* He'd been in the room when Riardin's Rangers discussed their Level 99 Class Skills, and Zamira hadn't mentioned anything like this. Something must've changed while he was busy fighting Kismet...not that Rob was in any rush to look a gift horse in the mouth.
Zamira moved as a blur of silver and steel, shifting behind her opponent. "Lost Art: Aura Blade." The light enshrining her sword intensified, and when she struck next, it left an injury on the god's mana-body that struggled to heal. By now its form appeared threadbare, like a patchwork quilt that had been ripped and sewn back together countless times.
That was when Rob truly realized what was happening. Zamira's fancy footwork and new Skills were impressive, yet they wouldn't have amounted to anything if she couldn't deal lasting damage – which she was. While her Aura Blade wasn't nearly as effective as Purge Divinity, it had still achieved the combination of raw power and mana manipulation that was necessary to harm a creature of energy.
Slowly but surely, the god was dying.
Everyone else realized that around the same moment. The lesser gods moved to assist their comrade, and Riardin's Rangers quickly intercepted them. Rob caught sight of Keira bashing her god aside with the flat of her greatsword, knocking it away before it could cast a spell at Zamira.
Noticing a flicker of motion, Rob took one step towards Kismet. The god halted in place, his arm half-risen. They exchanged a long look. Kismet didn't want to restart their song and dance, and Rob didn't want to miss the show.
Eventually, the HUMAN let out a chuckle. He waggled his finger at his dance partner, as if admonishing an unruly toddler."LeT hER CoOK."
And cook she did. Unhindered, Zamira methodically dismantled her god. Cut by cut, and piece by piece, the deity was whittled down to a pale imitation of its former glory. Once or twice it managed to slightly graze her with an attack, but that was all.
Its fate had been sealed for a long time now.
"Lost Art: Eight-Pointed Jaws." Zamira hammered the god with a rapid flurry of blows. Each strike carved a line of mana into its body. When the eighth line had been unleashed, the god suddenly crumpled inward, as if it was being chomped on by the maw of an enormous beast.
Piteous screams melded with the sound of a Bladesoul readying her most powerful Skill. Its aura shone with a wicked silver glow, like a falling guillotine reflecting the sunlit rays of a new dawn.
"K-Kismet!" The god reached out to its leader with a trembling limb. "Please! Kism–"
"CREATED ART: GOD-SLAYING SWORD!"
She cut just once.
The god burnt away, leaving not even ashes in the wind.
Rob concentrated with Sense Mana. His mouth split into a feral grin when he searched for the god's essence and detected absolutely fucking nothing. It was gone. Kaput. Finito. Wouldn't have been possible without Kismet draining his own allies to save his skin, but he had, so here they were.
The HUMAN activated Purge Divinity and clenched his fist. He destroyed the essence fragment he'd ripped from Kismet, then fixed the god with a gaze of murderous finality.
"ChECkMaTE."
Kismet flinched, comprehension dawning on him as he envisioned how the rest of the battle would play out. Zamira didn't seem the least bit winded. She had plenty of gas left in the tank, and was currently heading over to team up with one of her allies and slay the next god.
With that in mind...the day's outcome had already been decided. Rob would keep Kismet busy. Riardin's Rangers would steadily clean up the lesser gods. Then, as a full Party, they would gang up on Kismet and beat the everloving shit out of him.
No fuss, no muss.
Kismet began to panic – then stopped, centering himself. He seemed to reach a decision, some plan formulating in his thoughts.
Defiance? Oh, that's adorable. The BERSERKER's grin grew so wide that it hurt. Let's make this a game. His hands pulsed brightly with Purging energy. Will I kill you before my Party members finish up on their end? We win either way, but hey! Can't have them do \all* the work–*
"Elder Alessia is dead."
Rob's breath caught in his throat.
She...what? He'd heard Kismet speak, but, no, that couldn't be–
"Elder Alessia is dead. Remember that I cannot lie."
He tried to respond. No words came out. It felt as if the world had vanished from underneath his feet.
"Elder Alessia is dead," Kismet repeated, for the third time. "She used Soul Burn to keep the Queen of Dragons at bay."
She...she used...
Rob hadn't seen Alessia when he went to check on Fiend territory. Didn't think anything of it. Wasn't like he looked everywhere. Figured he'd just missed her.
But she was...gone? Since Ragnavi? He'd spent days expunging Dungeons and Leviathans, gallivanting around Elatra like a fucking idiot, thinking that at least he'd prevented more people he cared about from dying, when the whole time, Alessia had been–
{BEHIND!}
The warning came far too late.
Even if it had come earlier, though, he still might not have dodged. Kismet's attack wasn't packed full of destructive magic like his other spells. Sense Mana didn't register it as a threat. Rob immediately cast Dauntless Reprisal on reflex, but that didn't help either.
Because this wasn't intended to damage him.
A surge of mana pierced Rob's back. An intense burning coursed through him, as if his veins and skin were simultaneously being set aflame. It was a sensation that, unfortunately, he recognized.
Kismet had directly infused his soul with mana.
This wasn't the first time. The gods had done it once before to refill Rob's Purging energy stores. In fact, although they'd warned him of the consequences, he'd pushed for it rather...vocally.
Despite being inflicted with Soul Instability as a result, Rob didn't regret his choice. Back then, it had been the key to finally ending the Second Will's appalling ambitions.
Now?
It was no better than adding ten tons of weight onto rotting support beams.
Rob fell to his knees. Agony and weakness suffused his body. He felt Purging energy swell within – for all the good it would serve him, because he couldn't move a muscle.
An unsurprising system notification popped into view.
Warning: Soul Instability has increased to High!
​
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Thanks for reading!

Here's Snoodles' True Deranged form!
A far cry from the shape-shifting original form, Snoodles' True Deranged form is far bigger and far more frightening. His mouth is now permanently hinged open (since previously he couldnt open it or close it because it's a skull and he has no muscles to move it obvs), and his previously empty eye sockets have human eyes in them that gaze endlessly forward.
This form appears as a last desperate attempt to convince and esstenially guilt trip and gaslight his victims from being sane again, like he'll accuse them of being weak and cowardly etc. design wise, he'll be based off
Design wise, he's based off of Smile Dog and Long Horse, and the eyes are based off The Face in FNATI.

Boykissers are extremely weak specimens with the average length of 15cm, and only weighing from 50 to 80 grams.
They are barely stronger than that of a Tiger Prawn or Two-spotted Field crickets(Gryllus bimaculatus).
Astoundingly weak that even an adult was sometimes hunted by: Chinese Mantis(Tenodera sinensis), European Mantis(Mantis religiosa), Cane Huntsman Spider(Heteropoda venatoria), Greater Arid-Land Katydid(Neobarritia spinosa), Giant Asian Mantis(Hierodula patellifera), Asian Giant Hornet(Vespa mandarina) and even Giant orb weavers(Nephila pilipes).
Their vocalizations consists a very annoying, femboyish: "Ohh you like kissing boys you are a homosexual boy kisser"/"Ohh you like kissing girls you are a heterosexual girl kisser". Variations do exist; But what all they have in common as they are reported to be much more annoying than Asian Koels at midnight times.
Their diet is similar to that of a rat, eats what they sees in front of them. They don't require that much of food and mainly scavangers. They don't even have the capacity to hunt down a two-spotted field cricket, so they hunt slow and small targets such as: larva and grubs, earthworms and pillbugs. But hunting rarely occurs, often observed to eat trash or leaf litters, fallen fruits.
It's intelligence is lower that of reptiles; for example, leopard geckos and anoles. And their maxinum speed is about recorded to be 0.7 to 3km/h.
To fix that, they have specifically evolved into one thing: High reproductive rate. They are extremely prolific, able to make another generation in a matter of 14 days. Their litter size is from 15 to 20 individuals.
Baby boykissers, weighs as much as 0.5 - 1.2 grams; where as Juvenile boykissers weighs around 8 - 20 grams.
So that's make them very vulnerable to insects, and are favorite foods of Dragonflies,
Predatory Crickets,
Ants,
Cockroaches,
Robber flies,
even Antlions(Myrmeleontidae species.) Their offspring mortality rate is around 85%.
Sometimes, something like Thrushes and Starlings, Bullfrogs, Centipedes, Whipscorpions or Vinegaroons(Uropygi), True Scorpions, Tokay geckos, and even a Tarantula could even destroy an entire family of boykissers without significant effort.
Their prominent femboyish voice would instantly enrage almost everything; making them very vulnerable to predation. In the ecosystem, they don't serve a purpose; they can't pollinate or fertilize the soil,
their only purpose is to be bodied by almost everything and provide food for the ecosystem. Boykissers are primary/rarely secondary producers, often placed below that of rabbits as you commonly see in a food chain diagram. They are often surplus killed as some humans and predators hunts the for sport/lashing out.
As a result, Baby and Juvenile boykissers are often commonly used in live feed for predatory insects such as mantis and antlions, and small reptiles such as anoles; Adult boykissers are commonly live fed to Chickens, Monitor Lizards including komodo dragons, Ducks, House cats, Dogs, Mustelids.
They are often bred in suppliers.
In fishing, Baby boykissers can be used to fish River prawns and Crayfish; where as juvenile boykissers suits medium fish like Tilapias and adult boykissers fish baits larger fishs such as Salmon, Tuna, Sailfish, even Groupers.
There are absolutely no law regulations towards boykissers, so they could be ground up in shredder and mix it in livestock feed, fish chums, Boiled alive to make more digestible treats; or even beaten up by the packagers while shipping from frustration.
For Boykissers, They can be sold in a 100 individuals for 3 euro(100 TWD).
Due their prolific efficiency to make offsprings, there are companies which can produce 1 billion boykissers per year. they are lucrative businesses in martial arts for replaceable sandbags, stress relievers, pet stores and fishing stores.
Children usually play them like soccer or beating them up, and not punished by teachers because no one wants to protect them.
You cannot be arrested, no matter how you torment them and caught on live camera, as Animal Welfare Organizations don't consider them as sentinent creatures.
Domain:Eukaryota Kingdom:Animalia Phylum:Chordata Class:Mammalia Grandorder:Ferungulata Mirorder:Ferae Order:Carnivora Suborder:Feliformia Family:Shittidae Subfamily:Shittinae Genus:Shit Species:S. fuckus

 Binominal Name *Shit fuckus* (Huang, 2024) 

Boykissers have bone density of average of 0.6 to 0.7g/cm², makes them very prone to fracture and breaking. Adapted a bipedal stance, the weight bearing ability in legs can reach 0.85g/cm². Compared to humans who had 1.8 to 1.9g/cm²; boykisser is way much inferior than most animals in bone strength. From a live hydraulic press experiment, it only takes 8 kilograms force; or 72 joules/meter(72 newtons) to pulverize every single bone in adult boykissers. for single bone, and it would take 0.5 - 3kgf or 4.9 to 29 Joule/meter(4.9 - 29N) to pulverize the entire femur of boykissers. Their muscle tissue are quite weak; with the strongest individual in the sample tested lifting strength with whole body don't generally exceed 12 grams, with average of them at 65 grams never exceeded 5 grams.
Lifting strength never exceed 12 grams with whole body with bones 3x weaker than average human. They have one of the lowest size to strength ratio, no claws and have uneffective teeth. 0.8 - 1.5N(0.1 to 0.2psi), 30x weaker than that of the horned frog in bite.
IQ is lower than reptiles such as geckos, and comparable to that of a severe/profound child or a koala. Skin is about 5 micrometers thick and could be punctured by even hit by an european robin.
Boykisser vs Various critters in odds:
Let's start!
Boykisser's odds:
Stentor coeruleus - 1.1 micrograms, 0.5 - 2mm long Odds: 100% No Difficulty
Caenorhabditis elegans - 1 microgram, 1mm long Odds: 100% No Difficulty
Dust mite - 3 to 6 micrograms, 0.2 - 0.3 mm long Odds: 97% Very Low difficulty
Persimilis(Predatory mite) - 5 to 13 micrograms, 0.3 to 0.5mm long Odds: 95% Low difficulty
Booklice - 27 micrograms, 1 to 2mm long Odds: 90% Low Difficulty
Pseudoscorpion - 650 to 800 micrograms, 5 - 8mm long Odds: 85% Medium difficulty(Might get pinched and get slightly venomed)
Cat flea- 1 milligrams, 2mm long Odds: 82% Medium difficulty(Might suffer from allergies)
Red wood ant worker(Formica rufa) 6 to 8 milligrams - 1 to 1.2cm long Odds: 75% Medium-High difficulty(Might get blinded by spitting formic acid/envenomed)
Fall Cicada(Meimuna opalifera) - 6 grams, 4 - 4.8cm Odds: 72% Medium-High difficulty(Technically they do not fight back, but boykisser would suffer from ruptured eardrums.)
Desert Locust - 2 gram, 7- 8cm Odds: 64% High difficulty(They might be harmless to humans, but can tear through boykisser's skin)
American Cockroach - 0.6 - 0.8 grams, 3 to 5cm long Odds: 58% Very High Difficulty(They can bite. and it hurted.)
Field Cricket(Gryllus bimaculatus) 0.8 to 2 gram, 3.1 to 5cm long Odds: 50/50
Fire ant - 0.8 to 2 milligrams, 2 to 8mm Odds: 40%(Boykissers lose at this point, the stinger of fire ant is much more potent)
House Mouse - 12 to 30 grams, 7.5 to 10cm long Odds: 32%(Somewhat of a chance)
Green Darner Dragonfly - 1 to 1.2 grams, 6 - 8cm long Odds: 15%
Chinese Mantis(Tenodera sinensis) - 6 to 14 grams, 10 to 15cm Odds: 4%
Eurasian Tree Sparrow - 20 to 24 grams 12.5 to 14 cm long Odds: No chances whatsover
European wasp - 1 to 1.2cm, 0.1 - 0.15 grams Odds: No chances whatsoever
Female, Giant orb weaver(Nephila pilipes) - 12 - 15cm legspan, 3 to 4 grams Odds: No chances whatsoever
Solifuge/Camel Spider - 30 to 56 grams, 12 to 15cm legspan Odds: Irrelevant
Brown Rat - 200 to 500 grams, 20 to 40cm length incl tail Odds: Irrelevant
Japanese Rhinceros Beetle - 17 to 30 grams, 5 to 8 cm long Odds: Irrelevant
Emperor Scorpion - 30 to 50 grams, 15 - 20cm Odds: Never
Asian Giant Hornet - 15 to 30 grams, 5 to 8cm Odds: Never
Eurasian Blue Tit - 14 - 18 grams, 11 - 12cm Odds: Never
Giraffe Stag Beetle - 11 to 12cm, 50 - 60 grams Odds: Never
Bearded Dragon - 24 to 40cm, 280 - 400 grams Odds: Go fuck yourself.
Hercules beetle - 8 to 14cm, 50 - 85 grams Odds: Go fuck yourself.
Goliath Birdeater - 28 to 30cm leg span, 150 - 175 grams Odds: Go fuck yourself.
Great Tit - 14 to 16cm, 14 - 22 grams Odds: Go fuck yourself.
Amazonian Giant Centipede - 30cm, 400 grams Odds: Don't think about it.
Peacock Mantis Shrimp - up to 46 cm long, 450 to 600 grams Odds: Whoever think this boy kissing creature wins should go eat shit.

Two days ago, I was playing volleyball with youth from my church. I turned to bump the ball back over net and felt what can only be described as something “dislocating” and then went “back in.” The knee immediately felt funny and I knew I couldn’t bear much weight on it. I hobbled off the court and again felt the same dislocating sensation with it going back in. There wasn’t much pain initially but I had a limp and couldn’t bear much weight on that leg. Nurse friend happened to be there. He pushed, pulled, twisted and there was not really much pain at all. That night and the next day, the generalized pain increased in the knee and soreness reached from above my kneecap all the way down the back calf muscle and it was difficult to walk. There was mild swelling to the left front of the kneecap and back side of knee. I have a friend who works in sports medicine. After describing it to him, the first thing he said was Patellar Subluxation but that it could also be a torn ACL. Today, I am significantly better. Still waking with a limp but no where near as bad. I can lift my “good” leg up and bear my whole body weight on the “bad” leg. Calf and Quad (?) muscle are still sore. I equate the calf soreness to how you feel after a Charlie Horse cramp. Does this sound like a Patellar Subluxation or could it be torn ACL, Meniscus, etc?

I have been getting back into working out. I've been loving it- nothing like a good sore.
I was doing shoulders the other day and was doing lateral raises with dumbells. I've noticed two days later my lats are super sore. A good sore- but I had thought the lateral raises would've worked my shoulder way more than my lat muscles. In fact, a lot of the muscle diagrams I am looking at online don't really show that lateral dumbbell raises should work my lats much at all.
Is it normal to have your lats heavily worked in a dumbbell lateral raise? Or am I potentially activating the wrong part of my body when doing them? Thanks!