i 19 (f) put my boyfriend 19 (m) out for giving me chlamydia and i am now 5months pregnant with his baby and we have not spoken since i put him out in april we were tg for about 7 months things were rocky but overall great we moved in tg after my mom put me out in december mind you i paid all the bills plus food and for us to move in since he doesn't have a job he got fired in january for frequently calling off but i did put him as head of household just so he can feel like it was his home too
in the beginning of our relationship we didnt talk to 2 weeks due to me lying about who i was otp with but to be fair we never defined anything so i didn't know what we were but that's no excuse for lying so we stopped talking and he texted me to rekindle things apparently in those 2 weeks he had sex with someone else she had chlamydia called and told him he didn't tell me until after he got tested it came back negative but i got tested anyways to be sure and it came back negative
now to the present we moved in to i mean it was weird at first then things got back normal and within a month of us moving in my car ended up in the shop and i ended up sick smells and food made me throw up we all know what that means but i was in denial since i never wanted kids and i was on birth control he knew that we had this conversation multiple times
he knew i was throwing up and wasn't feeling well but he was gone from 12pm to 4am for weeks while i was home sick didn't even care asking me for gas money and to send him money for 🍃 we both smoke but i just couldn't stand the smell due to me being sick so i barely did
then one day i finally ask him to take me to the er he drops me off and i call my aunt to be there with me that's when i find out i'm pregnant i was gonna have an abortion but my family pressured me into keeping the baby i texted him n told him but i genuinely did not want this baby so my sister said she would take care of it i told him that and he texted me GOING OFF calling me a push over for keeping the child without wanting a it and giving away "his creation" to my sister he was ok with me having an abortion but not ok with he giving it to my sister i didn't see or hear from him for three days in that time he wouldn't come home so i was staying at my sisters house and he was posting at parties and clubs n shi but people deal with things differently so i didn't say anything i let him do him until he was ready to talk and when he finally was ready to talk he texted me and i called him and he starts yelling going off on me and calling me all out my name so i hung up and called him back maybe 4hrs later and i apologized for not giving him a say and asked him what he wanted to do he told me it doesn't matter what he wants since i made up my mind and i said we can talk and come to a agreement on what to do he laughed and hung up in my face we made up later that night when we both went home but still didn't talk about it
then 2weeks later went to my first dr appt and found out i'm 3months pregnant i sent him the ultra sound pics and all he said was "that's crazy" but he loved rubbing my stomach then the second dr appt came and i got blood tests then a week later my dr called me with the news i had chlamydia i asked him about it and swear he didn't give it to me but i didn't have sex with anyone else i barely wanted to have sex with him and he didn't wanna get tested so i put him out and haven't heard from him since and this was in april he hasn't even told any of his family i'm pregnant and i only know that through a mutual friend...do i reach out? if so how do i start the conversation? i need advice

Here is a listing of all the media articles, for the past 2 weeks on anything gun related that related to New Jersey:
Note: Articles on the recent PI ruling have been omitted as covered in separate post (Link at bottom)

1. Man Shot By Police After Firing Gun Near NJ Train Station: Mayor Wayne, NJ Patch
2. Prosecutor: 6 NY men posed as police in armed NJ home invasion (nj1015.com)
3. New Jersey police officer who authorities say shot and killed a 911 caller is charged with manslaughter CNN
4. Newark Sees 4th Multiple Shooting In A Month: 4 Shot, 1 Dead Newark, NJ Patch
5. Person With Gun Reported At Great Falls, Juvenile Charged: Paterson PD Wayne, NJ Patch
6. 13-year-old's shooting inspires anti-crime initiative in Newark, New Jersey for summer safety - ABC7 New York (abc7ny.com)
7. Analysis: Three experts explain America's gun politics CNN
8. NJ State Police seize guns from Paterson man and woman (northjersey.com)
9. NJ’s attorney general confronts gun violence, corruption, police reform — and a paradox - Gothamist
10. NJ Teen Charged With Attempted Murder In Shooting Near Carnival East Brunswick, NJ Patch
11. Pa. man charged after accidentally shooting himself at Wildwood Crest motel, police say PhillyVoice
12. Church member arrested in shooting death of Sayreville councilwom (nj1015.com)
13. Student Photo With Firearm Probed, 'No Imminent Danger': Brick PD Brick, NJ Patch
14. NJ road rage gunfire: 7 things to try when you’re this angry (nj1015.com)
15. Pleasantville, NJ, Man Facing Gun Charges After Foot Pursuit (wpgtalkradio.com)
16. DWI Driver Found With Loaded Gun After Crash: Montgomery Police Hillsborough, NJ Patch
17. Three Youths Arrested in Trenton After Bucks Gun Store Heist – NBC10 Philadelphia (nbcphiladelphia.com)
18. Mom says Newark police handcuffed 8-year-old daughter in search for big brother’s gun - nj.com
19. Hero N.J. police officer wrestled ‘ghost gun’ from suspect, saved bystanders - nj.com
20. Ex-Con Wanted In Edgewater Domestic Assault Caught Outside Cliffside Bar With Gun: Police Cliffside Park-Edgewater Daily Voice Serving Cliffside Park, Edgewater, Bogota, Fairview, and Ridgefield
21. Atlantic County Man Sentenced for Possession of Illegal Handgun (rlsmedia.com)
22. Shots fired outside a Paterson school over parking, cops say (nj1015.com)
23. Authorities identify 8-year-old, man killed by gunman in N.J. apartment - nj.com
24. Frackville man charged after gun discharges in Wildwood Crest, New Jersey, wounding him (yahoo.com)
25. Sen. Bob Menendez, Mayor Ras Baraka call for more enforcement of federal gun laws - CBS New York (cbsnews.com)
26. Murphy Announces Intention to Nominate Michael Noriega to Serve on the New Jersey Supreme Court - Insider NJ
27. Eunice Dwumfour murder: Arrest made in shooting death of New Jersey councilwoman - ABC7 New York (abc7ny.com)
28. N.J. attorney convicted of murder in shooting death of his longtime girlfriend - nj.com
29. Joaquin DeJesus, 53, of Atlantic City Sentenced to 8-Year Prison Term For Firearms Offenses - South Jersey Observer
30. AI may be the future of preventing school shootings PIX11
31. Chicago man arrested in NJ DWI with stolen gun from Alabama (wobm.com)
32. NJ Fugitive Joel Martinez Accused of Pistol-Whipping Transgender Woman, Shooting Others – NBC10 Philadelphia (nbcphiladelphia.com)
33. InsiderNJ's Fight of the Week: Platkin v. Bumb (and Guns) - Insider NJ
34. Worker Wrestles Gun From Gas Station Convenience Store Robber On Route 46 Saddle Brook-Elmwood Park Daily Voice Your Local News for Saddle Brook and Elmwood Park, New Jersey
35. Armed robber steals thousands in cash from NJ pharmacy (nj1015.com)
36. SEEKING PUBLIC’S ASSISTANCE: BERGENFIELD, NJ MAN SOUGHT IN ATTEMPTED MURDER INVESTIGATION - Bergen County Prosecutor's Office (bcpo.net)
37. Man charged in N.J. cold case killing was arrested with murder weapon a decade ago, cops say - nj.com
38. Two Atlantic City men arrested with drugs, handgun (pressofatlanticcity.com)
39. Atlantic County Man Sentenced For Handgun Possession Gloucester Daily Voice Your Local News for Gloucester County, New Jersey
40. Brattleboro man gets prison time as felon with a gun again Local News reformer.com
41. Southern District of New York New Jersey Man Charged With Gunpoint Robbery Of Manhattan Electronics Store United States Department of Justice
42. NJ man accused of leading PSP on chase along I-80 (yahoo.com)
43. Camden County Armed-Robbery Suspect Remains At Large: Police Collingswood, NJ Patch
44. District of New Jersey Essex County Man Admits Shooting of Former Federal Informant United States Department of Justice

Note: Articles on the recent PI ruling have been omitted as covered in separate post here:

https://www.reddit.com/NJGuns/comments/13k6wym/media_meltdown_media_coverage_on_judge_bumbs/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

So I 33F met one of my best friends 37F at my baby shower of all places. A friend I went to high school with was pregnant at the same time as me so she came to my shower and brought her sister. Well her sister and I hit it off and we instantly became best friends. She had literally became my ride or die. We always were having girls night at my house or just going places and doing things together. She always included my daughter which made me love her even more. Well as the years went on she came to me when he and her other half separated needing somewhere to live. At this time I had moved in with my grandparents after my split. I was helping take care of them and they put a roof over mine and my daughters heads. Well when this friend called me she was bawling and I felt so bad for her cause she quiet literally had no where to go. I stuck my neck out for her and went to my nanna asking if my friend could move in. There was rules and what not that my friend agreed to so that very week she moved in. Keep in mind it was only a three bedroom house and my grandparents were downstairs and myself and daughter were upstairs in the other two rooms. I aloud my friend to move into my room with me where she also shared my bed. We had sleepovers before so it didn't bother me one bit cause she was my friend. Well as the months went on I was having to put extra food into the house which was not in the rules my nanna gave her. She was suppose to be paying rent, supplying her own food and necessities. I couldn't afford to pay her way. I tried to help her but finally enough was enough when she went to the bathroom and left the bathroom door open and then proceeded to yell and cuss at my 7 yr old daughter for standing in front of the bathroom door while speaking to me. (bathroom was right as you walked into my bedroom) I sent my daughter downstairs with her nanna and proceeded to yell at my friend. One thing she wasn't going to do was cuss or raise her voice to my child. It wasn't her fault that my friend didn't close the bathroom door which she should have done. Well a few weeks go by after the incident and I was hanging out with her other two sisters at my moms. And she started acting weird. Every time I left the house she tried to go with me. She even tried to go with me on my date with my fiance at the time. I quickly shut it down. Well a week later I was having a girls night at my moms with her other two sisters and this is when all hell breaks loose. I told her younger sister some stuff my friend had been saying about her cause it didn't make since to me. Well it caused them to fight. I wasn't trying to start anything but what I what I told the younger sister had me worried which is the only reason I brought it up. They fought and I fell asleep that night to wake up the next morning to my friend texting my MOM of all people. She was saying some stuff about me using her vehicle. I used it twice when mine was in the shop which she told me I could use. I offered her gas money and she told me not to worry about it cause she knew I was struggling with money myself being a single mom. So I got extremely pissed cause she was bringing it up after she told me not to worry about it. I texted her and went off. It was then brought to my knowledge that she was telling her WHOLE family I was pregnant. I was in shock. I had confided in her that I could be but asked her not to say anything til I knew for sure so I could tell my fiance. Well I found out I wasn't. She was with me when I took the test. So I had to clean up her mess again. I cussed her out over text and told her that if she wanted to be petty I could be petty. I told her I didn't have to stick my neck out for her or let her use my room. So from then on out that she could start sleeping on the couch. Well I finally make it home and come in to her on the couch and she moved all her stuff out of my room. I went straight to my room and did a movie day with my daughter. Now I'm a firm believer in not arguing in front of children so being a adult I texted her and told her I thought it was best for her to find a new place to live. She said she was working on it. I left it alone. Well then she wanted to argue with me cuss at me. She hadn't worked but three weeks the five months she lived with me so I got ugly. I told her she needed to be out by monday so that gave her two days to find somewhere to go. Keep in mind her mom lives on the same block i do, only a few houses up from me. She started packing her stuff and tried taking some things of mine. I called her out and took my things back and went back to my room. I sent my daughter downstairs with her grandparents just encase things got ugly. She proceeded to start throwing my things at me. I come around the corner yelling at her and she went to throw glass plates and bowls at me. I slapped them down to the floor and went at her. My grandfafther come up behind me telling her she needed to leave immediately. So then she proceeds to cuss at my 75 yr old poppy. It set me on fire again so I went at her again. I was pulled back and my nanna got in it. By this point im raging. My nanna tells her to leave and she can come get the rest of her things tomorrow. I turn and walk away and that when I'm told i'm bleeding. Her throwing those dishes at me and me reacting caused me to have to get stitches in both hands and arms and I broke my thumb shielding myself. Her sister came over and took me to the doctor. Thankfully when I got back she was gone. After she was finally out I realized she stole my daughters piggy bank that had over $400 in it and her whole Disney DVD movie collection that I had been buying since my daughter had come home from the hospital. anyways I hadn't spoken to her in months after this and her sisters kept trying to wedge me back with her. Well my friend apologized but I refuse to have her in my life anymore. She hurt me and stole from the one person I love most in this world. Am I the asshole for telling her to fuck off?

So I 33F met one of my best friends 37F at my baby shower of all places. A friend I went to high school with was pregnant at the same time as me so she came to my shower and brought her sister. Well her sister and I hit it off and we instantly became best friends. She had literally became my ride or die. We always were having girls night at my house or just going places and doing things together. She always included my daughter which made me love her even more.
Well as the years went on she came to me when he and her other half separated needing somewhere to live. At this time I had moved in with my grandparents after my split. I was helping take care of them and they put a roof over mine and my daughters heads. Well when this friend called me she was bawling and I felt so bad for her cause she quiet literally had no where to go. I stuck my neck out for her and went to my nanna asking if my friend could move in. There was rules and what not that my friend agreed to so that very week she moved in. Keep in mind it was only a three bedroom house and my grandparents were downstairs and myself and daughter were upstairs in the other two rooms.
I aloud my friend to move into my room with me where she also shared my bed. We had sleepovers before so it didn't bother me one bit cause she was my friend. Well as the months went on I was having to put extra food into the house which was not in the rules my nanna gave her. She was suppose to be paying rent, supplying her own food and necessities. I couldn't afford to pay her way. I tried to help her but finally enough was enough when she went to the bathroom and left the bathroom door open and then proceeded to yell and cuss at my 7 yr old daughter for standing in front of the bathroom door while speaking to me. (bathroom was right as you walked into my bedroom) I sent my daughter downstairs with her nanna and proceeded to yell at my friend.
One thing she wasn't going to do was cuss or raise her voice to my child. It wasn't her fault that my friend didn't close the bathroom door which she should have done. Well a few weeks go by after the incident and I was hanging out with her other two sisters at my moms. And she started acting weird. Every time I left the house she tried to go with me. She even tried to go with me on my date with my fiance at the time. I quickly shut it down. Well a week later I was having a girls night at my moms with her other two sisters and this is when all hell breaks loose.
I told her younger sister some stuff my friend had been saying about her cause it didn't make since to me. Well it caused them to fight. I wasn't trying to start anything but what I what I told the younger sister had me worried which is the only reason I brought it up. They fought and I fell asleep that night to wake up the next morning to my friend texting my MOM of all people. She was saying some stuff about me using her vehicle. I used it twice when mine was in the shop which she told me I could use. I offered her gas money and she told me not to worry about it cause she knew I was struggling with money myself being a single mom.
So I got extremely pissed cause she was bringing it up after she told me not to worry about it. I texted her and went off. It was then brought to my knowledge that she was telling her WHOLE family I was pregnant. I was in shock. I had confided in her that I could be but asked her not to say anything til I knew for sure so I could tell my fiance. Well I found out I wasn't. She was with me when I took the test. So I had to clean up her mess again. I cussed her out over text and told her that if she wanted to be petty I could be petty.
I told her I didn't have to stick my neck out for her or let her use my room. So from then on out that she could start sleeping on the couch. Well I finally make it home and come in to her on the couch and she moved all her stuff out of my room. I went straight to my room and did a movie day with my daughter. Now I'm a firm believer in not arguing in front of children so being a adult I texted her and told her I thought it was best for her to find a new place to live. She said she was working on it. I left it alone. Well then she wanted to argue with me cuss at me.
She hadn't worked but three weeks the five months she lived with me so I got ugly. I told her she needed to be out by monday so that gave her two days to find somewhere to go. Keep in mind her mom lives on the same block i do, only a few houses up from me. She started packing her stuff and tried taking some things of mine. I called her out and took my things back and went back to my room. I sent my daughter downstairs with her grandparents just encase things got ugly. She proceeded to start throwing my things at me. I come around the corner yelling at her and she went to throw glass plates and bowls at me. I slapped them down to the floor and went at her.
My grandfafther come up behind me telling her she needed to leave immediately. So then she proceeds to cuss at my 75 yr old poppy. It set me on fire again so I went at her again. I was pulled back and my nanna got in it. By this point im raging. My nanna tells her to leave and she can come get the rest of her things tomorrow. I turn and walk away and that when I'm told i'm bleeding. Her throwing those dishes at me and me reacting caused me to have to get stitches in both hands and arms and I broke my thumb shielding myself. Her sister came over and took me to the doctor.
Thankfully when I got back she was gone. After she was finally out I realized she stole my daughters piggy bank that had over $400 in it and her whole Disney DVD movie collection that I had been buying since my daughter had come home from the hospital. anyways I hadn't spoken to her in months after this and her sisters kept trying to wedge me back with her. Well my friend apologized but I refuse to have her in my life anymore. She hurt me and stole from the one person I love most in this world. Am I the asshole for telling her to fuck off?

Statemeant of, Estella Freeman, regarding her experiences during an audition for a film rendition of Macbeth. Original Statement given on November 21, 2008. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London.
Statement begins
I appreciate your discretion. I could tell you recognized me the moment I sat down. I'm sure you can appreciate what an actress of my caliber has to deal with whenever I interact with the public. It can be nauseating, people swooning over you asking for an autograph or a picture or what have you. I’ve been an actress for almost 30 years and I can tell you it's really refreshing whenever I can find a moment to just be with other people and not have to talk about what your next big role is going to be, or how I was able to give such a performance in Destiny Walked North.
You're no doubt acquainted with many of my films, A Passage to Burma,, In Search of Sunrise, and of course everyone's favorite, Destiny Walked North. Oh but you don't want to hear me talk about all that. Sigh,but then I suppose I do have to tell you about the little misunderstanding concerning one of my recent auditions. Look, I'm only agreeing to give this statement because my younger sister, Cathrine, insisted I talk to you and threatened to go to the tabloids if I didn't. It really is all just a bit of unpleasant nonsense I can assure you.
The audition in question was an upcoming film version of Shakespeare's Macbeth, directed by Dexter Banks. Dexter had decided he wanted to do a modern rendition of the play and had asked me to audition for the part of Lady Macbeth. Now I don't normally do Shakespeare. I find it the droll labor of lesser theater actors but Dexters a friend and I always try to help whenever I can so I agreed to the audition.
The scene in question is the well known sleepwalking scene that opens act 5 of the play. In it, Lady Macbeth is seen sleepwalking and delivers a powerful monologue wherein her guilt is laid to bare. The audition itself was done as a series of three takes which were all performed and recorded on a small set built to look like the interior of a modern day estate.
Everything started off fine. I had already delivered two flawless takes but Dexter had been unsatisfied. He said that my guilt did not appear genuine and suggested I try and find a memory to draw from for the final take. Now as I mentioned, I’ve been acting for 30 years and I dont need some director, friend or not, telling me how to get into character. Still, I didn't want to make a big deal about it and acquiesced to trying Dexter's way.
So that's what I did. It took a few moments but I suddenly remembered an incident from my childhood. I was about 10 or 11 at the time. One day while mum was out, I had taken some of her makeup to try on. You have to understand at that age I had started becoming interested in looking and dressing like a real woman and not some little girl. Anyway I knew it would make mum furious were she to catch me. I must have spent an hour meticulously applying the primer then foundation, followed by blush, eyeliner, and of course la touche finale: mums ruby red lipstick. Now at some point during all this I must have lost track of time for no sooner had I finished applying the lipstick when I heard the sound of mum’s fumbling with the front latch. I knew there would be no time to properly put back all the cosmetics and clean my face. I was certain I would be caught when I had the sudden idea. I quickly gathered up all the cosmetics and dumped them into my younger sister Cathrine’s room then locked myself in the privy just as mum entered the house.
Needless to say my little scheme had worked perfectly for it was not but a few minutes more when I could hear mum angrily shouting at Catherine. By the time I had cleaned my face and emerged I found my little sister sobbing in the corner.
Sigh, but of course I could barely go a whole day with all that guilt and I eventually confessed. Mum was…well she was pretty tough and lets just say I got what was coming to me.
And so I concentrated on that moment and when Dexter yelled action I began that final take. I put everything I had into that take. The moment when Lady Macbeth looks at her hands for fear of stained blood, I imagined the red stain of my mother's lipstick and thought about the cries my sister had made when mum had throttled her.
At the scene's culmination I made a spontaneous decision to improvise. The scene normally requires Lady Macbeth to exit the stage but I choose instead to throw myself on the floor in dramatic fashion. And so I screamed “What's done cannot be undone.--To bed, to bed, to bed!” and fell to the floor, eyes closed. I lay there for a few moments waiting for Dexter to yell cut but… there was nothing. At first I thought that perhaps my performance had just stunned him and so I waited for a few more moments but still… nothing. Then I opened my eyes to the horror of an empty room. Dexter, the entire crew, they all were…gone. I was alone. I thought at first perhaps it was a joke, that the crew had somehow snuck away in those moments where I had closed my eyes but then I realized something else: There was no equipment, no cameras, no light fixtures, no director's chair. It was an empty set. Now it's possible that maybe Dexter and the crew could have slipped away while I was preoccupied with my audition, a practical joke while I was lost in the performance as it may. But there's no way they could have just moved all that equipment in the span of a one minute scene. I began to panic, calling out for Dexter, for anyone to answer, hoping that at any moment someone would pop out and I would realize it was all imagined, a hallucination perhaps. But no one popped out. There were no responses. No surprises or jokes. Just the sound of my own voice echoing off the walls.
And then I realized something else, something that truly terrified me: I was no longer standing on a small set but in the actual room itself. What I mean is that, as I said before, the set had been constructed to look like part of a room in a modern day estate, it even had a small fireplace for Lady Macbeth to warm her hands by during the scene. The set had been no more than 8 or 9 meters long at most but this…this was an entire room, not a set at all. What I might have called panic moments before had now coalesced into utter terror. I ran to one of the doors and found it opened into a hallway, one typical of any other house of this type, and like most hallways, I could see it led to other rooms. I moved forward down the corridor carefully. A bathroom on the right, a bedroom on the left, another bedroom, and further down, the hallway led into a formal sitting room. This was a house, just like the setting of Dexter's film. I cried out again, begging for someone, anyone to answer, but still nothing.
Then I heard something: A distinct whistle coming from somewhere not far away. I rushed back down the way I came, this time turning down an adjacent hallway toward the sound and emerged into what was clearly the kitchen. And sure enough there, on the stove, sat a steaming tea kettle over the soft glow of the stove's flame. “I know you're there!”, I called out. Clearly the kettle had been set by someone and whomever they were they were nearby. I could feel it. Like someone nearby was watching. Then suddenly I heard a loud thump, back toward the sitting room I had just left. I ran back and found that a fire now burned in the fireplace: The thump I heard was the sound of a smoldering log that had crumbled.
Now I will admit I am not a brave person, and in this particular set of circumstances to say I was terrified would have been an understatement. All the same, I do not enjoy being played with. Whatever this was, whatever was happening, it was clearly someone's idea of a joke. It must have been right? Bolstered by my anger I set out frantically searching the house, flinging open closet doors, searching under beds, all the while screaming, daring my tormentor to reveal themselves. But it was always the same, I would enter rooms that had clear signs of a recent presence: A lit cigarette in an ashtray, a running faucet. I would return to rooms I had left moments before and find objects had moved. A book lay open on a night stand where it had not been 5 minutes before. I started to think I was losing my sanity.
This went on for what seemed like 30 minutes when suddenly I had an impulse. A horrible dread filled me and I rushed over to a window and drew open the curtains. I don't know exactly how to describe what I saw. It looked like the English countryside, but a countryside that had been burned and ravaged beyond comprehension. What might have once been the rolling green hills of Cornwall or Wiltshire were now blackened monoliths of ashen waste. All across were ember colored cracks scared into the earth, littering the landscape like open sores. And when I looked up into that blood red sky where the sun should have been, I saw instead, a viscous orb of the deepest jet. I stared at it, unable to remove my gaze, watching as it would occasionally writhe and pulsate ever so slightly. And when it did, just for a moment, it looked almost like an eye that had blinked, a wretched sentry keeping watch over its wretched wasteland. I screamed. I mean at that point any shred of hope I had that this might be some elaborate hoax or prank was gone. This was a nightmare. A pure terrible nightmare.
It's hard to remember everything that happened next but I recall running through the house in a panic and somehow ending up back in the original room I had found myself in when all this began, the one that matched the set of the film. And when I looked up I saw that there now stood in the center of the room a loan movie camera, mounted on a tripod. It looked just like the ones the crew had used on the set; only this one was unmanned. It was, however , pointed right at me, and I could tell from the faint hum that it was running. We stared at each other for several moments in silence. I say we because I want to make it very clear that this wasn't just a camera, it was….I dunno, the…thing that had been watching me. I was certain. I can't tell you how I knew it but I just did.
Sigh, and then I did the only thing left I could think to do. I slowly, deliberately, got down on my knees, looked right into that camera, and I begged. I begged it to spare me, to show me mercy. To please take pity and absolve my wretched soul of whatever sins I had committed. To witness all the guilt I could lay to bare. But the camera said nothing. It just sat there silently filming, silently watching. I guess I must have collapsed at that point, probably from exhaustion.
When I regained consciousness I was back on the set of the audition, surrounded by Dexter and the rest of the crew. To my surprise everyone was clapping and Dexter was beaming. I thought perhaps it all had been some strange hallucination or day dream and I vaguely remember trying to compose myself before the sudden feeling of everything slipping away.
I assume I had passed out. At least that's what the nurses told me when I woke up in St. Thomas. Something about stress induced psychosis and how I needed to take it easier from now on, and how i wasnt 25 anymore and blah blah blah. I was there for 2 days I think. It doesn't really matter. And I never did get the part. It went to some up and coming twit, you know the one in all the vampire movies. Dexter didn't even bother to call to tell me. The nerve. You know after 5 films, all I've done for him the least that bastard could do was call to tell me he had decided to give the part to some younger harlot he was probably sleeping with.
I haven't done any more auditions. Haven't really got the stomach for it lately. I mean I know I could still get the parts, it's just ...well…I don’t think I could bear to be in front of the cameras. The way they just stare at you, watching, silently taking it all in. I mean I know it was probably all some sorta of stressed induced hallucination or whatever but deep down I don't think it was. You know lately when I am out walking, I stop and look up at the sky, just to check and make sure the sun is still there where it's supposed to be. Anyway I think that's everything
Statement Ends.
Sigh. There's so many things wrong with this statement. Where do I begin? I think the key words here are hallucinations and psychosis. Neither of which forms the foundation for verifiable fact. Then there is the issue of Ms. Freeman’s reliability. A quick IMDB search indicates that Estella Freeman was indeed an actress who appeared in several films including several by renowned director Dexter Banks. However, she was not, as her statement claims, cast in a lead role in any of them. Almost all of her credits are for minor roles, certainly none that would be considered star billing. According to public records that Sasha dug up, Estella Freeman was the oldest of two children born to Robert and Sally Freeman. She did have a younger sister named Catherine but she apparently passed away in an unspecified domestic accident at the age of 7, roughly the time Estella would have been 10 years old. She is listed as having attended the Croydon School of Acting before appearing in several minor film roles over an approximately 25 year period. On October the 13th, 2008 she was admitted to St. Thomas hospital where she was diagnosed and treated for stress induced fatigue and released on her own recognizance after 48 hours. Clearly Ms. Freeman is either suffering from delusions of grandeur or is a pathological liar, but in either case I think this is another dead end. I seem to recall that Dexter Banks appeared in another statement, but given my predecessor's penchant for disorganization, it may be years before I can track down that statement. Still, I’ve asked Martin to keep an eye out for it.
There is one other additional interesting fact. Tim really came through on this one and managed to obtain a copy of Ms. Freeman’s audition tape from that day. I don't know what guy or girl he had to sleep with to get it and I wont bother to ask. I reviewed the tape and it does indeed show Ms. Freeman performing 3 takes of the scene as she described in her statement. The first 2 are uneventful. However during the 3rd take, just as Ms. Freeman goes down on the floor, the tape cuts out to static. When it continues, it appears to show her acting rather hysterically before being assisted off the set by several crew members. Now what's interesting is that the video time stamps indicate only a few seconds elapsed during the time just before and after the cut out but the static itself plays for over 90 minutes. Still, it's not definitive proof of anything “supernatural”. End Recording.
The Magnus Archives is a podcast distributed by Rusty Quill, and licensed under a creative commons attribution noncommercial share alike 4.0 international license. All the characters and settings referenced are the property of Rusty Quill in their entirety.
​
https://preview.redd.it/xw2p5t7xh23b1.png?width=313&format=png&auto=webp&s=91cc33ed2dd5e25bc8dcf43ad20787705f7600d2

Djamä Sonurupākä-Pēzjeceni stands, looking out over the labour before him. A series of four paddies are being built off of Dogwood-Point. Two of them dig earth from the point to make the paddy, the other two enclose rectangles of the lake with mounds of earth. To his rear, NāpäkoduThonu works on four paddies of their own.
The clans cooperated on the project, building the outer-walls together in the early-days of summer where the lake’s level gets low enough for it to be doable. Now they’re expanding their paddies in one of the biggest projects Konuthomu has ever known.
Sonurupākä’s main role is to direct. And he wears his resplendent cape of feathers to indicate such—even if he also wears the simple quarter-dome hat of a farmer. He sends the young men carrying baskets of earth to the eastern medial causeway. When needed, he steps in and offers aid. But in this moment, he puffs gently on his pipe. Enjoying the heady rush of fresh-air and warm smoke.
Someone calls him over, there’s a section of clay in one of the inner-paddies being excavated.
Screams fill the hall. Senisedjarha, his wife, is in labour. He was rushed away by the duNothudo as they take care of her. He was left mixing ashes for glaze and hearing his love’s cries from across the field.
This is their second child. Their first, a beautiful baby girl, is bouncing on her grandmother’s knee. It’s a good omen to have such a hardy first-born. But it doesn’t ease his anxiety at the second birth.
He mixes in the rotu ash—it should form a grassy green once fired—with the wet clay and stirs it vigorously.
The baby is coming later than expected. The duNothudo assured them that it wouldn’t be a problem, that the best fruit simply take longer to grow. He was supposed to be gone on a trading mission by this point. The canoes are already prepared. But it would be a variation from the kacä to abandon his wife now.
Next he mixes the birch ash—this one forms a creamy white, tinged with yellow. It’s almost a buttery colour.
Senisedjarha is strong though. And while the pregnancy has exhausted her, especially the past moon of it—her belly even more gravid than with the first pregnancy, the stores have been full and the weather kind. She’s been able to rest, drinking broth on their bed of furs.
Now, he mixes red slip with willow ash. This one is far more slip-forward. The ash gives it its sheen and flow, the bursts of colour and shine which makes the glaze all the more vibrant.
He’s to visit the land of the Rhadämā, those strange feather-less folk. Their cargo is wine (mostly maple), jade tools, and the glazed pots his current labour allows.
Finally, he mixes oak ash with bright-red slip. The smooth, green-blue glaze which results is perfect for lining urns. Some things you want to breathe through the unglazed clay, but others you want to keep sealed. It’s a delicate balance.
He pauses, unsure of the change and caught up in his work. The screaming has stopped. He rushes back to the house.
Two rambunctious baby boys. He holds Seni’s hand while holding the first-born of the two. An auspicious sign.
It had been a painful labour, and his wife’s exhausted. Drained. But two healthy baby boys. He can’t believe their luck. Two marriages of equal prestige to bring additional clans onto their path? It’s more than he could have ever hoped.
Knee deep in water, he guides the boat out. Full of pots, the canoes sit low in the lake. Eight men for eight canoes, a sizable contingent. He’s been tasked to bring gifts and trade in hopes of establishing a more permanent relationship with the Rhadämā of Kamābarha.
The Cakäma of DjamäThamä, where his two new sons will be given names, remains three turns away. He prays he’ll be back in time.
Clambering out of the lake, he readies himself to go. Even this early in the morning, he knows the day will be hot and a gentle mist rises with the sun over the lake.
He clasps the hands of the duNothudo in turn, pledging that he will travel honest and true. Laughing at Redotsuko’s quip. He finally reaches his wife, the youngest of the duNothudo, and the one most dear to him.
As they hug, she whispers in his ear: “Return swift and safe, your family waits for you.”
Speeches and recitations and other such fanfare follow, as Sonurupākä climbs into his canoe, and sets off towards the rising sun. His eyes may be wet, but his path is clear. Duties to clan come before all else, even these first few months of his sons’ lives. The paddling becomes rhythmic. There is only one way, and that is forward. He simply hopes, and prays, it leads him back home.
It’s their third day of travel. The weather has remained clear, and bright. Their first two nights they stayed in houses of DjamäThanä. Lovely, low provincial halls—not dissimilar to the one in which Sonurupākä was born and raised. A life a world away now, even if, in factuality, merely feather and name separates that him from the him in the canoe now.
He sips a skin of crabapplecider, and grabs a mouthful of the pickle mix: bison and pawpaw and sumac and blackberry and brire. It’s sour, a little salty. The sweetness and tartness of the berries cut through the rich fat of the bison. He’s dressed in a loincloth, a farmer’s hat (a round, quarter-dome offering shade protection) and has a plain-hemp cape hanging from his shoulders, protecting his back from the sun. It’s a lovely day.
Rowing once more, he thinks about his mission. Kamābarha is not alien to the people of Konuthomu. They may have forgotten their feathers, but they’re skilled craftsmen and produce a lovely nut. Travel is frequent between the villages. And even without feathers, the people govern themselves well. They know of the wisdom of crone’s, and put the vitality of young men to service. Sure, their way of speech may be harsher, atonal in a way. But it’s not that far off from Menidān, and easy to learn. Compare the language of Rhadämā to that of the Jeli—infrequent visitors here, but known further west. Rhadämā is a poem in the wrong meter, Jeli is more similar to the barking of dogs. But what can you expect from people with neither lake nor feathers?
Voyages such as this gives one plenty of time to think. He hopes his aids back home are preparing the pottery well. They’ve expanded the workshop below the Themilanan. Three kilns, a lengthy pottery space, plenty of storage for the clay. Small-folk of DjamäThanä do most of the actual pot construction, but the glazes are kept in the Themilanan. So too is the knowledge of organizing the fire for the kiln to burn properly hot. The duNothudo should assure his Good-Brother does the firing properly. He hopes so, at least.
They practice Rhadämā over dinner, forming the words again and again. Sonurupākä insists: passable is insufficient, his accent must be perfect.
They have easy access to food, with the plentiful waterfowl and fish, but he missed the plentiful wine and pickles of home. Rhadämā wine is tasty from what he remembers though.
After eight days of travel, they approach Kamābarha.

Real Estate for rental or House
Hi fellows,
Just looking for an advice - 31M, with 1 kid (6 months), wife not working, living in Poland, working in tech remotely, running a small company and contracting myself.
Current financial situation: Income: - my contract 5.2k€ net - company 4.4k€ net / half for partner = 2.2k€ (right now not taking it out to try to grow the company) - starting an extra temp contract for around 8k€ net for at least 6 months in July, then possibly will need 2 months rest to avoid burnout.
Total expenses: Including mortgage and living around 2.5k€
Debt: - Mortgage for flat we live in 47k€ left at fixed 2.7% for 3 more years, current worth around 107k€
Savings: - Gold 8oz - around 15k€ (financial bag) - silver 100oz - 2.5k€ - brokerage account 25.5k€ - cash 39k€ - cash 6k€ (financial bag) - crypto 5k€
If we want to build a house it would be around 200-225k€ putting us way behind with everything. Want to go FIRE route and if everything goes well finish working at 40.
Currently I thought about buying some rental property (flats in older buildings) for around 77-80k€ which would cash flow around 350€ net monthly after all expenses and with pretty strict calculations.
But in my mind all the time I have that having a garden and house would be amazing for our family and we want that both for 100%. Just not sure when.
For me right now most intuitive is to get some more money and possibly focus more on the rental units as I find it the safest space. The current ROI is bit shit though. But it would be just to protect us a bit if something happens to me.
Just struggling on where to go next. All suggestions and different point of views would be a blessing as I’ve been thinking about it for 2 months and can’t decide.
Thank you!

Discord Username: FireCrimson#1915
Character Name and House: Damon Morrigen
Age: 24
Appearance: https://imgur.com/a/5G1naST
Gift: Champion
Skills: Swords (o), Knightly, Defender, Tactician, Cautious
Talent(s): Singing (x2), Hunting
Starting Title(s): Heir to Crow's Nest
Starting Location: The Feast
Family Tree: https://www.familyecho.com/?p=BFQ8M&c=14cgd1pvu0x&f=640928101225140445 (work in progress, some placeholder names or unnamed characters)
Dead Kinsman: Almost everyone in the family tree.
Damon Morrigen was born in the 183rd year of Aegon’s Conquest to Jack Morrigen, the youngest son of Theo Morrigen. Normally, that would be the end of any mention of him. The son of the fifth son is not usually worth much of note. But unfortunately for the House of Morrigen, history and cruel fate decided otherwise.
The first four years of Damon’s life, he does not remember. And without the foresight of days to come, neither does anybody else. He had no siblings, though a few cousins, and enough uncles to fill up a hand with fingers. And an aunt, though she had been married to William Baratheon before he was born, so Damon knew nought of her.
It was during the Red War that Damon’s fate began to settle into place, with the unofficial birth of the ‘Curse of the Crows’ during the Red War in 187 AC. His two eldest uncles, Alester and Harlan, were slain, and the third eldest was crippled to the point he could no longer have children. Theo Morrigen, his grandfather, was distraught. Even without what was to come, this would be enough to put an old patriarch to tears.
But unfortunately, one bad war does not a curse make. The sons of uncle Harlan found that their boat sank in the sea during a particularly rough storm, though rumors persisted for awhile that it was not the storm, but a man with the ruthlessness to put a hole in the boat, with Richard Morrigen as the usual culprit. But there was no evidence to ever link him to any such crime, so the rumors eventually died down, as the curse of the crows continued.
It was uncle Selwyn who was next. Still young enough to be a bachelor, he reportedly drank too much and choked on his own vomit. This appeared to do Theo Morrigen in, as when he went to sleep after the news he never woke up, with his wife following along within weeks in 190 AC. Of Theo’s children, there were only three remaining. Richard, the current eldest who was crippled in the war, Jack Morrigen (Damon’s father) and Ravella, who was married into Baratheon.
There was peace for little Damon for a time; no more funerals, until 194 AC, when his parents died. A sickness. One could say it swept through the family, though that would exaggerate, for it was only those two and uncle Richard who had caught it, giving him another lifelong health issue to contend with, leaving him coughing blood.
Lord Richard, the last of the lord’s sons, sent his heir to Storm’s End to squire under Lord Baratheon. For Damon, these were his roughest but perhaps most tenderly remembered years. No more familial death to deal with. He got along with his aunt’s family, and even saw Lord William as a second father. However, his worst traits were starting to develop. He was becoming anti-social and paranoid, continuously worrying about when his time would come. To a child, the whims of death were chaotic; he put them in order by convincing himself it would be his time eventually, and likely sooner rather than later.
At 18, in 201 AC, he was knighted, and went home to Crow’s Nest. In celebration, he was given Loyalty, the Valyrian steel longsword of House Morrigen. In one of his uncle’s celebration events, he met Sylas, who became his confidant and informant. A lowborn man, he had nonetheless gained the trust of Lord Richard, and was allowed to remain as a servant, of sorts, and was one of the most valuable men Morrigen had at their disposal.
The next few years, Damon remembers as games. Lord Richard, well aware that Damon was the last hope for their house to continue in the male line, tested him again and again. Sometimes in his ability to defend himself, sometimes in his ability to rule. Some rumors suggested that his ability to continue the line was tested, but they were quashed.
Now it is 207 AC. Some must wonder if the curse of the crows will continue, or if the young heir will manage to halt it in its tracks.
https://www.familyecho.com/?p=BFQ8M&c=14cgd1pvu0x&f=640928101225140445
Character Name and House: Sylas
Age: 34
Appearance: A stooped, balding man. He doesn't seem particularly interesting or notable.
Gift: Ruthless
Skills: Espionage, Torturer, Subtle
Talents: N/A
Starting Title(s): None
Starting Location: With Damon.
Lord Richard Morrigen - Subterfuge
Ser Alaric ‘Pennypointer’ - Architect

https://www.lotro.com/update-notes/lotro-update-36-release-notes-en
​

Update 36 Release Notes

Here are the release notes for Update 36: Gondor Renewed, released on Wednesday, May 31st, 2023.

Of Special Note:

A New Story Begins in A Renewed King's Gondor!

After the defeat of Sauron, King Elessar and Queen Arwen seek to bring peace to their kingdom, but the danger is not gone and new foes seek to threaten Gondor. Adventure awaits in the new zone of King's Gondor East, set after the War of the Ring when fresh breezes have dispersed the fumes of the Dawnless Day and allowed the sun to shine again! Discover the beginning of a new Epic-style storyline, 'The Song of Waves and Wind,' and team up with Legolas, Gimli, and friends both old and new to investigate the continuing threat of the Heirs of Castamir!
The Song of Waves and Wind
A new story debuts with Gondor Renewed called "The Song of Waves and Wind"! For characters level 140. Start the first chapter by speaking to Glindor in Minas Tirith (Midsummer)! This new story is available to anyone who is VIP, purchases the "Gondor Renewed" quest pack, or who purchases quest packs associated with the story that are released in the future.
King's Gondor Awaits
Gone are the gloomy dark skies, replaced with bright and sunny fields and hills. Players familiar with the original Central and Eastern Gondor regions will be familiar with King's Gondor from a navigation standpoint, but there are new additions, and places players previously could not go are now open to allow for further exploration!
The Quest Pack "Gondor Renewed" unlocks more than 80 quests and Deeds for level 140 characters. Includes King's Gondor East and The Song of Waves and Wind. Free to VIPs!
How do I get to King's Gondor?
Go to Minas Tirith (After Battle) and head South through the Pelennor Fields. Where there once stood an impassable is no more! Questing begins in this area of the Pelennor Fields and in the under-construction version of The Harlond. From there, you can explore Gondor up to Linhir, where the gates are currently closed.​

Landscape Difficulty: The Paths of Valour!

We have reworked the Landscape Difficulty setting system introduced with Treebeard and are now opening it to the general game worlds as an option! Read full details about this new Landscape Difficulty option in the release notes below.​ A new Faction and new rewards are now available by playing these higher difficulties. Activate your difficulty and adjust it in the future by speaking with a Hardened Traveller, which can be found in major hubs and new player zones throughout Middle-earth:
​

• Outside of the Prancing Pony in Bree
• Near the Stable Masters outside of the 21st Hall
• Just inside of the exit of Post-Raid Archet
• Just outside of Mossward
• Along the road Northward out of Celondim
• Just outside the door to Thorin's Hall
• Down the road from the Hobbit starter area exit waypoint

There are titles available for activating a difficulty of 3 or higher and keeping it there from level 10 to level 50, and then to level 130 respectively. The title granted depends on the class you play, but can be used by any character on your account. Make sure to select your Landscape Difficulty prior to achieving level 10 to be eligible for these titles! In order to earn these titles, you must keep the difficulty system active for the entire leveling span from level 10 thru 50/130. Entering areas of the game world where it is temporarily suppressed will not invalidate your title attempt, however turning it down or off via the Hardened Traveller will.

More Delvings!

More Delvings are now available! The Annúminas instances Glinghant, Haudh Valandil, and the Great Barrows instances Sambrog, Thadûr and The Maze have been converted to be playable as Delvings! Find them in the Instance Finder (Control+J by default).​

News and Notes

Classes

​

• Several player stun-removal skills were inappropriately flagged as 'Immediate' causing them to occasionally cancel themselves and fail to free you from stuns. These skills are now correctly 'Fast' rather than 'Immediate' skills.
• High Elf, Beorning, and Stout Axe Dwarf racial recall skills can now be used while mounted on any steed.
• Beorning
  
  • The Beorning Trait "Battle Born" now correctly gives additional critical damage for off-hand weapons.
• Brawler
  
  • The Brawler mounted combat skill "Take Breath" will now properly update the incoming healing rating when active.
  • Innate Strength: Raw Power
    • Fixed description of the trait to state that it grants +2.5/+5/+7.5/+10%.
    • No change was made to the actual bonus granted by the trait, This is purely a tooltip change to have it reflect real values.
  • Tracery Innate Strength: Damage/Threat
    • Skill bonus has been modified [+10%->+5%], but is now added directly to the value of Innate Strength: Raw Power buff, which makes it considerably more effective than it was previously.
• Burglar
  
  • Aim skill now works with 'Throw Knife'.
• Captain
  
  • Fighting Withdrawal can now be used while rooted to free yourself.
  • The class deed "Fear the Darkness" should now properly advance even if "Courageous Convocation" is traited.
  • Captain skill "Defensive Strike" is now properly affected by the tracery "Single Target Attack Damage".
  • The buff from Inspire: Self-motivation should now correctly overwrite itself rather than failing to apply when you still have a few seconds of duration remaining from your previous skill use.
• Champion
  
  • Blood Rage and Continuous Blood Rage are now both correctly labeled Fast, rather than Immediate, skills. This prevents you from accidentally double-clicking the skill and putting it on cooldown without gaining the CC-removal effect.
  • Tracery Swift Strike: Damage & Power Cost
    • Renamed to Swift Strike/Blade: Damage & Power Restore
    • Tracery now increases the Power restored by Swift Strike rather than reducing the (now non-existent) Power cost. Magnitude changed from [-33%->+20%].
• Guardian
  
  • The Cardolan Essence of Retaliation effects' durations no longer benefit from the War-chant duration legacy.
• Lore-master
  
  • Clever Escape is now a Fast skill. This prevents you from accidentally double-clicking the skill and putting it on cooldown without gaining the CC-removal effect.
• Rune-keeper
  
  • The skill "Do Not Fall this Day" no longer breaks the target of the skill out of Stealth.
• Warden
  
  • "Forced March" will no longer be toggled off when you enter combat. It still only applies a bonus to your out of combat Run Speed.
  • Seared Flesh now appropriately benefits from bonuses to your Fire Damage.
  • Readied Blade's buff now provides Disarm Immunity for its duration.
  • The trait 'Movement Training' now correctly increases Mitigation ratings from the Conviction and Dance of War buffs.
  • Damage dealt by the trait 'Taking Advantage' increased.

Crafting

​

• The crafting ingredients "Tuft of Torahammas' Fur", "Great Hoary Aurochs Hide" and "Speckled Shell Fragment" can now all be stored in crafting carryalls.
• Beasts in the Ettenmoors that drop crafting hides will now correctly drop Gundabad Hides instead of Eorlingas Hides.
• Crafters can now make two new tiers of selectable craftable essence boxes.
• Gundabad Skarn Deposits have been renamed to Brilliant Skarn Deposits.
• Frost-rimed Black Ash Branches have been renamed to Heavy Wind-swept Black Ash Branches.

Items & Rewards

​

• The Homestead Steed can now be correctly placed on a hitching post by hobbit, dwarf, and Stout-axe dwarf characters.
• Might-based selection boxes no longer reference or contain medium armour.
• Many medium Might-based armour pieces obtained from quests from levels 1-75 have been updated from medium to heavy armour.
• Enemies in Moria no longer drop obsolete Legendary Item rewards.
• The Distillation set now properly identifies itself as a Distillation set and not a Crock Pot.
• Incomparable Earrings received from the 3-stack instances from Return to Carn Dûm have had the names of their set bonuses changed to reflect the stats given by the items in their groups.
• The "Dwarf-make Helm" cosmetic has been renamed to "Dwarf-make Circlet".
• The Champion Legendary Item Tracery "Brutal Strikes Damage" now only appears in The Berserker barter profiles.
• The decorative band on the Sightseer's Straw Hat will now correctly display dye colors.
• The weapon Candelleth's Hammer is now categorized correctly in the Auction House.
• The Veteran of Helm's Deep Quartermaster now offers items for Beornings and Brawlers.
• The Homestead Steed can now be used in Zirakzigil as well as in Caras Galadhon and other appropriate areas in Lothlórien.

Landscape Difficulty

​

• We have reworked the Landscape Difficulty setting system introduced originally to Treebeard and made it available as an option to the general game worlds!
• We've added a new Faction and reward structure called The Paths of Valour that can be advanced by playing on higher difficulties.
• You can activate your difficulty setting by speaking with the Hardened Traveller that can be found in major hubs and new player zones who will offer you an array of quests representing the different difficulty levels.
  • Upon accepting and completing one of these quests, your challenges on the roads of Middle-earth will increase substantially.
  • The difficulty system turns itself off in group instances (3+), in the Ettenmoors, and any time the Delving system is activated. It will reactivate when you leave any of these areas.
• There are titles available for activating a difficulty of 3 or higher and keeping it there from level 10 to level 50, and then to level 130 respectively. The title granted depends on the class you play through with, but can be used by any character on your account.
  • In order to earn these titles, you must keep the difficulty system active for the entire leveling span from level 10 thru 50/130. Entering areas of the game world where it is temporarily suppressed will not invalidate your title attempt, however turning it down or off via the Hardened Traveller will.
  • Existing characters above level 10 will not be able to earn the titles themselves, but will be able to use those titles if they are earned by another character on your account.
• When playing at Fearless or higher, enemies of your own level or higher may drop Tokens of Heroism.
  • These can be turned in to complete weekly tasks from the Hardened Traveller, which will increase your reputation with the Paths of Valour faction.
  • At Fearless difficulty (3-6), these tokens can drop for up to 3 members in a Fellowship.
  • At Heroic difficulty (7+) they can drop for up to 6 members in a Fellowship.
  • The drop rate of these tokens increases somewhat with higher difficulties.
• The difficulty settings and effects are pretty much the same as they were on Treebeard, though we've changed up the names a bit, and added a few variations to the hotspot effects you can encounter under the Eye of Sauron.
• The Hardened Traveller has a menu of barter rewards that include a small set of Reputation accelerators for the faction and Morale/Power potions. More importantly, he also offers an array of 8 new Epic variations of familiar emotes which you will be able to find on the Collections panel.

General Landscape Changes:

​

• Court of Celeborn now has a map.
• Floating objects in the Allegiance Halls and in Mordor have been grounded.
• Incorrect textures in Minas Tirith has been resolved.

Localization

​

• Stablemaster map text has been updated for the German game client.

Missions and Delvings

​

• Delving Barter Vendors and Mission Givers have also been added to all our Skirmish Camps. We did this to make it easier to turn in delving quests no matter where players are. Delving Mission Givers have also been given that title as a role to make it easy to spot them.
• Created a Selectable Delving Extraordinary Box that only drops in instances at tiers 7+. While still rare, new instances have a significantly higher drop rate for this item.
• The Delving Tracery Archive Travel Skill no longer has any reputation requirements.
• Mission: Jorthkyn and the Hounds
  • The Mission now appropriately identifies that you need to kill 8 wargs along with the 8 Jorthkyn to advance the quest.
  • The Mission had some pesky low-level monsters that really wanted to get in on the fight. They have been reprimanded to stay in their lanes.
• Fixed an issue with the mission "Dangerous Deliveries" where the player would pick the pie up twice upon completing the induction to pick up the pie.
• The bridge in the mission Patrol the Township that was bereft of physics has found its physics and will now support your character as it should.
• Before the Shadow missions that referred to previous mission givers have been updated with references to current mission givers.
• The mission "The Nettinglade" had a single cocoon that decided it didn't want to sparkle. The spider responsible has been admonished and though it pledged to swallow all Light in the world, it relented and allowed it's cocoon to sparkle once again.
• Delving Reward Changes:
  • Delving Selectable Crafting Boxes that drop at tier 7 and above can now be disenchanted instead for 20 Delvings Writs. These boxes now have a six hour expiration timer on them. These changes do not affect existing Crafting Boxes.
  • Changed how many writs completing Delving quests give. Tier 1-3 now give 10 writs, Tier 4-6 give 20 writs, Tier 7-9 give 30 writs and Tier 10-12 give 40 writs.
  • Two new cosmetic pets added to Delving Barter.
  • Delving armour will now be disenchantable for more Delving Writs. Common armour will disenchant for 10 writs, rare armour will disenchant for 20 writs, incomparable armour for 30 writs.
  • Added Tier 1 and Tier 2 Essence Boxes to the Delving Barter for Writs, and removed Tier 0.
  • Added Morale and Power Potions to the Delving Barter for Writs. Morale and Power potions also drop as rewards from high tier instance Delving Chests.
• Delving Mission Givers in Skirmish Camps now give Weekly Delving Quests.
• Mission - Defilers in the Dale - Corrected a visual bug where the cauldron's contents and bubbles could become visibly offset after being destroyed.
• Rewards that drop from Delvings have been updated with new Delving-specific icons.

PvMP

​

• We have adjusted the distribution of Infamy/Renown while grouped. In the past, there was a modifier that increased the value of player kills when more than 6 kill contributors were involved. This resulted in the value of a single kill, while in a raid, to be valued over 2x what the kill should have been worth.
  • We have adjusted this modifier to make these values - in the absence of any other modifiers - equivalent to equal distribution of the infamy value of the kill.
  • We have adjusted the bonus modifier to infamy/renown gains when killing ranked players. This change rewards a higher contribution bonus for killing players of a higher rank.
• The War-spoils Carry-all icons have been updated and no longer display a bottle of liquid
• Lootboxes found by monster players now always drop 3 items from three specific tables:
  • Table 1 includes potions, barter lockboxes, and the potential for 500 commendations with weighting toward the barter box, and then equivalent draws for the remaining items.
  • Table 2 includes an equal chance for random perk items from a pool of 5 items.
  • The 3rd table has an equal chance to drop a single Audacity upgrade scroll, 2 Audacity upgrade scrolls, Lord's Symbols, Captain's Marks, 1k Commendations, 1.5k Commendations or a new Cosmetic Selection Box.
    • The Cosmetic Selection Box contains 2 new skins for each class. Previews are available on NPCs present near the Gramsfoot retreat circle.
    • The Selection Box also contains several new cosmetic weapons: Thrâng's Sword, a silvered scimitar, a spider-clan trident, an off-hand Gundabad mace, a Spider-clan staff, an Easterling Ghost Bow, and a new Dunharrow Shield.
    • The Box also contains a new cosmetic type that can be slotted into appearance Corruptions to change the style of your 'March!' skill emitted effects. These include: a white glow, fire trail, acid trail, and a "blue-foot" trail.
• The eggs around Grodris in the Isendeep Mine will now hatch if disturbed during the battle against the matron.
• Fixed an issue with the first and second marshal rewards not providing keys to the chest. The quests for First and Second marshal now correctly reward the key to the chest.
• Tokens of Valour will now go into the War-spoils Carry-all.
• Updated the new Monster Play tutorial to reference using skills on training dummy Kelsen, Jalessa, or Light training-dummy Orion. If you choose the other training dummies you are locked in combat for the full duration of the spawn - which is five minutes. This is bad. Please use the safety dummies. Use those initial skill training dummy Kelsen, Jalessa, or Light training-dummy Orion.
• First Marshal An and Tyrant Uzulthrang are back in action and ready to rush Tol Ascarnen when the opposition is in control. The rewards on the quests to use these two is increased significantly. Each has also been buffed appropriately.
• All values and costs for Lainedhal's Insignias were reduced. You can now purchase the old versions for nostalgia, but the tier 15 version is available to all rank 1 players and better for 2000 commendations and has a 1m cooldown just as the monster player brand.
• The Rank 9 mount available in monster play now has a full +68% movement bonus because it should have been upgraded along with all other mounts that are this hard to get.
• We adjusted the damage done by Spider Hatchlings to be more in line with creatures that are level 140.
• There was a bug introduced when we lowered the cost of monster play potions where we did not lower the amount purchasable from the barter NPC. This has been corrected and now you can only purchase in stacks of three.
• Mazauk and Old Goldhead have been refreshed and stand ready to help you capture Lugazag or Tirith Rhaw.
• Old U21 gear was using old Audacity values. This has been reduced to 1.
• Freepside Ettenmoors quests now award considerably more IXP when completed.
• The Freepside weekly quest, 'Battle Across the Ettenmoors' now gives slightly improved rewards.
• Many monster player skill power costs have been adjusted. In particular, several healing skills cost substantially more power.
• The base critical heal multiplier for most Creepside heals has been reduced from 1.5 to 1.2.
• Increased damage of ranger session play skills.
• Orc Defiler
  
  • Cooldowns reduced for Fertile Slime and Fungal Spores.
  • Fungal Spores initial heal potency reduced.
  • Enhanced Fungal Spores now rolls for a critical heal on each pulse, rather than following the critical outcome of the initial skill use.
  • Fertile Slime no longer has an initial heal.
  • Healing from Improved Blessing of Darkness now occurs every 1 second, rather than every 2 seconds.
  • Constant Pain now pulses healing every 2 seconds, and will restore some power to the defiler when it does.
• Orc Reaver
  
  • Blade Toss now only applies its slow and/or knockdown effects to targets facing away from you.
• Spider Weaver
  
  • Several spider animations should no longer slow down when you gain attack speed buffs.
  • Trapdoor Sanctuary now lasts 10 seconds; when traited, it will heal 5% of your max health each second.
• New Potions (of Bravery and Essence) are now correctly usable by the Free Peoples.
  
• Insignias now have a 3 minute cooldown and provide 15 seconds of combat state immunity (Tyrant Brands still have a 1 minute cooldown and only provide 5 seconds of immunity for now).
  
• Alwuld the Item Trader now carries the updated Morale and Power potions.
  
• Potions of Essence now correctly restore different amounts of Power, according to their quality and rank requirements.
  

Quests, Deeds and Instances

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• Tier 4 of Gwathrenost, the Witch-king's Citadel is available.
• All slayer deeds in the Wells of Langflood, will now properly reward players with LOTRO Points.
• Gwathrenost, the Witch-king's Citadel - The final Objective of 'The Storming of Gwathrenost' now functions similarly to 'Into the Hiddenhoard, allowing the Player the choice of whether or not to abandon the quest after completing it. The option to complete the quest via the Quest Actions panel was causing some players to mistakenly erase their progress in a given reset cycle, so this has been removed.
• Azanulbizar - Quest: Death in the Dale - The quest guide for this quest has been corrected to highlight the proper area.
• Azanulbizar - Quest: Elusive Prey - The quest guide now properly highlights the general locations of all the Rare foes in Azanulbizar.
• Sagroth - The Sewer Water debuff that can be applied to players during the Gárvadach encounter now carries the resistance type "disease" instead of "corruption".
• Several fading or overlapping combat music bugs have been fixed in the Race of Man and hobbit tutorials, the Archet raid, and the Trouble at Tuckborough skirmish.

Miscellaneous

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• The Allegiance panel can now be resized an additional horizontal distance.
• Certain Brawler Belt Buckles were appearing under the Lore-master class in searches in the Auction House. That has been fixed.
• Upgraded the compiler used to compile the 32 bit game client to make it compatible with upgraded OpenAL.
• Clydesdale mounts can now be used in Thorin's Hall and the Hall Under the Mountain
• The Assistant Stable-master at Elrond's Stables in Rivendell douses the horse less frequently.
• Facepaint rewards acquired from Hobnanigans now correctly shows on Human avatars.
• The Draught Horse cosmetic pets received in the Homesteads and Harvests Coffers have been renamed to "Miniature" Draught horses.
• Matching full size Draught horse cosmetic pet tomes have been granted (account-wide) to everyone that purchased the Homesteads and Harvests Coffers.
• The Homestead Steed mount scale has been increased to match the expected size of a draught horse. Many animation issues have been resolved for the Homestead Steed mount as well.
• Updated the icon for the Stoorvales/Clegur Milestone and for the Clegur travel skills.
• Several Run Speed buffs and debuffs were overwriting effects of greater potency. Player-applied Run Speed Effects should now only overwrite effects of the same kind (out of combat speed buff, in combat speed buff, or debuff) and the most potent effect should always be the one which is actively applied.

Known Issues:

​

• In French and German the Tokens of Heroism may display as Tokens of Valour.
• The Stable-master panel in Collections has not been updated to include King's Gondor.
• The Deeds "Boar-slayer of Lower Lebennin" and "Boar-slayer of Lower Lebennin (Advanced)" are not bestowing/advancing properly.

I met my ex in 2012, right after he turned 20 and I had just turned 30. I had only dated and been with women exclusively until I came out as bi-sexual at 28. Let’s just say the year I was 29 was a busy year making up for what I missed out on. It was mostly casual hookups (yes, safe) and I did try dating 2 different guys for a few weeks, but it just never worked out or got serious. I kinda figured that I’d probably end up marrying a woman or not getting married at all because I just didn’t see myself catching romantic and sexual feelings for a guy.
Then I met Ryan. From the first date it was just like the only other time in my life I had fallen in love…butterflies, constantly thinking about him, wanting to spend every moment with him. He fell for me hard too and we became an item, though he did say while he considered my bisexuality a turn on, because he had a thing for straight guys, it also gave him pause because of my desires for the opposite sex and his concern it may lead me astray. I thought about it and understood it was a legitimate worry, but assured him that I couldn’t even think about anyone else because I was really into him. Note: I knew he was the one by the end of the first month and I was in love, but I wasn’t going to say these things too soon and risk scaring him off.
On our first date he admitted to me that he was legally blind due to a genetic disorder and that it was progressive and eventually he would only have a sliver of his peripheral vision. He immediately said he understood if I didn’t want to see him again because no other guy had wanted to date him and be his driver all of the time. I grew up with a brother in a wheelchair who never learned how to walk or talk due to misdiagnosed meningitis at 6 months old back in the 70s. I told him that and said that what my brother had was a severe disability, so in my perspective, his blindness had no effect in my feelings and that always being the driver was a small sacrifice just to be with him.
The next 3 years were bliss. We brought out the best in each other. My family who was surprised, but very supportive when I came out, adored Ryan and treated him like family and said that I acted happier since we’d been together. When I met him he was working part-time in retail and had done very poorly in high school because he lost a lot of his confidence as his vision deteriorated. I told him that one thing I did insist on was that he do something with his life because he had too much to offer and that I would help. He said that he’d wanted to be a teacher but didn’t think someone with limited vision could teach….nonsense. So I put him through community college for 2 years, then 2.5 years of a local university and finally the 1 year teacher certification program as required by California. I drove countless miles and paid hundreds in public transportation costs for him, never blinking an eye or complaining.
We’d been together for 7.5 years and were engaged to be married in October by the time he was in his last semester of his teaching certification which involved him student teaching at his former high school with his favorite teacher from his days in school. Then the pandemic hit and schools closed. Fortunately he’d had enough hours in the classroom that he would still qualify to be certified after the Governor issued a waiver via executive order. On the 3rd day of the stay at home order in March my life crumbled when I innocently found out he had cheated on me with an ex all because he handed his phone to me to show me something on Instagram. I accidentally fat thumbed the back arrow when he gave it to me taking me back to a list of all his messages. I looked and recognized the name of his ex as the second message, dated a week ago. I clicked on it and my heart sank. Directions to my house, pictures, dirty talk, and reassuring him not to worry about me because he had my location on my “Find My Friends,” just in case I came home from work.
I immediately started screaming demanding to know everything and he admitted to having his ex over twice for sex and that they didn’t use protection (his ex was engaged to his gf during this, adding another victim). Then he admitted to sleeping with his straight but curious recently single cousin (by marriage) twice, again no protection. Finally he admitted to sleeping with a supposedly straight guy he and many of my cousins went to school with who I told Ryan I really didn’t like him or want them talking because I didn’t trust him. Since they were never close friends I didn’t feel like this was a big sacrifice or that I was being too controlling AND I assumed that he knew why I (and all my cousins) felt that way, but didn’t bother repeating it. The reason was after high school at age 20 this guy was convicted of sexual assault and penetration with a foreign object against a 16 year old girl and had gone to jail and required to register as a sex offender for life. Apparently my ex was the only person in his graduating class that hadn’t heard that news. All of this happened in my home while I was working.
We spent the whole weekend crying with me asking over and over why and him repeatedly crying and saying he just didn’t know and that he felt terrible. Monday comes around and anger started being as common as sadness and I made a comment that said I was going to pull all the phone records going back the 3 years that AT&T kept them (for a fee). Only when he heard that did he admit to one more guy. Some random named Frankie off the gay hookup app Grindr who was the first guy he cheated with and continued to casually hookup with for nearly 2 years with the last time being in February (the month before).
He told me how it started. Get this – it was the DAY AFTER his graduation with his BA in May 2018 and he was drunk from celebrating and wanted to have sex. I too had been celebrating with him and said I was too drunk to perform and said I’d make it up the next day, then passed out asleep on the couch. Apparently he was “angry horny” because he downloaded Grindr, chatted with this Frankie fellow and arranged to have sex in his car in a church parking lot across the street from our condo (which happens to be across the street from a school…this fact is important later), all while I slept on the couch. All the times they hooked up after that was again in my condo while I was working or visiting a friend for the night up the coast (he used to love going but started saying he couldn’t occasionally because of “homework” and “studying.”
I absolutely lost it, told him to get in the car and I drove him to his family’s house so he could tell them what he did so they understood why he was moving back into their house. While he was in the house I was in the driveway on the phone with AT&T ordering the 3 years worth of detailed call/text logs, then made an appointment to be screened for STIs. I also changed his number (he’d had it for years, but I took it over and added it to my plan 2-3 before because his parents were tired of paying it), then suspended his service, deleted his social media and changed all his passwords so only I would have access to his cloud. I also called the bank and issued a stop payment on his final tuition check that I had sent to the certification program the week before and hadn’t hit the bank yet. Before deleting his social media, except Facebook, I took screenshots of the entire Instagram conversation with his ex and mailed the conversation to his fiancée, who deserved to know so she could see a doctor too. His family was very religious and had kicked him out in high school for 3 days when he tried to admit he was bi and only took him back in when he took it back. Needless to say, she ended it, he got kicked out. ONE DOWN.
He came back out to the car and we went home. I took his house key and told him to say goodbye to our 3 pets and get packing. The entire time he packed I studied those phone records to find out dates, times and if there was anyone else he was leaving out. He answered every question I asked and it was then that I discovered that the sex offender and he had only had oral sex in my home and that the actual sex was in the same parking lot he screwed the Frankie guy in.
The wheels started turning and the next day I went over there and sure enough spotted a camera. I spoke to a secretary at the church and informed them about a registered sex offender having sex in their lot and that not only was it a violation of his parole for indecent exposure, but that he was not allowed to be that close to a school and I provided the date. I was in luck! They had a digital two year loop system that started deleting day by day after it had been retained for 2 years +1 day. It was April 2020 and he first cheated with Frankie in May 2018 and the sex offender was in April 2019. I told them I was filing a police report and that probation would require a copy of it eventually. They said they would save the file and allowed me a thumb drive of both days to submit with my police report. Within a month the sex offender was locked up again. TWO DOWN.
I also filed a police report against the Frankie guy. The police said it was a relatively minor infraction but since it was across from a school playground and skate park they would follow up but there would be no jail time. I researched the hell out of Frankie and called him to confront him. He was smug and admitted to knowing about me the whole time. What he didn’t know is that I had found out he had a job that required a security clearance and he had several judgements against him and collection agencies had been looking for him. I didn’t know why they couldn’t find him and just garnish his wages, but it ends up he was Hispanic and had two last names and was a Jr., plus he frequently by his middle name Francisco, Frankie for short…so he got lost in the paperwork confusion. I sent a letter to the collection agencies providing his employer and current location and contact info and then sent a copy of the police report about misdemeanor indecent exposure for which he pled guilty and it was a fine with community service (not considered a sex crime). His wages did get garnished, but only for two paychecks because the misdemeanor was enough for him to lose his security clearance and get fired. THREE DOWN.
Then I contacted Ryan’s family on his mother’s side pretending to be him from his Facebook account making sure they knew he had fucked his cousin. It spread through the family like wildfire and soon his cousin was contacting me because he couldn’t get a hold of Ryan to ask why he would expose what they did. I just laughed and said you shouldn’t screw your cousins, especially when they’re engaged and that he’d messed around in my house, so now it was my turn for payback. FOUR DOWN.
Lastly, I had already stopped payment but since he was so close to finishing I was sure his family would bail him out and pay the university. Like I said, indecent exposure is usually a slap on the wrist type misdemeanor. However, I remembered some of the paperwork he signed to be a mandated reporter that you could lose teaching certification for “documented acts of moral turpitude.” I sent a copy of both police reports from the parking lot with still shots from the security footage clearly showing Ryan’s face to the school district he’d been student teaching in and a copy to the Commission on Teacher Credentials. FIFTH AND FINAL DOWN!
Admittedly, I did all this out of anger but he shattered my sense of self-worth and made me incredibly bitter and untrusting after years of being generous and supporting him. Everywhere I looked in the town I thought of Ryan and the cheating. I felt a terrible energy in my condo knowing it all happened there. I stayed 9 months and watched all 5 of their lives self-destruct. Then sold my condo (making a nice profit) and relocated to the PNW to start over. One thing that is sad is I found out just recently that his ex-who’s fiancé broke up with him ended up committing suicide several months after I moved. It is too bad that his family was so closed minded to turn on their own son, but in the end, it’s not my fault that he cheated on his fiancé by coming into my home at my fiancé’s invitation to cheat.
TLDR: I emotionally and financially supported my ex through college and his teacher credential program for over 7 years only to discover he had cheated on me with 4 different guys, one of them the day after he graduated and then occasionally for nearly two years in my home while I was at work. I took my revenge: My ex lost his career before it even started and our relationship, one AP (affair partner) lost his job and had bill collectors after him, another lost his fiancée and was kicked out, a third was humiliated when his entire family found out he had sex with his cousin and the fourth was put in jail for a violating probation. Lesson: Don't Cheat and Deceive.

https://www.reddit.com/nosleep/comments/13u9t3m/my_father_always_kept_the_shed_locked_today_i/Part 1:
The darkness around us was oppressive, cloying and total. Anywhere we weren’t pointing our flashlights would turn into a solid wall of black, impenetrable shadows. But we could hear something. As we walked further down the hallway, we heard soft footsteps and giggling.
Sometimes, it sounded like it came from directly behind us. At other times, it would come from the rooms all around us, the endless rooms that split off the hallway on both sides. We found some strange things in those rooms as we walked slowly, the gun raised in my hand and the bowie knife raised in my brother’s.
There were corpses in some of the rooms. Many had partially mummified in the dry, chilly air down here. Others were clearly fresher. One woman was hanging from the rafters with a note pinned to her chest. I looked back at Gil when we reached this part of the hall. We had stayed out of the rooms since the incident with the little boy, but some deep innate curiosity needed to know what was on this note. Gil nodded at me, and we walked forward side by side, scanning every corner of the room and looking behind smashed-out fish tanks and torn sofas covered in black mold for any signs that we weren’t alone in here. Once we were both satisfied, we returned to the young woman hanging in the center of the room.
She had somehow climbed up to the ceiling, opened a panel and found a sturdy enough beam or rafter to tie the rope to. Yet there was no ladder or anything remotely tall enough to reach the ceiling nearby. It was somewhat of a mystery. I explained this to Gil, who looked somewhat confused- and alarmed. He clearly hadn’t realized it until I pointed it out to him.
I turned back to the woman’s corpse, picking off the note, which had been stuck into the front of her blouse with a huge wooden splinter. Gil kept a look-out while I read, shining his light back and forth in a circle across the room, holding his ridiculously huge knife in the other hand like some sort of medieval swordsman. I saw with increasing horror that the note appeared to have been written in the woman’s own blood. Looking at her body, I saw a deep slash on her left arm, one that had clotted days ago. I looked back down at the desperate message this dying woman had left for us.
“To anyone who finds this,
“My name is Michaela Mansfield. I came in here by accident through the sewers underneath the town of Caplin. My two friends and I went exploring and got separated after a girl in our group twisted her ankle. I went forward alone to find help while my other friend stayed behind with the injured girl. After perhaps a day of being lost, my flashlight started to die, and I thought I was going to die with it. And then I saw fluorescent lights up ahead. They were flickering and looked like they might sputter out at any moment, but it was the only hope I had. I followed the lights and found myself in this hallway. When I tried to turn around and go back, the entrance to the sewers had disappeared. It was just a hallway that seemed to extend forever, the one that has haunted me for weeks now.
“Please, if you find this note, tell my parents what happened to me. Take my golden locket and return it to my mother and father as proof. I hope you have better luck getting out of here than I did.
“Goodbye, and may God forgive me for what I’m about to do.
“-Michaela.”
I looked up at Gil, with one eyebrow raised. I saw he had been reading the note over my shoulder rather than keeping a look-out. I sighed, deciding not to say anything.
“We can’t take the locket,” I said. Gil shook his head.
“We have to take the locket,” he said.
“They’re going to think we had something to do with this girl’s death if we just show up randomly with a piece of her jewelry. Actually, I think I remember when this girl and her friends went missing. It was on the news. Her parents were pleading for anyone with information to come forward. I think the cops were acting on the suspicion that it was murder or kidnapping or something. But they probably just went exploring without telling anyone and never came back.”
“We’ll wipe it down and send it anonymously through the mail with a note explaining what happened,” he said. I sighed, giving up. He was right. It was the right thing to do. But I’m sure many innocent men have gone to prison over trying to do the right thing. I pointed to the note.
“This doesn’t help us at all,” I said. He shrugged.
“Maybe it does, and maybe it doesn’t. It doesn’t really help us formulate a plan, but it does give us information. For example, now we know that this place probably connects to a lot more places than the shed. We might be able to get out through dozens or hundreds of exits. If it connects to a random sewer over in Caplin, then it could connect to places all over the county.”
“True,” I said, “but what if it connects to some alien world? Or to a black hole? What if it connects to some point in the void between galaxies and we get sucked out to our deaths?” He simply shrugged again, seeming apathetic to these possibilities.
“Well, in that case,” he said smugly, a half-smile forming on his lips, “our deaths would probably be a lot quicker than they would at the hands of these creatures down here.” Then he started laughing. It sounded eerie in this dark, forlorn place, where everything smelled like yeast and the floors were all wet substrates growing strange jungles of alien molds. He reached forward and took the golden locket off of the woman’s neck, placing it carefully in his pocket. We started walking out of the room together.
“Also,” I said, “the note seems to imply that the entrances are temporary. She couldn’t find her way back out after she got in here. What if they’re all like that? What if they’re like… I don’t know, lobster traps, or Venus fly traps, or something? They draw people in here, and then once they’re inside…” I stopped speaking as soon as I realized I heard someone following us.
I heard running footsteps. A high-pitched giggling started, then was cut off. We both stood there in the darkness, our flashlights pointing forward. Then the voice of that demonic little girl started up, high-pitched and somewhat inhuman-sounding. Her words all had a strange hoarseness to them, an uncanny valley sound as if she were only imitating human emotions and human speech.
“Adam’s ‘It’, but he won’t play,” she said sulkily, her voice bouncing off the walls, the rapid beat of the footsteps approaching nearer and nearer. “He says his throat hurts. So I guess I’m ‘It’! You better run!”
“God dammit,” Gil said, swinging his giant knife around from side to side as if he were going to bat a mosquito with it. His light flashed and wavered as he tried to keep a watch on all sides. But I knew she was coming from behind us. I could feel it. I kept my light shining down there, the gun raised, trying to emanate a calm I didn’t feel. Then I saw a flash of blue, zigzagging crazily past a chair leg and the snapped remains of a folding table, tiny legs pumping at a superhuman speed. She looked like little more than an approaching blur.
“Listen to me very carefully,” I said, trying to keep my gun pointed on her. “We need to cut off her head.”
“What?!” Gil said. “Why?”
“Last time, bullets didn’t work on…” I began, but then she was on us, no more than a few feet away, jumping over the discarded junk that intermittently appeared on the sides of the hallway. And then I felt myself knocked over by a tremendous force that took the air right out of my lungs.
I still had my hands crossed in front of me, one holding the gun and the other the flashlight. The skeletal face of the creature was mere inches away from my own, biting and gnashing madly. I could see small muscles in the back of her mouth working furiously. She was pushing down on my arms with all of her strength, which was far more than such a small body seemed to suggest.
The gun was pressed closely to the front of her chest. I was about to pull the trigger when I felt the weight start to lift off of me. I saw Gil behind her, wrapping his arm around her neck and pulling her back. She still gnashed and bit in a mad frenzy, small droplets of blood and saliva dripping off her mouth and into my face. She kicked her body back and forth like an enraged snake, freeing her neck from Gil’s grasp. He went to grab her, and her skeletal face opened up wide, the jaw hanging halfway down her neck.
With the speed of a cat snatching a mouse, she leapt forward, snapping her jaw around some of the fingers on Gil’s left hand. I saw his index and middle finger disappear into her mouth, and he began to scream in agony.
I was scrambling back to my feet by this point. I ran at the girl, using all of my body weight to push her. She went tumbling on the floor, her mouth flying open as she landed hard on the wood. Two mutilated fingers flew out, rolling across the floor and disappearing into a dome of black mold. I was sweating heavily now, drops of perspiration rolling down my forehead and stinging my eyes. I tried to wipe them away, thinking of what to do. My mind screamed at me to shoot, to empty my entire magazine into this little monster, but I knew in my heart that it would just be wasting bullets. Deep down, I knew what I had told Gil earlier was true- we had to cut off her head. Just like in the old myths of vampires or demons, I had a deep instinctual feeling that fire or decapitation would be the only way to deal with her, and as for fire, we had no flamethrowers.
“Gil!” I said. “Get ready!” He was holding his spurting hand tightly against his chest, still grasping the bowie knife in his right. His face was alarmingly pale and white, and I wondered if he might not just pass out right here and doom both of us. But he hadn’t dropped the knife, even while fighting the writhing monster, even while getting his fingers bitten off. He is stronger than he looks, I reassured myself.
A sense of calm and clarity overcame me then, and I saw what I needed to do. The demonic girl was getting up, growling and spitting and laughing. I ran over and stomped on her back, putting my full weight on her body to drive her back down. Then I took the pistol and shot her through the back of the kneecaps, one bullet for each.
She wailed as dark red blood poured out of her small legs, turning her head almost all the way back to try and bite me. Her hands were changing, the small fingers lengthening and darkening into sharp, black claws, and I knew our time was running out.
“Now!” I yelled, and Gil ran forward, using his right hand to swing the bowie knife. I watched it fall in a descending arc, as if in slow motion, watched it approach the spitting skeletal face that looked at us with black eyes and unfathomable hatred. It went clean through, and was so sharp that for a split second, the head stayed there, the face blank, looking like it was still attached to the body. Then it tumbled forward, dark blood spurting out of the neck and staining the white and gold molds underneath with its crimson hue.
Gil fell back against the wall, breathing fast. He dropped the bowie knife on the floor. I saw his flashlight, still on, had rolled against an ancient wheelchair that was probably new back in the 1960s. I stopped and grabbed it, shoving it in my pants belt so it would give me more light to work with. Gil still had his hand clasped to his chest. Slowly, I put my hands forward and grasped his injured hand by the wrist. He inhaled deeply, gritting his teeth and closing his eyes.
“We’re going to need to wrap it in something,” I said. He nodded. I took off my shirt and started ripping long slices from the bottom, then wrapping them around his hand tightly in an attempt to slow the bleeding. When I got to the fingers, he flinched and seemed to waver on his feet. I reached a hand out in case he was about to fall over, but he managed to steady himself. “All done,” I told him as I put my shirt back on, which was missing the bottom third portion now and looked rather absurd, almost as if I was wearing a woman’s crop top.
“It feels like my hand’s on fire,” Gil said in a hoarse whisper. “We’re going to need water, too.” I was feeling the start of dehydration pangs myself.
“That girl, Michaela, her note said she was stuck in here for weeks. That must mean there’s water. Assuming her counting was correct, seeing as there’s no sun or sky to go by. If there was no water, she would have died after a few days, especially being on the move,” I said. I was hoping that we would find food as well, but it wasn’t really life or death. I knew that we could potentially go weeks without food and still live, even though it would feel extremely unpleasant and weaken us physically. I sighed, shining my flashlight at Gil.
“Ready to keep going?” I asked, and then the lights started turning back on. Most of them were still either out or flickering on and off rapidly, but enough of them were lit to see down the hall.
“Oh, thank God,” Gil said. “At least now we’re not walking through this junkyard in the fucking dark.” Up ahead, I saw something new as well. It looked like the hallway forked off. I pointed at it, and Gil’s eyes widened. “Finally, after walking for endless miles, this place does something!” As we neared it, I saw there was even a sign. One pointed left, reading, “To Veriden”. The other pointed right, reading, “To Rusty Township”.
“Hmm…” I said, “I’ve never heard of either of those places. They’re definitely not in the county.” Gil’s dark brown eyes looked past me, into the room behind us, and they widened. I reached for the pistol, turning quickly, but I found nothing but a mostly empty, half-lit room. Against the corner was a vending machine and a soda machine.
“Oh thank God!” I said, running forward, reaching in my pocket for some money. Then I remembered I had left my wallet at home. After all, I thought we were just going into the shed. Gil strode right past me.
“Don’t be an idiot,” he said, taking the butt of his bowie knife and smashing the glass of the vending machine. “You don’t need money. Who’s going to call the cops, the walking undead and demons here?” He pulled out brands I had never heard of: Overholser’s Beef Jerky, chocolate bars with caramel and peanuts called Eisenhearts, Took’s salt-water taffy and Riza’s fruit snacks. The other vending machine was no less alien, as I smashed it with the butt of the gun and found Springy’s Lemon-Lime Soda, Kanna-brand cola and Saint Kristoff’s Ginger Ale, among others. Not one of the brands was recognizable from our world.
We tore into the food with ravenous hunger, chugging bottle after bottle of soda. It all tasted similar enough to what we expected, though some of it was rather strange. The ginger ale, for example, had small silver shavings on the bottom of each bottle, their trademark gimmick, and Gil swallowed them and nearly ended up choking. I smacked his back hard, laughing.
“I don’t think you’re supposed to drink those,” I said sarcastically. We were filling up our pockets when the drumming started from down the hall. It was so sudden and loud in the otherwise perfect silence that I jumped nearly a foot, spinning around and taking out the gun. It was becoming second-nature to me by this point, and so much adrenaline was constantly pounding through my body that I was as jumpy as a cat.
The drumming grew louder and fast. It reminded me of the drums some ancient Aztecs must have used when cutting out the hearts of prisoners of war. It had a deep, primal beat to it that would be useful for stirring people up during acts of savagery and violence. It was coming from the direction labeled “Rusty Township”. I could barely hear myself think over the intensity of the drum beats. I tried to motion to Gil that I would go first since I had the gun but that he should stay right behind me, but he looked like he was just smiling and nodding and likely hadn’t understood a bit of what I was trying to communicate. Sighing, I started forward down the corridor.
I peaked my head around the next corner, where a doorway opened up into a huge gymnasium. The ceiling towered over me. I saw dirty, disheveled people standing in a semi-circle around a metal coffin that was stood up on one end against the back wall. Blood was pouring out the bottom, following a river of clotted gore that stretched across the gymnasium and curved off to the right corner. The people surrounding the metal coffin were laughing, clapping their hands and cheering, stomping their feet in time with the beats. I saw scurvy blossoms and festering sores across their faces and exposed skin. And, for the first time since we had gotten lost down here, there were windows around the edge of this massive chamber, windows showing the outside world. I ran over, looking out.
I saw a city on fire, the buildings burning and sending up thick, black plumes of smoke. It reminded me of what Berlin at the end of World War II must have looked like. Fronts of houses had collapsed inwards, the streets were cracked and filled with debris and I saw bodies hanging from lampposts up and down the street. Many of them were so old that the ropes were starting to fray. Some of the bodies had started to mummify, with thin, papery skin clinging tightly to desiccated muscles and hanging jaws.
Around the corners of houses and alleyways, I caught glimpses of strange shapes: crouching half-animal, half-human beings who carried sledgehammers and long knives, robed figures who seemed to float over the devastated and cracked ground, and children with red skin who I saw crawling up walls on all fours like geckos.
The drums stopped as suddenly as they had started. My ears were still ringing. I turned back to the semi-circle of sickly, dirty people. They had stopped their clapping and dancing and cheering, and now just stood like statues, staring at Gil and me with flat, dead eyes.
“You shouldn’t stare into the Township,” a thin woman with filthy black hair said. A strange accent crept into her words, one that I had never heard before. “Strange things live in there, and they come out when the drums stop.” She stepped forward, whispering. “We keep them away by giving a sacrifice every time the drumbeats come. The blood satisfies the ones in the city and the others in the halls. We will all have our turn in the coffin, sure enough.”
Another member of their group stepped forward and opened up the metal coffin. I saw long, thin spikes sliding out of a body, and then a pale form fell out, landing on the dirty floor with a wet smacking sound. The smell of coppery blood in the air was now overwhelming. Gil and I both gasped in unison as we saw this form on the floor was a person, a young woman in fact, almost totally drained of blood. Dozens of puncture marks were sliced into her face, neck, stomach, legs and arms. An expression of pain and horror was frozen onto her dead face, her wide, staring eyes looking up at the ceiling.
“You killed her!” Gil said, aghast, still clutching his mutilated hand close to his body in an unconscious gesture of his anxiety and fear. “Why? Why would you put someone from your own group in an iron maiden?”
“Iron maiden?” the woman with the black hair in front responded. “Aye, that’s as good a name for it as any. We call her the steel mistress in my world, in my time, and the steel mistress sees a lot of use…” She gestured out the window, her face emotionless. “You see my world, after all. It is a place that always reeks of death, and more often than not, reeks of fire too.”
“What part of the United States is this?” Gil asked, gesturing out the window. The woman frowned.
“I do not know these ‘United States’,” she said, shrugging.
“What country are you from?” he asked.
“Why, Victoriat, of course. But Victoriat only has three states. Rusty Township was the capitol, until ‘twas attacked by the Black Hand Allegiance soldiers. We’re all refugees from Rusty here,” she said sadly.
“This isn’t getting us anywhere,” I said to Gil under my breath. He nodded, sighing.
“Can you tell us how to get back to the stone steps? Big, circular stone steps that go around and around?” Gil asked the woman in one last attempt to get a sensical answer out of her. She nodded her grimy face.
“Aye, in the center of the Undergraves,” she said, pointing past the iron maiden and the dead body on the ground. I realized that there was a sign up on the ceiling in front of the next corridor, one pointing left and saying, “To Rusty Township center” and one pointing right and saying, “To the Undergraves”. The sign was so covered in dust and specks of black mold that it was no wonder I hadn’t seen it.
“Do you have any maps of this place?” I asked the dirty woman and her friends. They all shook their heads.
“There are no maps of the Undergraves, but the stairs be at the center. You just take a right here and follow the path straight. Ignore all forks to the right or left, just keep following it straight…” We were walking away fast now, trying to leave these lunatics behind. “But you’d be mad to go there now after the drums just stopped!” Her voice was fading rapidly as Gil and I ran forward.
“Those people were fucking nuts,” Gil said. “Killing each other just because they think the blood keeps away demons.”
“Brother,” I said through heavy breaths, “if you and I lived down here for a few months, we would be just as crazy as those people.”
As we jogged into the Undergraves, I realized the walls were turning into something organic and pulsating, like being in some huge intestine. Massive forks to the left and right appeared every few hundred feet. From them, dark shapes appeared, stepping forward. They moved shakily, blurring as they stepped to the right or left randomly, their mouths opened wide and seeming to be filled with blackness. Their eyes looked like pure black sockets, and the rest of their body was no more than a shaky silhouette of shadows. When the first few stepped forward, I didn’t know what to do.
I gingerly raised the gun, deciding better safe than sorry. They were coming at me fast, jerking randomly, their skin seeming to writhe and shiver as I stared at it. As they got within ten feet of me, a deep burning heat started to fill my body, as if I were standing in front of an oven. I started shooting, one bullet for each of their center mass, and they dissipated into smoke. I watched the black stuff curl back into the red, pulsating room they had just come out of. The sense of heat dissipated instantly, but my skin still felt warm and strange.
We were running through the Undergraves now. Miles of slick gore covering the floors, strange tissues growing across the rooms and tumor-like sacs covering the fluorescent lights, which even here flickered endlessly across the ceiling.
In many of the rooms, I saw people strung upside down from the ceiling, their ribs sliced open. Strange, hunched figures sliced the meat into strips, preparing it and drying it. One of them looked at me with its pig-like face, its bovine legs walking across the sticky floor, slowly and uncertainly at first, and then running for me. I was running low on ammunition by this point. Gil came from behind and disemboweled the creature as it raised its butcher’s knife. It had been so focused on me that it hadn’t noticed him jogging up with his blood-stained bowie knife in one hand.
“I can’t run much longer,” Gil said, panting. I nodded wearily. Neither could I. “My hand is still on fire, too. I really should have gotten medical attention, like, twelve hours ago…”
Part of me wondered if the stairs were even here, or if we had been lied to, sent into the worst part of this strange hall to become sacrifices to these abominations. We had, after all, put our lives in the hands of a band of lunatics.
But at this point, we had nowhere else to go but forwards.

I spent 2 weeks traveling through Japan - Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto and I'm writing this for those who are thinking about visiting. To preface, I did travel with a friend but spent a lot of time on my own. I'll cover as much as possible.
Pre-Trip
I booked a flight with American Airlines / Delta Airlines for $590 round-trip three months before departing.
I flew out of Los Angeles to Tokyo (Haneda). The trip started on February 9 and ended on February 20. I booked my accommodation before arriving in Japan. I used Hostelworld and Agoda. More about the hostels and hotels I booked are below.
COVID Screening and Visa information for US Citizens only
During the time I visited, Japan still required visitors to be fully vaccinated and have a pre-screening for arrival. First I had to do a pre-screening for American Airlines on VeriFly (please do this a day before checking in at the airport if so). Then, save yourself time and use Visit Japan Web (http://vjw-lp.digital.go.jp/en/) and do the pre-screening requirements a couple of days before departure.
When you land in Tokyo, immediately after deplaning, swaths of airport personnel ask if you have the screener filled out and ready to go. If you don’t, they put you to the side and ask you to fill it out using the airport’s wifi. It takes time and you still have to go through customs after.
Visas for US citizens is a free, 3-month visa if I recall correctly. Bring your COVID vaccination card just in case they ask for it.
Tech/Phone
I took my iPhone 14 Pro (unlocked) and connected buying Ubigi 10gb data plan. Do this before flying to Japan. When you land, you can activate your data plan directly on your phone. I didn’t get pocket wifi as the Ubigi worked perfectly.
Download the Ubigi app. They give instructions but please follow them.
Apps that I used:
Google Maps: you can download offline maps.
Google Translate: Use this everywhere you go. You can use the camera feature and it can translate Japanese to English really great. It saved me a lot of hassle when ordering at restaurants.
Currency Converter
You might want to download a VPN if you want to use Netflix and such. Express VPN is one I’d recommend.
Money/Currency
I took my Charles Schwab debit card and a backup Chase credit card/Chase debit card. Surprisingly, a lot of stores in Japan are cash-heavy; especially small shops and restaurants. My budget for the trip was $2000 with flights included.
Hostels and hotels were around $20-35 USD. Food prices were about $7-$20 a meal. It can get really expensive if you eat at fine dining restaurants. That being said, I stuck to eating mostly at hole-in-the-wall establishments where no English was spoken. Believe me when I say that the best ramen I ever had was only $7 USD. More on what restaurants I recommend are down below. If you really want to save money, don’t buy alcohol.
A solid budget for me was $60-$80 per day without lodging expenses. Some days, I only spent $40 which was all food (I spare no expense for food), then some days I went over because I bought cool souvenirs for myself and some excursions were pricey. You can visit Japan for less but I didn’t want to money pinch myself because I was only there for 2 weeks.
Transportation
I love Japan for this reason. So here’s my take: If you are visiting Japan for exactly 14 days; get the JR Pass on Klook. You buy this a month before departing your home country. For me, Klook delivered it about a week after I bought it over Mail. You could buy either a 7, 14, or 21-day JR pass so I would recommend planning a trip that matches these exact number of days to get the most out of your money.
Now imagine you’re in Japan. It is your first day officially visiting…go to a JR Pass office at any major train station and ask them to redeem your pass. They will ask for the paper ticket that arrived in the mail to your home and they will ask for your passport. After they verify that it is you, they will give you a small ticket which will be your JR pass. DO NOT LOSE THIS! I believe they will not replace it. On how to use it, check out this video.
Now to navigate, I used a combination of Google Maps and Apple Maps to get around. Use whichever one is more comfortable for you. These 2 apps are really exceptional at mapping out the best routes and the times trains depart. Note: the JR Pass only works for JR rail lines! Tokyo/Kyoto/Osaka all have their own subways and train lines with their own payment system. More on this…
So the best way to get around the city is using a Suica card. These are sold virtually at any train station. If you can't find it, ask a train station attendant and say “Suica?”. They point you in the right direction.
A Suica card can be refilled unlimited times and can be used for any rail lines (JR included, but not for Bullet Trains). It is used by tapping at the turnstiles to enter the rails and at any vending machine in Japan! Also at arcades! It is a total mindblower haha Also in Tokyo, some hostels or hotels have a 3-day subway pass for cheap.
Bullet Trains - You can use the Shinkansen bullet trains if you have the JR Pass. Make an important note: You can only ride the Hikari or Sakura trains with your JR Pass. The Nozomi and Mizuho are reserved seating and cost extra because they have fewer stops. If they catch you using these rail lines, they will ask you to get off the next stop or worse, fine you and report you. To see Mount Fuji from Tokyo to Kyoto/Osaka, sit on the right side of the train (right side of the direction it is going). Use Google Maps and Apple Maps to pinpoint when to look out the window.
Food
I usually ate sandwiches and pastries from 7-Eleven in the morning or whenever I needed to pack a lunch. It was a great way to save cash and the food was delicious. High-quality foods and snacks.
As I said earlier, I really spare no expense for good, big meals. I save money at 7-Eleven so I can go all out for lunch and dinner. My go-to meal was usually ramen because it was so damn good. I tried a lot of foods. I’ll try and remember which ones I ate: - Ramen - Okonomiyaki - Unagi - Katsu Curry - Taiyaki - Tempura - Japanese cheesecake - Macha ice cream - Macha waffles - Onigiri - And a lot of different ice creams, confectionary snacks - McDonald’s - please try lol they have interesting combinations
Pack List
I used a 40-liter Osprey backpack.
1 scarf
1 beanie
2 cotton t-shirts
2 thermal polyester long-sleeve shirts (Odor resistant)
2 pairs of joggers
1 pair of Nike thermal leggings
8 pairs of Nike Dri-Fit boxers (lost 1)
4 pairs of ankle socks
3 pairs of Darn Tough Merino wool blend socks (Highly recommend, Odor resistant)
1 parka
1 pair of Adidas Ultraboost shoes
1 Hershel toiletries bag
2 Forge cable combination locks
External battery pack (13000 mAh)
Bose QC-25 noise-canceling headphones
Over the course of the trip, I bought a much-needed 30L Patagonia day backpack
I don’t sweat heavily so I re-wore my shirts, the Merino wool blend socks, and joggers. I did my laundry maybe once or twice at the hostels. It was freezing at the time I went, so I usually layered up when temperatures were lower than usual.
Safety
I am a 6'1" (1.85 m) male with a light brown complexion. I felt safe most of my time there. I think it was the safest country I have ever been to. Some Japanese people are known to be racist but I didn’t experience it. So I wouldn’t worry about it.
Itinerary/Activities
Feb 9 Day 1 Tokyo Feb 10 Day 2 Tokyo Feb 11 Day 3 Tokyo (Day Trip to Odiaba/Yokohama) Feb 12 Day 4 Osaka Feb 13 Day 5 Osaka (Day Trip to Hime-ji Castle/Kobe) Feb 14 Day 6 Osaka (Day Trip to Nara) Feb 15 Day 7 Kyoto Feb 16 Day 8 Kyoto Feb 17 Day 9 Kyoto Feb 18 Day 10 Tokyo Feb 19 Day 11 Tokyo Feb 20 Day 12 Tokyo (Fly Out)
I will put a star (*) next to anything that I highly recommend! 2 stars are for more emphasis! I will list the accommodation first, then activities, and then bars/restaurants.
Tokyo - 3 Nights (Asakusa + Akihabara + Odaiba + Yokohama)
Lodging: Sakura Hostel Asakusa
Activities: *Tokyo National Museum, *Senso-ji Temple, Kaminarimon Gate, Nakamise-dori Street, *Sengaku-ji Temple, Hirose Entertainment Yard arcade, Animate Akihabara, **Mandarake Complex Akihabara, Tsukiji Outer Fish Market, TeamLabs Odaiba, Gundam Yokohama, NISMO Museum Yokohama, Nissan Headquarters Yokohama
Restaurants/Bars: Fuji Ramen Asakusa, Asakusa Unana, *Naruto Taiyaki, *Koyangi Asakusa, *Ouzakura Ramen Yokohama
Took a Shinkansen bullet train from Tokyo to Osaka
Osaka - 3 Nights (Kobe + Nara)
Lodging: Backstage Osaka Hostel
Activities: *Hime-ji Castle, *Kaiyukan Aquarium, Dontonbori, Shinsekai, Round 1 Stadium (arcade), *Nunobiki Waterfall Kobe, *Todai-ji Temple, *Nara Park, Kasuga Taisha Temple, Gilco Sign
Restaurants/Bars: *Wakakusa Curry Nara, *Nakatanidou Nara, *cafe CROCO Nara, Fanny Mae Bar Osaka, Rikuro’s Namba Main Branch, PC and Retro Bar Space Station, Bible Club Bar Osaka, Untitled karaoke bar next to Rock Bar Cherry Bomb lol, Takoyaki Wanaka Sennichimae Osaka, Sushi Dokoro Kuromonsuehiro Osaka, *Dotombori Ichiaki Osaka, *Hamamoto Coffee Himeji, Tairku Ramen Kobe
Took a Shinkansen bullet train from Osaka to Kyoto
Kyoto - 3 Nights (Day Trip to Uji)
Lodging: **Gojo Guesthouse
Activities: Otagi Nembutsu-ji Temple, Adashino Mayumura (closed when I arrived early), Arashiyama Bamboo Grove, *Tenryu-ji Temple, Togetsukyo Bridge, *Nishiki Market, *pocoapoco Record Store, Super Milk Record Store, *Fushimi Inari Taisha Temple Complex, *Byodo-In Temple Restaurants/Bars: *comorebi Ramen House, 茶室 tea room Uji, *Gion Duck Noodles, 自家製麺 うどん 讃式
Took a Shinkansen bullet train from Kyoto to Tokyo - Saw a glimpse of Mount Fuji :’)
Tokyo - 2 Nights (Shinjuku + Shibuya + Akihabara)
Lodging: **Capsule Hotel Anshin Oyado Shinjuku Station (Males Only)
Activities: Tower Records Shinjuku, Disk Union Shinjuku, Mandarake Complex Shibuya, Nakano Broadway, Tokyo Dome for Red Hot Chili Peppers concert, *Shibuya Sky at Night, Tokyu Hands Shop
Restaurants/Bars: Ramen Kaijin, Shakey’s, McDonald’s, Ichiran Nakano
Tips, Advice, and Bonus Stuff!

1. Goes without saying but please respect the local customs.
   
2. Please learn how to say “Thank You” in Japanese! Just learning and using “Arigato” anywhere you go will make you seem like you care and respect everyone. Nothing was more embarrassing than watching an American say “thank you” to a Japanese person.
   
3. Plan to do the major tourist attractions early in the morning. You will get nice pictures without any tourists and you’ll sometimes get the whole temple complex to yourself. The staff will also be more friendly and willing to chat with you. I usually aim to be at temples around 7:00 when they open.
   
4. Use Google Translate for everything! You can have full conversations with friendly Japanese people when using the conversation feature on the app! Use the camera feature to translate Kanji at restaurants that do not offer an English menu.
   
5. Get a Ubigi data plan, I bought 10GB and it had good service anywhere I went. Get more GB if you plan on staying longer.
   
6. I ate at 7-Eleven most of the time when I was too lazy or tired to go out. The 7-Elevens here in Japan are nothing like the ones in the US. Expect to find high-quality sandwiches, Onigiri, and more Japanese snacks.
   
7. Shop at supermarkets near the end of the day (1 hour before closing) and they usually mark down prepped meals half-off or at a discounted price! If you really on a budget, this can help you to save a ton of money and still get a taste of the local cuisine.
   
8. If you need to buy random stuff like clothes, bags, or toiletries; go shop at any Don Quijote or Tokyu Hands department store. They have other shops too that are great to find cool stuff.
   
9. Use Google Translate to translate English to Kanji (Japanese) and use Kanji to find restaurants that are hidden because they don’t use English words. For example, if you want to find the best ramen place, search “拉麺” and you’ll find hidden gems with 5-star reviews!
   
10. The best souvenir I brought back myself was a Goshuincho. These are “honorable stamp/seal book” used by people visiting shrines or temples. If you want more info, google this! I highly recommend doing this!
    

If you have any questions, comment below or send a DM. Peace!

Now that the playtest is over i had some time to think about the survivors and which playstyles work with them. Plz lmk what you think and if you played differently
Ana (my personal fav) is like rambo. Her damage res is good for chases and makes her the natural choice to distract killers when the team needs an opening, but she can also make really risky plays (grandpa stab, reckless scouting, etc.) and return to well while minimizing the amount of punishment other survivors would take for it. I prefered going for object exits (fuse/valve) on slaughterhouse since she could clear a lot of the yard and just well drop once she found what she was looking for. On house i tried to jump out the window with a knife and lockpick on her for three reasons: 1. You enter an area youre not supposed to be at yet and force at least one killer to force you out (hence the knife) 2. If they don’t go for you that loadout is enough to clear one exit (trapped gen, locked back exit) 3. You clear the window for your team (i think the glass adds damage but im not sure since i only got to jump out a cleared window twice; with anas ult a glassed window goes from doing 40% of your health to less than 20). When the game comes out i’ll just build health and strength on her to support my playstyle
Sonny is a ninja. Yes his ult makes him a really good lookout for other characters but i think he shines as a soloist since his ult doesn’t discriminate between foe and friend (though you can use context clues to figure it out) and it lets you check a path before you take it, meaning if you play stealthy you are the least likely on the team to be found. Connie might be quiet and fast, but sonny is a ghost. I chose my objectives based on whatever ones my team wasn’t pushing, but i also got some clutch grandad plays when we needed them. Since i went for versatility i usually left basement with pick and knife. When the game comes out i’ll build dex on him to get objects faster
Connie is the vip. She has a huge target on her back bc she’s the most efficient player on her team, so the team needs to play to keep her up. My playstyle with her was v simple, leave basement with two lock picks and keep pushing doors until you manage to clear a route. Even if you don’t get all the way to the exit, by clearing doors, you’re forcing the killers to expand their search area which can give the rest of the team space to breathe. I think ill just build health and stamina on her to help survive chases since shes squishy and tunnelable
Leland is support. Yes his bash is funny but unless you timed it right all it does is buy you a few seconds. He’s also not really good at anything (except fighting), so I think his job is as a lookout for other people (probs connie). If I had a connie with a mic, I went double bone knife and tried not to blow her cover while watching her back. If connie was clueless i went knife and pick and played for object exits. I’ll play him in the future and just make him a bruiser

George Moriarty was a hot-tempered Deadball Era baseball corner infielder. At 6 feet tall and a solid 185 pounds, he was bigger than most players of his era and always eager to get into fights with the opposition... or his teammates! Supposedly he once challenged Ty Cobb -- who early in his career wasn't very popular with his teammates -- to a fight. But before throwing a punch he politely handed the Georgia Peach a baseball bat, declaring:

"A fellow like you needs a bat to even things up when fighting an Irishman."

Cobb's response is lost to history.
After his playing days were over, Moriarty was an umpire from 1917 to 1940, with an interruption from 1927 to 1928 to serve as manager of the Detroit Tigers.
On May 30, 1932 -- Memorial Day -- Moriarty was behind the plate for a doubleheader in Cleveland between the Indians and the White Sox. The White Sox lost the first game, 12-6, but had an 11-8 lead going into the bottom of the 9th of the second game.
The White Sox, en route to a disastrous 49-102 record that season, had been griping about the umpiring throughout the first game and it continued into game two. At one point, White Sox manager Lew Fonseca and Moriarty, the former Tigers manager, began exchanging barbs about each other's managerial skills. When White Sox pitcher Hal McKain asked catcher Charlie Berry to rub some dirt on a ball for him, Moriarty objected, cursed out the catcher and the pitcher, and then threw out a White Sox coach who complained!
In the bottom of the 9th, down by three runs, the Indians got a rally going after a double, a single, a fly ball, and a double resulted in one run in, two men on, and one man out. Future Hall of Famer Earl Averill then stepped up to the plate. After getting two strikes on Averill, pitcher Pat Caraway threw a pitch that Averill took for what Caraway and Berry thought should have been a called strike three. But Moriarty called it a ball.
Sure enough, Averill then hit a line drive to right-center field for a two-run triple, tying the game at 11-11. The White Sox then intentionally walked the next two batters to load the bases and set up the game-ending double play. Pitcher Ted Lyons -- another future Hall of Famer -- got the groundball to short, but batter Luke Sewell beat it out at first base, and Averill scored the game winning run.
After the game, depending on who you believe, either a few players on the White Sox challenged Moriarty to a fight, or Moriarty -- reminiscent of Tanner Boyle -- challenged the entire White Sox team to a fight!
Buttermaker: [looks at Tanner's black eye] What the hell happened to you, Tanner?
Engelberg: Tanner got into a fight.
Buttermaker: Who with?
Engelberg: The 7th Grade.
Buttermaker: What?
Engelberg: The 7th Grade!
In any event, whether it was Moriarty challenging the White Sox or the White Sox challenging Moriarty, Milt Gaston -- a 36-year-old, 6'1" right-handed pitcher -- stepped up to him.
"You might as well start with me," Gaston said, and without a word the 47-year-old Moriarty slugged him in the face -- knocking the pitcher out but breaking his hand in the process!
At this point three White Sox players rushed over and attacked Moriarty, knocking him to the ground, then kicking him and stomping on him with their spikes. Or, as one of the players would later claim with a straight face, Moriarty fell on his own and the White Sox players kindly tried to help him up, but accidentally stepped on him. Several times.
The Indians players then ran over and a brawl started between the two teams, with Moriarty still in the middle of it!
When it was finally all over, Moriarty was taken to the hospital with spike wounds, bruises, and a broken right hand.
Naturally, the White Sox blamed Moriarty for the incident, with White Sox manager Lew Fonseca saying:

“Moriarty was looking for a fight and it seems that he got it. Everyone in baseball knows many stories of Moriarty’s brawling tendencies and his eagerness to start a fight at the slightest provocation.”

But Moriarty -- and the Indians -- blamed the White Sox, with Indians owner Alva Bradley saying the White Sox had acted in an "outrageous manner" throughout the game.
Chicago newspapers worried that the White Sox players involved in the fracas could face lifetime suspensions -- only 12 years earlier, the White Sox dynasty had been derailed by the bans of the eight "Black Sox" accused of throwing the 1919 World Series -- but the players got off relatively light: Gaston was fined $500 and suspended 10 days, Fonseca was fined $500, Berry $250, catcher Frank Grube $100, and coach Johnny Butler suspended without pay for five days.
Moriarty wasn't fined or suspended, but reprimanded for "neglect of duty." Baseball fans felt Moriarty deserved more punishment and that off-season there were rumors that Moriarty would be fired or at least transferred to the National League. But he remained an American League umpire for eight more years, and in 1935, was named the best umpire in the American League according to a Sporting News poll of players. That year, Moriarty umpired in the World Series between the Detroit Tigers and the Chicago Cubs, and when Cubs players heckled Hank Greenberg with anti-semitic slurs, Moriarty ejected three of them. Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis then levied a fine of $200... against Moriarty!... for violating a policy against ejecting players from World Series games without the commissioner's approval.
Moriarty retired from umpiring in 1940 and worked for the American League, doing public relations, and then became a scout for the Tigers. He died in 1964 at the age of 79. The obituary of his headline in the Sporting News was: "BATTLING MORIARTY -- UMP WHO LOVED TO FIGHT."

Welcome to Green Valley

Four Merry Jaunts Through in the Bumpkin Quest Campaign

It’s a big world filled with far off folks who have far off problems. In the quaint farming town of Hills Furrow that has certainly not been the case. Here life is simple, local, and paced by the seasons. There ain’t been a need for “Venturers” and their ilk since your Papaw was just a sprout. However, the winds of change are blowin, and things are about to git just a bit more exciting round these parts.
Welcome to Green Valley, The down-home home of Rural Fantasy Misadventures and Grass-Roots Shenanigans. The Valley is Filled with Colorful Characters, Brimming with Odd Ball Neighbors, and has more than a few Local Yokels. Welcome to Bumpkin Quest. These adventures are intended to be a series of silly adventures that all go awry in some way or another and stir up trouble throughout a peaceful little village that has in many ways been overlooked by the troubles of the world “outside”.
CHAPTER 1: Green Tide CHAPTER 2: A Cartload of Chickens CHAPTER 3: Marvin the Magnificent CHAPTER 4: High Society
ADVENTURE MECHANICS - Target Character Level: Commoners - Level 1 - Target Party Size: Four Players - Average Adventure Playtime: 1-2 Hours - Tone: Rural Misadventures
I’ve also put these adventures into a PDF that includes our Bumpkin Quest: Campaign Guide which fills in the details of Green Valley pretty thoroughly. The quests are simple enough to be run in any setting you choose, but if you're interested in more the Guide as over a dozen Custom Maps, 70+ NPCs, Location Descriptions, 20+ Local Legends, and Scores of Adventure and Event Ideas. You can grab the PDF Free at the link above.

Hills Furrow

At the center of the Valley sits a patch of small grassy hills, through which the Slow Water meanders through. Built into these hills is the Village of Hills Furrow. Celebrated by everyone living in The Valley and boasting a whopping population of almost 150, Hills Furrow is the center of commerce and social importance. Well, at least as far as the locals are concerned. Realistically it would be less than a blip on the grand scale of things, a mere kernel of wheat in the silo of civilization, but to those who live here, there is nothing quite like living in the “city”.
The Village itself, like the Valley, is predominantly Halfling, and their fancy dwellings are burrowed into the hillsides as often as possible. These dwellings have been family owned for generations only becomeing available if there are no heirs to pass them along to. Other folk live in well kept two story shingled buildings, most of which house a business on the lower floor and house the Shopkeepers and their families above their workplaces, though a few live in nearby homes. There aren’t many “rental” spaces in town, as property is usually bought up quickly by the Halfling Families, but there are long term options at either of the Inns in town.
Hills Furrow: Locations 1) The Crocked Crow (Inn and Tavern) 2) The Dancing Lamb (Inn and Tavern) 3) The Moaning Toad (Tavern) 4) Granny's Groceries (General Market) 5) Get Nailed (Hardware and Distilery) 6) Gimdurh's Hammer (Smithy) 7) Brenra's Mechanicals (Tinker) 8) Hjoldren's Home Goods (Carpenter) 9) Standard Industries (Office) 10) Fit to be Dyed (Tailor) 11) The Last Loaf (Baker) 12) The Cloudy Cleaver (Butcher) 13) Nature's Medecine (Apothecary) 14) Sheriff's Office 15) Green Valley School House 16) The Waterwheel 17) The Windmill 18) The Undercloak Estate 19) Truefoot Burrow 20) The Meadows Family Hill
The people themselves are hospitable and friendly enough, but they do not really trust outsiders. Folks from foreign places are good for trade, news, and little else. Those that come through are treated well enough as long as they don’t wear out their welcome. Locals, well, that’s a bit of a different story. The city and area doesn’t operate under a written caste system or social structure, but there is clearly a pecking order, and family heritage matters a great deal to folks in Hills Furrow. Most locals, whether they’ve gotten an education or not, can easily be classified as simple. It isn’t that they are slow of mind or unintelligent, but more that they are unconcerned with matters the outside world considers important. This sentiment has created a general, but friendly, dislike between those that consider themselves Highfalutin and those that clearly are not.
Well now that I've given you the fifty cent tour. Shall we get on to adventure?

CHAPTER 1: Green Tide

We will open our journeys in the Green Valley at Green Tide, the annual celebration of Winter’s End. This adventure is designed to give a tour of Hills Furrow and introduce them to the locals. It will begin with some chores around their house to prepare for the festival and end with a battle involving an enchanted broom. If you did not do Session Zero, this chapter may take a bit longer as we get to know everyone and their characters.

ACT 1: Pre-Festival

The locals spend the week cleaning out their houses and farms. They gather old junk and unused items to be used later in the festival. They also begin preparing what food is left from winter to be used in a celebration and feasts.
Things to do! - Have the Players clean up junk around the house - Have them Find something strange (Perhaps used for a later mystery?) - Have them Decorate their Broom - Have them run a Household Errand (Meet an NPC)

ACT 2: Sweeping Day

A merry festival celebrating Spring cleaning and putting the past behind them. They form a parade, with one member from each house carrying a brightly decorated broom and using it to symbolically “Sweep Away Winter”. The rest of the family marches their winter’s trash and unused goods down to the Fairgrounds. The goods are often traded, while the trash is piled in the fire pit to await burning later. The entire day is filled with fun outdoor activities. Households also symbolically bring their problems to the bonfires to burn them later.
Things to do! - March in the Parade - Carry Junk to the Bonfire - Meet more of the Locals
EVENT: I Love a Parade
The parade will march North from near the Cross Roads in the South up around the hill and back again to the South where it will head for the Fairgrounds. There isn’t anything particularly challenging about this event, but it would be a wonderful place to start leaning into or building local rivalries.
EVENT: Never Seen a Broom Do That… As they come into the home stretch of the Parade one of the local’s Brooms will animate and take off. It will chase folks around the parade. The players can attempt to stop it, but the broom will flee soon after being attacked. It will fly up into the air, attack a flock of geese, and chase them off until it can’t be seen anymore. They can go and collect a fallen goose if they wish. I highly recommend giving it a motorcycle type sound as it flies around hitting folks. Maybe even going as far as giving it a rough gravel angry voice and letting it insult people.

ACT 3: Winter’s End

Winter’s End is a Combination of Groundhog’s Day and Fasnacht, this day gets a little wild. The Festival kicks off at dawn with the Great Gopher Hunt. Gophers are well known spies for The Voice of Winter and thus need to be hunted before they can tell The Voice to delay Spring. Gophers themselves are quite tasty, and are notoriously bad for crops, so this works out economically all around. Throughout the rest of the day families continue to contribute to the Bonfire Pile which often gets quite large. At dusk a large effigy of The Voice of Winter is placed on top of the pile. Once the sun has fully set they light the fire and burn the Effigy. Folk usually dress darkly during the day and brightly at night. After the burning they feast on sweets and treats that were made from goods saved up from winter storage.
Things to do! - The Great Gopher Hunt - Carry Junk to the Bonfire - Meet more of the Locals - The Fairground’s Activities
EVENT: The Great Gopher Hunt The Hunt begins at dawn and takes place all over the Valley. Locals race to collect as many Gophers as possible. It is easiest to kill the Gopher, but there are some that find that distasteful. Instead they live trap the critters. It is a bit tougher to do so, but an option should your players wish. This is most easily played out as a series of appropriate Skill Checks, in which the higher they score the more gophers they obtain.
EVENT: Trash Removal They may find some locals willing to pay them to help cart junk down to the bonfire pile. Not a lot of skill involved in this, but it is a great opportunity to meet locals, and you could throw a runaway cart at them.
Fair Activities They will probably want to take part in Fairground Activities. Players love these types of challenges. Here are a few ideas you can build on. - Axe Throwin: Basic attack rolls on a Round Target. Higher scores equal Higher points. - Bow Shootin: Basic attack rolls on Moving Targets. Higher scores equal Higher points. - Pig Chasin: Catch the greased Pig! Medium DC Challenge requiring three success before three Failures. - Mud Wrastlin: Nothing says bumpkin like a good Mud Wrastlin Pit. Contested Skill Challenges. - Sausage Eating Contest: Increasingly difficult DC Challenge. Eat till you puke! Can also be Pies or Ribs or Little Fish… you know whatever someone wants to stuff dozens of in their gullet. - Tug O’War: Team Strength Challenge. Three to Five Contested Rolls with opposing teams. - Gopher BBQ Cook Off: A Hard Culinary Challenge to see who can BBQ the best Gopher! - Races: Foot and Mount Races based on Three to Five Contested Rolls. I usually include a few odd mounts like a Giant Chicken or some such nonsense.

ACT 4: Day of Ashes

The Day of Ashes is a day of rest, recovery, and reflection. Locals take the ashes from the bonfires and rub their hands in them to symbolize the end of a hard year’s work and hardships of the past. The day ends with a large family feast, typically Pork. Activities this day are light, but many folks head to the Temple for the Calling of Spring Blessings. They put on their fancies and head down to ask forgiveness for over-indulging in the festival and for worship. Well sort of…
Unfortunately, a lot of folks take this as an opportunity to peacock about and practice their one-upmanship over other locals. If you’re looking for inspiration for their outfits look to older photos of the Kentucky Derby. Over the years this troubling practice has caused more than one fight to break out after the service.
*Things to do! * - Go to Temple and Meet More Locals - Pick a Local Patron!
EVENT: Temple Services
The majority of the town comes to Temple on this day. The service is usually longer, and a bit more “Where have most of you been all year?” But otherwise it is a call for the Divine Blessings to touch their crops and protect their lives. It ends with a ceremony in which the locals put their hands into the ashes from yesterday’s bonfire. Once services end they will head outside, where the trouble will begin. Two of the wealthier families will get into it with each other. Starting with a couple of veiled insults, probably before service and continuing afterward. If one of your players is from a local Rich Folk family then they can be right in the middle of it all, otherwise they will have to pick a side. This choice will determine their house Patron moving forward. Tension will increase until folks start drawing up sides, and then someone will throw a rotten tomato at one of the House Matrons. That will blow the lid off the incident and a yokel brawl will break out. For comedy purposes I recommend the instant appearance of several food carts filled with expired products, and maybe a six year old hustler selling big sticks for wacking folks with. As the locals brawl call for perception checks. Who ever rolls highest begins to hear… The Broom returning!
ENCOUNTER: Stick In The Eye
The broom returns ready to whoop some ash. It will be absolutely bent on cleaning anyone and everyone who is even the slightest bit dirty! If it successfully attacks a character they will have to make a Strength Saving throw or be knocked to the ground and swept clean by the broom. As this would be an awful omen for the year folks are terrified and will be running around screaming. Absolute mass hysteria. If the players were lucky enough to hear it coming they can avoid being surprised by the broom. Otherwise the broom will get a full round to attack before they have a chance to do anything. They’ll have to beat the broom into submission any way they can before it sweeps the whole town into chaos!

CLOSING

After defeating the broom things will settle back down again. Bumpkins are quick to return to normal when things go awry. However, they will have gotten the attention of one of the Wealthy Families in the area and be offered jobs. Which family is really, based on what will work best for them and you as the DM. For gags you might be tempted to have the Yokels pick them up, but that is a hard bit to sustain, and you may be better served keeping them on the side as a comic foil rather than up front. Completely up to you. The session should end with them being invited to meet their new patron tomorrow someplace important.

CHAPTER 2: A Cartload of Chickens

After successfully defeating the Enchanted Broom, our Bumpkins have gained the attention of a possible local Patron. This individual has summoned them to a nearby farm to discuss future work. That work includes proving themselves capable and not just lucky.

ACT 1: Meet the Boss

In this Act the players will meet with their new patron, one of the Family Heads, who that is entirely depends on their choices from the last game. This entire side branch is designed to flavor the background of the campaign, but if you’d rather just have them stay freelancing and independent that’s fine as well. There is also the possibility of “competing” offers should they have second thoughts for any reason. Once they arrive at the meeting spot their Patron will ask them some questions about their ambitions (Class Goals), they will then hand them off to their new “boss” who will assign them their task. They will take them to a nearby barn.
NEW NPC: “Boss”
Needs a fitting name for the Family they work for...
Character wise, what we got here is a standard “Ranch Foreman” character. They’re tough, A little mean, and completely loyal to their employer. They almost certainly chew tobacco (by the handful), have a tattoo of the Ranch’s Brand, and know where all the bodies are buried. They also have a huge and obvious scar on the side of their head where a Giant Chicken pecked a hole in their skull, so they’re not as bright as they used to be, not at all truthfully. Nor are they actually the Foreman anymore, but no one has a heart to tell them. They’ve been quietly downgraded to Chicken Handler, which is something they seem to remember quite well, but the brain damage keeps them from realizing all that. They can be found wandering the Farm giving strange orders to other Hands. These Hands nod politely and then go back to what they are doing.
Things To Do! - Meet Their Patron - Discuss Their Future - Meet Their New “Boss”

ACT 2: Chicken Dance

Boss will lead them into the odd looking barn. This building is filled with Giant Chickens. These two-three foot fouls have extremely exaggerated features, spiky looking beaks with sharp tooth like edges, big darting eyes, bumpy cracked skin, long gnarled talons, and dirty mottled feathers. They’re more beast than bird. But, they’re good for eatin! These creatures should have a stat block similar to an Axe Beak. When the players enter into the Barn the Chickens will go nuts, obviously deeply bothered by the intrusion. Boss will throw in some deer haunches and the birds will tear them apart in a feeding frenzy. They will then put on a Chicken Suit and begin a flapping dance. (Google Magnificent Riflebird) It should be absolutely captivating and the chickens will become mesmerized, watching every move. Boss will then load two dozen chickens onto a large wagon and lock it. They will have the players push the wagon out while he keeps the Chickens calm. Once outside they’ll hang heavy tarps on the sides of the wagon, and remove the suit. He will then explain to them that they need to keep the tarps on the wagon, and keep the birds well fed, or the chickens will get restless and become violent. When they do need to interact with them someone will have to wear the suit and dance to keep them calm. The bigger the person in the suit the better. Boss will then give them a Map of Green Valley and instruct them to drop off two chickens at each of the outer settlements. They have two days to get this done.
Things To Do! - Head into the barn - Witness The Dance of The Chicken - Push the Wagon out - Get the Costume and Delivery Instructions

ACT 3: Bumpy Roads

They will be off to deliver the Chickens to various locations. There is no specific order to this delivery, they just need to pick a route and go. If they’re short on time they can take the country roads that lead between the outer settlements, but these aren’t as well kept as the main roads are. Whatever road they take and wherever they decide to stop for the night there are problems they will encounter along the way. You can make them random or pick the ones that best suit your players. Most of these should at some point require someone putting on the suit and dancing for the chickens to keep them calm. I would also increase the difficulty of each event. If they fail a dance the Chickens will become restless and start attacking the cart until they are calmed down. Too many failures and the wagon’s cage will break and the remaining chickens escape. They will then have to be rounded up and the cage repaired.
Things to Do - Decide the delivery route - Deliver the chickens - Keep the Chickens calm
Possible Road Events 1) Rough roads cause problems 2) Yokels attempt to see what’s in the cart 3) Bad Weather swamps the road or scares the chickens 4) Pack of Coyotes causes trouble. 5) Chicken Rustlers! Protect the Flock! 6) Wagon breaks and needs repair 7) Cows in the road, someone’s herd is out. 8) Broken Bridge, not gone, just broken

ACT 4: Final Delivery

They’re now closing in on the final delivery. Something needs to happen here to cause them to put the suit on. Or maybe they never took it off! I love that idea, that one of your players just loves the suit and wants to be a chicken… lol… Anyway I’m a fan of having them need to get out of the suit for some reason, maybe a bathroom break, or they stand on a fire ant hill, or a snake slithers up their leg. You know something silly and fun. BUT the zipper is stuck! So they’ll have to try and unstick it and fast! Whatever happens they’re going to get shot at by some hunters looking for a big score who have mistaken the flailing caused by the stuck zipper to be the chicken attacking. After dealing with the Hunters they can go ahead and make the final drop. And head home.
Things to Do! - Head for the final delivery - Get shot at! - Deliver the last chickens
ENCOUNTER: That’s a BIG Chicken!
Having two hunters in the field is more than enough to cause a problem for the players. The hunters will almost certainly surprise the players, but you can allow them a perception check, if they succeed they’ll see the hunters just before the muskets go off. It would be OK to down the Chicken Player here if the hunters successfully hit it. They’ll have healer’s kits on hand because, well, this seems to happen to them a lot out here. After the initial attack the players can decide to attack back or try and talk the hunters down. A basic Bandit or Scout stat block should do will for the hunters. If you’re looking for a bit more mayhem, if the hunters miss the players you could have them hit the cage, and you know, bust it open. This may be especially tempting if they
POSSIBLE ENCOUNTER: Big Ol' Frog
So there is a giant frog hiding in the mud down in the creek. If a player takes cover behind the banks there is a good chance that the frog will attempt to nab the player as a snack. If it is successful in grabbing a player with its tongue it will immediately head down river, and they'll have to chase it to get their friend back.

CLOSE

When they return, Boss will reward them. How much will depend on how successful they were delivering the birds. If they did a descent job, they will be paid two day’s wages each. If they were completely successful they can have a bonus. However, if the wagon is in bad shape they might have some money deducted. After they’re paid out, they will be dismissed, and told to expect a new assignment next week.

CHAPTER 3: Marvin the Magnificent

After successfully delivering chickens Boss is going to trust them with a more important task. Their employer has requested an item to be created by Marvin the Magnificent. This is a farming community so having enchanted Farming Equipment is extremely desirable. Marvin has done a lot of basic enchantments over the years, but this new one, an The Stone Skipper, a plough whose blade goes ethereal while in contact with stones too large to push away, has really put him to the test. He needs some help with the final enchantments. The players will have to travel to the Ethereal Plane and hit the Blade of the plow with large rocks. But there’s a problem, they’re going to have mischievous Ethereal Sprites attempting to stop them! If they’re successful, which they should be, they get to take the plough for a test drive, and deal with the strange side effects of the enchantment. Angry goats that blink in and out of existence.

ACT 1: To the Tower

They’ll be summoned out to the Ranch where they’ll meet with Boss again. Once there they will notice a large pile of bent and dinged up plows. Boss will explain to them that a recent land acquisition has become problematic. The Fields are filled with large stones just under the topsoil and they’ve damaged a lot of Plow Blades. The Smithing costs are getting out of hand and so their Patron is looking for an alternate solution to the problem. He is sending them to help Marvin the Magnificent, who has taken the job, but run into some complications and needs some help. They may ask about Marvin. Or perhaps the fields that were purchased, so be ready to answer these types of questions. Once they’re done here they can head to Marvin’s Tower, which is just north of town.
Things to Do! - Meet Boss again - Ask some Informational Questions - Head for the Tower
NPC: Marvin the Magnificent

ACT 2: Marvin the Magnificent

As they approach the tower they should see an explosion at the peak of the structure. It should look similar to a fireworks mishap. When it clears there will be no visible damage to the tower, But Marvin will plummet to the earth just off to the side of them, landing in a small pond. He will then come charging out of the pond, laughing hysterically, and riding on a large turtle. Once he gets a few feet away from the pond the turtle will disappear and he will tumble to the ground right in front of the players. He will leap up quickly and turn toward the players. “Behold Travelers, You stand in the presence of Marvin the Magnificent! And everything you have witness was mostly intended!” He will then strike a cool pose with his wand pointed to the sky! “Now why do you approach my tower!?”
Once Marvin finds out they’ve been sent about the plow he will become more nervous looking. “I see, well follow me. We have work to do.” He will then start walking toward the tower… his boots squishing out water. This should give them a little time to ask a few questions. Marvin will be a little subversive about what they need to do. He will attempt to frame it very mysteriously, saying things like “All will be revealed soon.” and “Save your questions! All Answers await us… in the future!” If they ask him about what they witnessed outside, he will tell them he was working on a mount summoning spell designed for lakes and rivers.
Things to Do! - Head toward the Tower - Meet Marvin - Ask Questions

ACT 3: The Cabinet of Mysteries

The inside of the Wizard’s Tower will be far more mundane than they likely expect. At least on the first floor. It will have a sitting room, dining room, and kitchen, as well as a few odds and ends about. Nothing special at all. The second floor, are Marvin’s personal quarters and some room for study, but it is the third floor, where Marvin will lead them, and it will be more of what one would expect in a Wizard’s tower. There will be books shelves, arcane equipment, and storage for components. In the middle of the room will be a tall cabinet.
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Marvin will explain to them that the Cabinet is a transportation device, and that he will need them to enter into it with a plow that he has recently enchanted. They will be taken to the Ethereal Plane, and once there they’ll need to take the plow outside and begin hitting it with large field stones. There is a large pile of stones just on the north edge of the tower. They’ll have to do this quickly, before the “others” show up. Who are the others? Hard to say, but there are things that live in the Ethereal Plane that don’t like intruders. The idea is to imbue the Plow with Ethereal Powers so it can pass through large stones while plowing fields. Once they return with the Enchanted Plow, Marvin will have them load it on a cart, pulled by a very smart Donkey, and send them on their way.
Skill Challenge: Enchant the Plow This skill challenge will require five successes before they’re incapacitated by the others. However they decide to do it, they’ll have to successfully hit the plow with five large stones. Failures will result in strange indiscernible entities attacking them. They do minimal damage but could knock people out if there are enough failures.
Things to Do! - Move Through Marvin’s Tower - Enter the Cabinet - Enchant the Plow

ACT 4: Blinking Goats

Upon returning to Boss with the Plow they will be happily greet and paid. Their Patron will be there and will be very pleased with their success. He will ask them to demonstrate the plow’s abilities. Once they get set up out in the field and begin plowing something weird will happen. Every time they hit a stone and the plow’s power activates an Ethereal Goat will manifest and kick or ram the plow, and then disappear. It will feel very similar to what they encountered in the Ethereal Plane. They’ll have to find a way to deal with the manifestations.
ENCOUNTER: Ethereal Goats These goats should function very similarly to Blink Dogs, but I would trim the HP and AC a little to put them in line with the party’s. They will be intent on breaking the Plow not the party, although they will attack the party if they can’t get to the Plow.
Things to Do! - Deliver the Plow - Drive the Plow - Defeat the Ethereal Goats

CLOSE

Once defeated the Boss will come over to yell at them, but the Patron will find the entire thing amusing and more importantly, another impressive demonstration of the player’s skills. He will invite them to the “House” for an important party next week.

Chapter 4: High Society

They've definitely been noticed now and have impressed with their ability, unconventional as it may be. They are invited to their patron's home, but not as guests. Though, they might think they were actually invited as guests! They have been brought in to help work the event held out at the Party Field. They will have to gather party supplies, help put up the tent, and then serve the actual guests. During the evening’s entertainment a hypnotist “The Great Dr Hypnotika” will mesmerize the crowd and attempt to rob them all. Hopefully the players don’t fall victim to her schemes. And if they do oh well, they’ll be entertained all the same.

ACT 1: Special Delivery

The players arrive at the Patron’s very nice property. They will be greeted by a properly dressed servant with a clipboard, the Party Planner. The Planner will be rigid and direct. They will immediately begin tasking them about. If they mention that they were invited to the party the servant will laugh “You didn’t think you were a guest? Oh dear, how embarrassing. You’re the help! It is still a great honor to be tasked to help at the Party, but you’re not guests. Now as for your current task. Head into town and gather these supplies. Bring them to the field by noon.” After the instructions are given the servant will go back to their tasks and expect the players to do the same. They will have three stops; The Crocked Crow for Food and Beer, Get Nailed for the Tent and Spirits, and Shalana Proud-Breed’s Tailor Shop to pick up the Dry Cleaning. Feel free to make any and all of these go sideways! Its a good place to toss in some shenanigans as well! They should also be introduced to Dr Hypnotika and her associates.
Things To do! - Go to their Patron’s Home - Meet the Party Planner and Dr Hypnotika - Run their Errands
NPC: Dr Hypnotika
Dr Hypnotika and her group will perform for the party. Hypnotica is a Tiefling Mezmerist and illusionist. She has an obnoxiously high charisma and some pretty serious skills to back up her claims. However, she uses those skills to beguile her guests, robbing them blind while they are under her spells. She wears a fine robe with a bedazzled headwrap. She has dark upward spiraling horns, light purple skin, and matching eyes. She wears a monocle and walks with a ceremonially carved staff depicting the "Struggles of the Universe". She is extremely persuasive and even more deceptive. Even if someone were to grow suspicious she can easily talk her way out of trouble.
NPCs: Clapper and Bob Hypnotika brings with her two assistants. Clapper the suit wearing Kenku who will perform wondrous displays of mimicry and slight of hand, and her strongman Bob the Kobold. Bob wears a leopard print strongman's outfit and is amazingly swole, particularly for a kobold, and capable of lifting upwards of 400lbs. Bob doesn't do much else other than get hit with things. in the act.

ACT 2: Put up the Tent

After they finish running their errands they will be tasked with putting up a large party tent. This Act is an ongoing Skill Challenge and should have a constantly distracted feel to it. First they have to unpack the tent. Then they have to realize some pieces are missing, they’ll have to form a solution to that problem. After that wind should cause some problems as the tent is at least being pulled up. This is a great moment for some wondrous tom-foolery.
Things To do! - Unpack the tent - Deal with missing parts - Secure the tent during the wind gusts

ACT 3: Put These On

After they finish putting up the tent they’ll be sent to the Servant’s Quarters to bathe and change. They’ll get a little time to explore and snoop if they wish. Afterward they’ll be tasked with helping in the kitchen, but unfortunately the cooks are going to have been playing a drinking game all afternoon and are no longer fully capable of doing their jobs. This would make a great moment for some sort of mini-game where the players have to determine whether or not the cooks are doing the right things. Once the dinner has been completed they will have to serve the guests. This is a good place to insert gossip and help them meet a few other folks.
Things To do! - Get changed for the party - Deal with the drunk cooks - Serve the guests drinks and food

ACT 4: An Evening to Remember

At some point in the evening things are going to start sliding downhill. Some of the locals will have become extremely inebriated and will need to be encouraged to leave, or just moved off to the side as they’ve already passed out, before the show begins. Once the show begins the locals will become fixated on the goings on. “The Great Dr Hypnotika” will have put an additive in the drinks for the that will make everyone more susceptible to her powers of persuasion. Once the show starts she will have them all doing silly things, those who drank have disadvantage on saves against her powers. She will end the show asking the guests to display their most valuable treasure, a with a hypnotic pattern and then send her assistants out to collect those treasures. The players will have to “do something” about the thieves.
Things To do! - Deal with Drunks - Watch the Show - Stop the Criminals
ENCOUNTER: Hypnotika's Gang This encounter doesn't have to be a fight. If Hypnotika is caught she may claim it was all part of the act and simple return the valuables with a "no harm, no foul" type attitude. This will be he go to in an attempt to avoid a fight, but if the character persist in some kind of retribution or punishment the situation will devolve into a combat. Hypnotica herself is an Illusionist Wizard but is low on spells after the show. Clapper is a low level rogue and Bob a Barbarian, and should play out as such. Even with Skills they are combat adverse and will be looking for an opportunity to flee rather than fight. They do have a getaway wagon out front that they'll be headed for if things go south.

CLOSING

We’re assuming the Bumpkins at least attempted to stop the robbery. This will draw a lot of attention to them. Their Patron will be well pleased with them, and let them know they will be getting much more important jobs in the future. The guests will also take note and will begin treating them all a bit better. They’re all essentially Folk Heroes at this point for secondary backgrounds. Their Patron should reward them with something very nice as the party kicks back in. They will need to finish out the nights work of course.

Quest-line Closing

Congratulations! Your Players have completed their first Quest-line! Hopefully it was a delightful experience. But now that they've finished what comes next? Well, here are some ideas.
*Reward Them! * They've been doing some rather Adventurous things lately, and therefore should now have a Class Level under their belt, so the real D&D world now opens to them! Maybe it is time for some real adventuring gear. No more sticks, stones, and burlap sack armor.
Folk Heroes? There's a good chance that the Valley is Speaking the News about them and their exploits while drinking in the taverns. They may have even earned the actual Folk Hero Feat! Maybe someone would be interested in giving them a task!
Simply Go Exploring! There are a lot of places in Green Valley that we only dipped our toes into. You could have them head down to Stinkmarsh, or maybe climb up the cliffs of Longridge. The world (Well, the Valley) is wholly open to them.
Explore Local Legends There are lots of local legends they can look into! Hopefully they search out something that isn't too far over their heads!
Continue Working for their Patron It would be an easy DM go to simply to have them continue working for their current Patron. They've probably been impressive enough fo a family to be interested in keeping them on.
Establish Themselves as Adventurers! Maybe they want to set up a Adventurers for Hire business? This "Heroes Guild" approach is really appealing to a lot of players and absolutely plays into Bumpkin Quest. Just remember, this is a place of low key problems that locals make really big deals out of. So the idea of slaying dragons shouldn't really be on the table... that is until an actual dragon shows up! Which one day absolutely should.

February 2001: It’s a bright new era for Tottenham Hotspur Football Club. After years of mediocrity and flirts with relegation in the 1990s, a new ownership group is taking over from that cheapskate Alan Sugar. Meet your new overlords in English National Investment Company and your new chairman, Daniel Levy! Its sure to be a great start of a beautiful journey!
May 2001: Finishing 12th is not what you would call ideal. No European football. Not to mention bowing out in the FA Cup Semis and League Cup third round. Enjoy this new manager in Glenn Hoddle.
2001-02 : Sol Campbell signed with our eternal rivals in Arsenal! Levy didn’t offer him a new contract? What?? Doesn’t he know those Gunner clowns can’t be taking our players like that? We also finish 9th but made the League Cup final. It helps having the return of our goal scoring phenom in Teddy Sheringham. Adding Gustavo Poyet helps too. Still no European football.
2002-03: The best way to fight back into the elite is to have more goal scorers right? Welcome Robbie Keane from Leeds United! A crafty piece of business on our end! Him and Sheringham power us to…10th place. The fuck? And third round exits in the Cups…
2003-2004: Glenn Hoddle is underachieving! Get rid of him. David Pleat can surely handle the task at hand. Nope, we finished 14th…and still no trophies. But hey check out our shiny new forward in Jermaine Dafoe.
May 2004: Sol Campbell becomes a key contributor to Arsenal’s Invincibles season and wins the Premier League title. Does it feel cold?
2004-2005: Here’s our new manager in Jacques Santini ~goes 5-4-5~ ok never mind. Here’s our REAL new manager in Martin Jol, much more quality. He’s got the gusto and know-how to guide us to 9th and no trophies. At least Jermaine Defoe was the club top goal scorer…and Ledley King is coming into his own.
May 2005: Our other eternal rivals Chelsea win their first Premier League thanks to that outlandish manager Jose Mourinho and oligarch Roman Abramovich. All they do is buy players whenever they please. Pfft, that won’t be sustainable, they’ll come back to Earth eventually.
2005-06: Martin Jol has been a massive improvement to our fortunes. No trophies yet but we’re back in Europe. It’s good to be back in the UEFA Cup, think of the tv revenue. 5th place is a nice finish. Robbie Keane and newcomer Mido carried us to this spot. We should be keep them around for a while. Bringing in experienced talent like Edgar Davids and this young defensive midfielder in Tom Huddlestone helps. And check out our new record signing in Jermaine Jenas.
2006-07: Michael Carrick is a great defensive midfielder but Manchester United want his services. Here, take him. Edgar Davids is also much too old to be playing Premier League football. Our loss is also our gain with 15 million quid in the books. Let's invest that into a brand-new world class striker in Dimitar Berbatov. And Carrick's replacement in Didier Zokora certainly helps us...but we finish 5th again. No tropies either...at least European football?
2007-08: Jermaine Dafoe and Mido are gone. We need to replace them. Darren Bent seems like a good idea. But who the hell is this young left-back named Gareth Bale? Why is he worth 14 million pounds? Whatever, we need depth, he probably won't be much. Snap up this Jonathan Woodgate guy, too, someone has to help Ledley King here!
Oct 25, 2007: So you sacked Martin Jol at halftime against Getafe because reasons? Maybe if you stopped selling all his good players the division wouldn't have started. The fans are not pleased about this at all. Smooth them over with Juande Ramos from Chelsea.
League Cup Final 2008: All this leads to an 11th place finish, but fear not - YOU WON THE LEAGUE CUP! The first trophy since 1999, a true triumph. Certainly Spurs can aim higher now right?
2008-09: Juande Ramos is a fraudulent piece of shite that doesn't deserve to work in North London. We've promptly canned him for the legend that is Harry Redknapp. Just look at him inspire us to...8th place. We made the League Cup Final broken glass window and we've lost to Manchester United. And sold them Berbatov because money. This is shit. Enjoy this new midfielder signing in Luka Modric. He'd only become one of the best players in the world, nothing too crazy. Oh and Robbie Keane is back. So is Jermaine Defoe! Yay?
2009-10: A full season of Redknapp ball has led to a glorious prize! 4TH PLACE! Tottenham Hotspur will be playing under the lights on Tuesday and Wednesday! Play the music....THE CHAMPPPIONS! All it cost was loaning out Keane, selling Bent, and bringing in Peter Crouch. What a team we have forming. This Aaron Lennon kid is turning into quite the player. Oh and that Gareth Bale kid we paid a premium for? Yea, he's playing left winger now.
2010-2011: Champions League football requires Champions League talent. Quickly, let's eye up cheap deals for Rafael van der Vaardt, Sandro, and William Gallas. The attacking front of Crouch, Bale, Defoe, van der Vaardt, and Roman Pavlyuchenko powered us to 5th. It’s been a tough test balancing these nights. But did you see our massive victories against both Milan teams? I think we'll be back here in no time. Is it really a bad season without winning any trophies?
2011-12: A critical season. Harry Redknapp's contract is set to expire and Daniel Levy hasn't really been known to give coaches pay raises unless they merit it. Unfortunately, Peter Crouch is too old to keep around. Off to Stoke City with you, lad, thanks for that night at the San Siro. Bringing Emmanuel Adebayor from the exile of Manchester City should be a like-for-like swap. It all powers us to finish 4th again! HUZZAH! Another season of Champions League revenues! But still no Cups to take home.
2012 CL Final: Unfortunately, Chelsea did something incredible and won the Champions League in the most chaotic final in recent memory. Thus, for finishing 4th, you get Europa League football...god I hate Chelsea.
2012-13: Gareth Bale is becoming an elite winger without elite help. We've also decided to do something ridiculously unpopular and sell Luka Modric to Real Madrid for huge money. van der Vaardt is also out the door to Hamburg. The revenue brings in Hugo Lloris, Mousa Dembele, Clint Dempsey, and Jan Vertonghen. Under the plucky Andre Villas-Boas we finish 5th and go back to Europa. But our Cup showing was even more abysmal this season. Gareth Bale potted 21 goals...oh god he's next to go isn't he?
2013-14: The worst day has come. Gareth Bale has been sold to Real Madrid. He's joining up with Modric and Cristiano Ronaldo. The money reinvested brings in Christian Eriksen, Erik Lamela, Paulinho, Etienne Capoue, and the meme known as Roberto Saldado. Andre Villas-Boas' tenure was short-lived. Tim Sherwood is a former Spurs lad, surely he can lead us to greatness. If you call 6th place and no trophies greatness.
CL Final 2014: Luka Modric and Gareth Bale become key contributors to Real Madrid's Decima in the Champions League. Bale also scores one of the best goals of the campaign in the Copa Del Rey against Barcelona. The fans are pissed at Daniel Levy and ENIC.
2014-15: We've been knocking on the door of the elite English teams for a few seasons now. Time to put up or shut up. Tim Sherwood, you are not that guy pal. Mauricio Pochettino, welcome to Spurs. Here's the plucky academy kid in Harry Kane. Please get him firing, our striker woes are well-known. You want to sell Gylfi Sigurdsson and Sandro for this League One prospect in Dele Alli? Ok if you say so. Who the hell is Eric Dier and why do you want him? Culminating in a fifth place finish and League Cup final. Harry Kane scored 21 goals though...whoa.
2015-16: Defense needs an upgrade. Let's buy this experienced Belgian in Toby Alderwaiald. Him and Vertonghen played together before, surely it will work. We also need a left winger. How about Hueng-Min Son? He's been torching defenses for Leverkusen, he can surely do it here. The top teams are having a down season, now is the time to strike. We can smell the Premier League title in our grasp.
Final Matchday 2016: They finished third in a two-horse race after Leicester decided to have the greatest sports story ever play out in real life. It seems like a missed opportunity, but there is plenty to build on. Poch's team is coming together. Kyle Walker and Danny Rose are molding into elite fullbacks. The Belgians and Lloris are brick walls. Harry Kane is becoming a world-class striker. He even won the Golden Boot! They just need a little bit more to get over the trophy drought.
2016-17: Ok this is the year. We made it back to the Champions League, but this will be the last year at White Hart Lane. It's much too old for this modernizing football club. We need a really big stadium to bring in that sweet matchday revenue like our rivals. And I'm talking REALLY big, the best in all of England. It would be nice to fill it with some Champions League revenue and some silverware no? Well, seems like we finished 2nd and didn't win any Cups...AGAIN. But hey, Harry won the Golden Boot again! Dele Alli took serious strides in becoming a generational talent. Progress is progress amirite?
Final Matchday 2017: Chelsea win their 4th Premier League title since Abramovich took over. At least you finished above Arsenal again...that's a win isn't it?
2017-18: Kyle Walker has been sold to Manchester City because we like money over glory. Don't worry, we have a solid replacement with Kieran Trippier. We'll use the Walker money to bring a new defender in Davinson Sanchez from Ajax and right winger in Lucas Moura from PSG. Oh and for the hell of it, here's Serge Aurier from PSG too. Glorious depth. We still don't have a reliable backup striker, but how about a cheap deal for the aging legs of Fernando Llorente. He was good in a past life right?
Nov 1, 2017: By God, we've done it. We've slain the evil empire in Real Madrid. It's hard to believe a team of this size and caliber could scar the kings of Europe. Surely the only way is up from here.
March 2018: Nope, the knockout stages pit you up against a thunderous Juventus team that makes you their English bitch. Giorgio Chiellini goes on to make one of the most overused memes in all of football Twitter. "Iz di history of di Tottenham..."
Final Matchday 2018: Respectable 3rd place finish behind Manchester United lads. Too bad no trophies to go with it. Sigh... what else is new? We finished above Arsenal again...yay? Meanwhile, Kyle Walker is part of the Centurion Manchester City team...I need more liquor.
2018-19: Harry Kane is starting to get impatient. He needs to start seeing some silverware soon. Hueng-Min Son is emerging as a top forward in the league. Dele’s dropped off a bit but it’s just a blip, nothing to worry about. Jan and Toby are rock-solid at the back. We have a plucky solid squad, filled with some high-end talent but we didn't get any reinforcements in the summer...what the fuck? You do realize squads transition every season, ENIC? Where's Poch's reinforcements? Why did you sell Mousa Dembele mid-season, he was still useful! Oh dear god, what have they done? Oh that’s right…the new stadium. It’s still not done yet is it?
UCL QFs 2019: This is massive test. We managed to beat Barcelona in the group stage, and cake-walked through Dortmund in the Round of 16 but this is a new beast. We're up against the defending PL champs in Man City. Harry is hurt but we've got Sonny, Lucas, Chrisitan, Dele, and Fernando to make up for his goals. A huge pen save by Hugo on Aguero keeps us in the tie. Son puts us up 1-0 in the first leg. Going to the Etihad without Harry, it's a tight affair. Son and Sterling trading goals, Fernando kneeing in the go-ahead, Bernardo Silva pulling one back, 4-3 Man City, and seeing out the final whistle. Away goals take us over the line. Onto the Semis!
UCL SFs 2019: This Ajax team downed Real Madrid. They're gonna walk all over us. At least in the first leg. The second leg is a masterpiece. Lucas scored not one, not two, but THREE away goals to push us to glory! Gas up the bus boys, WE ARE GOING TO THE UCL FINAL!!!!
UCL Final 2019: What the actual fuck? How was that a handball on Moussa Sissoko??? IT HIT HIS BLOODY SHOULDER! You gifted this match to Liverpool, UEFA! (This is the moment that broke Tottenham Hotspur) And why the hell didn't Lucas start the game? After that fantastic hat trick? I don't care if Kane was fit to play, this is massive managerial blunder. Maybe this is the summer things start to change. All we got for this was a runner-up medal. At least we finished 4th in England. BUT STILL NO MOTHER FUCKING TROPHIES! writer proceeds to smash his laptop in the process
2019-20: The UCL Final should be a springboard for another potential title charge. Poch is calling out ownership for not wanting to give him signings. They only fumbled the Paulo Dybala signing, surely we can still trust Levy and ENIC right? Here's Giovani Lo Celso instead and Tanguy Ndombele to shore up the midfield. Here's our replacement for Danny Rose in Ryan Sessegnon. Unfortunately, Chrisitan Eriksen wants out and we let his contract run down. He leaves in January for basically nothing. Results are starting to flounder so Poch, pack your furniture and get out of our house. Meet our new manager: Jose Mourinho, the Special One. Just nobody tell Daniel he's been sacked infamously by both Chelsea and Manchester United for being a toxic presence. At least the new stadium is ope---ah fuck, it's COVID. An injury-plagued campaign culminates in a 6th place finish, but still no trophies. Another finish over those Gunners though! Why aren't you fans happy? We can't spend money, don't you see we didn't get any matchday revenue???
FA Cup Final 2020: Even though we finished above them, Arsenal take home an FA Cup with a squad arguably much less talented than Spurs. It was also against Chelsea...who finished above you. Can someone drive me to the nearest cliff please?
2020-21: A full season of Mourinho-ball. Tensions are starting to run high. Kane is pissed at the direction we're going. Jan Vertonghen and Kieran Trippier are gone. Dele Alli forgot how to play football under Jose. We need a new center-back...too goddam expensive. Let's convert Eric Dier to CB and have play back there, what's the worst that can happen? Fans aren't happy at all. I know the solution: you kids remember Uncle Gareth?? He's baaaaack! Sure, he's in his early 30s and a shell of himself but he's won 4 UCL titles and scored that fabulous bike kick in 2018. He's still class. Here’s a bunch of mid table players in Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg, Matt Doherty, and Joe Rodon to supplement the team.
March 2021: Europa League is quite winnable. Surely nothing bad will happen like you losing to a team who's manager is in prison for tax fraud. breaking glass sounds you fumbled a 2-0 agg lead to Dinamo Zagreb...who's manager was in prison for tax fraud. You're fucking pathetic you know that?
April 2021: Jose Mourinho is a dinosaur of English football. Look at him playing park the bus tactics while we can't defend score. Let's get rid of this cancer before it spreads. Who cares if it's six days before the League Cup Final against City? Why can't Ryan Mason see it out?
EFL Cup Final 2021: It's not a blowout loss, but it's clearly an overmatching. City run rampant on Spurs as they lift the trophy they basically own at this point. Fans are calling for Levy's head. In fact, they were calling for it as early as the FA Cup loss to Everton in the fourth round.
Final Matchday 2021: Jose refused to play Gareth Bale. Looking back that was a terrible decision. Bale and Kane power us to a 7th place finish. We finish above Arsenal again. It's a successful season in ENIC's checkbook. And there's still European football to play. Harry Kane wins another Golden Boot and the Golden Ball for most assists. We have to keep him around.
May 2021: Kieran Trippier and Christian Eriksen become key contributors to Atletico Madrid and Inter Milan's respective title wins. In other news, Juan Foyth wins the Europa League with Villarreal while on loan. Does that sound familiar?
CL Final 2021: Chelsea find another way to win another Champions League title, despite sacking a manger midway through the season and having misfiring forwards. And it was against Man City…who we beat every now and then.
2021-22: We need a director of football to help us match up to our rivals better. Fabio Paratici built Juventus in the most dominant club in Italy, surely he can replicate that in England. No we won't hire Paulo Fonseca and his 7 assistant coaches, way too much payroll. And no, you can't hire Gennaro Gattuso for his derogatory comments. Wait, where the hell is Harry Kane? Ahh I see he wants to be sold to Man City. HA! Doesn't he know he just signed an extension? Son has too, so if Harry wants to play hardball let him. Quickly, hire Nuno Espirito Santos as our fail-safe. He's not what we wanted but we fucked up so we're fucked now. Wait, how can we be so critical of ourselves? CHECK OUT THIS GLORIOUS STADIUM!!!!
Nov 2021: Nuno is terrible, he's lost 5 in a row. Who cares if we beat Man City on opening day? Get him out NOW! Get Antonio Conte in. It's another former Chelsea manager to restore our standing in the club.
Final Matchday 2022: HUZZAH! After a turbulent season, losing to wifi-password named clubs in the Conference League then getting kicked out of it for COVID reasons, Conte calling us out in the media multiple times, we galvanized ourselves to a 4th place finish. We're back, and it's thanks to the Juve rejects in Cristian Romero, Dejan Kulusevski, and Rodrigo Bentancur. Son won the Golden Boot, a true testament to his development at Spurs. Back on track. But still...no trophies. Another finish above Arsenal...they should just make a team award for that at this point.
2022-23: A full season of a happier Conte should lead us to silverware. Let’s not dawddle, start making signings. Richarlison always victimized us at Everton, let’s bring him to back up Kane. Yves Bissouma did the same at Brighton and we do need a batter box to box midfielder. Him too. Ivan Perisic on a free for Conte’s wingback. Surely our defense is fine in the hands of Romero, Dier, Clement Lenglet, and Ben Davies. And Djed Spence because reasons.
April 2023: It’s been a terrible season. From having our best start to a season since 1967 to bottling game after game after game. Tepid football, lack of inspiration. Despite small triumphs like winning the Champions League group stage and mugging Manchester City of points again, they have failed miserably again. Son’s form is gone. Richarlison doesn’t know how to score. The defense is wide open. It implodes after giving up 3 goals to a bottom table Southampton after being up 3-0. Conte is furious, criticizes ownership again, and is canned back to Italy. Fabio Paratici was also banned by FIFA for cooking Juve’s books. To make it worse, Arsenal was leading the top of the table and almost won the title. Thank the football gods for Man City and their oil money franchise. That means nothing as the season prolapses, we fall out of European contention, and finish 8th. No manager, no director football, toxic fanbase crying out for changes. I have now developed heavy drinking. "ZE DON'T WANT TO PLAY FOR SOMETHING IMPORTANT! 20 YEARS THERE IS THE OWNER AND NEVER WON SOMETHING!"
UEL Semi-Final 2023: Did I mention this gets worse because it does. A couple seasons back, Spurs swapped Erik Lamela and 25 million for promising Spanish youngster Bryan Gil from Sevilla. Gil was never favored by Nuno or Conte, with the Italian basically exiling him from the team unless he had no other choice but to play him. Gil would be loaned back to Sevilla where he assisted Erik Lamela's game-winning goal in stoppage time to book Sevilla a place in the Europa League final. I want to drink bleach...
Twenty-three years of failures and memes, Tottenham look like a lost club. All the shiny toys, but nothing to show for it. Champagne expectations with a beer budget. Does the ownership really value profit that much? Daniel Levy always insists his goal every season is to win a trophy. But how do you do that without attracting top talent? They squandered a window in 2019 and can’t remake the glory. They've made signing after signing that are inconsistent or not at the level to win trophies. It feels like they value cheap deals rather than actual talent. It's killing the club. Kane has been a legend at the club but he’s ready to move on. I don’t blame him, his career is incomplete with some hardware. But the future looks bleak. What will Spurs do next? Will they do a full rebuild and risk the possibility of no European football? Or will they try to win at least one trophy before Kane's contract is up?

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Prologue
Washington DC
2026
Bang! Bang! The Sounds of fires being shot echoed down the halls and seemed like it was getting closer and closer to the door.“Ma’am we have a pro…” The secret service member said while busting through the doors to the oval office and getting shot. The President stood up in reaction to the loud bang from the gun. The president and the intruder stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity with the strong scent of gunpowder in the air. The President was frightened by this whole thing before the intruder.“We need to get out here now!” the intruder said in a hurry.“And why should I trust you, you just shot one of my guards in cold blood,” Exclaimed the president.“That wasn’t your guard, That thing wasn’t even human.”. Right after the intruder said that the husk of what remained of the guard… or whatever that was began to shapeshift to its natural form. After it transformed the body it looked like a grotesque Deer with a horrid Smell and it had also grown to be just under 4 meters tall. “That thing… is what we call a wendigo in my line of work. more on that later this country is infested with them. I have traveled here to warn you that this place is a hotspot for them.”“What do you suppose we…” The intruder shot one running towards them using some sort of advanced weapon.“Follow me. We need to destroy the queen of these wendigo, otherwise this whole world is at stake. I have determined that the queen is a couple thousand meters below this building ".“ and how do you expect us to defeat this queen when it's just the two of us,”. “Well that’s where my team comes in…”.
Chapter One
5 Minutes LaterThe last of the teammates had entered the room. In total the team includes five members. Their names being Lily, Maddie, Rip, Kelly and their leader which was the intruder is Cloud. Cloud hands a gun to the president and said, “Here take this. Normal weapons do nothing against this foe.” The president grabs the gun.“Seven coming down the hall,” Exclaimed Rip as he started to barricade the door.“How are you able to differentiate between humans and these creatures?” questioned the president.“Quite simple really. When we were hired each of us was implemented with a brain chip that was programmed to see all the wendigo’s except the queen since very little is known about them.” Said Cloud while breaking a bookshelf. They go on to explain to the president that they have examined all known blueprints of the white house. Then the president just pushes a button underneath her desk. The bookshelf begins to creek open because it hadn't been used since the ending of the last great war in ‘24. They head down the staircase leading to the tunnels but before they reach the bottom Cloud hits a brick which opens a hole in the wall. On the other side of the hole it was filled with a heavy cloud of dust and cobwebs that had been accumulating since before the founding of the US. When they were all passed the hole Rip hit another brick which closed the hole like nothing had just happened. The team began to power their flashlights to a room filled with a map of this previously undiscovered part of the white house. But the map had degraded to the point where it was degraded past repair. A door on the other side of the door was opened by a hard jolt and everyone had open fire. After they had cleared the hoard they examined what was on the other side of the door. It seemed to be an electrical room with breakers aligned with the wall. The team began to flip each switch which seemed to turn on the lights. With the lights activated they were able to see another door in the room they were in which was wide open. They pressed forward to see what was on the other side of the door.
Chapter 2
Once they all entered the room they noticed that it was a hallway that branched out. The decor seemed to be on par with a hotel from the ‘30s or ‘40s. They decided to break up and meet back after they explored the halls. They broke up into team Alpha and team Beta. Team Beta included the president while the leader went with team Alpha. The president started to ask questions about what the team does.Lily responded “It started back in ‘09, with the H1N1 virus which was a bioweapon that was accidentally released by a start up firm in Mexico by the name of Corona Industria. We ended up creating a cure for not just H1N1 but all variants of the flu.”Maddie chimed in saying “The same company almost released another virus back in 2019 but we seized all their assets and made their company and subsidiaries bankrupt before the virus was released .” After talking a while they had mapped the hallway and all branching rooms except one at the end of the end of the hall. The door seemed to be a steel security door with a sign on it in an unknown script. Since the door was jammed shut they started to head back to the meeting point. On the other side team Alpha had made a discovery of an elevator shaft that only went down. Cloud pulled out a glow stick out of their bag and snapped it before throwing it down the shaft. After a good minute the glow stick reached the bottom. After some calculations Cloud determined that the elevator shaft went down about 261 meters. They determined that there were about 47 floors below us. Team Alpha went back to meet up with Team Beta at the meeting point.
Chapter 3
Once both teams meet back up together team Alpha explained what they had found, and decided that the queen must be at the bottom. They Started to climb down the ladder in the elevator shaft. After they reached the bottom they entered through the elevator door at the bottom and were greeted with a door simply stating “Authorized personnel only”. They opened the door with a single push. and the room had metal walkways above a pit of lava. “The Queen is supposed to be here,” said Cloud. “Unless The Queen has been with us the whole time,” said Rip while pointing the gun at the president. “Very good you finally recognize the true threat, But I won’t go down that easy,” said the president, who had just stabbed Rip and pushed him over the rail. The next thing that happened was that the President had just shapeshifted into a Wendigo that was just over 4.5 Meters. with everyone trying to shoot the queen their bullets just recqoishade of the skin of the wendigo. Cloud just ran head first pushing the Queen into the lava but they went along with the Queen. “The rest of the team which at this point only contained Kelly, Maddie, and Lily all screamed “Noo!!”. But Cloud couldn’t hear any of that while their whole life was passing before his eyes. Major points of their life stood out like graduation, and the finding of the team. Maddie, and Lily began to tear up since they have been friends with Cloud since High school. Kelly had to drag them out of the room and explained that they can grieve afterwards but they have to leave now. The remaining three had left the weight house but right after they left the white house Kelly had planted a bomb which collapsed the whole building. Once they got to their van they had a flashing triangle on their screen. Kelly tapped the screen while everyone was processing what just happened. A shady figure appears on the screen with a deep voice to prevent their identity being revealed. “No time to explain to you the next assignment I’ll send over the coordinates. All I can say is the world is in danger,”.
Epilogue
The Aftermath
With the white house being destroyed and most politicians were killed in the incident or arrested, the US didn't last long. With a massive territory empty and The Alaskan Wasteland finally becoming safe to inhabit the third great war broke out. It was mainly against enemies of the US like China and The Japanese Empire. but other countries tried to take the land like The Technocracy of Antarctica, NATO and SATO. It was a long battle that lasted for a millennium but in the end NATO won and Canada and Mexico combined to create the North American Trade Confederacy. After the war there were a few years of peace before first contact happened in 2138 but not much is known from the First Contact Era as it has been dubbed by Historians. 1000’s of later Terrains have finally achieved immortality which because of that they had finally reached the final stages of peace only fighting as a last line of defense for the Galactic Federation. But I don't know much about this federation since I’ve been living on the far side of the universe at an excavation site for some sort of dangerous ancient technology.
​
Writers note: This takes place in the same universe as another story I have wrote but since I lost story I will just say the main points. The USSR broke up but never formed Russia, and instead of pearl harbor being nuked it was Alaska. And SATO just stands for South Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Previous
That night Simon and Nemeria watched from the rooftop of a rented apartment in Coven as shooting stars fell over Homeworld for the first time. "Make a wish, my love." She said as she put her head in his lap, the rapidly disintegrating space station above filling the sky with streaks of light that reflected in her eyes.
He thought about it for a second. "Should I tell you what it is?"
"No, definitely not." Nemeria replied. "Then it won't come true."
"Oh… then I will not." Simon said as he played with her hair. For a moment he felt as if he were standing at a crossroads, straddling two potential futures, then the feeling faded. He had wished for them to have a happy life together. He felt they at least deserved that after all they had been through and all the time they had spent apart.
The morning after Haven fell something interesting happened. Pirate radio stations began to emerge, filling the airways with music, but it wasn't like anything they had heard before. It was something new.
"Good morning Homeworld!" Called out a rough but enthusiastic voice in Dansk from the clock radio on the dresser. It was out of arm's reach, probably so the person being woken up would have to actually get out of bed to shut it off. "This is not a test, this is rock and roll! Time to rock it from Katzenlund to the Winter lands! Is it too early to be this loud? Too late!"
Simon frowned at the clock radio. He didn't remember scheduling an alarm. "I'm Mr. Bones and this is human music! I'm going to start off with a favorite of mine, Zombie by the Cranberries!"
He went to turn it off but Nemeria tackled him before he could reach the button. "Do you dare." She said as she pulled him back into bed. "That song is a classic."
So instead of starting the day early they stayed in bed and listened to The Doors, Elvis Presley, Fleetwood Mac, Jimi Hendrix, Lou Reed, and Pink Floyd. It was surprisingly good, even if his wetware had a hard time translating the lyrics.
"Human music on the radio." Nemeria mused, her head on his chest. "I never thought I would see the day."
"Oh? I just assumed you people didn't like to share." Simon tousled her hair, it was starting to change from dull brown to a more vivid copper red.
"No. There are countermeasures in place, Haven would have sent a kill team to destroy anyone who tried or just blasted the site from orbit. We had a black market, exchanging things from the old world, books, music, things to keep us sane. But it was very hush hush." Nemeria looked at him, her eyes were different too, they were an almost opalescent green. Something had changed in her. "I want to read you something."
"Alright." Simon sat up, his muscular shoulders against the headboard and he listened as she recited Edna and Shakespeare from memory, beautiful human words, full of sentiment and meaning.
"That was beautiful." Simon said. "Why haven't you shared this with me before?"
"It wasn't allowed. You would have felt compelled to share it and then Haven would have come for you." She smiled, but for once there was no pain behind it, or guilt. Perhaps it was the first real smile he had even seen on her face. It was like a weight had been lifted. "But now, there is no Haven. We don't have to worry about them anymore. We can live our lives, start anew."
"You seem different… unburdened." Simon observed.
"I am. I woke up this morning and realized that I don't have to feel guilty for something someone else did. Something that I never played a part in. I should have realized it sooner, but something was blocking me from making the connection." She laid back in bed. "I feel… new? Is that the word? Yes, new. I feel like I'm not the same person who went to sleep last night."
The old hund's words echoed in Simon's mind. He had said he would crack Haven like an egg, destroy the Howl, then set everyone free. So was he free? How different would he be now that his programming no longer bound him to her?
Before they had parted the old hund had given him a piece of advice. He had told Simon that love was a choice, not a feeling. That if he wanted things to work out with Nemeria he would have to choose her, and keep choosing her, to decide once and for all that he would always love her. And to stand by that choice.
"Would you please give me your ring?" Simon asked. "There's something I need to do."
Nemeria slipped the silver band off her finger and handed it over. Then Simon sat her on the edge of the bed and knelt down. "The world is new, we are new, so I ask… will you marry me? Will you be my wife?"
Nemeria paused, realizing that she had a choice to make. Before then she had been hard coded to love him, hard coded to believe that she was someone, now all that was falling away. Her mind was free, unshackled. Unburdened. She remembered so much that had been kept hidden from her.
The Red Titan had stolen one of Esmerelda's backup clones and poured their mind into it, essentially putting the mind of one warden into the body of another. But that didn't make her them. She was someone else, someone new. She didn't have to pay for their mistakes anymore.
But what about Simon? Did she love him? Could she love him? Did she want to commit to this when her whole life was ahead of her? And the child, she had agreed to raise a child! Did she even know that she would like being a mother? Or that she would be a good one?
A soft caress brought her back to reality. It was Simon, touching her cheek with the tips of his fingers. "I don't know what is going on, or what tomorrow will hold, or even how I will feel, and it terrifies me. But I know that together we can face anything. We have a chance to choose for ourselves, and I choose you. I promise that I will always choose you."
Then as he went to slip the ring on her finger he repeated what she had told him when she handed him his first Vampirzahn. He didn't know where it came from or what it meant. But the sentiment had been clear, that she couldn't protect him from the world, that she couldn't keep him safe, that this was all she could give and she hoped that it would be enough. "It's dangerous to go alone, take this."
Nemeria laughed and accepted the ring. "Yes it is, isn't it? I suppose you're stuck with me now."
"Damn. Perhaps I should rethink things?" Simon laughed as he pulled her back into bed. "No, I think I like this." He gave her a playful nip on the side of the neck. "Yes, I believe I do."
They made love until the afternoon then went out for pastries and provisions. Somehow it felt right, finally choosing each other. They walked hand in hand, ignoring the looks of surprise at a human and a hund so boldly displaying their affection. GG had said she would contact them when the child was ready to be picked up.
"I can't believe Haven is actually gone." Nemeria said as she sat on a bench eating an ice cream cone. Technically they were in a graveyard, but between the sunshine and the families with their strollers it felt just like any other park.
She took a second to make sure nobody was listening. "I joined some of the old nets anonymously and asked around. Everyone says it was some kind of system failure, or possibly sabotage. Apparently the boosters just went haywire, spun it until it fell apart."
"It's hard to believe it." Simon looked up at the clear sky, there wasn't a single sign of the once proud space station. "I wonder if there will be a backlash against humans now that there isn't anything stopping us from getting even."
"Possibly, but we're resilient and useful. With Haven destroyed I expect you will see a lot of human tech being sold to the highest bidder. And not just tech, entertainment as well. There are a bunch of black market music and books that are going to see the light for the first time in centuries."
Simon felt a call come in from GG and he accepted it. The encryption in their wetware made sure nobody else could listen in. She got straight to the point.
"Someone took out all of the Howl's senior leadership last night." She said over the link, "It was a bloodbath."
Simon blinked in surprise. "What happened? And why wasn't I invited? Was it Las Brujas?" He replied back, his wetware translating thoughts to words.
"Details are sparse but apparently they had an emergency meeting to discuss what to do about the Haven situation and someone took the opportunity to clean house. It was some kind of commando style raid, nobody knows who or why. All the tapes and satellite images were erased. Just a lot of dead bodies." She sent him a few choice photos. "Multiple locations were hit simultaneously. All locations were remote and heavily guarded. Looks like whoever this was they hit hard and fast. Local security was packbound and armed to the teeth, didn't help. They were put down with precise shots and a minimum of fuss. Look familiar?"
He sucked in his breath. Somebody had been using a Jagdkommando carbine, he recognized the tiny entrance and massive exit wounds. Yes, they looked familiar. He had carried that same rifle.
Even five decades after their defeat Döbi still produced some of the most sought after weapons. Half the militaries on Homeworld used their hardware. But these were old classics, pre-war. Someone was sending a message.
New tech was all about drones and smart munitions. Why risk a soldier's life when you could lob a smart grenade through a window that would identify friend from foe and destroy the latter with smart shrapnel? No, this was old school. Someone looked them in the face and pulled the trigger.
Apparently the old hund hasn't been lying when he said he would destroy the Howl. But what kind of power vacuum would that leave? And who would step in? The Howl wasn't just a supremacist group. They ran weapons, narcotics and black market tech all over the globe. They had strongholds in various capital cities and major political protection.
"Any noise on who is going to step up now that they're out of commission?" Simon asked.
"It's too soon to say but my money is on the Bone Syndicate. They've been looking to expand and with the Howl out of the way they'll probably jump at the chance. They've been staying out of the news but my sources say they have been muscling out smaller gangs and taking over their turf. Nobody seems to mind because there aren't gunfights in the streets anymore. But it's still organized crime."
Simon was familiar with the Bone Syndicate, he had even done some work for them after they restructured a few decades back. Territory under their control tended to be mostly peaceful and safe, so long as you followed the rules. They even helped out during national disasters. But the line between gangsters and good samaritans tended to blur.
They might extort local restaurants then give them money to rebuild after a fire. They would blackmail politicians… to ensure a new school got funded. Or to pass a social welfare bill. It was almost as if they had decided that the best way for them to make money was to improve the areas which they controlled. And it was working.
They operated almost in the open and had so thoroughly greased all levels of local government that any attempt to take them down would cause a major budget crisis. But when they did choose violence, it was with massively overwhelming force and military precision. Yes, this sounded like their way of doing things. The old hund must have tipped them off.
"Any news on our bundle of joy?" Simon asked.
"Yes, she is en route." GG confirmed. "She should arrive in a few hours. We have papers for her ready as well as a safe house in Porto."
Porto? Now that was a surprise. "Why Porto?"
"Because they acknowledge mixed species marriages and it's one of the few places you have amnesty." GG reminded him. "You are technically a war criminal. Even if most of the world thinks you are dead."
After the war Porto had offered him amnesty in return for helping them hunt down and kill those responsible for the genocide of their fellow katzen. Porto was after all a mostly katzen nation and they knew how to hold a grudge. So he had joined a task force of other enhanced hunds and katzen with a similar thirst for blood and they had done their best to kill every last one of the people responsible. Afterwards he had gone into the private sector, but it was true, he did have a place to go if he ever felt like retiring.
He contemplated that for a moment. If he was going to raise a child he couldn't exactly run off for months at a time to do contract work. Perhaps it was time to retire, at least until she was grown. It wasn't like he needed the money. Perhaps it was time to become the warrior in the gardens like the old hund had said.
"How do you feel about moving to Porto?" Simon asked after he broke the connection.
"Oh, I have a little place near Intra, on the coast." Nemeria frowned. "I don't think I've been back in quite some time though. Let me check something…"
Her eyelids fluttered as she scanned the net. "Yes, the management company I hired is renting it out. I can have them cancel the bookings and make it ready for us, if that's what you want." She smiled. "It's quite well defended, I purchased it in my post-war phase when I thought everyone was out to get me. We could hold off an army there."
"Perfect." Simon said, squeezing her hand three times and receiving three squeezes back in reply. In the camps that had been their secret way of saying "I love you" and he was happy to see that she still remembered.
He looked out across the park and frowned. "Darling, was that church always there?"
Nemeria followed his gaze, her eyes narrowed. "No… I'd say it wasn't. Now the question is, was it hidden or did it just appear?"
Simon cocked his head to the side, surprised at the flexibility of her thought process. It was like she was waking up, becoming bright again, becoming the person he had fallen in love with in the camps. "Shall we investigate?" He asked.
"Oh yes. Definitely." Nemeria made a gesture with her fingers and he could almost swear there was a faint rainbow flickering of light in the palm of her right hand.
"Dearest, what was that?" He asked as they stalked across the graveyard.
"Oh, it's something old. It goes nicely with the something new." Nemeria said playfully, nudging him with her hip.
Simon mentally filed that strangeness into a drawer marked "wife/human stuff" and put it out of his mind. There was no sense trying to understand it all, to attempt to do so was to invite madness.
The church was old, hundreds of years old. With moss growing from the roof and black stones making up the walls. Which made it very strange indeed that it seemed to have just appeared out of nowhere and hadn't been there yesterday.
"Fascinating." Nemeria said as she turned around, not looking at the church but at the people around them. "Absolutely fascinating."
Simon didn't get it. "What is so interesting, my love?"
"It's an SEP field." Nemeria replied.
"And that is?" Simon pressed.
"Someone else's problem." She turned to him and smiled. "They can all see it, they just ignore it. But look at them. Really look."
Simon did as requested, they seemed like normal hunds to him. There were certainly more bicycles than he was used to but then again this was Coven. Then he looked with his other senses and he quickly realized that what was going on was anything but normal.
Almost everyone in the park was running some form of wetware, even the pups. Warhunds shared data along a kind of mesh network that mixed low power local signals with satellite uplinks and repeaters to allow them to communicate nearly instantly and move as a team. This was something similar but with vastly more users.
He looked up with his mind and touched a commercial recon satellite, purchasing some time through a shell company, accessing its spectral analysis capabilities. The whole city was a hotbed of activity, and the network was growing at an exponential rate.
A wave of digital traffic was spreading out over the country, awakening new mesh nodes as it went, strengthening and spreading the network. Soon it was in Döbi, Möhi, Sühi, and the rest of the continent.
He looked down, his own wetware telling him something very important. It wasn't just the living who were part of the network. Somehow it seemed to be leveraging the dead as well.
Some of the more recent graves seemed to be exchanging packets with the network. Answering queries perhaps? But what could the dead possibly have to say?
"Many things, I would imagine." Said a raspy voice from the entrance of the church, seemingly reading his thoughts. It was an old Döbian with high cut ears, but it was hard to say if it was the same one he had met in his dream. He was wearing plain black clothes and a white priest's collar rubbed with sandalwood, the traditional scent of his station. "Come, you don't want to be late for the wedding."
Nemeria and Simon exchanged a knowing look. "It's our wedding, isn't it?" Simon asked.
"Of course." The old hund said with a dry chuckle. "Who's else would it be? You know that this is one of the few places you two can get married, don't you? Why else bring you here?" He gestured for them to come inside.
Nemeria shrugged and walked towards the door, that same strange shimmer dancing around the fingertips of her right hand. "You said you brought us here. Why?"
"As bait, mostly." The old hund laughed as he turned his back on her and entered the building, talking as he walked. "But also because I have fond memories of this city. Plus the whole marriage thing. It was owed to you, a chance at a happy ending."
Nemeria looked at Simon and raised an eyebrow.
Simon just shrugged. "He's a friend… I think."
The church was well maintained, if dusty. The windows were not particularly ornate and the altar didn't hold anything worth stealing. Simon tried not to let his hackles rise at the idea of being used as bait. But bait for what? He wondered.
The old hund spun on his heel and faced Simon. "Bait… for a warden." He explained. "A very nasty warden who has quietly been growing their power and influence since the war. A cancer which, if unchecked, will spell the end of this world and all within it. Also he is a threat to my granddaughter, so that means he must die."
"How are you reading my mind?" Simon demanded angrily. It seemed like all he had to do was think of a question and the hund would answer it.
"Because to think of a question when we share a network, dear brother, is to ask it." The old hund replied cryptically. "Your wetware is querying me for information, seeing if I have an answer."
Simon frowned. "I know you… don't I? From before the war? You said we were like half brothers…" He felt a name coming to his lips, but it was as if the memory was fighting him. "Are you Gershwin's son? The pup he brought back from the dead? The reason for all this madness?"
"Yes, I am Kerner. As are many others." The old hund shrugged. "I suppose it is a very common name where I come from. Perhaps more common now."
Simon blinked. "Copies… you and the other hund I spoke with… you're copies of Kerner. The same mind spread out over different bodies." He could see it now, the advanced age made it hard to tell but this wasn't the same hund he had met in virtual.
"Duplicates yes, but not necessarily equals. Not until today." The old hund explained. "Only one of us at a time had the ability to make more, to overwrite wetware at will, to influence the Gravekeeper. But he patched out those vulnerabilities yesterday after Haven fell and the Howl was brought low. Now we are all just regular warhunds. The more recent of our number may revert back to their former selves, others will find a middle ground, and the old ones will most likely remain the same. After all, I have been Kerner for most of my life. I see little reason to change now."
"But how many of you are there?" Simon pressed.
"Many." Kerner said with a shrug. "Though now that I have revealed myself perhaps that number will decrease rapidly." The old hund chuckled, gesturing towards Nemeria. "Your other half will see to that if I am unable to stop him."
Now it was Nemeria's turn to be confused. "You don't mean Simon, do you?"
"No, I do not." The old hund sat down on an old wooden chair, looking up at the bare altar. "The problem with making copies is that the original still remains. I was made when Kerner was murdered by his sister during a training exercise. He jumped out of an airplane and realized half way down that his parachute had been sabotaged. I remember feeling his fear, his desperation, and I remember seeing him hit the ground."
The old hund looked back over his shoulder at her. "You my dear are one possible answer to a question. What does one do when the body does not fit the mind? Either the being must suffer, the body must change, or the mind must change."
The old hund went back to looking at the altar. "It's amazing how paths can split. You went one way, and he went another. You took a form to fit your mind, and he altered his mind to accept his form."
There was a polite knock on the ancient timbers of the open church door as a tall well built man with flaming red hair entered the building.
He looked at Simon and smiled. "Hello, Puppy." He said softly. It was Nemeria's old form, her old identity, the Red Titan, very much alive.
Simon realized now that the dead body he saw in the lab as they were fleeing had been a fake. This was Raul Reyes, in all his glory. A flash of anger rose in Simon as he realized that Raul had tricked him, made him think that he was alone for all these years. What a cruel thing to do to someone that you said you loved. The betrayal of it wrenched at Simon's heart, tearing open old wounds.
Simon reached out and took Nemeria's left hand, squeezing it firmly three times. "I choose you." He said. "I will always choose you. Fuck him, he's dead to me."
Nemeria squeezed back three times. "I have your back, whatever happens."

Hey hey! Jin Locke here and i am searching for people to RP with!
I am looking to try and find new RP partners interested in RPing various fandoms that i am interested in. I prefer to play with literate RP partners who can achieve a paragraph length, and maybe go beyond that if really inspired. Sorry, but two-three sentence responses are just way too short for me to truly enjoy the RP. There is no set limit on "max length" but i wouldnt want you to exhaust yourself typing novellas! Just keep it comfortable but detailed.
I am 24 yo and so expect it to eventually get into NSFW zone, BUT if you dont want to then its also fine to me, we can keep it as a more "innocent" romance. RP can be long or short term, but long terms are preferable since they allow us to explore more themes in it.
For CanonxCanon or CanonxOC or OCxOC i dont really have a hard set preference but would enjoy at least one canon character in a pairing, since OCxOC can get a bit... vague. However i will not judge before hearing you out! By all means, message me if you have any ideas and i will be happy to hear them out.
As for genders... I guess i am on my FxF spell. I can try FxM but its a bit "maybe" for me and i usually only do it with a few specific kinks, so ye be warned.
Plots can be discussed further in DMs or chat, since writing it all out here for ALL the fandoms will take a few pages and i want us to talk about our preferences, kinks, themes, scenarios and whatever else we want before we start.
Also you can ask me for my Discord and we can continue there if you like, which i actually prefer since Discord is far easier to track and notice fresh notifications then Reddit, which sometimes does not display them due to a bug of some kind.
Now for fandoms i crave: Genshin Impact, Saiko no Sutoka, Overwatch, Avatar, Fire Emblem, DC/Marvel, Mass Effect, World of Warcraft, RWBY, all kinds of "usual suspect" anime like Naruto and etc... Fate (Grand Order and more!) , Witcher, Resident Evil, Dragon Age and list goes on and on...
Feel free to suggest the fandoms you like, but i may not be too familiar with them... But you never know!