I'm up for an OCONUS PCS and will be having to do a lot of travel in the near future, and with that comes a lot of expenses. As is tradition whenever I transfer or take a vacation somewhere, I get a new card to easily hit the sign up bonus; but now I am afraid I am running out of cards.
Currently have: AMEX Platinum, Gold, Blue Cash Chase Sapphire Preferred Chase Ink Unlimited Capital One Quicksilver Discover IT A bunch of more minor cards
Spouse has: AMEX Platinum, Gold Capital One Quicksilver
My spouse recently applied for an received the Chase United Infinite Card as we will be booking our travel on United Airlines and will use the United Card to hit the signup bonus as well as the 5% miles.
So that leaves me open to finding another card with which to spend all the other costs such as hotels, food, household items, etc etc. I am ineligible for Chase cards due to their absolutely stupid 5/24 rule (I was denied for the United originally for no reason other than it); I was considering getting a Charles Schwab Platinum as I have a Schwab account, but open to other recommendations.
Thanks!

I am in the military and will be having to do a lot of travel in the near future, and with that comes a lot of expenses. As is tradition whenever I transfer or take a vacation somewhere, I get a new card to easily hit the sign up bonus; but now I am afraid I am running out of cards.
Currently have: AMEX Platinum, Gold, Blue Cash Chase Sapphire Preferred Chase Ink Unlimited Capital One Quicksilver Discover IT A bunch of more minor cards
Spouse has: AMEX Platinum, Gold Capital One Quicksilver
Oldest card is 12 years ago FICO Score around 750 Income around 65k
My spouse recently applied for an received the Chase United Infinite Card as we will be booking our travel on United Airlines and will use the United Card to hit the signup bonus as well as the 5% miles.
So that leaves me open to finding another card with which to spend all the other costs such as hotels, food, household items, etc etc. I am ineligible for Chase cards due to their absolutely stupid 5/24 rule (I was denied for the United originally for no reason other than it); I was considering getting a Charles Schwab Platinum as I have a Schwab account, but open to other recommendations. My main interest is hitting a good signup bonus with the money I'm going to spend anyways.
Thanks!

Just wanted to share a funny story. I’ve been a firearms trainer for many years here in Southern, WI. I teach live fire, laser, and scenario training. I continue my certifications and some I have are NRA Rifle, Pistol, Self Defense in and outside the home, MAG40, Sig Sauer Academy, and Vortex Edge. I have my own company, website, etc. I never wanted to get into the FFL/SOT game but over the years more and more people who I train or have trained have been asking why I don’t have my FFL and that they would come to me all the time for transfers and purchases. I pretty much can beat any store near me. I finally broke down last year and got my FFL and was going to get the SOT in July. I almost equate having an FFL to buying a boat. So many people promise they’ll come out and ski, wakeboard, and what not. But they never do. Same with an FFL it seems. They say they will come to you and will order left and right. Now some have. But the biggest talkers go dark on you. Just thought it was comical. Someone else told me it was like purchasing a boat and I didn’t listen. But hey, I appreciate all the business I do get!

Hey ! Like the title says i'm looking for women to draw ( and ofcourse have nice or dirty conversations with ;) )
About myself : Blonde hair, blue eyes, 1M84 ( or 6Ft44inch) pretty skinny but slightly muscular. Pretty introverted in general but once i open up about things i can keep talking for hours ( or just talk with me about art etc )
Besides drawning i also like to workout, but i keep myself occupied in my freetime creatively.
The drawings are for me personally since i'm only going to use them for practicing drawing the anatomy of the female body, i won't share them anywhere online ( unless you give permission ) and will only share them with you.
So if you're interested send me a message and we will see where it goes further! And i also don't mind showing off myself ;)

Okay, there’s this particular woman that comes in with her son to the local bingo hall nearby every night, and she or her son win every time they play, and sometimes up to four times a night. To the point it’s starting to strip the enjoyment away from my weekend evening enjoyment and escaping from stress. I mean I really love going. However, the strange thing is I have only noticed this lady and her son starting to come in this last year. Maybe she switched from another local bingo hall. Before her coming I used to win fairly often. Now when I show up and she’s there I know that her or her son will win and that I will lose. Don’t get me wrong though, I’m absolutely not a bitter person, I don’t care that they win here and there like everyone else does, or if I lose even, because I never pay out what I can’t afford to lose anyway. I just miss how chill it used to be at my favorite bingo hall. All my friends go, I grew up across the street from one of the callers, and the local pastor in charge is a close friend. I know that there’s no cheating on the bingo hall’s side of things. They are wonderful people!
What bothers me, and many other friends that play at this particular bingo hall is that statistically it makes absolutely no sense that she or her son came out of nowhere and started winning nearly all the progressive games. Everyone notices it by now. They play very little of the paper. Like I mentioned, I have friends that are in charge of the bingo hall and cheating is nearly impossible, and they suddenly started coming in and taking home over a thousand each night at times like a mothe son Bonnie & Clyde 😂, but with just a 3 on strip a piece, and a couple of blackouts or progressive games. I myself play more than both of them combined nightly, although they play a ton of pull tabs and I don’t buy many of those, but I’m talking winning 2-4 times each night on their very little paper. Also the employees show the papers to be verified by other players. I myself have verified that the paper is definitely a winner.
What I need to know, is it really possible for people to show up suddenly and be that statistically lucky with hardly any papers? I would say no less than a hundred players are there a night. I’m just need some reassurance, because I don’t want my bitter paranoia to strip me of one of my favorite things to do on the weekends. 🫤

Warning: A lot of ranting ahead
Stay a while, and listen...
TL;DR: User-powered economies are the true end-game of all successful titles, and by further restricting this, people will eventually tire at a more rapid pace even with Battle Pass content coming into play.
I'm like most of you: i've been waiting a LONG time, with tons of anticipation for D4 to come out. The dev's promises of pulling the best elements of previous releases, the art and music style of D2, a return to some of the nostalgic experiences of games old... I was invested. I've dumped probably 80 hours into D4 so far, and to date, it's providing to be a decent time sink... it shows it's AAA investment in the artwork, the detail in some of the gameplay aspects, and the overall polish. But there's a sickening feeling that's starting to grow in me as I continue to play, and it's very evident there's a harsh reality that I am in the process of waking up to... Diablo 4's economy will be completely controlled by Blizzard, and them alone.
Diablo Economy - A Retrospective (if you don't care about my credentials, skip to the next paragraph) A quick bit about me so you know where I'm coming from. I've played all of the Diablo titles since their release - It's probably the #1 franchise that I've invested my time into. In a past life, I've also been a dev and coder on a few DnD themed MMO's/MUDs and various other multi-user platforms (both PVE and PVP), and I've studied the impacts of various components, features, and capabilities as they relate to game function and economy as a whole. For those that haven't had the privilege of working with such things at scale, it's a very delicate process and nigh impossible to balance at times, especially when you have varying degrees of interests you are trying to appease (users). Some of diablo's gamplay functions had a direct impact on some of the features I built into games I've worked on.
Diablo's economy has definitely gone through a progression of sorts. Diablo 1 introduced us to a connected marketplace, and user to user trading. Almost all items in the game were fair game for trading. This meant you could openly trade items you found with any person, for whatever material good you so desired. This also introduced a large amount of fraud, as the initial implementation of the trading mechanism had some flaws which allowed people to scam others out of their hard earned goods. Diablo 1's primary items of value were your swords "of Haste" or your "of the Zodiac" items - generally the top-tier suffixed items that you could only farm in Hell.
Diablo 2's economy built upon the successful model of D1, and further enhanced the experience. The number of items, variety in the affixes, crafting and imbuing components - it added a new dimension to gameplay which subsequently resulted in a huge growth in the player based economy. You saw sites like d2jsp pop up, discord communities where powerleveling services and trading takes place. Again, all of this controlled by the community. By this time, there was a huge jump in the number of 3rd party services and websites offering to sell D2 items and services, most of them for real money. D2's formula was almost perfect...
-----Important Event in Our Timeline: 2008 (8 years after D2 releases), Activision Buys Blizzard-----
By the time D3 rolls around, Activision is now in possession of the Diablo IP. This is where we see a fundamental shift in the Diablo engine and economy. Blizzard bean counters notice that there is a LOT of possible revenue being bled by the D2 title (which, again, is still selling copies). Their solution: let's control where people sell items for money, take a cut, under the guise of a 'safe transaction' system. Oh, and there's a key thing to point out here: This is where Blizzard starts to implement a higher volume of account bound items. Additionally D3 introduces the concept of level scaling. These are key changes that have a drastic impact on the game economy (and end-game model) which I'll talk about below. Blizzard's real-money auction house fails miserably, but the real damage has already been done.. however through the auction house disaster distraction, I'm not sure everyone saw what was really happening.
Fast forward to this past month... D4 is here... HOORAY! A return to times of old!.. Yeah, no. Some MAJOR shifts here, which I'll dig into more in the next section. 1. Blizzard locks all legendaries (and more items in general) to account bound (there are some nuances here, but I'm not here to argue those... I'm here to argue the general restriction of account bound legendaries and above) 2. They continue with level scaling, enhanced version. Their fleece? We went back to the dark style of D2... it's sure to win over all the nostalgists. 3. It's battle pass time! - there's a few schools of thought on why Blizzard is going the battle pass route, but to me it's fairly obvious, and I'll cover it below. Oh.. and lets not forget 4. The Epic Store cosmetic shop
Why Do We Play These Games in the First Place? This is my take.. and it's based on the personas I've met throughout the years who have invested the most time into the Diablo, DND, WOW franchises. IMO, Diablo... DND... Fantasy themed games in general... Players share a common purpose: Power. They want power. They want to feel progression. They want to stand out, to be recognized for their accomplishments. In diablo 1 and 2, you advanced levels, and as you did, you could feel the power shifting from the demons to you. If you felt too weak going into a new area and grew discouraged, you'd go back a bit and take your frustrations out on lower level scum... cathartically. As you geared up, your dominance grew... you started to stand out from the crowd. I'll give a quick shout out to Carbot and his D2 paladin sketch where swarms of low level people crowd around him as he hands out legendary and powerful loot to lower level people. Diablo at it's core has been about the loot and the power grind. It wasnt about APM or how many millions bits of damage you could do in a second. It was about being able to grow to such power that you felt you transcended the ultimate power you faced. Now....if you dont agree with me at least in theory on the above, you can probably just stop reading and move on. Otherwise, lets talk about how the 4 primary gameplay factors I've called out in D4 negatively affect this purpose.
Level Scaling This is one of the 2 most detrimental features that has done the most harm to the IP. When we level up, when we get gear with higher numbers... that's all artificial now. There is really no difference between you being level 1 and doing 5 damage a hit to a mob and level 50 doing 700 damage to a mob. Behind the scenes, you are doing the exact same amount of damage. That mob you are fighting, regardless of you being 1 or 50, has the exact same amount of HP required at either level to kill it. You may ask "then why have a leveling system?" - it's to gate skill and character customization as the real progression. It's a phony progression system if there is no direct impact to the true power of your character, but only HOW it's delivered. To me, knowing this is happening behind the scenes, makes the game feel absolutely empty. Now, to be fair, there are certain nuances here that come into play at the higher levels, but the system at its core is a direct 180 from the puritan formula of growing in power. Some people argue this allows us to keep old content relevant, and also caters to the casual player who may not have all the time in the world to dedicate to the game... but that's not what these games are about, and it's not what they're about in the end. Its about standing out. Its about power.
External / Economy Impact: Level scaling also allows Blizzard to somewhat negate the allure of power leveling services. By having more flexibility in what content can be reached at each level, there's no real need to move up in level as rapidly as in previous games. Additionally it has a direct impact on the actual function of item rarity within gameplay.
Account Bound Items This one, is obviously more of a cash grab and plays into the "long-term narrative" of gameplay control on Blizzard's part. By gating most of the most powerful items behind the account-bound flag, blizzard becomes the only source of providing access to these items. Now, a lot of people are saying that the true min/max items will be rares, which are tradeable, however, from what I've seen and is likely to be the case, there will be certain legendary+ items that will have truly unique capabilities and or looks that you wont get with rares. In which case, legendaries will still be the soup du jour for most people. However, does this mean that people will play more in order to get these items? Not necessarily. In fact, it's likely the average of 2 groups: the early end-game quitters and the hardcore players (will play to the end of the title's availability), and taking that average, they probably found that there's opportunity to squeeze more money out of that average player base if they control the item market than if it were an open market with 3rd parties handling item transactions. But here's the real kicker... If you look at the open market in D2... many people bought items from 3rd party services because they didnt have the time to dedicate to playing the game to get to the level of power they wanted to be at. With level scaling being in the game, the actual impact of Rare vs Legendary and high-tier items drops significantly, so even if account bound items were tradable, the return on investment would really be minimal and not nearly as significant as buying a runeworded item. (which my bet is runes will be account bound - remind me if i'm wrong)
End-Game Sustainer: Aka Battle Pass Expansion packs - the way of the past. Diablo 1 or Diablo 2 - you finish the campaigns and unlock hell mode... what do you do? You farm. You try to get that ultimate build. You continue to grow in power. You look for ways to speed run Diablo in less than 15 minutes. Those items you're farming for - oh look, you're 1 rune away from your enigma.. time to go onto Discord and trade (or buy) for that last rune. Rinse and Repeat. LoD comes out - sweet - new content, more items, economy grows. Maybe you make a few bucks on the side selling runes while you complete the new campaign. Everyone's happy.
Now, let me introduce you to the new "expansion pack"... it's a slimmed down amount of content, hidden behind the allure of new cosmetics and quest rewards. This is just the reality we now live in when it comes to AAA titles. It's easier and more efficient for them to spit out cosmetics along with minor content updates and charge for it than it is to develop a significant amount of content and sell it for $49. The goal of the battle pass is to keep people playing and interested while also generating additional revenue. With D1 and D2, the additional revenue stopped after the game purchases, and any new revenue was bleeding out in the form of 3rd party transactions for items and services. With the new model, not only do you lock down those pesky 3rd party cash bleeds, but you also continue to generate new revenue. This model also ties nicely back to our Level Scaling approach for gameplay. Because the behind the scenes damage and enemy scaling formula remains linear, you will not run into situations where you break game balance or run into item scaling issues as significantly as say when WoW introduced Burning Crusade or Lich King. Again - it's all smoke and mirrors and those numbers are actually the same ones that you were shelling out when you were poking that first wolf in the snow with your stone dagger.
The battle pass as i mentioned above isnt necessarily bad - we'll get some new content... new cosmetics, etc. But the quality and volume of it will be limited. (my bet)
The Epic Store Cosmetic Shop This one... is probably the most anti-diablo thing ever to grace our monitors. Listen, we all get that people want to look cool, and people are willing to pay for it - they're all trying to get a piece of that fortnite magic... But for the most part... I dont feel like the diablo community is the same as those other communities. Yes, we all want our characters to look the part - going back to my "why we play" statement... part of feeling badass is looking badass. But it takes away from the individuality that is at the core of many RPG's. It takes away from the sense of accomplishment that accompanies playing this game. If anyone can just have it for a price, then why would I want it? Blizzard's likely justification here, and again, this is them putting their arms around the money/economy, is that players would just go out and buy the items from a 3rd party as it is. If we can fleece them into saying we're only selling looks, when in reality, when you combine cosmetic upgrades with the account bound limitations, the truth is: they are still selling us the entire outfit - we're just purchasing them via 2 transactions: 1. the actual items through continued, controlled gameplay and 2. a cosmetic purchase.
Open Economies - The Real End Game Whether you like concept of them or not, open markets are the true end games of all long-lived, successful, and I'll fair to say enjoyed titles. Wow classic for example would not have been as successful as it was without a fairly open economy at the end game existing in the form of GDKP's and 3rd party gold sellers (and internal / guild based transactions), and lack of level scaling / power leveling services. Diablo 2 to this day, thrives because of it's open economy, and the ability to trade high level items, and lack of level scaling. I would be willing to bet money, that if you went back in time, and restricted either of those games to the extent that D4 has done, we would see a fraction of the player base still involved in those games.
This is the reality folks... by controlling when and where you get the items, allowing you to upgrade the appearance through cosmetic enhancements, and keeping internal gameplay linear, blizzard has effectively become the entire D4 economy and 3rd party services, and controls where the money goes, all at the expense of true gameplay; Their formula is a corporate formula. I know a lot of people are having fun killing demons right now, but if you look deep and hard at what you're actually playing... are you sure this is really the future of what Diablo game development and play should look like? For me, it's not.

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“What?” came her whispered reply.
“Katira, I know way too much about all this for it to be a mere coincidence. Maybe that’s all clairsentience is. A reincarnated soul whose work wasn’t done, and they decided to come around again, only this time, with a little head-start. One of the two lives on in me, and I’d be willing to bet it was your former Master. Her partner died before you met her, and only you would know these things, correct?” Katira nodded her head, and I pressed on. “Okay. I’m also betting that this took place more than a hundred years ago, judging by the amount of earth and growth on this cairn, and due to the nature of societal acceptance of homosexuality. Them keeping their relationship a secret, way out here in the middle of nowhere, would be far easier than the two of them living together in a town. Am I right?” I asked
“Nearly one hundred fifty years, yes. As humans reckon these things, it was around 1875. Not long after your stupid civil war. My Master had lost her mother to typhoid, and her father to the war. She and her best friend decided to attempt to homestead not too far from here, and they eventually fell in love. They were only seventeen at the time, and most of the eligible young men in town had succumbed to the war or to injuries they sustained afterwards. My Master was a hardy, resilient woman. You would have liked her, Stu. She was built like me, and was bullheaded as a mule.” Katira laughed softly, wiping away tears. “Anyway, they built a cabin not terribly far from this spot, and lived for several years together, until the events you described. My Master was beside herself with grief, and nearly ended her time here on several occasions. Until one day, she chanced upon what looked like an old cellar out here in the fields.
“It was there that she found my little body and attempted to bury me. You should have seen her fright when, instead of a pile of bones that fell apart, she had a skeletal kitten bounding around her ankles. We bonded in a similar manner to Joaquin and Shutan. She fell onto the cellar, cut her arm, and the blood dripped onto me. She went on to become an amazing Necromancer in her own right. You two share the same essence type, as well. Huh. I wonder why I never made the connection before,” she concluded softly.
I walked over and wiped the tears from her soft, shimmery face. “Why would you even think to do so? You’ve dealt with all but the most rare of essences, right?” I asked, receiving a nod in turn. “There’s no shame in not recognizing an extremely old pattern. Especially when there’s no real reason to suspect anything. You had already explained away my knowledge, and that should’ve been the end of it.
“Let’s get the last of the reagents and head back. Now that we know where this is, we can come and pay our respects after my Growth. Any time you’re up for it. In the meantime, we say nothing and hint at nothing. My description of their last days could be chalked up to a lucky guess. A very lucky guess, but a guess nonetheless. Unless and until we have some concrete proof, we keep this to ourselves. Not a word even to the guild. Sound good to you?” I asked.
Katira nodded, and I turned and knelt by the old grave. I laid a hand on the topmost stone, and whispered “Not even the stars.” I took a small bouquet of the tiny blue flowers and stood, seeing a weeping dragoness behind me.
“It is you, Bethany. You’re in there, and I know it. I look different, but I’m still the same Katira. I still love you,” she said, tears streaming down her face.
“I’m sorry, what? Bethany? Is that your former Master’s name? What are you talking about?” I asked, concerned.
“What you said when you laid your hand on the grave. Do you recall?”
I nodded, “Yeah. I said ‘Not even the stars’. It just felt right. I dunno why,” I replied.
“That’s what Bethany used to tell her partner, Rose. ‘Not even the stars could shine as brightly as her eyes’, is what she told me. You hold her soul within you. It explains everything to me. Your apparent skill, your oddly specific knowledge, and your way with people. It doesn’t explain your intuition, but that could just be an amalgam of your spirits and your broad intellect. She always lamented her inability to be more creative,” she explained, taking my hand in hers.
“Well. That’s a thing, then. I’m still me, Katira. Even if I have Bethany’s soul, you’re still dealing with Stu. Remember that, please,” I told her.
“Absolutely, Master. This just brings new possibilities to light, is all,” Katira said, sniffling. “My Master, Bethany is gone. I know this. However, knowing that some part of her lives on is a great comfort. That’s all,” she said softly. Katira stepped forward and took my hands in hers. “I know you’re Stu. I know you’re my Master. I can’t forget it. You gave me this form, and I cherish it. Just like I cherish you. You’re going to be my final Master, and I can’t wait to spend an eternity with you,” she said, giving my hands a gentle squeeze.
“Alright, then. As long as we are clear. Are you ready to head back?” I asked gently.
Katira nodded, and we started back off towards the cave. It took us another three hours, but we made it back. The others had been there for a few hours by the time we returned. All three had begun the distillation process by the time we arrived, and had placed their squirrels in the appropriate locations.
“Excellent job, Initiates! I’m glad to see you have taken the initiative to begin your reanimations. Now, it isn’t a guarantee that you will be successful. Be prepared for a messy failure, otherwise. Upon a success, even a minor one, your squirrel will sit up and make vocalizations at you. In the event of a minor success, this is all that will happen. If it is anything more, you can give it a command. It might understand it and act. Just make sure it is a simple one. You can command it to simply die, if you wish. It is up to you. Now, who got here first?” she asked.
“I did, Instructor,” Robert said.
“Excellent. Good job, Initiate Grimes. How long after you got set up did the next one arrive?”
“About an hour, I think and Joaquin was a few minutes after her. That was three hours ago. I think mine is nearly done,” Robert explained.
“Good. While Initiate Merideth gets set up, we will discuss what comes after a successful reanimation,” Katira began.
I turned and began the process of removing the petals from the phlox, depositing them in the pot. I mostly tuned out the discussion they were having, my mind reeling from the events of the day.
If I didn’t hold a reincarnated soul, how else would I be able to do what I do without even thinking about it? How else would I know the stuff I know without having had the instruction? How did I know who was buried beneath that cairn of stones, and how she died? Was it even my soul that was reincarnated? Or, had Bethany’s spirit hung around waiting to impart knowledge upon one lonely Necromancer?
These questions and more rolled around my head, my body moving on autopilot. I was just about to reach into the bag containing the nettles when Katira grabbed my wrist, jerking me from my reverie.
“Initiate!”
“Huh? Wha?”
“Initiate, I’ve been trying to get your attention for a bit. You almost reached into the bag that has the nettles bare-handed. What’s gotten into you?” she asked, her concern evident.
I simply looked into her eyes, my own face a blank mask, and she sighed softly. “Okay. I understand. It’s about what we talked about before, isn’t it?” she asked softly. I nodded slowly. “I take it you’ve never handled nettles, have you?” I shook my head. “Let me show you. In fact, gather around, everyone. Nettles are a painful plant, and you may have to handle them at some point. Let me show you how to deal with them,” Katira announced.
The rest of the group came over and sat while Katira taught us how to handle the irritating plant. Once she demonstrated the process, I tried it once, and even though I’d succeeded, I figured I’d not like to attempt it again. Instead, I took my multitool and pocket knife, clamped onto the stem, and sliced the leaves into the pot. Then, for good measure, I sectioned up the stem and dropped it in, as well. In went the snake skin, water and three drops of my blood. I set the fire, and waited for something to happen.
As luck would have it something did happen. We all heard Robert’s fire go out with a pop, and turned to see the droplet of essence-infused oil spill onto the squirrel. As with our message stones, nothing was spilled, it all just absorbed into the squirrel, and we watched with bated breath.
At first, nothing happened. The squirrel sat motionless on the cold stone slab. After a few moments, however, we all saw the digits on the left forelimb twitch. Collectively, we moved back, as a crazed squirrel was as fearsome as it was small. It took a breath, then a second. Slowly, it sat up, turned its black, unblinking eyes towards Robert and began chittering.
“Try it, Initiate Grimes,” Katira whispered.
Robert cleared his throat and swallowed. “Go outside the cave, and dig a hole big enough for you to lie in beside the first tree you see,” he commanded.
We watched as the squirrel cocked its head to the side and hopped down. It bounded drunkenly out of the cave, and after a short search, began to dig a hole.
“Excellent job, Initiate. Why did you tell it to do that?” Katira asked.
“I felt terrible for it. I think it should be put to rest,” he said quietly.
“So it is digging its own grave? Interesting. Go and tend to it. It may not be able to finish,” Katira replied.
Robert got up and went outside to tend to his squirrel, and the rest of us sat back and chatted for a bit.
“Senpai? What took you so long to find your reagents?” Morita-san asked.
“Well, as our Instructor specified this morning, I require very specific reagents to even have a chance at making this work, and they weren’t easy to find. I had to have phlox, nettles and a shed skin. Phlox were those tiny blue flowers, and they weren’t easy to find. Especially as I had no idea what they looked like until I opened my Grimoire. I knew what nettles looked like, and everyone from around here knows what a shed skin looks like, I think. They just weren’t easy to get. However, after I found the nettles, the other two just kinda happened. The snake skin was tangled around some weeds in a field, and the phlox were growing by an outcropping of stone. We had to go something like five miles from the cave. Speaking of which, I’m gonna need to eat something soon. I just had a small snack around noon or so,” I explained.
“By the time your still finishes, it will be time for dinner, anyway. I’d suggest holding off, if you can,” Katira said.
“I’ll try, but if I start getting the sugar shakes or acting belligerent, I’ll need a small snack again. We really don’t want that,” I said.
Robert came back, looking somber and somewhat sad. “It’s done. I…I told it to die, and it closed its eyes and just stopped moving. It seemed happy,” he said, taking a seat.
“Initiate Grimes, I want you to understand that all you did was reanimate the body of a squirrel. It had no soul, and therefore wasn’t the same creature I killed three days ago. It was more or less a biological machine that used the energy of the reagents you selected and your essence as fuel. It would have eventually stopped moving on its own. You could re energize it with your essence, but that would serve to bond it tighter to you, which is not a situation we want here. You have done well thus far, and I’m proud of you. We all are,” she told the younger man.
“She is right, Master. You have grown in skill, and as a person. Rather quickly, I might add. As such, I would say that your own Growth is no more than a month away. Once we get home, you should alert your job to your upcoming illness,” Yin grumbled.
“I can’t do that, bud. I can’t plan to be sick. Instructor? Do the symptoms all come on at once, or are they in stages?” Robert asked.
“You will most likely get the headaches first. If you can function through them, I would call your job at that point, and tell them that you are sick, and it is unknown as to how long it will last. Hopefully, you will be able to maintain your job after you are done Growing,” Katira replied.
“I can form human arms and hands for the time it takes to send a message on your phone, Master. I could also call for any number of other familiars and Necromancers to help, should you need it,” Yin said reassuringly.
Robert seemed satisfied with this answer, and began to clean his equipment. He had just finished when, with twin pops, we heard both Joaquin and Morita-san’s fires go out. All heads turned to watch the reaction complete.
Both squirrels were doused with the oil/essence mixture, and we watched as it was absorbed into the bodies of the squirrels.
Both squirrels twitched and sat up, turning their heads towards their creators and began chittering.
Morita-san nodded at Joaquin, and he cleared his throat. “Venha aqui, esquilo,” he said.
The squirrel shakily stood and took two steps before collapsing. We all watched in horror as it continued to crawl forward, leaving its back half behind. Joaquin began to panic and scooted back.
“Release it, Initiate Madras!”
“Morra, esquilo! Morra!” the young man cried out. The squirrel shuddered and heaved out its remaining breath, one clawed paw outstretched towards Joaquin. As it did, the rest of its entrails oozed out from its body, coupled with a brown slime.
“I will explain in a moment, Initiate Madras. Initiate Morita-san, it is your turn,” Katira said.
Morita-san swallowed, staring at the halves of the squirrel on the cavern floor. “私に近づいて、リス。” she said, her eyes never leaving the squirrel.
Her squirrel never moved. It sat there, blinking. “Instructor? What do I do? It’s not moving. Just….blinking,” Morita-san said quietly.
“Try rewording what you just said.”
“ここに来て、リス。” Morita-san said. The squirrel bounded over to her, and began to inspect her shoes.
“Excellent job, Morita-san. It seems that your reagents harmonized rather well with both you and your subject. This is why it is acting more like a normal, living creature and not the automaton Initiate Grimes produced. There is nothing wrong with your results, Initiate Grimes. You’ll just need to try a different combination of reagents, is all. Initiate Morita-san happened to chance upon the right triad for her for this experiment.
“The squirrel is yours to do with as you wish, Initiate Morita-san. Congratulations to the three of you. You have successfully reanimated your squirrels,” Katira said happily.
The others smiled and seemed happy. Morita-san looked at her squirrel and cocked her head to the side. “Should I name him?” she asked aloud.
“There is nothing prohibiting that, Initiate.”
“I shall call you Daisuke,” she said to the squirrel. “この死んだリスを片付けて、ダイスケ。” she commanded, and the squirrel bounded over to Joaquin’s partial reanimation, and began to cart the remains outside.
“Now, as for your squirrel, Initiate Madras. It was apparently infected by a parasite which had been eating it from the inside. Some sort of intestinal worm, I would say. When you reanimated it, the parasite was immediately destroyed, and likely aided the decomposition. There is no shame in this, and none of us could have known it was there. It is the risk we take when we choose a creature for reanimation.
“This is why a skeleton was chosen for reanimation more often than not in the past. There was no risk of parasitic infection, little risk of a messy failure, and in the event the energies used ran out, it would simply fall to the ground in a pile, ready to be used again. However, one needs a distinct grasp of anatomy for it, because in the event you put it together wrong, it won’t move correctly,” Katira said.
“So, wait. We could potentially Frankenstein ourselves a servant together?” Robert asked.
“Where do you think Mary Shelley got the idea, Initiate Grimes?” Katira returned with an enigmatic smile.
Robert sat there, his mouth agape.
“Close your mouth, Initiate. You might catch a fly, otherwise.”
We all laughed as Robert closed his mouth with a click. He shook his head and sat beside his cubbyhole in thought. Morita-san and Joaquin were talking animatedly in their respective languages, aided by their familiars.
I sat beside my equipment, watching the oil collect in the reservoir. It looked a little different than the others’ did.
“Instructor?” I asked, waving her over.
“Yes?”
“My essence-infused oil looks different to theirs. Theirs was green, and mine is…well, it’s kind of an orangey-pink. Is something wrong?” I asked with concern.
“Hmm. I’m not sure. I’ve never seen a reanimation essence appear this color. Yin? Shutan? Oiwa? Would you three come here, please?” she called out.
The three familiars approached my station curiously. Katira turned to them, gesturing at my equipment. “Have any of you ever seen this color in a reanimation essence before?” she asked.
“Exactly once,” Shutan said, stroking his bony jaw. “Stu? Yours is a Multiplying essence, correct?” he asked, receiving a nod. “Then, I will reveal nothing, save this: This will be interesting.” He walked away, shaking his head, and I could swear I saw a smirk on his skeletal countenance.
“What? Interesting? I’m not sure I like interesting. Wait a minute! What do you mean, interesting?” I called after him, receiving no inkling of acknowledgement.
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Master List

“What?” came her whispered reply.
“Katira, I know way too much about all this for it to be a mere coincidence. Maybe that’s all clairsentience is. A reincarnated soul whose work wasn’t done, and they decided to come around again, only this time, with a little head-start. One of the two lives on in me, and I’d be willing to bet it was your former Master. Her partner died before you met her, and only you would know these things, correct?” Katira nodded her head, and I pressed on. “Okay. I’m also betting that this took place more than a hundred years ago, judging by the amount of earth and growth on this cairn, and due to the nature of societal acceptance of homosexuality. Them keeping their relationship a secret, way out here in the middle of nowhere, would be far easier than the two of them living together in a town. Am I right?” I asked
“Nearly one hundred fifty years, yes. As humans reckon these things, it was around 1875. Not long after your stupid civil war. My Master had lost her mother to typhoid, and her father to the war. She and her best friend decided to attempt to homestead not too far from here, and they eventually fell in love. They were only seventeen at the time, and most of the eligible young men in town had succumbed to the war or to injuries they sustained afterwards. My Master was a hardy, resilient woman. You would have liked her, Stu. She was built like me, and was bullheaded as a mule.” Katira laughed softly, wiping away tears. “Anyway, they built a cabin not terribly far from this spot, and lived for several years together, until the events you described. My Master was beside herself with grief, and nearly ended her time here on several occasions. Until one day, she chanced upon what looked like an old cellar out here in the fields.
“It was there that she found my little body and attempted to bury me. You should have seen her fright when, instead of a pile of bones that fell apart, she had a skeletal kitten bounding around her ankles. We bonded in a similar manner to Joaquin and Shutan. She fell onto the cellar, cut her arm, and the blood dripped onto me. She went on to become an amazing Necromancer in her own right. You two share the same essence type, as well. Huh. I wonder why I never made the connection before,” she concluded softly.
I walked over and wiped the tears from her soft, shimmery face. “Why would you even think to do so? You’ve dealt with all but the most rare of essences, right?” I asked, receiving a nod in turn. “There’s no shame in not recognizing an extremely old pattern. Especially when there’s no real reason to suspect anything. You had already explained away my knowledge, and that should’ve been the end of it.
“Let’s get the last of the reagents and head back. Now that we know where this is, we can come and pay our respects after my Growth. Any time you’re up for it. In the meantime, we say nothing and hint at nothing. My description of their last days could be chalked up to a lucky guess. A very lucky guess, but a guess nonetheless. Unless and until we have some concrete proof, we keep this to ourselves. Not a word even to the guild. Sound good to you?” I asked.
Katira nodded, and I turned and knelt by the old grave. I laid a hand on the topmost stone, and whispered “Not even the stars.” I took a small bouquet of the tiny blue flowers and stood, seeing a weeping dragoness behind me.
“It is you, Bethany. You’re in there, and I know it. I look different, but I’m still the same Katira. I still love you,” she said, tears streaming down her face.
“I’m sorry, what? Bethany? Is that your former Master’s name? What are you talking about?” I asked, concerned.
“What you said when you laid your hand on the grave. Do you recall?”
I nodded, “Yeah. I said ‘Not even the stars’. It just felt right. I dunno why,” I replied.
“That’s what Bethany used to tell her partner, Rose. ‘Not even the stars could shine as brightly as her eyes’, is what she told me. You hold her soul within you. It explains everything to me. Your apparent skill, your oddly specific knowledge, and your way with people. It doesn’t explain your intuition, but that could just be an amalgam of your spirits and your broad intellect. She always lamented her inability to be more creative,” she explained, taking my hand in hers.
“Well. That’s a thing, then. I’m still me, Katira. Even if I have Bethany’s soul, you’re still dealing with Stu. Remember that, please,” I told her.
“Absolutely, Master. This just brings new possibilities to light, is all,” Katira said, sniffling. “My Master, Bethany is gone. I know this. However, knowing that some part of her lives on is a great comfort. That’s all,” she said softly. Katira stepped forward and took my hands in hers. “I know you’re Stu. I know you’re my Master. I can’t forget it. You gave me this form, and I cherish it. Just like I cherish you. You’re going to be my final Master, and I can’t wait to spend an eternity with you,” she said, giving my hands a gentle squeeze.
“Alright, then. As long as we are clear. Are you ready to head back?” I asked gently.
Katira nodded, and we started back off towards the cave. It took us another three hours, but we made it back. The others had been there for a few hours by the time we returned. All three had begun the distillation process by the time we arrived, and had placed their squirrels in the appropriate locations.
“Excellent job, Initiates! I’m glad to see you have taken the initiative to begin your reanimations. Now, it isn’t a guarantee that you will be successful. Be prepared for a messy failure, otherwise. Upon a success, even a minor one, your squirrel will sit up and make vocalizations at you. In the event of a minor success, this is all that will happen. If it is anything more, you can give it a command. It might understand it and act. Just make sure it is a simple one. You can command it to simply die, if you wish. It is up to you. Now, who got here first?” she asked.
“I did, Instructor,” Robert said.
“Excellent. Good job, Initiate Grimes. How long after you got set up did the next one arrive?”
“About an hour, I think and Joaquin was a few minutes after her. That was three hours ago. I think mine is nearly done,” Robert explained.
“Good. While Initiate Merideth gets set up, we will discuss what comes after a successful reanimation,” Katira began.
I turned and began the process of removing the petals from the phlox, depositing them in the pot. I mostly tuned out the discussion they were having, my mind reeling from the events of the day.
If I didn’t hold a reincarnated soul, how else would I be able to do what I do without even thinking about it? How else would I know the stuff I know without having had the instruction? How did I know who was buried beneath that cairn of stones, and how she died? Was it even my soul that was reincarnated? Or, had Bethany’s spirit hung around waiting to impart knowledge upon one lonely Necromancer?
These questions and more rolled around my head, my body moving on autopilot. I was just about to reach into the bag containing the nettles when Katira grabbed my wrist, jerking me from my reverie.
“Initiate!”
“Huh? Wha?”
“Initiate, I’ve been trying to get your attention for a bit. You almost reached into the bag that has the nettles bare-handed. What’s gotten into you?” she asked, her concern evident.
I simply looked into her eyes, my own face a blank mask, and she sighed softly. “Okay. I understand. It’s about what we talked about before, isn’t it?” she asked softly. I nodded slowly. “I take it you’ve never handled nettles, have you?” I shook my head. “Let me show you. In fact, gather around, everyone. Nettles are a painful plant, and you may have to handle them at some point. Let me show you how to deal with them,” Katira announced.
The rest of the group came over and sat while Katira taught us how to handle the irritating plant. Once she demonstrated the process, I tried it once, and even though I’d succeeded, I figured I’d not like to attempt it again. Instead, I took my multitool and pocket knife, clamped onto the stem, and sliced the leaves into the pot. Then, for good measure, I sectioned up the stem and dropped it in, as well. In went the snake skin, water and three drops of my blood. I set the fire, and waited for something to happen.
As luck would have it something did happen. We all heard Robert’s fire go out with a pop, and turned to see the droplet of essence-infused oil spill onto the squirrel. As with our message stones, nothing was spilled, it all just absorbed into the squirrel, and we watched with bated breath.
At first, nothing happened. The squirrel sat motionless on the cold stone slab. After a few moments, however, we all saw the digits on the left forelimb twitch. Collectively, we moved back, as a crazed squirrel was as fearsome as it was small. It took a breath, then a second. Slowly, it sat up, turned its black, unblinking eyes towards Robert and began chittering.
“Try it, Initiate Grimes,” Katira whispered.
Robert cleared his throat and swallowed. “Go outside the cave, and dig a hole big enough for you to lie in beside the first tree you see,” he commanded.
We watched as the squirrel cocked its head to the side and hopped down. It bounded drunkenly out of the cave, and after a short search, began to dig a hole.
“Excellent job, Initiate. Why did you tell it to do that?” Katira asked.
“I felt terrible for it. I think it should be put to rest,” he said quietly.
“So it is digging its own grave? Interesting. Go and tend to it. It may not be able to finish,” Katira replied.
Robert got up and went outside to tend to his squirrel, and the rest of us sat back and chatted for a bit.
“Senpai? What took you so long to find your reagents?” Morita-san asked.
“Well, as our Instructor specified this morning, I require very specific reagents to even have a chance at making this work, and they weren’t easy to find. I had to have phlox, nettles and a shed skin. Phlox were those tiny blue flowers, and they weren’t easy to find. Especially as I had no idea what they looked like until I opened my Grimoire. I knew what nettles looked like, and everyone from around here knows what a shed skin looks like, I think. They just weren’t easy to get. However, after I found the nettles, the other two just kinda happened. The snake skin was tangled around some weeds in a field, and the phlox were growing by an outcropping of stone. We had to go something like five miles from the cave. Speaking of which, I’m gonna need to eat something soon. I just had a small snack around noon or so,” I explained.
“By the time your still finishes, it will be time for dinner, anyway. I’d suggest holding off, if you can,” Katira said.
“I’ll try, but if I start getting the sugar shakes or acting belligerent, I’ll need a small snack again. We really don’t want that,” I said.
Robert came back, looking somber and somewhat sad. “It’s done. I…I told it to die, and it closed its eyes and just stopped moving. It seemed happy,” he said, taking a seat.
“Initiate Grimes, I want you to understand that all you did was reanimate the body of a squirrel. It had no soul, and therefore wasn’t the same creature I killed three days ago. It was more or less a biological machine that used the energy of the reagents you selected and your essence as fuel. It would have eventually stopped moving on its own. You could re energize it with your essence, but that would serve to bond it tighter to you, which is not a situation we want here. You have done well thus far, and I’m proud of you. We all are,” she told the younger man.
“She is right, Master. You have grown in skill, and as a person. Rather quickly, I might add. As such, I would say that your own Growth is no more than a month away. Once we get home, you should alert your job to your upcoming illness,” Yin grumbled.
“I can’t do that, bud. I can’t plan to be sick. Instructor? Do the symptoms all come on at once, or are they in stages?” Robert asked.
“You will most likely get the headaches first. If you can function through them, I would call your job at that point, and tell them that you are sick, and it is unknown as to how long it will last. Hopefully, you will be able to maintain your job after you are done Growing,” Katira replied.
“I can form human arms and hands for the time it takes to send a message on your phone, Master. I could also call for any number of other familiars and Necromancers to help, should you need it,” Yin said reassuringly.
Robert seemed satisfied with this answer, and began to clean his equipment. He had just finished when, with twin pops, we heard both Joaquin and Morita-san’s fires go out. All heads turned to watch the reaction complete.
Both squirrels were doused with the oil/essence mixture, and we watched as it was absorbed into the bodies of the squirrels.
Both squirrels twitched and sat up, turning their heads towards their creators and began chittering.
Morita-san nodded at Joaquin, and he cleared his throat. “Venha aqui, esquilo,” he said.
The squirrel shakily stood and took two steps before collapsing. We all watched in horror as it continued to crawl forward, leaving its back half behind. Joaquin began to panic and scooted back.
“Release it, Initiate Madras!”
“Morra, esquilo! Morra!” the young man cried out. The squirrel shuddered and heaved out its remaining breath, one clawed paw outstretched towards Joaquin. As it did, the rest of its entrails oozed out from its body, coupled with a brown slime.
“I will explain in a moment, Initiate Madras. Initiate Morita-san, it is your turn,” Katira said.
Morita-san swallowed, staring at the halves of the squirrel on the cavern floor. “私に近づいて、リス。” she said, her eyes never leaving the squirrel.
Her squirrel never moved. It sat there, blinking. “Instructor? What do I do? It’s not moving. Just….blinking,” Morita-san said quietly.
“Try rewording what you just said.”
“ここに来て、リス。” Morita-san said. The squirrel bounded over to her, and began to inspect her shoes.
“Excellent job, Morita-san. It seems that your reagents harmonized rather well with both you and your subject. This is why it is acting more like a normal, living creature and not the automaton Initiate Grimes produced. There is nothing wrong with your results, Initiate Grimes. You’ll just need to try a different combination of reagents, is all. Initiate Morita-san happened to chance upon the right triad for her for this experiment.
“The squirrel is yours to do with as you wish, Initiate Morita-san. Congratulations to the three of you. You have successfully reanimated your squirrels,” Katira said happily.
The others smiled and seemed happy. Morita-san looked at her squirrel and cocked her head to the side. “Should I name him?” she asked aloud.
“There is nothing prohibiting that, Initiate.”
“I shall call you Daisuke,” she said to the squirrel. “この死んだリスを片付けて、ダイスケ。” she commanded, and the squirrel bounded over to Joaquin’s partial reanimation, and began to cart the remains outside.
“Now, as for your squirrel, Initiate Madras. It was apparently infected by a parasite which had been eating it from the inside. Some sort of intestinal worm, I would say. When you reanimated it, the parasite was immediately destroyed, and likely aided the decomposition. There is no shame in this, and none of us could have known it was there. It is the risk we take when we choose a creature for reanimation.
“This is why a skeleton was chosen for reanimation more often than not in the past. There was no risk of parasitic infection, little risk of a messy failure, and in the event the energies used ran out, it would simply fall to the ground in a pile, ready to be used again. However, one needs a distinct grasp of anatomy for it, because in the event you put it together wrong, it won’t move correctly,” Katira said.
“So, wait. We could potentially Frankenstein ourselves a servant together?” Robert asked.
“Where do you think Mary Shelley got the idea, Initiate Grimes?” Katira returned with an enigmatic smile.
Robert sat there, his mouth agape.
“Close your mouth, Initiate. You might catch a fly, otherwise.”
We all laughed as Robert closed his mouth with a click. He shook his head and sat beside his cubbyhole in thought. Morita-san and Joaquin were talking animatedly in their respective languages, aided by their familiars.
I sat beside my equipment, watching the oil collect in the reservoir. It looked a little different than the others’ did.
“Instructor?” I asked, waving her over.
“Yes?”
“My essence-infused oil looks different to theirs. Theirs was green, and mine is…well, it’s kind of an orangey-pink. Is something wrong?” I asked with concern.
“Hmm. I’m not sure. I’ve never seen a reanimation essence appear this color. Yin? Shutan? Oiwa? Would you three come here, please?” she called out.
The three familiars approached my station curiously. Katira turned to them, gesturing at my equipment. “Have any of you ever seen this color in a reanimation essence before?” she asked.
“Exactly once,” Shutan said, stroking his bony jaw. “Stu? Yours is a Multiplying essence, correct?” he asked, receiving a nod. “Then, I will reveal nothing, save this: This will be interesting.” He walked away, shaking his head, and I could swear I saw a smirk on his skeletal countenance.
“What? Interesting? I’m not sure I like interesting. Wait a minute! What do you mean, interesting?” I called after him, receiving no inkling of acknowledgement.

Okay I literally finished the book a few minutes ago after spending 2 days binge reading it. I am going to mis a hilarous amount of details and important story bits, but I gotta stick with the vibe.
Here is the Dreadgod one Reddit - Dive into anything
You ready? No? Neither am I!
**SPACE ADVENTURES PART ONE**
Okay so we start in space again, and suriel and ozriel are like "yep we are def gonna die" and then eithan is like "Okay but hear me out...what if only one of us dies?" And suriel is like "You better not be up to some main character bullshit" and eithan then proceeds to pull a gandalf and fight the main baddy on his own while suriel goes back and goes to pick up something from Makiel, who would really like eithan to die please.
Makiel is looking for the ultimate killing tool everywhere and hopes to get it to kill ozriel, the mad king, and basically anyone who would fuck up the system. Suriel comes and is like "YOUR VIBES ARE ATROCIOUS AND YOU ARE UNDER ARREST" and makiel, having been a villian for a VERY long time, is like "bet. That makes sense."
Suriel, being the goodest girl, and not a hound, is super confused. Makiel explains, "Look I've seen like a billion villian stories. I knew after my final villianous act, I have to die to the hero or get diposed or something so I Was just gonna give up after I murdered your friend." Suriel who likes having friends, decides thats not okay and activates her trap card: Reaper's Gift!!!
By activating reapers gift, she can tap infinite black lands so long as she has the artifact equip. She then is like "Look...you've been a villian for a while." She then transfers the item to HIS character sheet "Wouldn't you rather go out like an anti-hero????" Makiel wasn't expecting someone to be nice to him, which might be a huge theme in this book.
So he says "fuck it we ball" and they go back to find eithan, SOMEHOW NOT DEAD YET, even though he has no super weapon, lost his mantle of ultimate protagonist power, and is literally fighting the solo boss with no equipment besides his pajamas. Makiel is like "Fuck dude I hate you." and ozriel is like "Feelings mutual buddy~" and the mad king tries to kill them both.
And then they realise that they both hate the same thing: Losing. Suddenly, united by the pettiness icon, Makiel and Ozriel trade weapons, and start wombo combing the Mad king like they are bros. They are both upset about the fact that they are actually doing really well. That said, its still a lot, and they are basically in a stalemate until eithan realises how to break it in a way that only he can.
By taunting the enemy in his final moments of life with a meme attack. He bops him on the head with the GOD SWORD OF AIM HAX and is like "Lmao get rektd" and then mcfucking dies, and then makiel super crits the mad king with the +100 sycthe of ultimate murder, and suriel jsut deletes him for good measure.
Then suriel is like "We gotta fix him, but he got mcfucking murdered, which is way worst than normal murder. What can we do?" And then makiel gives her his magic jacket and is like "One life...for another..." and suriel is like "WAIT YOU HATE HIM??? WHY WOULD YOU-"
"Because...nothing would piss him off more...than me going out like a hero...." and then he mcfucking dies to undo eithands death who comes back smiling, but on the inside, is morning the loss of his bro, the most petty man in existence. Truly and honor. Also everything has gone to shit.
**BABY BOX ADVENTURES** Back on baby box, Lindon and co go into the definitely not hyberbolic time chamber to super not go to super saiyan. Lindon is like 1/4 dreadgod and is ridiclously buff, and after having stolen everyones shit, makes sure to set up super training plans for everyone. But first, we gotta fix mercy, who got her ass kicked by her mom, because she's toxic. This will also be a theme for the book.
Mercy gets revived and is like "Fuck my mom IS the worst" and everyone side eyes because yeah, but shes having her time. After that, its time to get used to the weird training everyone has to do.
Orthos has to do cannibalism but not get feral or racist about it. He is very old, so its kinda hard to stop both of those things from happening, but he manages. Mostly. Drops a H slurr in there once.
Little Blue has to become a person. She makes a great mascot, but she has to get more substance to become a full fledged character with autonomy and shit.
Mercy has to deal with her mommy issues. No for real. Not a joke. She just has to deal with her mommy issues and get her own personality, outside of her mommy issues. This is a legitmate struggle for her, due to being the princess of the gaslight/gatekeep/girlboss empire.
Ziel needs to learn that he both has depression, and also, is a very angry person. Also to maybe not be so bloodthirsty. Also how to do time math. Also how to deal with the insanity caused by experiencing eternity....he has to deal with a lot.
Yerin is supposed to learn how to sword from her ghost dad, which lindon summons from a definitely not engagement ring box. Yerin pouts about this. Sword ghost dad says that she could probably get the sword icon if she just vibed correctly, and red faith agrees. She doesn't know WHAT vibe she is supposed to have though, until she thinks about eithan, and beating the shit out of red faith, and realises she REALLY wants to kill people. Like really bad. This is somehow ALSO a theme in this book.
Lindon...has to kill more dreadgods, each being a CR40 encounter. Also every time he does he has to make a will save or jsut straight up stop being a PC. This is fine he says. At least he still has the loot from the last one, right?
No one agrees with him.
Outside, Reigan shen decides to annoy lindon. Lindon responds by firing a **Death** arrow at reigan shen. He then runs the fuck a way because HOLY SHIT THE MAIN CHARACTER HAS A PROTAGONIST WEAPON NOW???? WTF GUYS WE GOTTA GET THEM!!!!
Malice + northsider agree, and decide to also annoy lindon. The more they annoy him, the less time he can spend digivolving his friends, and also prepping for the WEEPING DRAGON who is COMING TO FUCK EVERYONE UP. It is QUITE CROSS that SOMEHONE (hi lindon) MCFUCKING KILLED THEIR BRO!
Lindon uses his ghost dad jutsu to summon everyone has a ghost to fight...3 monarchs, 2 sages, a bunch of annoyances, and potentialyl a dreadgod. It is not a good day for him. Its not going to get better. Still, he has his protagonist weapon! And thats scary! Unforunately, being a protagonist weapon, he can only use as many times as the story allows...
Which is still enough to scare the shit out of reigan shin who just wants to end this all. So instead of using his usually gilgamesh bullshit, he instead uses his fusion ultimate doom attack of enkuidu + Enuma Ellish + Tiberian's Super Storm Beam of Triple Death. He is absolutely sure this combination of super attacks will wipe the protagonist off the face of the earth!
Unforunately, in his rage, he forgot that he was a villian that had just pulled out an ultimate weapon, which meant the hero HAD to pull out a hax option for the plot to continue. Said hax option, is literally just ghost eithan, who is like "bro, you sweep like this? Lemme show you how to clean house." He then proceeds to beat up all 3 monarchs in one attack and a dodge just to be a dick and is like "Oh btw that wasn't even like half my power, summon me when you have more juice homie."
Lindon, being tired of this bs, was like "Okay hear me out. How about 1v1s? You win, I stop being an asshole. I win, you fuck off." The monarchs, who had a lot more experience being assholes, accept this, and northstrider then proceeds to kick lindons ass. So much. So hard. His oracle codex is like "*He is weak. And dumb. And smelly. And he doesn't even sacred arts bro.*" and nothstrider is fine with that for a bit but then squints and reads the script again, and notices most of the lines were written over with sharpie.
Getting a copy of the ACTUAL script, he see's that lindon is drinking him, like a LOT and even stealing his icon and then slams him into the ground and points at Malice like "You want next?" malice, not giving a shit about men, says "Uhh nah im good." and fucks off back to her goth milf castle. Lindon then sighs because damn that was a long day. It'd be nice if he could get 5 minutes of-
Oh look shen found your hyperbolic time chamber, and is really mad that he's gotten his ass kicked twice today is going to take it out on all of your friends! Go lindon go! He does and shen is like "even if I am erased from the plot I am going to get ONE W IN THIS GOD DAMNED STORY!!!!" and lindon is like "Pls stop" and then shen does...but only after blowing up the door to the time chamber. Lindon is surprised that he was being so nice until he looked behind him and saw the weeping dragon charging up his forward smash.
Shen, being an asshole, decided that would have to due, and he'd have to rely on plan Q. He was...running low on plans. But at least he had more of them! Surely they couldnt all fail.
Back inside of the hyperbolic time chamber, yerin and co realise the door broke. Yerin is like "okay I...cut it open?" Breaking the fourth wall, and then, a door opened. Unforunately, she hadn't been specific when she wrote that and walked all the way to the rosegold continent. OOps.
Ziel and mercy also want to help, but are kinda weak. Ziel digivolves by learning how to harness the power of time, tbe universe, and everything, and mercy digivolves be realising that she honestly just wants to be a nice person and do nice things. She realises this by having a pity party about how she sucks and ziel being like "STFU you are a fucking main character. Act like it." and she realises, sHE IS!!!
So they go out to help lindon and he says "Okay uh no **GTFO**" because they will absolutely get stomped if they help. And they land...in the rosegold continent! How convient! Hey is that yerin using the death murder kill technique????
Anyway house eithan is fighting house shen and house shen is busted, with a herald who is a pixie, and a sage who is crazy, on team weeping dragon, and can regenerate from nothing. Which is absurd. Team eithan just has cladia, who is the best, but also an old lady. She has a thousand eyes, but could use more hands. Oh look, youths!
Mercy, being a nice young lady, helps her elder cross the battle field and annihilate threats. Cladia was sceptical about the girl until it slowly dawns on her that this girl is DEFINITELY a main character. In the super fight, yerin is learning how to murder death kill more effectively, but still doesn't have it down perfect. Ziel is trying to also murder death kill but it just isnt working, and instead, he's getting trolled by the calling storm sage, who seems to just like to see people suffer.
Ziel see's all his friends getting their asses kicked and decides "fuck man...that isnt cool" and unlocks the shield icon, as it turns out, he ALSO wants to be a protagonist, he just forgot. Together with mercy being nice, cladia being the best, and yerin using the art of murder death kill, they defeat house shen with style....but are also v tired. Cladia thanks the newly minted main characters and gives them the coveted mid story power up they will need to face the next boss: Weeping Dragon!
What is this powerup? Well a HUD of course! Turns out, very helpful to have. Also some of the weeping dragons stats. Turns out, its very good at lying and its dragons breath is *reads notes* THE MOST POWERFUL STRIKER TECHNIQUE ON THE PLANET. JUST. THE STRONGEST ONE. EVER. IT **CANNOT** Be blocked. In fact, as they get back to lindons side, the attack misses them entirely, firing mostly into the air....AND STILL NEARLY KILLS THEM. BY PROXIMITY!
luckily lindon kept them from being hyper murdered. Unforunately, as per the rules of cradle, in exchange he had to be hyper murded. So he just kinda falls over. Team main character take exception to this, and decide to beat the shit out of the dragon. The eight man empire is here and are trying to help, potentially in exchange for that SWEET SWEET LOOT...but also to not fucking die.
Also Orthos and Little blue got out of the time chamber and are now archlords! They go to find lindon to help him after super dying, and he says "Hey...you guys...are main characters...now..." And boom instantly, orthos becomes the black dragon sage, and little blue becomes a herald because, yeah he got that move from eithan in book 2. So now they can help fight! Also now everyone has a dross in them because reasons!
So they arent doing GREAT on that front because most of them are like broken and half and relying solely on hax to keep fighting. Few more than Laran, who got to use the protagonist bow for a little while!!! It felt good...like being significant....
ANYWAY, now its mercys turn to use it and WOOF that was scary...but oops that used up her protag powers.
Yerin, time to attack with the murder death kill move...which is great! But OOF that used up all of HER protag powers.
And so ziel is left with the s trongest monster who has like one bar of health left but hits for all of your HP. Can he do it? Its kick or carry time and...whats this? Is that ziel getting on the top ropes? With the DEATH ARROW? AND LOADING IT INTO HIS ALAPHABET ARRAY? AND INFUSING IT WITH TIME MAGIC! YO WATCH OUT **WATCH OUT**
And then THE MAN HIMSELF smites THE ULTIAMTE SUPER DRAGON with the INSTANT DEATH NO SCOPE HEADSHOT AIMBOT attack that kills god. Or almost kills god. He's got like...3 anime seconds to live.
Seeing that the fight was over, malice returns to be toxic and player kill all the exhausted PCs. She seems really eager about the idea for some reason and then right as she is about to kill lindon, she hears the weeping dragons timer about to run out. Quickly, she erases her own attack, because she is VERY genre savvy when it comes to romance, and if she kills yerin, the main male protagonist will DEFINITELY kill her.
Which he almost does anyway, because as soon as weeping dragon dies, lindon digivolveS AGAIN and nearly nukes her. She escapes, but FUCK man that was close. PHew. Live to gatekeep another day.
lindon and co return to their training fortress, and everyone is tired and sad. Lindon tries to cheer them up in the way he knows how: Advancement and new toys! They all groan.
lindon tries to cheer ziel up most of all, because he got the killing blow, and ziel is like "Bro I JUST got the chill icon, please no." and lindon smiles because that meant moRE LOOT FOR HIMSELF. Woo!
Mercy is fighting more of her mommy issues and is terrified that when she levels up to herald, itll kick her ass , because her mom's remnant was SUPER toxic and just started pking people to fuck with her. mercy prepares for the fight of her life...only to see that her spirit is a sweet bean and literally just wants to give hugs and encouragement. Mercy is very surprised that its being nice to her and everything goes perfectly fine because mercy is actually a very helpful and kind person. This is a small moment of celebration.
Taht is until he is YOINKED! GASP????? By what???Only reigan shen of course! He had taken sleeping ghosts binding and used it to summon lindon. Turns out, each time the dreadgods die, the rest of them get stronger...and smarter...and get more personalities. Like the bleeding phoniex deciding to be a she/they waifu apparently just to fuck with shen. Shen tries to convince her that he is a very important antagonist, and she responds with "You were." And this frightens him, given the page count. He tells her that she should get revenge on lindon and she is like "I dunno...I think I have a better plan for my otouto. ISn't that right Onii-chan?" She says to the wandering titan who was listening in over space discord. He agrees and shen realises that he has caught YET ANOTHER L.
Also where is emiriss? Wasn't she supposed to be helping??? Well she would be she got captured by northstrider who wanted to make sure that the protagonists had NO MORE ELDER MENTOR FIGURES! THEY HAD TO MANY! He is convinced that he can handle anything that happens...Which is why he is totally chill when lindon++ shows up and tells him to calm the fuck down and gives back tree grandma. Northstrider says fuck off, and lindon says "okay, but we are going to talk about this."
Northstrider thinks this is a threat. It was actually a promise, as he is pulled into lindons house and lindon is like "...So...I've been reading your character sheet...and it says you were...neutral good? And wanted to like...be a hero?" And northstrider squints because no one is supposed to read his cringe backstory. He tries to destroy it but lindon says "Ah ah ah...read it first." And then he relents because fuck this guy was a main character. What was the worst that could happen?
So he reads his character sheet and realises that he's been playing the character all wrong the whole time and was like "Fuck...I am kinda a dick now I...ya know what, I'ma drop before I get worse." And lindon is relieved that at least SOMEONE cared about being a dick. He also tells them how to get emiriss, who was happy to see that she only had to wait 5 dragon ballz minutes to get rescued. That was pretty short for an arc in her opinion.
Now back in the present lindon is dealing with 2 dreadgods, and regan shen at the time. Bleeding Waifu says, "Hey bro, we could just SHARE the planet and its fine!" and lindon says "mmm no sorry, kinda would be a shit ending to just change plot motivations here." The dreadgods nod and then try to kick his ass. Luckily he used the loot from his last 2 wins to summon his new god weapon Wavesplitter++, whose power is to fucking command super god lightning swords, and its companion Silent King.exe, that let dross be a pain in the ass, letting lindon temporarily digivolve to Dreadgod++
Which was JUST enough to survive a fight with 2 dreadgods...for a while....like about.....5 dragon ball z minutes.
So elsewhere, team friendship to go talk to malice, hoping she will be chill, Mercy, having realised the power of being nice, tries to be nice to malice. She is straight up like "Mom I know you are trying to be a protagonist but you are straight up Lawful evil rn. It's really fucked."
This goes very poorly. MAlice figures that being nice is a trap and only idiots are nice and if she has to kill her favorite person in the whole world, who is literally the embodiment of a good bean, she would rather be THE ABSOLUTE WORST. So she tries to kill all of the other people with hax abilities, constructs, powers, you name it, she has it.
Everyone is on the verge of death when dross is like "hey yerin, uh...if we want to live this, you are going to have to game out of control." And she is like "eh what else is new?" and is then overloaded with strats from every single sword artist in the entire series. In seconds, she almost manifests the sword icon, but then that would mean being a monarch. That was bad right? Thats what they were trying to get rid of.
And then Malice calls her a bitch, and yerin remembers that she REALLY wants to kill something. Like super bad. And then remembers wait...she wAS the fighty character...and she DID have a sword...and she DID love killing bad guys. Holy shit she could be the queen of killing. And so she does.
and then malice is like "Wait no what-" and then mcfucking dies to Yerin, monarch of murder death kill, apprentice of Eithan murder death kill. Charity, and mercy are very sad about this.
Back on the ship. Everyone is freaking out become lindon got yoinked and decide, alright we should all probably digivolve. Yerin points to ziel, "Okay time to fight your depression." He asks, "With like...meditation?" and then is immediately mauled by himself. He eventually realises he has a lot of self destructive tendencies and decides to keep the scars as a reminder to work on that. Dealing with his depression, for real this time, lets him be a monarch
Emriss then points to mercy and is like "You are a good person even if you are sad, and everyone actually likes you a lot." and she realises that omg, she doesnt have to be a gatekeeping,gaslighting,girlboss in order to succeed in the world. She could just be like...a good person. That revelation gives her so much relief that she actually becomes a monarch.
That said, this all took a while...like....4 dragon ball z minutes and 59 seconds.
Which is just enough time to save lindon! Hurray! The team works together and defeats wandering titan with a team attack, beat the shit out of the tiger boi, get sha miara on their side, and blow the fuck out of the bleeding waifu. Here's the problem. The second they do, lindon is going to go 100% Dreadgod x5 and...well thats less than ideal. Also means he can't finish the story....not yet.
So the crew all say their goodbyes really quick and decide OKAY WE CANNOT STAY ON BABYBOX! And so the like 7 monarchs leave and go to space.
**Space Adventures Part 2**
All of team babybox goes to space, including the rainbow baby monarch, and tree grandma. They decide they are done being characters and would like to leave the plot peacefully. The story allows that. The main characters ask where eithan is. Eithan, being a protagonist, appears and is very excited to see his squad. He is also excited to immediately get them back into trouble.
The Abidan is in DIRE need of protagonists. Actual DIRE NEED. If they don't get some more protagonists out there RIGHT NOW so many settings are going to collapse. But unforunately, they dont have a protagonist division, because every time they tried to make one, they kept getting ANTAGONISTS out of it. Something about raging against systemic injustice??? Anyway the new team become team protagonist and go do protagonist things which are so funny, I'll just list them out.
Yerin defeats an evil lich king in like 5 minutes and then leaves but not before becoming a legend...with the wrong name.
Mercy solves an ages old racism dispute by saying "I have fixed both of your systemic issues and if you do any more hate crimes, I am sorry, but I will have to kill you, please do not do any more hate crimes...or like any big obviously villianous plans like making an infiinite army of evil or making another sun to set everyone on fire. Okay? Again I fixed everything so just...be nice. Or you die."
Ziel writes a tax code and bill of rights for a planet likely destroyed by elon musk.
**Baby Box: Lindon Saga**
Lindon wakes up on baby box and is very upset that he couldn't go with his friends. So he does what anyone would do and bides his time until he can get everything back together. Has to take it easy ya know? he's on the path to recovery from his hunger addiction. So in order to chill out he-
Bribes the eight man empire with god weapons
Creates more god weapons
Establishes his sect more
Gets another icon
eats Reigan Shen's ghost and takes back his inheritence
meets li maruth, the wind god who killed him in book 1, who has all of the powers of every protagonist system, and smites the fuck out of him for daring to appear in the post credits scene
and generally just preps to leave baby box. Which is very hard considering everything has gone to fuck in space due to...a lot of people dying and being replaced.
**Space adventures part 3!**
So lindon finally gets to space! Woo! Orthos and Little blue are hyped! But oops...he landed on the bad guy side. And OOPS he had to fight a super bad guy like 5 minutes in. If only he had friends!
Akura fury, being trained to be a protagonist, could sense a good entry like a wolf, and thus came in as soon as there was a fight scene he could join in space. He was so happy. He then escorts lindon back to team protag, where lindon gives lindon 3 things she thinks she deserves.
A god killing sword of unspeakable power.
A wedding ring made out of one of the most powerful artifacts on their planet
And a mom...she's probably needed one of those for a while.
And then lindon and eithan hug. Its so pure.

I'm not going to talk about the epilogue but FUCK I LOVE CRADLE! This is easily my favorite magic system and series and OMG ITS SO GOOD AGGGGGHHHHHH

TW: Child Abduction
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If you grew up near Tevam Sound back in the 1970s, you might have fond memories of Splashtown. If you didn’t and don't know what that is, then I'll clue you in.
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Splashtown was a small water park that opened just outside of Tevam Sound back in the late 1960s and it was a riot! I used to love going there when I was a kid, and back then my favorite ride was the Electric Blue.
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I guess compared to other water slides in fancier water parks, the Electric Blue wasn't anything that special. It was the biggest and most impressive slide at Splashtown, but that probably wasn't saying much. It stood about two storeys tall (pretty big for a small town waterslide) and was (as the name implied) electric blue in color. The climb up wasn't too long, but the slide down was intense! The slide spiraled around for at least 3 or 4 loops on its way down to the pool, and you always felt like you were going Mach 1 as you descended! When you rocketed out of the slide and into the pool, it felt like being shot out of a canon and it was awesome!
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I always figured that the intensity of coming down the Electric Blue is part of what originally earned it the nickname of ‘The Electric Blue Death Slide’. Although the disappearances probably contributed to it too.
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If you were to ask the police, they’d say that someone had abducted the kids from the water park itself, and that the slide had nothing to do with it. But for some reason, people started equating the slide with the disappearances and eventually, the rumor became that if you went down the Electric Blue Death Slide, you might not come out. Supposedly, if you went down at the wrong time, or slid down the wrong way, or even went down this secret part of the slide by accident, you’d wind up someplace else. Nobody exactly knew where. Only that you couldn’t get home once you were there, no matter how hard you tried.
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The rumors really didn’t do much to keep people away from the slide. Nobody put that much stock into them and the allure of a sick ass waterslide beat out most kids quiet superstitions. The disappearances weren’t super common either. A few of them even got resolved within the day, when it turned out that some kid had just gotten separated from their parents.
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Nobody, save for a few grieving parents who’d never found their kids were that worried about it, and since neither ten year old me nor anyone I knew were one of those grieving parents, we fell into the ‘not that worried about it’ camp.
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With the benefit of hindsight all these years later, I can safely say that ten year old me might have been a fucking idiot.
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***
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I remember that the last time I went to Splashtown, I was pumped to tackle the Electric Blue Death Slide again. I was a bold, brave, tough man and I was going to face death head on by going down that water slide! Okay… not really, but that’s what if felt like!
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I remember my heart racing as I climbed up the stairs slide. It wasn’t my first time riding by myself. I’d done it before, and I knew that my Mom was waiting for me by the pool at the bottom.
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As I reached the top, I was almost bouncing up and down in excitement. One by one, the people in line before me went down and when it was finally my turn, an attendant helped me get settled before sending me down the slide after them.
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For a few moments, my world turned blue as I raced through the electric blue tube, screaming with joy all the while. I could feel the blood rushing to my head with every loop, as I spiraled down toward the pool and when I finally reached the bottom and was launched into the pool, I was screaming with laughter.
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The water surrounded me, and I kicked my way up to the surface before swimming toward the side of the pool, near where I’d seen my Mom not too long ago.
“Mom, did you see?” I asked, although she didn’t respond.
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Her chair was empty. Her stuff was still there, but she was gone.
“Mom?”
I looked around for her, but she was nowhere in sight.
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“Excuse me, are you Ezra?” A voice asked, and I looked over to see a man approaching me. He was wearing an employee's uniform and had a long face with messy dark hair. It was hard to guess at his age, but looking back I’d say that he was somewhere in his mid thirties. I didn’t answer him at first, not until he spoke again.
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“I’m supposed to go and bring you to your Mom, she fell sprained her ankle. We’ve got her over in the infirmary right now.”
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Mom was hurt?
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The man offered me a hand, and I took it. He smiled at me, as he helped me out of the pool.
“Come on,” He said. “She’s just over here.”
He led me away from the pool and I followed him without question. There was a small fenced off area that he led me toward with a sign that read ‘Employees Only’ on it.
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“Just in here!” He said. “This will take us right to the infirmary!”
I could see the pump for the pool nearby, although there wasn’t much else in that area. The man seemed to know where he was going though, and as he led me toward a wooden shed, I followed.
“Just getting the key for the gate on the other side,” He said as he ducked into the shed and gestured for me to follow him inside. I did.
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The door closed behind me, and I watched as the man rifled around on a nearby counter.
“Should be right here,” He assured me. I saw him opening up a toolbox, and noticed him taking out a hammer, although didn’t think too much of it at the time.
“She’s not hurt badly, is she?” I asked, more worried about my Mom than the stranger.
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“No, she’ll pull through. She just wanted to make sure you knew where she was, that’s all!” He said. I noticed him wrapping the hammer in a towel, before turning toward me again. He smiled, and before I even knew what was happening he cracked the hammer across my face, sending me to the ground with a pained scream. I felt my jaw dislocate from the impact and I could taste blood.
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The man walked over to the door of the shed and quietly slid a bolt in place to lock it, before going back to his toolbox. I saw him taking out a pair of gloves, before letting out a contented sigh. He was still smiling, as he stood over me.
“Just relax, kiddo…” He said, “I’m not gonna hurt you.”
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I tried to crawl away from him, only for him to grab me and pull me toward him. He was still smiling at me… he had his hands all over me and he was smiling at me, like all of this was normal to him. Like he’d done this a thousand times before.
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I didn’t know what he was going to do to me.
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I didn’t want to know.
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I tried to scream, but I knew that nobody heard me between my busted jaw and the screams from the nearby pool. I was all alone with him, and somehow in my gut I knew that he was going to kill me. He was going to kill me, and nobody was going to know.
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Then I heard it.
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A knocking on the shed door.
“Ezra?”
The voice belonged to my mother.
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The man's eyes widened as his head jerked toward the door, eyes wide. I seized my opportunity. I was ten, but I knew where to kick a man so that it would really hurt, and when I heard him scream, I screamed too. I crawled for the door, scrambling to my feet as i reached for the bolt that would unlock the door, before the man grabbed me from behind.
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He was too late.
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He caught me, but the door burst open and my Mom charged in. She only needed to look at the man who was holding me, and I could see rage filling her eyes as her every fear became manifested.
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The man could only stare helplessly as my Mom lunged for him, acting on pure instinct. She tried to rip me out of his grasp, slapping and kicking him as she did. I sank my teeth into his arm, forcing him to let me go and scrambled out of the shed as my Mom fought the stranger off. It didn’t take me that long to run into an actual employee and from there… well… everything is a blur.
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***
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I found out later that the same ‘employee’ who’d taken me had told my Mom that I’d fallen and gotten hurt on my way up the slide a few minutes earlier. She’d only noticed the man leading me away by chance when she’d spotted me out of the corner of her eye and gone to see what was going on.
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I thank God every day that she did.
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The ‘employee’ who’d taken me wasn’t actually employed at Splashtown. He was a man from Sudbury by the name of Paul Young, although some of the people who worked at Splashtown swore they’d seen him ‘working’ there several times before, and when the police searched Young’s house, they found ‘trophies’ he’d taken from some of the other kids who’d disappeared at Splashtown and once they found those trophies, it wasn’t too long before they found the bodies.
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Three of them, all buried in shallow graves a short distance away from the shed that Young had taken me to, just on the edge of the property.
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People finally knew the truth about the kids who’d disappeared after riding the Electric Blue… and the truth was far more horrifying than any of them could have imagined.
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Paul Young died in prison about three months after he was sentenced, but that wasn’t really surprising. I don’t think they ever figured out who killed him, and I don’t think they looked that hard either.
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Splashtown closed about a week after my kidnapping, and it never reopened. The water park sat vacant through the 1980s before eventually getting demolished. Now all that’s left is the memory.
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I wish I could say that every memory I have of Splashtown was a happy one, like some people. But every time I pass the spot where it used to be, all I can think about is that last trip. It’s a strip mall now, with some condos behind it. I don’t think there’s anything left of the old Splashtown.
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I’m of two minds about that. On one hand, there’s a small nostalgic part of me that misses it. On the other, I think I can do without the reminder of what almost happened to me that day.

I’d been struggling with derealization, depersonalization, and felt I was in a waking dream for months leading up to this. It was caused by a weed induced panic attack, and I had sort of tunnel vision where I couldn’t fully focus on anything, and was terrified I ruined my brain permanently. In addition to this I was already struggling with anxiety and depression which were both worsened by this. I tried to distract myself with physical activities and burnt out after months of just beating my body up with little to no rest.
Me and my homie used psychedelic mushrooms last night and had a bad trip, which i look back at as the most traumatizing experience of my life. Me and my homie purchased them last minute and ate them with some chicken nuggets we had, do not recommend.
It took roughly 30-40 minutes to kick in and It started out with slightly increased feelings of synesthesia, and more vibrant colors, and after about an hour or two of this, the hallucinations started. I was in my sisters room when the borders of pictures And paintings on the walls started to disappear and everything was sort of all the same thing.
I felt my derealization/depersonalization change. I had this sense of doom, something was missing, and while reality felt more real, the reality i was in scared me. I began to hear voices of myself, friends and other unknown voices force myself deeper into the trip. My subconscious bled into my consciousness, and all my thoughts began to scatter. My attachment to ideas, objects, and even myself began to dissolve. Imagine always believing certain things about your world/space you frequent, and all of a sudden all of it is a lie. I no longer knew who I was.
I was laying in my bed trying to get out of this headspace, or even just fall asleep and kept distracting myself as I’d been doing for months: I’d try to fold a blanket or rearrange something, but my brain felt like it was being overflowed with information and hallucinations that I could hardly describe. The trip peaked like this for 2 hours while I lost control of everything. I believed I went insane and lost my mind. I thought stepping into the shower would help wake me up and out of it, but this was a mistake. I forced myself to throw up in the shower, but I very well might’ve hallucinated this as later I did no see any evidence of throwing up. I kept turning off and on the light in the bathroom, but I kept seeing so much I felt like I wasn’t supposed to see. When I eventually got out everything looked dirty, and every design of the walls, and shower curtain turned into arrows telling me to go further into the trip. The water on the floor near the shower was swirling, splitting up, going back together all over the floor. I went up to my friend (who was on the couch)basically naked with just my old clothes to cover up and I said “something is just not right”, and walked back to my room. I laid down in my bed, feeling cold, and alone in my mind. The trip intensified when I laid back in bed. I saw my entire sense of self disintegrate into a canvas of gray nothing and I thought I was going to die. To an extent I felt I could escape the simulation if I just laid there to die. I laid and prayed for it be over, but it kept going. I accepted my fate, the destiny the universe chose for me. I surrendered to death itself and that’s when it freed me.
it started to wear off and I realized how real everything felt. I believe I had to feel all of the trauma and pain in order for it to leave me. I genuinely felty reality was crumbling before my eyes in those 2 hours.
(Not scary ending): In the morning after I did not have any of my derealization/depersonalization feelings and I felt changed. It is now almost 24 hours after I took them and I’m finally seeing the beauty in everything again. This no longer feels like a dream, and I want to make the most of my life with this profound experience. It’s giving me a chance to see clearly once again.
(Scary ending): this story happened months ago, but I still occasionally get flashbacks of literally feeling I’ve lost all grips on reality. I ended up doing them a second time at a much lower dose, and not completely by myself. While my friend was at my house, hé was living his own hell in the other room. Do research before you do anything like this. This experience will haunt me forever.

With the Flyers adding a second pick in the 2023 draft I wanted to take a look at the players who could be available at 22nd Overall on draft night. When getting into this part of the first round it usually becomes harder to predict where guys will go, especially this year when people are even having a hard time handicapping picks outside the top 3. Predicting the Flyers selection is even tougher, given Briere and Jones don't have an established track record, the team likely didn't scout players in this range as intensely throughout the year, and the fact that (as of right now) the team wont pick again until 87th Overall means that there are a lot of unknowns in figuring out who the Flyers could pick. So I will cast a wide net to show a wide variety of players who could or should be available.
Have to Fall
I did a preview on who the Flyers could pick at 7th Overall last month. 8 of those 15 players (Cristall, Sale, Barlow, Reinbacher, Yager, Danielson, Perreault, and Wood) are all ranked 22nd or lower in at least one draft ranking, so there is always the chance that one of those players fall. While I wouldn't get your hopes up on any one specific player, and there is a good chance that all of them are off the board at 22nd, there is a chance that one of these guys slips through to the Flyers second pick. Outside of these guys there is only one player that I'll categorizes as "Have to Fall".
Riley Heidt - F, 5'11, Prince George Cougars - Heidt has some high end tools that could see him come off the board earlier than a lot of people expect, but some deficiencies that could keep him on the board until 22nd OA. He has great speed and can handle the puck at speed. Combined with the fact that he is an elite playmaker makes him one of the most dangerous set up men in the draft. His ability to change direction and create small openings to thread the needle lead him to the top of the WHL assist charts, tying Bedard for the league lead. One of the big drawbacks is that he is probably too much of a playmaker, he doesn't have a strong shot and does use his shot enough, with this draft being big on shooters we could see teams taking shoot first guys over someone like Heidt. He is also pretty slight and while being 5'11 which is not really undersized he does play a small player's game. I think he'll be off the board, but if he's available the Flyers could steal a super talented playmaker. He's played a lot of center but will likely be a winger in the NHL.
Wheelehouse
Mikhail Gulyayev - D, 5'10, Avangard Omsk Organization - Gulyayev had been considered the top defenseman in the draft for most of the year, on a pure talent level he likely still is with him falling behind guys like Reinbacher and Sandin Pellikka due to Russian circumstances. Gulyayev is an elite skater, not just fast but with excellent edgework that makes him able to maneuver at speed and breeze by players. He's got great hands and vision making him a dangerous passer in all three zones. These offensive attributes are combined with a great hockey sense that helps in positioning as well joining the rush and positioning. He does have a bit of an issue being overaggressive and sometimes leaving to early or over pursuing in the D zone, but those are fixable issues. He is small, only 5'10 which means he may take a little more time getting to the NHL. The bigger issue is as a Russian player it's unknown how much Flyers scouts have seen him and it's unclear how the geopolitical situation with Russian players will impact where he goes in the draft. If Russia didn't invade Ukraine Gulyayev could have been a top 10 pick, so if the Flyers like what they see he could be a steal.
Dmitri Simashev - D, 6'4, Lokomotiv Yaroslavl Organization - The other big Russian D prospect, and I mean big in both prominence and statue. Simashev is a big defensive defenseman, but skates almost as well as his 5'10 countryman Gulyayev. He is great at all the major defensive skills, his positioning is great, stick checks are quick and accurate, and he can be physical but he's not an overly dominating physical presence. The biggest drawback is there is almost no offensive upside. Given how strong of a skater he is you would think there would be more offense, but he is a weak puck handler which not only limits his offense but can lead to problems getting zone exits if its not figured out. Like with Gulyayev, the limited scouting, lack of best on best comparisons, and geopolitical issues make it difficult to guess where Simashev will go, and he could even slide out of the first round.
Otto Stenberg - F, 5'11, Frolunda - Stenberg is another really interesting prospect in this range. He has tons of talent, with great speed, great hands, and a great shot. He also has great intangibles, he's a smart player, a hard worker, and a great leader. With that kind of skillset he should be projected to go closer to 7th than 22nd, but he is projected to go 22nd or later by a majority of rankings. The reason being that he failed to impress not only at the SHL level but at the Swedish junior level as well. Not being able to stand out in a pro league at 17 isn't that strange, but perhaps a bit underwhelming given Stenberg's skills, but not putting it together in the junior league is a bit bigger of an issue. While he has struggled for his club Stenberg has been legendary for his country. At the U18s he finished with 16 points, right behind the great American trio, and tied the Swedish record for most points at a U18 (tied with Willie Nylander). The next highest scoring player on Sweden had 11 points, that gap being the biggest between 1st and 2nd scorers in the tournament. It was similar at the pre-season Hlinka-Gretzky tournament where Stenberg had 9 points in five games, with a four point gap between the second highest scorer. And like at U18's Stenberg had the second most points ever at a Hlinka tournament by a Swede. When Stenberg is going he's a superstar, but even when he's not he's still a reliable depth player. He could be Mitch Marner, or he could be Scott Laughton. While that may be a wide gap, drafting a boom/bust type where the "bust" is still a great depth player should be something the Flyers (and a lot of other teams) consider.
Samuel Honzek - C, 6'4, Vancouver Giants - Honzek is another member of the Slovak prospect Renaissance, but unlike guys like Slafkovsky, Nemec, or this year's Dalibor Dvorsky, Honzek made the jump over to North America for his pre-draft year. He could be looked at like a Slafkovsky-lite, though Honzek is slightly bigger. He has good speed, good skill, good physicality, and a great quick and heavy shot. His ability to play in tight spaces and get off a quick accurate shot makes him an ideal power forward, drawing comparisons to a player like Alex Tuch. He has defense and consistency issues, but he's also a smart player so those issues could be worked out as he develops. With this year's draft being heavy on smaller forwards I wonder if a team earlier in the draft grabs Honzek, after Leo Carlsson there are only 2-3 forwards 6'2 or over projected to go in the top 20, but if he's on the board he will definitely be someone the Flyers give a close look to.
Calum Ritchie - C, 6'2, Oshawa Generals - Ritchie was oddly a player I was hoping the Flyers avoided most of the season, because I don't think he has 7th Overall talent. But he could be a very interesting option at 22nd, if he gets there. Ritchie is a big bodied but not overly physical two way center. That two-way center thing is what made me dread the Flyers reaching for him in the top 10, but the fact that Ritchie compliments his two way abilities with great playmaking, anchored by excellent vision and a good set of hands make him more than a one dimensional defense-first center. He is not a particularly fast player, while this draft class has a number of guys that aren't really plus skaters, most of the guys expected to go in the late teens-early 20s are pretty speed which would hurt Ritchie. He also does not have a great shot and often defers opportunities to shoot. It's an odd comparison, but think of him as a taller more defensive Morgan Frost. That could be just the type of player the Flyers are looking for long term.
Quentin Musty - LW, 6'2, Sudbury Wolves - Musty was the 1st Overall pick in the OHL draft and has the skills to show off why. He has a great shot, very good hands, and combines good speed and vision to be a great playmaker - all this leading to him having the highest ppg for a U18 in the OHL this season. All that in a 6'2 frame makes for quite the intriguing prospect. The problem with Musty is that he is not always engaged and can sometimes float around. He is not particularly good defensively and is not really physical. Right now he's a fairly one dimensional player, a boom/bust type where he could have a higher potential than someone like Stenberg or Honzek, but couldn't play the same depth role they could. But if the Flyers believe in that high end potential and that Torts and the Org could shake out any bad habits they could see taking him as less of a risk.
One interesting thing to consider is that there is a wide variety of skill sets, sizes, and potentials with these players listed so far. The players around 7th Overall are similar in that it's a very diverse group of players. Who the Flyers take at 7th Overall and 22nd Overall will give us a good idea of what attributes the new front office values most, if most of the players discussed are available.
Reach
I say "Reach" but at this point in the draft there is usually more differences in pre-draft rankings and what actually happens. Plus pretty much every player in this draft has a wide range of rankings, with some players that are in the "Wheelhouse" for 7th Overall being ranked lower than 22nd, and every player in this "Reach" section being ranked higher than 22nd Overall in at least one ranking. So when I say "Reach" I'm referring to players ranked 26th or lower in the Elite Prospects consolidated rankings.
Gavin Brindley - RW, 5'9, Michigan - Brindley carved out a place on an absolutely stacked Michigan team and earned a spot on the US World Junior team. Brindley has a ton of skill with great hands and some creative passing, and along with a high level of speed and acceleration, and paired with a high compete level and good defensive play. This combination of factors has lead some people, such as Corey Pronman at The Athletic, to rank him as high at 8th. His big problem? He's only 5'9. He's also not a remarkable shooter like other undersized recent forwards like Caufield and DeBrincat. Outside of games on TV I actually saw Brindley live this season and he can be an absolute force on the ice, he stood out Michigan almost as much as Fantilli and can overwhelm opponents with his speed and tenacity. Maybe Briere will see something of himself in Brindley and take a shot on the little guy.
Daniil But - LW, 6'5, Lokomotiv Yaroslavl Organization - But is the biggest player listed here and if he goes in the first round he will very likely be the biggest guy taken. He is similar to Honzek in that he has great size, can win battles, and has a big shot that could make him an asset. But But is also Russian leading to a lot of complicating factors already mentioned, not to mention he has an acceleration issue even if his top speed and edgework is solid. The only way I see the Flyers going with But is if they have their heart set on Honzek and he gets taken at 21st overall.
Lukas Dragicevic - D, 6'2, Tri-City Americans - Dragicevic is a great skating offensive RHD who put up great numbers in the WHL this season with 75 points in 68 games. He's got good instincts when joining the rush and has the speed to make up for mistakes on the back check. But as you can guess seeing these insane offensive numbers on a guy projected to go late in the first round there are some defensive issues. He can be over active in the D zone pushing himself out of position, or he can lose focus and puck watch and fall behind, leading to potentially the worse combo for a defenseman. If the Flyers think they could work through those issues they may think they have a steal, but time will tell if Dragicevic turns into a Shea Theodore, Michael Del Zotto, or a David Rundblad.
Oliver Bonk - D, 6'1, London Knights - Bonk is a RHD who will likely be more of a defensive defenseman in the NHL. Projected more as a 2nd rounder Bonk could move up into the first given the lack of defenseman in the first round. But Bonk's high hockey IQ, positioning, and ability to create turnovers on defense make him an interesting pick. If the Flyers are dead set on a defenseman with this second pick, and don't want to risk taking a Russian, I could easily see them taking Bonk over Dragicevic.
Goalies
Taking goalies can certainly be risky in the first round. Recently first round goalies have been fairly hit and miss with guys like Jake Oettinger and Spencer Knight looking like potential franchise goalies, Samsonov looking streaky or serviceable, and the jury still being out on Askarov, Cossa, and Wallstadt but they are each showing mixed results. Still, with the Flyers potentially moving Hart or at least thinking about it, now would be the time to look at drafting a goalie considering their longer timelines and the fact that there are some pretty talent guys available. The Flyers not having another pick until 87th could also affect this as the three top goalies listed should all be off the board by then. I'm going to look at three goalies who all have potential to be first rounders, though it's unlikely more than any one guy ends up in the first round.
Michael Hrabal is a 6'6 Czech playing in the USHL. He put up solid numbers for a pretty terrible Omaha Lancers team and very good numbers for an underwhelming Czech U18 team. He is very fluid in his motion for such a big guy and uses that size when battling to make saves. He will be playing at UMass next season who is noted for usually having a strong defense. That could allow him to develop without having to keep his team in games.
Carson Bjarnason is the archetypal goalie. 6'3, great at tracking pucks, and great moving around in his crease. Like Hrabal he played on a bad junior team with the Brandon Wheat Kings, and while his stats weren't impressive most places I've see say he has all the skills to build into the perfect pro goalie. He'll also likely backstop Canada's world junior team the next two seasons.
Trey Augustine - Speaking of starting for World Junior teams, Augustine has already won a Bronze medal at World Juniors for Team USA, along with winning Gold at the U18s. At 6'1 Augustine is a bit undersized, and with any undersized goalie that means his positioning, agility, and reactions need to great to compete at a high level. If Augustine was 6'3 I think he would be a shoe in for a top 16 pick as his athleticism and precision make him a great puck stopper. Augustine will be joining Michigan State this upcoming season, re-teaming with his former NTDP coach who has started drawing some of his old players back through the transfer portal. Augustine could turn Michigan State into a force to reckon with in a tough Big Ten.
Who Should/Will They Take
A couple of things I want to mention. One is I think there is a chance the Flyers move up or down, they have assets and depending how things shake out as it gets closer to their pick they could jump up or slide back. Also, I know a lot of people will believe that with two picks the Flyers should take a forward and a defenseman, but given the players available I don't know if the Flyers should go in with that logic. Reinbacher and Sandin Pellikka are both more middle first round pick type players than 7th Overall and I think it would be mistake to reach for them. Similarly, outside of the Russians, Dragicevic and Bonk are more late first/early second round players and the Flyers would have to reach past more talent and well rounded forwards to get them. And frankly I don't think the Flyers will take one of the Russians, based largely on the fact they probably haven't scouted them as thoroughly as they'd like.
Who I think they'll take and who I want them to take is actually the same person, Otto Stenberg. The Flyers usually have more eyes and put more emphasis on international tournaments where Stenberg has shined. If he's off the board the guy I'd be most interested in is Gulyayev or Brindley, but the guy I think they'd go with is Ritchie, but if Ritchie is also off the board I think they actually go with Bonk.
For the draft overall, I think the best value for selection would be if Michkov and Gulyayev fell, the Flyers would be getting a first overall talent (in most other years) and a top 10 talent at 7th and 22nd. But I think there is little chance the Flyers take any Russians and almost no chance they take two. My ideal situation would be to take Zach Benson at 7th OA and Otto Stenberg as 22nd OA, while I think Ryan Leonard at 7th OA and either Stenberg or Calum Ritchie at 22nd OA is who they will take. Actually, between this and my 7th Overall preview I've covered 29 players, so the Flyers will probably take one of the few guys I didn't cover like Nate Danielson or Ethan Gauthier haha.

I have crypto currency and I'm planning to sell it in a few years. However I'm also planning to go to live in Switzerland this year. Will HMRC tax me on that capital gain?
That would make a big difference, as in Switzerland taxes on capital gains are nearly zero.
My accountant said I will have to pay HMRC because I transferred my money to an UK based Coinbase bank account. If it was a US account, that would be different... I'm not convinced it really works in that way.
What do you think is the right thing to do? Do I still have to pay HMRC for that capital gain, even after I moved to live to a different country?

Hey beautiful girls, I know you must be so over me by now and I promise I will post a very extended thank you on here soon but I just need some help stat. So a little background, I fell on the bus a week ago and hit my tailbone REALLY HARD so for the past seven days I couldn't do much moving at all. Despite that, my mother who is now dying (please don't feel sorry for either of us, I hate her and can't wait for her cycle of abuse to be finally over) had forced me to run around town running errands for her which include going up and down about 100 stairs each time I get in and out of the appartment, again with a fractured tailbone AND a period coming / in action which made my muscle work unbearably hard with every step up. I also started wearing new shoe pads to support my nearly twisted back that I was born with and causes me to lean much more on one side of my body. The leg on that side is always more stiff and hurts a bit but today both legs are insanely swollen, I'm on my third day of my period thank fuck and it's so bad that I can feel it when I walk and I'm LOSING MY SHIT. My anxiety disorder is always scary but on this week every month it's just a fucking beast! My mind is taking me to the worst scenarios it can possibly come up with and knowing that this happens doesn't fucking help so please, please ladies, if you ever had your entire leg swollen during your period please share and tell me how you got through it, I'll take every advice seriously I promise. Sorry again for posting here a lot, I just have no one. Thank you so much and stay strong ♡

Hello,
I'm living in Lisbon but had my SEF appt in Coimbra on March 17th (nearly 3 months ago) and was approved but I still haven't received my residency card. I noticed there is one small error in the postal code on my paper receipt with the last digit being incorrect, but the rest of my address is correct. The nearby CNAIM office in Anjos told me that this is fine and that I should still be able to receive it.
They also told me to check with the nearby CTT lojas in my area but CTT says they can't locate any package unless I have a tracking number (I do not know if there is any tracking number for the residency card).
I have tried contacting the SEF by email and by phone but have not received any response and there does not seem to be any reasonable or reliable way to contact them whatsoever.
Any advice on what I must do ? Many thanks
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(Traducción al inglés debajo - English translation below)
Hola, soy del Reino Unido y tengo oferta de trabajo en Madrid (cerca de la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid) como auxiliar de conversación en una escuela. Antes de decidir en concreto un barrio para vivir, he encontrado que hay una ruta cerca de Chamartín. Si cojo el metro con la línea 1 hacia Chamartín y hago transbordo de la línea C4a de cercanías, puedo llegar a la escuela dentro de 40 minutos.
La ruta es de las zonas A y B1, hay una tarifa extra para hacer un transbordo o viajar entre zonas cada día? Estudié en Barcelona hace dos años y hay un abono para jovenes o billetes especiales con tarifas extras para cada zona, hay algo similar en Madrid? Además, hay una forma de pagar por unos meses con viajes ilimitados?
Me confunde la información disponible sobre los billetes de metro y cercanías entonces me alegraría de tener más información de todo :)
Por favor, corrige algunos errores que he hecho en español :)
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Hello, I have a job offer in Madrid (near the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid) as a conversation assistant in a school. Before deciding on a specific neighbourhood to live in, I have found that there is a route near Chamartín. If I take the metro line 1 to Chamartín and change to the suburban line C4a, I can get to the school within 40 minutes.
The route is from zones A and B1, is there an extra fare for transferring or travelling between zones every day? I studied in Barcelona two years ago and there is a youth pass or special tickets with extra fares for each zone, is there something similar in Madrid? Also, is there a way to pay for a few months with unlimited travel?
I'm confused about the information available on metro and commuter tickets so I'd be glad to have more information on everything :)

I (21F) have been fighting depression for years. People often think that everyone with depression is just wallowing in their own misery, but I need the world to know that isn't true, that depression is not something we create but something wrong in our brain that sometimes we cannot fix by ourselves, no matter what we do. Yes, I have had times I could simply not leave my bed and would rather get a bladder infection than walk 2 meters to the toilet. Times I didn't eat for days.
But I have fought back every time. Because I knew that lying there in that dark hole would never make the feeling go away. I promised myself and hoped that if I just lived life, ate good food with all the nutrients, took good care of my body and mind, that it would be better. I try so hard, every day, to find happiness. I go outside, I do my chores, my work. I have a job and study for tests. I am athletic, I practice my sport seriously for almost 6 hours every week. I do art. I practice mindfulness. I clean my space. I have done all this for years.
Still, I feel empty.For long periods of time I have no interest in anything, even my greatest passions. I am on antidepressants, I have been for years. It was supposed to be a temporary thing. The last time I felt the way I do now, my doctor doubled my dose. Now she wants to start weening me off of it. She halved it again. I feel like aq blob again.
Is this going to be my life? Dependent on some chemical that is possibly addictive to keep me not-miserable? I am tired, so tired, of fighting.