There's going to be a few DMs libertys taken with the spell wish and simulacrum but imagin this. The party is fighting their big bad lich/living wizard bbeg and winning as they do so often. The bbeg then says its my final time to shine knowing this is an all or nothing spell and casts wish saying, "I wish to force my new spell to work". The party scrambles as the spell casters try to counter spell it but fail. As the wizards spell book sets alight and in a bright flash of light the bbeg now seems to be ridding a horse? No a horse with wings as he yells, "high ho Silver" and takes flight into the air the ranged characters attack and the ones that can fly chase after the bbeg and with a decisive blow the villan is put down he comes crashing to the ground and that ends the fight. Now your players suspisions might be high given how the fight ended with a cowardly chase and that's correct because as they approch the body step two kicks into effect. Magic jar and its whole debarcle leading to another fight that the party ends by dispelling magic jar when their friends soul is free.
A hard fought victory with the loot being the wizards robes, bruned spell book ,his expensive spell components, a map and his summoned flying horse named Silver.
A majestic beast that takes caution to any player without an animal handeling check.
The party reads the map to discover a spot marked clones with an x and weeks worth of travel ahead of them. The burned spell book contains two remaining chared pages the wish spell and strangely enough find greater steed explaining Silver. And so they set off to rid the world of a vengeful wizard cheating death. And taking a well deserved long rest.
All the while in the stables and near the campsite watching the partys every move learning their every secret plotting his revenge is a simulacrum of the wizard named Silver eating hay and biding his time to strike back against the party.
Thank you for comming to my ted talk on how to make your party suspisious of the very horses they ride.

PACKGOD: Bro you ugly as shit, what the fuck? GOD DAMN bro you don't got waves on yo head, bro you got a god damn tidal sequence on yo head, yo ass ugly as shit. Bro look at yo emo ass bruh, if you don't get yo "IM AT BURGER KING WITH MY BURGER QUEEN, CAN I PLEASE GET A LARGE FRY" lookin ass, and look at yo nipples! boy you look like you shoot laser beams out of yo nipples, (pepe-pew, pew pew) pointy ass nipple ass garden gnome nose lookin ass nipple boy you ugly as shit, shut yo dirty ass up bro, say something bro ISHOWSEX: who the fuck are you? PACKGOD: WHO THE FUCK AM I? BITCH WHAT THE FUCK? if you don't get your ishowspeed dried out weed body built like an anal bead headphone wire deflated tire farted on the mic and called it fire chicken pox dirty socks "AYO EVERYONE GO AND FOLLOW PARADOX" crypto scam orange crayon peanut butter jelly jam, dirty toe sloppy joe "CRISTIANO RONALDO!" lookin ass up you ugly as shit, shut yo stupid ass up you dirty as hell bruh, if you don't get your slightly below average 22 savage moldy cabbage, went to therapy to quit yo habit of having unprotected butt sex with obese rabbits refrigerator is filled with maggots father abuses you with his tennis racket, school gave you a chromebook you tried to hack it, semiautomatic soy sauce packet, roaches inbreeding inside yo attic, BUST DOWN GRAMMA, let me smack it lookin ass, boy you ugly as shit, if you dont get your half a fry cherry pie BILL NYE THE SCIENCE GUY lookin ass back, bro you dirty as hell, you look like you were born inside of a handicap parking space, stupid ass boy you dirty as shit bro- ISHOWUNDERWEAR: SHUT THE FUCK- SHUT THE FUCK UP BRO, hey chat he probably is a messi dickrider PACKGOD: mess-, messy dick? BITCH WHAT THE FUCK? WHAT THE FUCK? YO MOM LOOK LIKE WRECKITRALPH WITH ESTROGEN IMPLANTS "IM GONNA WRECK IT" lookin ass momma boy you dirty as shit you downloaded pirated FL Studio and made a bass boosted nightcore remix out of yo parents sex tape, that shit was like "AH AH AH AH WA WA CHICHICHICHICHI, BAWAWAWA, "OH YEAH HAROLD" BAWAWAWA," look at yo stupid ass boy you ugly as hell bro yo eyebrows look like boomerangs boy you ugly as shit look at yo nose yo nose look like a goomba off mario bros "YA HOO!!!! LETS A GOO!!" stupid ass bitch (ishowspeed starts barking) (unintelligble) LOOK AT YO HEADPHONE yo got a wire connected earphone what the fuck? you was in yo basement last night and you said "BLOOD DEMON ART MUSICAL PRECISION" and started playing black ops 3 with a fucking clarinet "HOO WOO HOO BOO WOO" (ishowspeed starts screaming "shut the fuck up) (unintelligble) PACKGOD: YOU EAT BRICKS FOR BREAKFAST, you look like you brush yo teeth with a pickle, at thanksgiving dinner you picked up your moms vibrator jumped on the kitchen table, pulled yo pants down and and yelled "ALL HAIL THE MAGIC CONCH WLLWLWLWLWLWLWLWL**"** stupid ass nigga look at yo neck yo neck look like a windex bottle (spraying sounds) and look at yo god damn dirty earrings them shits look like a drop of sperm on each of yo ears, you look like a termite with scoliosis, you bitch boy you ugly as he- ISHOWNOBITCHES: shut the- shut yo ass up, you shut the hell up who the fuck you talkin to (stands up) PACKGOD: BITCH YO, LOOK AT YO PANTS!!!! LOOK AT YO PANTS, LOOK AT YO MOTHERFUCKIN WEINER THAT SHIT STICKIN OUT OF YO PANTS, AYO WHAT THE FUCK? (unintelligble) BITCH YO UNDERPANTS SPONSORED BY COCA COLA, look at those nasty ass pants bitch you dirty as hell, bitch you better get yo "WORLD CAHHHHUP, WORLD CUHHHP, WARLD CAAAAAAUHP, WURLD CAAP" stupid ass nigga sounding bro, you ugly as shit bro, yo ass was getting motherfuckin fucked by anna ross, that shit was like "EVERYDAY I BA BA BA WA BA BA BA WA WA" and there was like "HGRUP GRUP RRUGBP BRUHT BRRT RRGBHT DRRGCP" and you was like "EEH EEH EEP EEH EEH E E" you stupid ass, what u gon do? what u gon do bitch? (ishowspeed angrily flexing muscles) look at yo arms, scrawny ass cheese nigga arms, what the fuck you built like a staple, you the fuck built like a paperclip, what u gon do? yo gon start crying? "WHOOH BOOH HOOH (crying noises)" bitch you ugly as shit you like shaggy from scooby doo "RUH ROH RAGGY! ISHOWSPEEDS GETTING MAD!" bitch ass you ugly ass bro, what you wearing right now you got adidas shorts, bitch tell me why you built like an autistic traffic cone, fuck wrong with you buddy now SAY SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING (unintelligble noises) PACKGOD: -CABBAGE BASKET, SHUT YO UGLY ASS UP BITCH YOU DIRTY AS HELL, you built like a fucking cucumber with eyeballs, you ass ugly as shit, on my momma you stupid ass bro, you dusty musty crusty ugly ass, dirty bag motherfucking ugly rag, motherfucking where's my dad, motherfucking "OH SHIT" fortnite lag, you ugly as shit, say something bro you do nothing bro.

I am not the OP. Original post is by u/Ad-West-7 in offmychest
TW: Mental illness, self-harm, references to suicide, physical violence, alcohol + drug abuse
Mood Spoiler: Still very sad
Note: This is a follow-up to my previous BORU about this, which can be found here. The newest update is the second one, if you want to skip to it.
~~~
Original - May 9, 2023
My girlfriend had a meltdown and fell asleep on my couch
Last night my (25M) girlfriend (27F) came over to drop off a package that was sent to her house instead of mine. She’s been struggling with depression recently and for the last two weeks she has not been acting herself at all. It seemed like she had not slept in days and her usual high energy self was not there. I asked her if she was okay numerous times but she kept pushing me away and gave one sentence answers about how she is fine and I didn’t need to worry. I know she has a history with suicide but that was when she was a teenager and she has not thought of taking her life since she was 16.
When she came over she was in really bad shape. Her hair was messy and there were bags under her eyes. There were some cuts on her arm that looked like self harm and one of them was bleeding. Her voice was groggy and she was extremely quiet. She came into my apartment, put the package on the kitchen counter, said goodbye, and tried to leave immediately. She thanked me for being a good boyfriend which caught my attention. I felt a sense of doom so I stepped in front of the door and told her to stay for the night. She told me to move but I said she was not in a good condition to drive and something bad might happen.
Suddenly she hit me in the chest and said she wants something bad to happen. She broke down in tears and cried about how stressed out and unappreciated she felt. She talked about how she was the perfect student and went to Berkeley like her parents wanted and became a nurse but they never showed any support for her career. She gets pushed aside and hates how all the attention goes to her sister and she feels unnoticed. She cried about how stressful work has been and how understaffed her hospital is. She had not slept for 37 hours and tried to go to bed a couple hours earlier but couldn’t fall asleep. She hates her body and how much she struggles with maintaining her weight. I picked her up and brought her to the couch and she continued crying and told me she thought about crashing her car multiple times on the way to my apartment and I would be better off with her being dead. She finished off by saying she doesn’t feel human and how difficult it is to get out of bed then fell asleep in the middle of crying. That all happened in a span of about 10 minutes.
I laid her down on the couch and put a pillow under her head. I stopped the bleeding on her arm and put some bandages on the wound after I cleaned it. I put a blanket over her and stroked her hair for a while. I started crying watching her sleep. I knew she was going through a rough time but I did not know how bad it was. I got a blanket and pillow and slept in front of the couch in case she woke up.
It’s 10am right now and she’s still sleeping. She’s been asleep for 14 hours and has not moved. I don’t know what condition she’s going to be in when she wakes up but I hope she is calm and open to talk about getting help.
Edit: Thank you for the replies. She woke up a couple hours ago after sleeping for 16 hours and she explained everything. She was at work two days ago and a elderly patient yelled at her and shoved her. She reached her breaking point and when she got home she threw out her antidepressants (she gets a refill on Thursday) and went into a manic episode. She went to work yesterday without sleep but walked out an hour into her shift and relapsed into self harming. She decided she was going to drive into a tree but wanted to see me one last time so she dropped off the package to do so. Thankfully I saw the signs and stopped her and she had her breakdown. She asked if she could stay with me for a couple of days so we drove to her apartment to get some things and she played music and sang her heart out. She wanted Wingstop so I stopped to order her something and she ran to a grocery store nearby while I was in line and got her favorite ice cream. We drove back to my apartment and ate and she is currently taking a shower. When she gets out and dries off I’m going to sit down with her and talk about what she wants to do regarding her job. I think she’s going to quit tbh. I saw a comment asking me to call out for her but I think she’s going to call out entirely. She seems BURNT OUT. I’m also going to bring up idea of her talking to a therapist again. Thank you for listening to my ramble lol. Your support means a lot to me.
~~~
First Update - May 13, 2023
My girlfriend showed up to my work drunk and high
A couple days ago I posted about how my girlfriend was in the middle of a mental crisis and fell asleep on my couch for half the day. She took a mental health leave from her job and found a therapist this morning who she says will begin to see her next week. She got her medication refills on Thursday and has been trying to relax but when I came home later that day she was not there. I texted her and she said she was out with friends and would be back soon. She came back a couple hours later with a brown bag but did not tell me what it was. She went into my bedroom to hide it and told me not to open it. I was a little concerned but decided not to push it.
It turns out she was hiding cocaine in the bag. I am a firefighter and I worked today and the next two days and tonight she showed up at my station drunk and high out of her mind. She knocked on the door and my Lieutenant opened it and I immediately recognized her drunk voice. She stumbled in asking where I was and started crying when she saw me. My Lieutenant told me to take her home so I guided her to the car and drove her back to my apartment. She started yelling about her job out of nowhere then fell asleep. When I reached my apartment I carried her up the stairs and sat her down on the couch. There were wine bottles and a line of cocaine on my kitchen counter. I called the station and said I would be back in an hour and cleaned up the kitchen and made sure she was not at risk of overdosing.
I have never been more mad in my life. I am okay with alcohol in my apartment but any kind of drugs is unacceptable. My father was a drug addict so drugs are forbidden from my apartment and my girlfriend knows this. I am upset about that but showing up inebriated and high at my job IN FRONT of my coworkers is even more unacceptable. I have been trying my hardest to put myself in a position to move up a rank and now I am the guy who had to drive his drunk girlfriend home. How did she even get to the station in the first place. I hope it was an Uber or something.
I love my girlfriend with all my heart but she needs to find serious professional help. I have been able to weather her manic episodes but this incident is something I am not going to be able to let go quickly. I know she has mental health problems and it’s something I have to accept to be with her but she is not taking her health seriously and it’s affecting her life and it’s starting to affect my life. She said she was going to admit herself to a psychiatric hospital on Thursday but it’s Saturday morning and she’s in my apartment passed out on my couch. I love my girlfriend. I really do. The past four years with her have been amazing but she keeps getting worse and it’s getting harder to help her. I watched my mother ruin her life trying to fix my father and I don’t want to end up on the same path as her. At some point I have to draw a line.
Update: She took herself to the hospital and admitted herself. She sent me a picture of the sign in sheet and apologized for her behavior. I don’t feel anything at this point. I get a break from her for a while so that’s nice. I might break up with her.
~~~
***NEW UPDATE**\*
Second Update - May 27, 2023
My girlfriend broke up with me through a letter and I miss her
My girlfriend was released from the psych ward yesterday and decided to break up with me for a while. She suffered a massive mental health crisis a couple of weeks ago and ended up taking a mental health leave from her job. She showed up at my work drunk and high on cocaine and I had to take her home. She admitted herself to the hospital the next day and stayed for two weeks before she was released.
Last night she knocked on my door before running back to her car. She left a box with all my things from her apartment and a letter attached to the box. In the letter, she said she needs to take a break from our relationship so she can take care of her mental health. She is in an extremely unstable condition and is receiving treatment for depression and suicidal ideation. She does not feel safe being around anyone at the moment and does not trust herself to make logical decisions around people. She is taking her medication and no longer feels like the world is ending but she is going back to the hospital to receive assistance with her depression. She is also going to start eating full meals again and try put on weight.
The next three pages of the letter were filled with her expressing her love for me and apologizing for her behavior. Because she knows I do not want drugs anywhere near my apartment she asked one of her coworkers about a person they know who sells cocaine and she bought a gram. She bought it in a brown bag along with some weed and hoped I would look at it and break up with her. When I didn’t she decided to sniff the cocaine and put a line on the kitchen table. She bought 10 bottles of wine and drank two of them and scattered the bottles around the apartment before taking an Uber to my job. Because I was the only thing that was stopping her from jumping off a bridge she hoped that I would get mad when I saw her walking into the fire station wasted and the state of my apartment when I brought her back and break up with her. Despite my anger, I did not break up with her and she ultimately decided to check herself into the hospital. She dedicated one page to apologizing for her actions that morning and all the things she did before because of her mental health. She doesn’t deserve a patient boyfriend like me who has the biggest heart in the world and she is afraid of corrupting me. She told me to find a woman who does not have the same problems as her and treat that woman with the same respect I gave her. The last page was her telling me how grateful she was to have me as a boyfriend and she could never repay me for the five years of love I gave her. She does not know when she’s going to feel ready to be in my presence again and told me not to come to her house to talk to me. She also drew a portrait of me while she was in the hospital and attached it to the letter.
I started crying in a way I haven’t since I was a kid. I knew what I was getting into when I met her and I never held her mental health against her. She always told me what emotions she was feeling and it helped our relationship greatly. This is a very serious situation and I am glad she recognized she needs professional support instead of trying to deal with it all by herself. She’s had episodes before but nothing like this. I miss her. I miss her so much. My apartment has been quiet for the past two weeks without her being loud and creating noise and I hate it. I miss holding her and rubbing her back while she fell asleep. I miss the streak of blonde hair in her black hair, her big, black, beautiful eyes, and how she always smelled like lavender. I miss cooking for her and making dinner so she had something to eat after a shift. I miss the smells of whatever recipe she was attempting to replicate from Pinterest. I miss the video of Daniel Craig saying “ladies and gentlemen, the weekend” she would send me every Friday after 5pm. I miss her chicken katsu and spam musubi and her cooking. She made two containers of katsu and curry and put them in my refrigerator before she started her cocaine plan and every bite I took made me miss her more. I miss exercising and doing ab workouts with her. I miss trying new hiking trails with her. I miss watching whatever dumb reality tv show she was obsessed with every two months and her asking a million questions every time she watched a sporting event with me. She was the love of my life and my life feels incomplete without her. I told my mom and younger sister we were taking a break and both of them said she feels like a member of our family. I miss her. The last four years have been the happiest times of my life and now all I feel is numbness and sadness. Whenever we had disagreements they never lasted more than two days and we apologized if one of us said something mean. She was the place I called home and the only person I feel safe confiding in and now she’s gone for I don’t know how long. I want to be right by her side giving her a hug and telling her how strong and beautiful she is but I can’t. I know she’s serious about improving her mental health and she’s making an effort to get her so that makes me feel a sense of peace. I hope she is able to find a sense of calmness in her mind. I collected all her things and dropped them off at her house this afternoon then got on the highway and just keep driving for an hour. No music or anything. Just the sound of cars and my thoughts. She deserves to be happy and feel like she wants to live. It hurts to live without her.
Edit: She has never done drugs before. This was the first time she ever bought or did drugs.
~~~
I was really sad to see this update, but perhaps it's for the best while she addresses her mental health. I wish them the best.
Reminder - I am NOT the original poster. Don't forget that commenting on the original posts is not allowed.

I never liked eating. When I was a baby I wouldn’t cry when I hungry so my parents had to put me on a strict schedule. When I was a kid I didn’t care for eating and would skip snack and lunch at school and then lie about it to my parents. I knew this was an issue since the 5th grade but everyone thought I’d grow out of it.
I gained a little weight in middle school but never got to be over weight. I was pretty skinny all of my life. I’d drink Gatorade instead of eating because it felt better in my stomach.
I’m 19 now and I still don’t experience hunger and cravings like I’m supposed to. One plate of food (egg sandwich, à banana and a piece of bread) fills me for 2 days. One small combo meal from a fast food restaurant feels like binge eating and it hurts. I’d much rather drink and never eat but you can’t get all your nutrients from that. Digestion hurts sometimes no matter what I eat. It could be healthy grilled chicken with broccoli and it’d still hurt. But I don’t experience pain from drinks.
I’m physically weak because my body has been in a low starvation diet my entire life. It’s eaten my muscles because I keep pushing back on eating. I can go 2 days without food before experiencing any discomfort and symptoms. I’m the shortest one in my family by quite a bit probably because my growth was stunted. I hate that eating makes me feel sick but there’s nothing I can do. I’ve tried everything. I’ve been to the anorexia clinic due to this and it’s never helped.
I can’t stick to a schedule because I’ll get one or two days in and then I’ll get nauseous when I try to eat on the third making me skip eating and derailing.
5 pieces of square pork shops is all I can eat before feeling ill. That’s how little my body wants food and it doesn’t make any sense.

Weta moved around the infirmary in a flurry movement, wings buzzing anxiously as she hurried. There had been a fight in the prey centre and quite a few dragons needed aid.
Icewing stumbled over a chicken, fractured wing. Shot some ice accidentally and hit a Sand/Sky hybrid in the side. That hybrid flung her barb forward to attack and hit a Seawing. None of the three girls were at fault, but another Icewing, a Sandwing, and a Nightwing had a minor fight over it and ended up with ice and flame burns and some scratches. read the report the Hivewing had gathered from witnesses. She had pinned it to the wall near the door quickly.
The hybrid, Heatwave, was sleeping soundly with heatpacks in a bundle of blankets, and the trio of fighting dragons had left the infirmary earlier after a stern warning from her and some medications. They were hopefully having a chat with the student counselor.
"How are you doing, Atoll?" Weta asked, approaching the purple Seawing with bandages all over her arm. The cherry dragon was dissapointed that she would be missing out on carving wood of the next week, but otherwise dealing with the pain well. I love the tools available here. There's so much to work with.
She had a chat with Pallas, the Icewing with the wing injury, for an hour or. Pallas was fairly quiet, but was happy for Weta to distract her from the pain with chatter.
The flap of wings alerted Weta of her crows. They had done a wonderful job helping her, and one was trapped in Heatwave's talons as she slept. The other two had just returned from who knows where (Weta never minded if they disappeared for a bit) and the Hivewing instructed one to stay in the infirmary while she went for some lunch with the other.
"Just you and me, huh Helper?" She said, receiving a squak from the bird on her middle horn. Just then, a dragon turned the corner into her and they collided.

PLEASE tell me someone else remembers this. It was an ad between 2007-2012 for fried chicken (Church’s I believe) that aired in Texas and had a little rap “breast, wings, legs and thighs! Get your mix yall, get your mix”
I’ve been scouring the internet for years now for a video to show my partner because it gets stuck in my head so often. They don’t believe it exists and are convinced I made it up (jokes) 😂

As per the title. I had a five hour debate with my roommate about how Tears of the Kingdom Link would do against every other named character in the series... At once. I wanted to get Reddit's (admittedly sometimes dubious) wisdom on the matter. For reference, I think he would lose, or at the very least he would have an uphill battle, while my rommate thinks he has it in the bag without a serious tactical disadvantage.
​
Rules:
This is every other character with a name. "Lynel" does not count as a name, but every incarnation of Link counts seperately, so we'll see the Hero of Time, Hero of Wind, Hero of Twilight, ect. Each individual is counted once, at their strongest (all items for links, ect)
No puzzle bosses. It's not fair to include enemies that are immune to damage most of the time, since that's generally at odds with how Tears of the Kingdom combat works.
Each side has half an hour to prepare, and they're sent to an empty but varied terrain with cover and the like, taking anything they've managed to grab with them. This is mostly relevant for zonai devices and characters like Purah who are pretty useless if they can't grab something ahead of time.
Tears of the Kingdom link is very well stocked. He has hundreds of every common material, and several each of even the rarest ones. Fully maxxed armor and so on. Eight fairies, which I believe is the maximum you can get at once. We'll say that he has several 30 minute attack up +3 meals, and a bunch of endurance meals (most of his healing could easily come from inhaling apples or whatever, while stamina recovery can't come from anything but meals).
Tears of the Kingdom link has his cannon level of skill (aka, probably higher than any human can play him at), and all intended game mechanics are representative of his capabilities, though glitches are obviously out. He can switch armor sets instantly, heal instantly, and much more.
Link does not have champion abilities.
​
​
Arguments in favor of Link winning:
Link's unbeatable defense. With Champion's Tunic, Zonai Greaves, and Mystic headdress, Link has all incoming damage reduced by 75, with no floor (ie, he doesn't even take 1 damage). For reference, this is almost enough to one-shot a typical Link with 80 hit points. He also has a bunch of fairies, one-shot protection, and the ability to inhale 80 apples instantly to heal up.
His unstoppable offense. Even without critting, a single shot from a bow can deal almost a thousand damage (5-shot savage lynel bow, gibdo bone, bone proficiency, attack up). I realize that using damage as a benchmark feels cheap, but otherwise I'd have to use Divine Beasts slicing holes through mountains as a benchmark, and I don't want to stoop to the level of a Dragon Ball Z fan.
His ludicrous skill. When monsters first started showing up, he fought a horde of monsters that included multiple Lynels, and only took a single wound the entire fight. He can clearly track and respond to a large number of major and minor threats, and he's 100%-ed his way across Hyrule twice, had 3-7 years of training between botw and totk.
Link has pretty crazy mobility too. There are a LOT of ways to move around, and almost all of them are intended mechanics. Even just including the ones that can be done almost instantly, you have pepper updrafts, rocket shield, wing shield, paraglider and much more. He can keep away from slower opponents while either engaging faster ones or getting at a good range and engaging in hit and run tactics.
Recall can deflect projectiles (it freezes time when activated so tracking a moving object isn't an issue). And that's not counting that things like ice arrows can be avoided with freeze-proof armor and the like.
Even assuming fast-travelling to shrines isn't an option, he can place up to three travel medallions to fast travel away if he's under too much pressure.
If he has a 21-part orbital cannon set up and ready to go at the start, it'll have 18 beam emitters swinging around wildly, doing massive crowd control and heavy damage.
Link is canonically pure in heart. Rauru's orbital cannon would not affect him, since it 'dispels evil'.
Most importantly: What happens when Link get a secret stone? Based on the description we get in the memories, a secret stone seems to pick a single supernatural ability the bearer possesses, and greatly enhances that ability. And Link's generally accepted ability is... Bullet time. If he could say, keep it up constantly (with a stamina cost, of course), he'd be basically unstoppable; way too fast for anyone to hit, and able to dismantle anyone in an instant. With 50 stamina foods that each restore 5 wheels of stamina, I don't see time being an issue. This would probably not be anticipated, since Rauru never even thought of giving a secret stone to Link, their main guy; he clearly thought Link had no powers.
​
As for arguments against Link winning:
There aren't as many here, but the first big one is that Link would be overwhelmed. Sure, Link can pay attention to a couple Lynels and a bunch of Bokoblins, and he's probably a bit better now, but he's up against a LOT of opponents, including the Prime Demon King, who's much stronger than the one you fight at the end of the game. Throw in a whole bunch of bosses, Ganons, Links, Zeldas, sages, and more into the mix, and that's too much for him to track effectively.
I can think of three Links that can give themselves temporary invulnerability. The Hero of Twilight with rupee armor, the Hero of Wind, also with Rupee armor (though it doesn't last nearly as long), and the Hero of Time with Nayru's Love. The only thing the Hero of the Wild can do to these three is to knock them around with bomb arrows, and all of them have at least potential ways to ragdoll Link, which leads onto my next point:
Stunlocking. Links are unscrupulous and won't hesitate to get the Hero of the Wild in a constant loop of bombs, gale boomerangs, and other knockback effects. If Demon King Gannon is still around, he can eat up all of Link's hearts and make it a GG.
Runes like Recall can't be used in the air. There aren't a LOT of characters who can reliably hit targets in the air quickly and apply knockback as they do, but I think the Hero of Twilight can with the Gale Boomerang, which would force the Hero of the Wild to either get ragdolled or abandon shooting and use glide armor to dive to the ground to make recall available.
Purah has the de-aging rune, and she can shoot it at Link (it's literally light). Granted it doesn't take effect immediately, but it does make the target very tired. Purah isn't exactly an athelete, and she was able to make it to bed despite being 120 at the time, so this would probably only be a nuisance for Link.
Me and my roommate had an argument over who gets each piece of the Triforce, since we're not going to have a bunch of copies . We agreed on the most capable version of each character getting their piece. The Triforce of courage is mostly a plot buff (it never has a mechanical effect when Link gets it), the Triforce of Wisdom seems to mostly give Zelda some cool magic that probably won't matter, and the Triforce of Power is going to.... Prime Demon Gannon, which means he'd probably be super resistant to anything but the master sword, light arrows, or something similar, making him another major threat Link has trouble taking on with other distractions. You can certainly argue that he'd be immune to anything that isn't Master Sword or equivalent, but I'll go with Demon Dragon's insane resistance as a baseline.
​
What do you think would happen?

Table of Contents

1. Russo-China rejects Biden
2. ZNPP as potential Chernobyl
3. Biden's Ukraine is desperate enough for scorched-earth tactics
   1. Battle of the Bulge at Bakhmut
   2. Fresh meat
   3. Teixeira leaks
   4. BRICS vs NATO
4. ZNPP's weak point is diesel fuel
5. Ukrainian saboteurs caught by ZNPP
6. BB / Red Skull / Inb4source / Q
   1. BB sent Q
   2. BB warns Zaporizhia is pivotal
   3. RS gives ZNPP sabotage warning
   4. Ukraine HVT: Nuclear tit for tat
   5. Inb4source / Red Skull 4chan posting history

Note: links redacted. See bottom for link to original.

Summary

Ukraine has allegedly sabotaged Zaporizhia to melt down like Chernobyl, to stop the Russian invasion and justify NATO peacekeepers.
Here's Biden's plan to avoid another Kabul:

• NATO operators sabotaged the ZNPP backup diesel generator fuel storage, causing it to leak.
• NATO is targeting diesel fuel shipments. See captured Ukro saboteurs with NLAWs.
• When diesel reaches zero, Ukros will shell the lone power line, breaking it for the 8th time.
• Up to 6x Chernobyl meltdown ensues. Territory Russia captured is ruined.
• NATO establishes "no-fly zone" and sends "peacekeepers".

Russo-China rejects Biden

"Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to fuck things up." – Barack Obama
Clearly we underestimated him. Americans can hardly believe that Biden blew up Nord Stream 2, essentially attacking our colony "ally" Germany. Perhaps they're still reeling from Kabul falling faster than Hanoi.
Normally Russia endeavors to cooperate with the sitting US president. However, Russian state media has begun airing the Hunter Biden laptop images, of Hunter engaged in drugs and pedophilia with preteen girls. This is retaliation for Biden crossing Russia's red line by repeatedly trying to sabotage Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP). That's why Russia is willing to assist in the impeachment of a sitting US president, which is obviously an extreme step to take between two countries with enough nukes to blot out the Sun.
Rumor has it that China has also turned on Biden, which would make sense: China's economic backing allows Russia to survive US sanctions. China wants Taiwan, and Russia wants East Ukraine. They would be stupid not to cooperate.

• SHOWTIME FORMOSA; SMART MONEY IS SELLING TAIWAN EDITION pol BB May 17
• China Calls Biden a Fake President and Lloyd Austin a Fake Defense Secretary Michael Baxter May 30
• China declines US request for a meeting between defense chiefs Reuters May 30
• Xi Jinping tells China’s national security chiefs to prepare for ‘worst case’ scenarios CNN June 1

ZNPP as potential Chernobyl

A Redditor explains:

Kawaii-Gopnik Russia really needs that powerplant without any leak, to provide industry of surrounding regions with energy, but very few people understand contexts of the current situation: Soviets built complicated and very well ballanced energy system, including not only NPP, but also cascade of hydro power plants. Donetsk, Dnepr, Zaporozhe and Kharkov regions are just one big power hungry plant. NPP itself is reliant on hydropower and quality of water in Dnepr river. In case of really bad "accident" Russia will forget about development of the newly accuired regions, lack of energy produced by NPP is significant, nearly 30-40%. Accident will affect south of Ukraine with russian majority. It will also be also disaster for ecology of the WHOLE Black Sea. Rose of winds will spread nuclear dust to the West - Poland, Romania, Czechia and further. Nuclear zone will stop russian army from further territorial expansion. This will be border formed by Dnepr and nuclear zones.

The basic facts are documented by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Even while shut down, ZNPP needs external power grid or diesel to prevent its reactors from overheating.
Russia controls ZNPP. A nuclear "accident" would give NATO pretext to intervene, so Ukraine keeps trying to cause one.
How bad is this? Well, Chernobyl is in Ukraine. That was a 1k MW reactor. ZNPP has six. It is the 9th largest NPP in the world.
Hopefully the containment response would be much better than Chernobyl's, but that's hardly something to count on during WW3. Russia's nuclear doctrine includes pre-emptive strikes; who knows what they'd do. The USSR nearly launched twice during the Cold War.
Imagine if China assisted Texas in seceding from the USA to rejoin Mexico, and then caused a reactor meltdown at Comanche Peak Nuclear Power Plant when the USA retook it. A lot of Southerners would want to lob a few nukes back at China. They might demand it.
It is foolish to assume WW3 will not happen because it hasn't happened yet. One should look instead at the historical record of continual warfare, and the difficulties in preventing WW3 so far:

• List of nuclear close calls Wikipedia
• WW3: Historical close calls Wikipedia

Thus one cannot rule out a radiation release 6x as bad as Chernobyl. Not that Ukraine needs anything so dramatic. It merely seeks a pretext to justify direct NATO intervention to "protect" ZNPP. A small leak will suffice.
Even if there is a major radiation leak, it will occur in Russian-annexed separatist territory, and help Ukraine defend her new border. Scorched earth is a valid tactic, whether the fire is conventional or nuclear. Ukraine survived Chernobyl and knows it can survive ZNPP too.

Biden's Ukraine is desperate enough for scorched-earth tactics

Battle of the Bulge at Bakhmut

"We have been working on the counter-offensive with Ukraine for 4-5 months." – Victoria Nuland
Why is Ukraine so desperate?
Ukraine depends on NATO aid to fight Russia. NATO aid depends on Democrat willingness. Democrat willingness depends on US public support. Therefore the illusion must be maintained to the American public that Ukraine is winning. For this reason, Ukraine has committed its reserves to a costly failed counter-offensive. Bakhmut fell regardless.
James A. Donald summarizes the strategic picture:

So, bright new plan. "The Greatest Ukrainian Offensive". The Ukraine would build up a big reserve of fresh troops, then suddenly hurl large chunks of them at particular points on the front. They would, the Americans planned, cut through a point in the front lines, penetrate to Russian rear areas, wreak havoc on those areas, and force Russian troops in danger of being encircled to hastily retreat from territory that had been slowly gained at enormous cost in grinding attritive warfare. I do not know how big the Ukrainian strategic reserve was, but if it was two hundred fifty thousand, they have now committed most of them to grinding attritive warfare, and cupboard is looking as bare of men as it is of artillery and rockets.

The USA expected to break Russia economically; China's economic support prevented that. Despite PMC Wagner's heartfelt complaints, Russia is unlikely to run out of convicts anytime soon. Russia is rotating divisions through Ukraine, seasoning reservists for a looming WW3. Russia's historical appetite for losses is much higher than its current losses. This is essentially a civil war, and the Russia bear considers being carved up an existential threat. By underestimating Russia's resolve, NATO is repeating the error of Napoleon and Hitler.
Despite having plenty of weapons, Ukraine's military manpower is exhausted and demoralized. Raw conscripts are thrown at the front lines with minimal training. Medvedev predicts that the Ukraine will cease to exist; half its people have already fled.

Anonymous Sat 27 May 2023 04:59:49 No.428438077 Report 428437208 Yeah, the killing has been excessive since they pretty much destroyed 95% of Azov fags and assorted true believers in the first 200k dead, now they overshot it by 100%. About 12% of the non-Russian speaking population's prime military aged men in Ukraine are dead or crippled. 12-20% of the same demographic has fled the country. It's over, desu. They are seeing much more of the polish and romanian mercs now, since they literally lack the manpower.

Western mass media wrongly assumes that Russia is losing because it does not take the entirety of Ukraine in a blitz, as the USA did to Iraq. However, Russia does not want West Ukraine; the people there do not like Russians. Russia has captured the territory it wants, and is now using the rest of Ukraine as a kettle or cauldron, in which to conveniently destroy whatever NATO wishes to send. This is a good way for Russia to gradually learn how to fight NATO armies in a low-risk environment.
The Spartans had a rule never to war too often against the same enemy, lest they train up a nemesis. It was foolish of NATO to believe that Russia had forgotten the lessons of attrition warfare that it learned so recently in Afghanistan.

Nehming Names 9h Russia's prudent caution in directly engaging the West is bringing dividends in perhaps unexpected ways. Russia is gaining strategic knowledge of the actual capabilities and weaknesses of our weapon systems and military tactics, with our supply of munitions draining to militarily unsustainable levels, as it engages allied forces in Ukraine. Russia is aware of the continuing progress of the Great Awakening in the West, that is, the knowledge that Western governments, military, and institutions are run by an elite hostile to their heritage populations, and therefore expects to see declining support of Western governments by their citizens. Russia can also see the precipitous decrease in every societal metric in the West: social cohesiveness, general morality, public health, financial stability, military readiness, etc.With these three degradative processes in play, the most strategic thing Russia and China can do is to bide their time, as time itself will act to sap the strength of the West to militarily engage their foes.

Fresh meat

Russian conquest of Kiev would air Biden's dirty laundry to the world, from Burisma kickbacks to pedophilic field trips and worse. This would result in US "regime change". A distant Chernobyl is a small price to pay, for top Democrats to avoid the hangman's noose.
Poland is itching to invade. Victoria Nuland is scheduling NATO air exercises. USAF propaganda asserts that Russia's air force is a joke. The question is, do Americans still believe Biden's false prophets of victory?
If not, they just need a little "encouragement": 9/11, Gulf of Tonkin, Pearl Harbor, Lusitania, Remember the Maine… Keep those rural Whites busy lest they make trouble at home!
Most Americans cannot find Ukraine on a map. (To be fair, it hasn't been on the map very long.) However, the architects of Biden's Ukraine policy, such as Victoria Nuland, Jake Sullivan, Antony Blinken and George Soros, tend to have grandparents of Eastern European origin. I am sure for them it feels important. There's no place like home.
A Redditor explains:

tinglevibestoo I listened to a former CIA agent talk about Ukraine the other day. He said that Ukraine is running out of time. It's not that they don't have the weapons. We've sent them a ton of weapons. It's that they don't have enough troops and they're running low on troops. That's how Russia will win. Ukraine can't sustain the manpower. It totally makes sense to use a nuclear false flag as a reason to bring in the extra manpower. Everyone would deem it justified too because it's a threat to the neighboring nations and it'd be an environmental (climate change) catastrophe.

Teixeira leaks

Some will bring up the US intelligence leaks by Jack Teixeira to support the idea that Russia rather than Ukraine is desperate. Unlike Snowden, Teixeiera was obviously a major security risk for patriotically-motivated leaking, with numerous red flags in his previous and ongoing behavior. Therefore Teixeira was probably a deliberate leak by US intelligence, using a patsy to generate the initial leak and then add whatever extra info they wanted released in the resulting confusion.

• Jack Teixeira Wikipedia
• Discord member details how documents leaked from closed chat group Washington Post

Teixeira's leaks served several purposes for the Biden administration:

• Allowed the mainstream media to walk back their false forecasts of Ukrainian victory.
• Provided a right-wing scapegoat for Ukraine's defeat.
• Justified increased social media monitoring and censorship.

Most importantly, it mitigated the potential political fallout from another catastrophe like Kabul, should Kiev fall.
The 4chan leaker BB/Inb4source asserts Teixeira was a patsy.

BRICS vs NATO

The foundation of the US empire is the petrodollar, which allows the USA to tax the world via digital debt seignorage. This is why the creation of BRICS as an independent financial and trading system rendered war between NATO and BRICS inevitable, as Kim Dotcom predicted. The US republic is a thalassocratic empire as arrogant as democratic Athens, and it is addicted to financial plunder. The Empire cannot afford to lose the USD's reserve currency status.
Reserve currencies and empires both have lifespans, and the USA has reached the end of both. It is at the stage where hubristic foreign misadventures prove fatal, and Ukraine and Taiwan will prove too much for the American eagle to handle. This is no longer WW2; the USA cannot win a two-front war against BRICS.

• Gold Reserve Fiat Currencies Monetary Gold
• World Reserve Currencies last on average 100 years. The US dollar has been the reserve currency for 76 years. Satoshi Chris

That is why Biden's NATO is desperate; the Empire is unravelling as the European Union and other allies such as Turkey and India lose their faith in NATO.
The fact that none of this is common knowledge speaks volumes about who controls public schools and owns mass media corporations.

ZNPP's weak point is diesel fuel

The situation at ZNPP is tenuous and grim, workers report:
Europe’s largest nuclear power station is on the frontline of the Ukraine war. SkyNews Twitter
The fact that the backup diesel reactors have not been maintained is particularly concerning, considering they have already been used 7 times.
UN nuclear chief raises alarm over Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia plant Al Jazeera
Ukraine keeps trying to force a crisis at ZNPP to justify NATO intervention. In other words, Ukraine keeps shelling ZNPP to cut the one power line that still connects it to the grid.

Atlas

This is extremely dangerous, external power is required for reliable cooling of the reactors and pools containing spent nuclear waste. Western media spent months last year pretending Kiev wasn’t shelling ZNPP.
Notice that the Russian side keeps ZNPP connected to the power grid, while the Ukrainian side pretends it cannot until the Russian invasion ends:

• Update 153 – IAEA Director General Statement on Situation in Ukraine 2023 April 13
• Update 159 – IAEA Director General Statement on Situation in Ukraine 2023 May 22
• Russian nuclear terrorism in action: ZNPP switches to emergency generators for the 7th time Ukrainian World Congress
• Kiev blocked all IAEA’s initiatives on ZNPP security — Russian Foreign Ministry
• Grossi says Zaporizhzhia principles 'step in right direction' IAEA

As you can see, Ukraine is not interested in being reasonable. Russia is happy to leave the NPP free of heavy military equipment, but Ukraine demands the removal of all troops and landmines from ZNPP as well. That would leave the plant undefended, which is obviously unacceptable.
(This is how perverse incentives work. A little ally with nothing to lose can start a world war. It's almost like dividing the world into two hostile nuclear alliances is a bad idea.)
When ZNPP loses external power, huge diesel generators automatically switch on to keep the reactors cool. How much diesel does this consume? Truckloads per day:

Anonymous Sat 27 May 2023 05:18:50 No.428439721 Report Quoted By: >>428463646 428436425 Still easy to transport diesel enough to keep them going In what? If NATO ops and Mercs are sabotaging trucks coming in, what do you think they are gonna carry diesel in to the plant? Is Russia gonna pack in rotopack Jerry cans on their back. Fill a truck up with 5 gallon cans and hope they make it past the snipers and sabotage? Do you have any clue how much fuel those big generators suck down in a day? Those generators to run the plants during shut down or failures are huge 500kw or bigger they are the size of whole 18 wheeler trailers. Those things will drink 50 gallons an hour. You gonna haul in 2.5 gallon rotopacks one at a time to keep it going?

Nuclear power plants have tough shielding. Allegedly the diesel generators are hidden underground. However, the diesel fuel supply is still vulnerable.
Normally the diesel generators have enough fuel for 10 days. However, ZNPP's diesel stockpile recently dipped to 4 days, according to 4chan leaker Inb4source.

Ukrainian saboteurs caught by ZNPP

On May 27, Ukraine accused Russian of planning to cause a leak at ZNPP:

OSINTdefender The Main Directorate of Intelligence for Ukraine has announced that the Russian Military is preparing for Large-Scale Provocation in the coming hours at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Southern Ukraine that will reportedly Simulate an “Accident” at the Plant causing the Emergency Leak of Radioactive Substances which will be Blamed on Ukrainian Forces.

Then Russia announced it had caught saboteurs (presumably Ukrainian) in ZNPP's city:

Saboteurs who were preparing terrorist attacks on the NPP were detained in Energodar. They had with them maps and schematics of the nuclear power plant with marks for strikes that could lead to a nuclear catastrophe. The suspects are involved in collecting and transmitting information about the facilities of the Zaporozhye NPP on the instructions of the Ukrainian authorities. To communicate with the curators, they used foreign satellite systems, as well as foreign weapons for strikes and equipment for conducting reconnaissance and sabotage activities.

• Translated source message is from Telegram group Slavyangrad Chat.
• Original source message is in Russian from Telegram group WarDonbass, sent May 28 at 23:12.

Enerhodar is the city that contains the ZNPP: See Enerhodar Wikipedia
Some object that the footage is "staged". Of course it is staged. The primary consumer of the helmet-cam footage is Russian military intelligence. The evidence shot was staged for their benefit. The short edited video that was released to the public has distorted voices, and avoids showing any faces. Thus even if the footage is authentic, it is still "staged".
The ZNPP maps displayed in the video don't appear to match the announcement text. The maps could simply show where diesel fuel trucks need to go. Russia does not wish to advertise the specific nature of ZNPP's vulnerability.
The saboteurs appear to be 3-man team, equipped with 3 rifles and 3 NLAW missile launchers.
The saboteurs had 5 frag grenades. Normally soldiers carry 2 or 3 grenades, but heavy weapons soldiers don't have to. The three smooth grenades are RGD-5s, a cheap outdated Russian model. The Russian troops removed the fuses from the grenades on the evidence table to avoid unpleasant surprises.
Some object that Ukrainian saboteurs wouldn't be so careless as to have printouts of the reactor map. However, the saboteurs' presence in Enerhodar already makes their target obvious. Presumably multiple teams were sent to intercept Russian diesel shipments.
The Enerhodar saboteurs would've been notified when satellites spotted their target. Until then, they should hide in the safehouse behind blackout curtains to avoid detection. The fact that these saboteurs were caught napping suggests a degree of incompetence, compared to other teams who presumably either avoided detection or fought back. One can assume that Ukrainian specops have suffered extreme casualties.

BB / Red Skull / Inb4source / Q

BB sent Q

Qanon has lost a tremendous amount of popularity, as patriots grew disillusioned with the slow pace of the promised Great Awakening. They did not understand that Q is subordinate to a higher power with an agenda that does not necessarily include their survival.
Q aimed to help Trump save the USA. Q was sent by "Burning Bush", whose agenda is judging humanity, on the eve of WW3 and runaway de-terraforming. BB's personas started posting to 4chan's pol by 2016, whereas Q started in October 2017. (4chan is like the wild west of the Web: The world's spooks congregate there to exchange intelligence.)
BB goes by several nicknames; he began posting anonymously as "Inb4source" in 2016. A recent message implies the USA/Israel is Babylon the Great, and God (meaning him) has returned to judge her:

The world has turned it's back on *od now *od Is turning His back on the world. He Who Lets has been REMOVED. THE ANGEL OF DEATH HAS COME THE HARVEST OF THE TARES HAS BEGUN. And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory. (Earthquake Lights) And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies. And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities. Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double. How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow. (nothing ever happens) Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her. And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning, inb4source

BB claims responsibility for the historical pendulum swinging rightward, via figures such as Elon Musk. His method of influence is the butterfly effect.
"Burning Bush" claims to be God. One can think of him as the God of the Old Testament, or as a pagan god like Zeus, or as merely a transcendent extraterrestrial. However, he also claims to inhabit a human-looking body, lives on a ranch in the USA, has children, caught COVID19, etc.
Whatever one's theology, the relevant portion of BB's message is that the USA did not sufficiently embrace the opportunity offered by Q. Anyone who has read the Old Testament knows what happens next: Ignore the prophet, reap the consequences. Thus Q's slogan "Nothing Can Stop What Is Coming" should be understood in the Biblical sense, like Noah's flood: The Ark is optional.
(As far as I know, Q is still posting to Truth Social. I don't follow that site.)
Paul Furber is the chief priest of BB. Before that, he was a major early proponent of Q. See Furber's book for many verifiable examples of fulfilled predictions and proven scoops.
BB normally identifies himself by the unique image hash of his burning bush picture. (Nobody can generate that hash unless they possess the original image.) However, BB also posts as an anon users nickname "Red Skull", for his signature images of red skulls. As Red Skull, BB avoids the extravagant Biblical claims of BB, but the style and modus operandi and interests are obviously the same – as are his implied godlike powers.
I recommend focusing on facts and trying to prevent nuclear WW3, rather than getting hung up on theology. BB is not asking anyone to worship him or sacrifice chickens. He does prescribe prayer and a life of action governed by virtue.
I certainly do not recommend taking everything anonymous spooks say at face value. If you are, like most people, unable to think in shades of gray between binary true and false, this essay is above your reading level.

BB warns Zaporizhia is pivotal

BB has repeatedly warned that keeping Zaporizhia intact is critical to the survival of NATO citizenry:

the Ukrainians attacking the Nuclear Power station in the hands of the Russians spewing radiation over enough territory that the Russians will turn Kiev into a furnace.

– BB 2022-9-24
Find other warnings by searching for keyword "nuclear".
Those who find it difficult to believe that nuclear weapons would be used in WW3 as in WW2 should note that COVID19 is already a bioweapon WMD deployed for WW3.

RS gives ZNPP sabotage warning

On the morning of May 27, BB's persona Red Skull leaked that NATO specops had sabotaged external power to ZNPP.
His scenario is plausible and severe enough to warrant investigation.
Here are relevant posts, datestamped 2023 May 27 0300-0500:

it's a little less than ten days… Until Nato SpecOps melt down the Uke Nuke plant and blames it on you.

He continues:

Nato SpecOps have sabotaged power to the nuke plant. As of this posting, 6 days of diesel fuel remain to provide power to pumps to cool the plant and spent fuel pool. Diesel shipments are being targeted and terminated.

He adds:

So now I need to tell you Russia intends a pre emptive strike if nuclear capable F16's are delivered.

On the evening of May 27, Red Skull updated:

Doesn't look good at Nuke Plant. Russia has 4 days to get more fuel to the generators. They are working on clearing a flight path. Ukraine will try to stop them on orders of U.S. Uniparty.

Sounds like a severe leak, to lose 2 days of fuel in under 24 hours.

Ukraine HVT: Nuclear tit for tat

On 28 May Red Skull asserted that:

• Ukraine just did an underground nuclear bomb test in a borehole, to contain the radiation.
• Russia may retaliate with a pre-emptive strike at any time, against 1-2 high-value targets.
• West Ukraine may be reduced to the stone-age.

Red Skull approved of this anon's summary:

Nuclear warheads that USA/UK sent. Specifically for the purpose of being exploded in Ukraine. The false flags will never stop until all out WW3 is declared, or until you root out the pedophile demon cult that is running the show and sending you monkeys to war. War for really no good reason at this point. The cities are destroyed, just withdraw. Ukraine is a kettle right now, a kill box. Do you understand what that means? And it was created on purpose.

On May 30, Putin announced that Russia had destroyed the Ukrainian military intelligence headquarters. Photos confirm the damage.

• Putin confirms strike on Ukrainian military intelligence HQ RT
• Putin Strikes Back - Destroys GUR Bunker? Simplicius

Intelligence chief Kyrylo Oleksiyovych Budanov may have died in the strike.

Inb4source / Red Skull 4chan posting history

Inb4source has posted on 4chan since 2016, but he doesn't always use an image hash identifier, making it impossible to verify the identity of all of his early posts. As his popularity grew, others began adopting his catchphrase ">inb4source".
18016 posts on pol contain ">inb4source".
The first page of results suggests Inb4source is a pro-Trump military intelligence officer. He began posting in Aug 2016, before Trump's inauguration.
Another early Inb4source catchphrase is "I AM The Source." This has a double meaning, both theological and journalistic.
The catchphrase doesn't appear in every Inb4source post. Searching for it yields 437 results, too many of which are irrelevant results.
Searching for both phrases together yields 50 results that look to be mostly legitimate. One could then search for additional posts by each unique ID from a session.
Searching for image hashes is a reliable method of ID verification, assuming no one else has the image. I know of two such images that Inb4source/BB uses: both are red skulls, giving him the nickname RS.

• 325 results
• 314 results

RS just announced that his devices (phone, computers) have been compromised, casting doubt on the legitimacy of future RS posts. This may be a response to my publication of his warnings regarding Zaporizhia onto Reddit and Gab; the timing is suspicious. I first mentioned Inb4source on Reddit 7 days ago, and Red Skull on Gab yesterday (as of morning June 3). I do not know of any other analysts writing about him or connecting him to his BB persona.
When evaluating his warnings and predictions, remember that publishing info about ongoing events can affect the outcome, and is often intended to do so. Unlike the concept of Biblical prophecy, the future is mostly probabilistic. However, he is certainly good at scooping the news.
Someone else can do an in-depth Q-proof style analysis of his accuracy; my focus here is Zaporizhia.
Read original with links here.

5' 5", currently 235-240, trying to get to 170, but I'll settle for below 200 for now. I'm sorry this is so long.
I've been on a diet for years and I did already lose 50 pounds (70 if you count the 20 I gained back that I can't get rid of), but it's just not working anymore no matter what I do. It seems that no matter how many calories I eat, my weight maintains. There have been weeks I ate like an idiot, didn't gain an ounce. Other weeks I stuck to my diet perfectly and didn't lose an ounce.
For the last maybe three weeks, I have been aiming for 800-900 calories a day. Hear me out on this before you say I have an eating disorder: I know I am overeating for one reason or another, so when I was aiming for 1200 calories a day, I likely was getting more calories than that. I figure aiming for lower daily calories will compensate for the excess calories and realistically put me closer to my intended deficit. I thought it was working, but then I gained back four pounds after losing five using this method. Probably cycle-related and/or water weight, but discouraging all the same. I take lots of vitamin supplements, so I am getting adequate nutrition.
My diet isn't too bad, I don't think. I try to eat a lot of chicken and vegetables, eggs and egg whites now and then, white fish and shrimp, tuna, yogurt (usually nonfat Greek, but sometimes I eat lite yogurt cups), some fruit (typically bananas, berries, apples and peaches), whole wheat products like bread, pasta and tortillas, cottage cheese, unsweetened almond milk, zero sugar everything, lots of water, and protein bars and shakes. I also eat some fats such as cheeses, nut butters, olive oil and butter, but I try to use these sparingly. I weigh out everything in grams on a kitchen scale and keep a food journal too.
I do exercise, but it's not a lot. Nothing fancy or lengthy - squats, crunches, push-ups, planks, some leg exercises and a few reps with my kettlebell. I gradually add more to each exercise as I get more used to doing them and do what I can handle. It probably doesn't do anything for me, but I figure it's better than nothing.
Things I have already done:

• Calcuated my BMR and my TDEE at my current weight (240), my goal weight (170) and my ideal weight (125). My TDEE at my ideal weight is around 1500 calories for maintenance, but somehow 1200-1300 calories a day is maintenance for me at almost 240 pounds. So I'm inclined to believe TDEE is to be taken with a grain of salt like BMI.
  
• Visited a dietitian, which was completely useless. She looked at my food journal showing a daily intake of 1200-1900 calories a day and told me I needed to eat more to lose weight. I slacked a lot prior to that appointment and was honest about my snacking in my journal.
  
• Tried to visit my hospital's weight loss center and was told my insurance wouldn't cover it because I'm not obese enough. My BMI is just shy of 40, by the way. I am also not eligible for weight loss surgery because I do not have obesity-related comorbidities such as diabetes and hypertension. I would not do surgery anyway after reading one too many stories of stomachs rupturing and constant vomiting.
  
• Been tested/examined for things that could be interfering with weight loss health-wise and everything was normal. I was diagnosed several years ago with hypothyroidism and I have been medicated for it ever since, so my thyroid should not be an issue. I am on birth control, but I was on it before I started losing weight, so I don't think it's an issue.
  
• Drink tons of water before meals to get full sooner. I just get hungry again within 1-2 hours.
  
• Keto dieting. I tried it on three different occasions and it was only on the third attempt that I lost anything - a whopping eight pounds. Then I gained it back while still on the diet. I swore it off after that last attempt because I hated it, and given my elevated cholesterol, I do not wish to try it again because of the high-fat nature of keto.
  
• Eating more calories, eating at maintenance for a bit to overcome a plateau, eating smaller frequent meals, intermittent fasting, a once-weekly 24-hour fast, appetite suppressants and OMAD. I found most of these to be either unsustainable or unsucessful, with the exception being the carb blocker that had the unintended side effect of decreasing hunger. The appetite decrease didn't seem to aid in my weight loss efforts.
  
• Weight loss apps. They took too long to use because of my terrible internet and phone signal and I found it far easier and faster to keep an analog food journal.
  
• I have an account on EatThisMuch.com for meal ideas based on an 800 calories/day budget.
  
• I am trying hard not to snack, which is most likely the biggest issue with my efforts. I figure lowering my daily calorie budget will allow me to enjoy a small amount of a snack so I can still indulge without overdoing it.
  
• Looked into the set weight theory for funsies. I cannot imagine my body's ideal size is 240 pounds.
  

Am I missing something? Like I know weight loss isn't easy, but I feel like it shouldn't be this hard either. Doctors are no help, they just tell me to keep at it and I'm doing great.

Practically every time I order uber they get my items wrong I'm some way, it doesn't matter where i order from, but my most common ones are Subway, McDonald's, Asda, Iceland and some local places. This has ranges from the wrong size milkshake delivered to a 20pc of chicken nuggets becoming a Mcspicy burger. This is really annoying obvs as i never end up getting what i want - I write out full reports on these with pics immediately after delivery - a few times months ago they actually refunded but not as of recent.
What getting to me now is I'm ordering things and they're straight-up not delivering them and refusing to refund I just get bot answers lmao. Like it started with being missing an item from a meal deal which you may think is just a mistake. But now it's like i'll buy three large milkshakes for friends and end up receiving one medium, I'll be completely missing sides and drinks from my Subway orders, missing entire burgers from maccies. This is infuriating as I'm on a limited diet and often i'll order shit for me and my partner and I wont have anything to eat as they've mixed up or not delivered anything I can eat.
I've sent pics and messages every time, I've even started recording me opening the sealed bag on camera every time and as I can't auto upload a video specified in the helpdesk notes I have video evidence of the missing items (they're listed on the reciept on the bag, I am charged for them they just don't arrive. All I get is the bot answer when i put my reports in or a crappy "spend £50 get up to 15%" coupon.
Surely i can get refunded for this? Its straight-up theft, I have evidence I purchased the items and I'm simply nig given them, if this happened in-store there would be outrage. I'm sure they think I'm abusing the system or something because I've done a report around every other time I order but they genuinely get things drastically wrong a lot.
All else I could think of was to go through the bank but i'm with Halifax and they just say contact the company or ring the (un)help(ful) desk.
Any help would be appreciated as I'm tight on cash atm and this is making it much worse.
Please do not tell me I could just go in-store or to not order from there with I limited diet, that's no help, I have an insanely busy WFH schedule I haven't got time to cook, I have chronic fatigue and cannot go 5 mins to a store every time I need to eat, JustEat and Deliveroo don't cover my area either. There's few other options out there for me

It was so terribly cold. Snow was falling, and it was almost dark, when out of the blue, my wife called me at work. "We're going to Niagara Falls for the weekend. I got us an awesome deal!"
We had both been working at our first "full-fledged" jobs for a year and had reached that moment after graduation when you suddenly realize you can't make that impact on the world your student enthusiasm once promised. At first, I just sighed. It was the dead of January, and I had already expended all my energy on a week of inconsequential stress. I just wanted to collapse on the couch for two days. Sarah felt a similar weary exhaustion. I could tell. Her tone was more hopeful than excited, but she had dreaded the routine we were sinking into and was trying her best to pull us free.
I looked to the ceiling and adjusted my telephone headset. At that time I was working at Stats Canada on the tele-query desk. I took a deep breath and, as convincingly as possible, said, "Sounds good." I don't think she bought it, but we went nonetheless.
This was Niagara Falls before the casinos when there was a very distinct off-season. When we got to the hotel, we were given the details of our "lovers' special". One dinner to be used either Friday or Saturday, two breakfasts, a roll of tokens for the arcade, 10% off some "4D" movie ride experience, and a 2-for-1 coupon to Max Tussaud's. I guessed it was Madame's nephew? We also got a bottle of sparkling wine in our room and chocolate treats on our pillows. I was impressed. It sounded good.
When we got into our room and saw the "bottle" of wine - basically an aeroplane-sized glass and half - and the chocolates - "fun wrapped" Oh Henry's left over from Halloween - we both started to laugh. The tone for two wonderful days had been set. We decided to cash in on our dinner coupon right away.
The restaurant off the lobby had hopes of being better. There were huge panoramic windows that promised a view of the gorge. Unfortunately, they had some winter moisture problems that day, and it felt like we were defrosting amid the dripping streaks and foggy patches. The decor was your standard booths and tables though the "romantic" lighting was unique. Dollar store battery-powered tea lights were lodged inside thick tumbler glasses and shed a muted pleasantness in a "what a great idea for a craft" sort of way. I had a feeling they were created by our waitress since she was the one who always seemed to be fussing with them. Only one other couple was in the dining room, so she attended to us immediately.
"Can I get you something to start?"
"Sure." "Thank you, that would be nice." We both responded simultaneously.
"And what would the lady like this evening?"
Sarah smiled at the flattery. "I think I'll have a glass of white wine." She glanced over at me to see my reaction. This was a subtle cue of the mood to follow. Diet Coke was usually the beverage of choice. She didn't normally drink alcohol. One glass numbed her nose and made her giggle far too easily. When she did drink, however, it meant she was comfortable with my company and open to anything to follow. I raised my eyebrows in a debonair way.
"And for the gentleman?"
"Do you have Foster's on tap?"
"Yes we do."
"I'll have a pint please."
Sarah smiled at the happy memories I invoked. At university, Foster's was my signature beer. It was at a time when Crocodile Dundee was a known name, and Australia was inexplicably cool. 15 cent buffalo wings and a pitcher of Foster's was the Tuesday night special at the London Arms pub. There the Classics Club would meet and, as a group, circle the wagons and drink ourselves into extroverts.
As soon as the waitress left, Sarah smiled at me. She reached out and held my hand across the table. With my gaze on hers, she slipped her foot from her shoe and slowly began sliding it up my pant leg.
"I got a pedicure this morning." She announced seductively.
I nodded and pretended I didn't notice her invitation. "What colour?" I asked.
"I'm not telling." She teased. "You'll just have to find out later." Her devious little smile was gorgeous.
"Mmmm. I can't wait."
When the waitress returned with our drinks, we immediately retreated to our personal spaces as if we had been discovered by the chaperone. Sarah opened the menu and began to salivate at the variety.
"Can we add an appetizer to the package dinner?" Her question seemed innocent enough.
"You're on the package?" Our friendly waitress disappeared, and we were no longer a lady or a gentleman. She ripped the menu out of Sarah's hand and took mine before I had even opened it. She then scurried to her podium and brought back a tattered, grease-stained, photocopied page that we had to share. We both burst out laughing.
The waitress was flustered that we were not as bothered as she was. "The drinks are NOT included!"
"What choices do we have?" I asked, expecting the usual chicken or fish. I had been on many packages before with my parents.
"Coffee or tea." The waitress snapped.
Sarah and I looked at each other in amused disbelief.
"I'll have coffee please." I didn't even flinch at the ridiculously limited package. I was eager to get my order in early.
"And I'll have the tea!" Sarah followed my lead. "Can I have some milk with that?"
"Yes." The waitress snarled.
"Fantastic!" I enthused.
"Yes, great! I'm glad we got the package, Honey." Sarah joked.
The waitress stormed off and returned sometime later with our lettuce-only salads drowned in Kraft's Italian dressing and our chewy chicken dinners, which she had thoughtfully allowed to cool. She tossed the plates on the table and left us to peacefully devour our deal. We didn't see her again until we requested the bill. For some reason, we found it amusing to leave a generous tip, which of course, defeated the purpose of the package, but we didn't care. It was fun.
The rest of the holiday was marred with similar off-season products and services. The wax museum was only half open, so we couldn't see the pop stars of the seventies. I didn't think it was a problem, but Sarah pouted playfully. She really wanted to see young Bowie. Meanwhile, the arcade was particularly stingy about spitting out coupons. So much so that Mike, the scraggly-haired repair guy, ended up escorting us from game to game and repairing the devices on demand. In no time, he was acting like an old drinking buddy. He joked and laughed, then, out of the blue, revealed that working at the Niagara Falls Fun Centre wasn't his career choice, that his dream was to be part of a travelling carnival. He desperately wanted to see more of the world, he explained and socialize with a greater variety of "wildlife." Mike winked at Sarah to punctuate his meaning, then began advising her on which games to play.
Sarah was partial to Skee ball and clearly had career potential in the sport, but Mike quickly pointed out that the token-to-coupon payout was not the best. In a furtive whisper, he revealed that The Storm Stopper was your best bet, provided the arcade had left it on its original factory settings. He assured us the ones here were "cool." The game had lights that ran around the outside in opposite directions and you had to hit the button at just the right spot to win. It looked impossible, but Mike was right; if you calculated tokens in versus coupons won, it was the best deal. It only took a little practice to win a minor jackpot every 5 or 6 times.
We would cheer each win as if Toronto had won the Stanley Cup. I would give a quick fist pump and a full lung "Yes!" while Sarah would jump up and down screaming, "WhoooHooo!" Of course, in the end, when we cashed in, "Mike's secret" only bumped us up from a key-chain flashlight to a "deluxe" nail beauty set. Mind you, it did come complete with clippers, scissors, a file AND a cuticle scraper. Not only that, it was all neatly packaged in a paisley-patterned pink and green plastic vinyl case. Mike was so pleased to give us our prize and to be honest, we were thrilled to win it if only to see his broad chicletted smile. It was more of a trophy than a grooming set.
That night, I made reservations for us at a fancy Chinese food restaurant - the Bamboo Garden. When we arrived, we had half-expected renovations of some sort. Instead, the place was immaculate. Gentle pools teeming with goldfish highlighted the epic black and red Ming dynasty decor. Real candles flickered on crisp white tablecloths. Again, the restaurant was virtually ours. The reservations on my part were entirely unnecessary. In fact, as soon as we entered, they knew us by name and guided us directly to our table. A live lounge piano caressed the air, its notes danced vaguely around familiar harmonies until finally, as if prompted by our presence, a song emerged immediately accompanied by the velvet voice of oriental karaoke. It was our song remastered

My dog a 65lb golden doodle got into the trash while I was out and as there title says got into chicken wings bones along with some other remnants of food and food wrappings. I wish I could say this is the first time and he has always been fine but from all the stuff I hear about chicken wings and dogs and considering this is the largest scenario of this please help and don’t hold back on giving me any information.

All the time you hear things like "If you feel like crap, make sure you're exercising, getting enough sleep, reducing stress, drinking water, socializing, avoiding alcohol, tobacco and other drugs, blah blah yadda yadda."
It's all good advice, but getting enough protein is usually not in there. I think it might be because it seems inaccessible to a lot of people, and there's an assumption that it will take more time (like weeks) to make you feel better.
The good news is that if you're not getting enough, you'll probably feel better that day once you do. Here's how to do it easily:
Take your body weight in pounds. That is the minimum number of grams of protein you'll want to get each day. This isn't necessarily the most scientific way to do it but for our purposes (getting enough and not feeling crappy) it's fine.
(EDIT: Thank you, 7loUge for pointing out that it should be kg, not pounds, of body weight. shadyguyintheback also suggested using grams of protein per centimeter of height.)
Use a food tracking app (I use Cronometer but there are a million out there that should work just fine) and enter either what you ate today or what you typically eat in a day. No need to be super anal about portions. Estimation is fine for our purposes here.
If it's lower than what it should be, use the app to find one or two things you can easily meal prep to have readily available to fill the gap or more. My go-tos are chicken drumsticks (approx 20g each) and eggs (approx 8g each.) If you're vegan, beans should do it.
And that's it. No need to count calories or weigh stuff or anything else. You might have plenty of other reasons to do those things but if you're feeling crappy and you're drinking water and sleeping well and haven't done any drugs today, this might help you a lot.

What makes the Abyss hard?

There are many complaints about the Abyss. One particular complaint that commonly appears is the Abyss being “hard” or having “unfair mechanics”.
Tackling difficult content requires players having an understanding of how game mechanics and how players can express skill. Without this, players cannot actually engage with the challenge game designers come up with.
I believe many (but not all) complaints about Abyss combat are due to low player understanding of skill expression. This is due to several reasons:

1. Outside of Abyss there's very little actual content that requires you to be good at the game

• This means there are very few places for players to actually practise game mechanics
  • Event combat is often designed to be facerolled to avoid players being locked out of Primogem and Event currency rewards
  • The game also does a poor job of explaining the technical details of game basics such as elemental reactions

2. Genshin gives you very little feedback when you fail in the Abyss

• When you get stunlocked by something, do you know why?
• If you fail a Floor by just 2 seconds, do you know where you might have made a 2 sec mistake when playing the game?
• The Abyss therefore becomes frustrating because people don’t know what they have done wrong or how to improve
  • People are willing to take on frustrating repetitive tasks and find it fun doing so (e.g. roguelike games learning from failure)
  • But this requires either players to be good at identifying their own mistakes, or the game giving you clear feedback about what those mistakes are

3. Content creators don’t focus on this topic enough

• The level of understanding within a playerbase is dependent on the content created around the game itself (i.e. paratext)
• Many content creators don’t discuss gameplay skill in detail (potentially for many reasons such as lack of their own skill, inability to explain it, or lack of popularity of this type of content)
  • For example, most discussion about being a “good player” is about knowing what the right team compositions and artifacts are. But not fundamental gameplay skills such as AI manipulation
• The result is the equivalent of people trying to be a good player in League of Legends / DotA by knowing what the best character to pick or the best items to buy, but not knowing the basics of last hitting and wave management
  • Or not knowing how to play neutral in a fighting game but obsessing over knowing every single combo for a character

So let’s talk about what some key gameplay techniques are for Genshin. And then I’ll walk through Abyss design and how to think about beating the Abyss.
I will assume you are already familiar with basic techniques such as funnelling energy particles, and using I-Frames from Bursts / Dashes.

Key gameplay skills to learn

1. Grouping

Key idea: Killing multiple enemies is often as fast as killing one enemy if they all stand in the same place, saving you time
Even when using an Anemo character, the AI can be manipulated to group themselves together. This makes killing them much faster.
The core idea is that if the enemy isn’t in range to hit you, it will try to walk forward to do so. Therefore, you can position yourself in a way to encourage the AI to move together. This avoids you having to chase them around and waste time.
How to do this: When a pack of enemies spawns, move to one extreme side of them. The enemies on the opposite side will walk closer to get in range and bunch up together.
An easy trick: The first time you do an unknown Abyss layout, just load and don’t even try to fight it. Watch where enemies spawn, and how long their attack range is. This lets you observe if there are any grouping tricks you can abuse.
Example: Spiral Abyss Patch 3.4 Floor 12-2-2 (2 min 28 sec onwards)
After blowing up Wave 1 with Raiden, the player runs to the far left side of the Abyss. This causes Wave 2 of the Husks to begin to group up.
Running to the opposite side of the Abyss then gets the Husks to all stand right next to each other perfectly. This zig-zag manoeuvre means they can be extremely efficiently AoE’ed down much faster.

2. Camera Angle Management

Key idea: Always stand in a position where you can see all enemies. This means you can never be surprised by an attack from off-screen.
If the enemies are always in front of you, you can watch for the most important attacks to either Dash or cast Bursts to immune the damage / knockback.
You should never be in a position where you are hit by an attack you did not see coming.
How to do this: The easiest way to do this in the Spiral Abyss is to stand with your back towards a wall and the enemies in front of you.
Example: Spiral Abyss Patch 2.7 Floor 12-2-1 (1 min 50 sec onwards)
The player immediately runs to the back wall of the Spiral Abyss. This means despite enemies spawning in a circle around the starting point, everything can be seen by the player camera.
This has the benefit of grouping everything up to eat AoE and die efficiently.
After Wave 1 dies, the player always looks at the Cryo Slime facing the Frost Lawlachurl. Always keeping the Lawlachurl in front of them means every attack is extremely telegraphed and can be casually dodged for a clean kill.

3. Stamina Management

Key idea: Keep enough Stamina so you can always dodge important attacks.
Melee characters must trade their Stamina for distance and speed to clear fast. Therefore, you want to position carefully in the Abyss to minimize the distance you have to travel.
(This is also why Yoimiya is sometimes favoured over Hu Tao at very high levels of investment. If you are strong enough to one-rotate things anyway, the range advantage means you spend no stamina attacking enemies that spawn far away from each other instead of needing to chase them down)
How to do this: Know where enemies spawn. Kite towards spawn locations so you don’t spend time and stamina chasing up with enemies.
If you face enemies that charge you, stand with your back to a wall. The enemies will charge into a wall. This way you don’t need to chase after them.
Example: Spiral Abyss Patch 3.4 Floor 12-1-1 and Floor 12-2-1 (1 min 40 sec onwards)
On Floor 12-1-1, the player knows where all enemies are spawning. They move in a way that minimizes stamina usage and can spawn camp the enemy.
On Floor 12-2-2, the player stands with the wall at their back when the Consecrated Beasts spawn. This means they charge towards the player. Camera angle management means the attack is extremely obvious and easily I-Framed.
Keeping both Beasts near the wall means they can be easily AoE’ed down for a quick kill.

4. Pre-cast long animation Skills / Bursts

Key idea: Bursts take up time. Cast the ones with long animations when enemies have downtime so you don’t use up your DPS window.
Enemies that are targetable can also be cheesed by hitting them for some extra Energy from skills / Favonius procs.
How to do this: Many enemies have animations for spawning into the Abyss. Instead of waiting for them to spawn in, use the time to set up things such as Nahida Burst so you minimize the time not spent doing dps.
Example: Spiral Abyss Patch 3.4 Floor 12-2-2 (3 min 55 sec onwards)
By the time Dorito King ASIMON has even fully loaded into the Abyss, the player has already set up Yae turrets, Nahida E and Burst, and funnelled energy on Yelan to get back her Burst.

Learning the 3.7 Abyss specifics

1. Overview of Abyss design

Mihoyo creates Abyss layouts to encourage or discourage a specific type of gameplay, or put pressure on team compositions.
The most common approach is creating one side with an AoE mob focus vs one side with a Boss killing focus.
However, more recently Mihoyo has been introducing specific challenges to target specific ways players play teams.

• Patch 3.4 Abyss Floor 12-1-1 has 4 waves of single target enemies. This is designed to target Burst focused teams such as Ayaka Freeze.
• Hyperbloom and Nilou Bloom are broken because the base numbers are too high and Mihoyo knows this. So we have seen an introduction of many Dendro-resistant enemies to slow down low investment teams.
• The Wenut punishes teams with long set up times by having on / off DPS windows. This rewards players to move towards more flexible rotations or teams which have more front loaded DPS windows.

The reason Mihoyo does this is because it's one of the few ways they can balance content in the game. They can't retroactively buff / nerf things. So the primary lever they have is to create Abyss designs that encourage or discourage certain types of play.

2. 3.7 Abyss Design

The 3.7 Abyss is structured as a team composition building test. It rewards players who have built a variety of characters they can flex, and punishes people who have narrow character pools.

Right Side: The Shield Breaking Challenge

• If you want to use the same team for all Floors and not do the method where you rerun the Abyss with different teams to get 3-Stars per floor, the Right side pretty much demands a Hydro, Pyro, and Dendro char
• Bennett is the premier Cryo shield breaker thanks to 2U Pyro application on both Burst case and Press-E spam standing in Burst. Therefore the double Cryo Lector right side is designed to be a Bennett “sink” for players.
  • This means you are pressured to play Bennett-less teams Left side
• The DPS check on the right side is fairly low. Therefore, it is worth breaking up “traditional” teams to fit in a dedicated shield breaker
• The most popular teams in CN therefore include wonders such as:
  • Hutao with yolo Nahida
  • Nahida National
  • Hyperbloom with yolo Bennett
• The challenge on Right side is therefore about player skill and execution. The lollygag of random teams allows for significant player creativity (e.g. Yanfei Hyperbloom).

Left Side: The Time and Character Pool Challenge

• The Right side forces high demand characters such as Nahida and Bennett to be broken up and used in dedicated shield breaking roles
  • The Left side therefore asks: “Hey, who do you have left to run the DPS gauntlet?”
• The multiple Dendro resistant enemies (Dendro Chicken and Dendro Tigers) are here to prevent you from answering “My low investment yolo Hyperbloom team made from random F2P chars”
  • There are otherwise few constraints on team building here. Ideally you should just play whatever your strongest remaining characters are.
• The split of AoE mobs Floor 12-1-1 and a Boss on Floor 12-2-1 partially punishes players that cannot group efficiently or have a very strong team
  • However, because you can just rerun the Abyss with different teams and the game only looks at your best clear per Floor, this is not that big of a deal

3. Floor specific advice

Floor 12-1-1

• This Floor is designed as a time killer floor to make you feel pressured on Floor 12-1-2
  • By making you chew through 4 waves, it challenges your potentially crippled team (if your good chars were Bennett / Nahida / etc. and are stuck Right side)
• The difficulty is not the enemies, but using time saving techniques to efficiently clear each wave

Grouping techniques:

• If you have a team that can stay in the middle (e.g. Ayaka Freeze) you can just Kazuha or Venti everything and yolo this floor
• If you want to play it safe, turn 180 degrees and run to the South wall to lure the Whopperflowers all to you and AoE both waves down
  • The first wave of Dorito Robots spawn at the South side. So running South at the start means you walk a very short distance North to then kill them when they spawn. Better for Stamina management than doing grouping in other directions
  • Second wave spawns North of you, but will also filter in one by one as you kill the robots. So preferably want to kill first wave all in one go so second wave spawns in a nice Kazuha groupable bunch rather than wandering around
• If you don’t have Kazuha, run to the East / West
  • The Whopperflowers will still chase you. But the Dorito Robots will spawn in a line in front of you, causing the far back robots to move forward and group with the Robot closest to you
  • See this solo clear as an example for positioning

Floor 12-1-2

• Shield breaking floor does shield breaking things
• This floor is designed as an execution challenge
  • The biggest problem on this floor is Stamina management.
  • The Cryo Lectors will reduce your Stamina so you can't just mindlessly dash around or else you end up with zero Stamina, Cryo on you (reducing your speed), and then the Lector fun house bouncy castle spin ride will stun lock you
• If you get stun locked, this is 100% your own fault and a skill issue
  • Use camera angle management to never be hit by something off-screen
  • Lector moves are actually very telegraphed. So you goal is to keep them on-screen, and watch for any dangerous moves
  • Bennett is very clutch here because the self-Pyro application on your Ult will clear away any Hydro / Cryo on you preventing you from getting frozen
  • Jean is also good here for that reason, and with Bennett can Sunfire down the Lectors very fast
• Abyss Mages are whatever. They spawn in front of you and you just nuke them
  • Lectors spawn behind you. When you face backwards to run to the Lectors, Hydro Lector is on the right (mirror-ing the Abyss Mage Left / Right)

Nahida National comments:

• Cryo Lector shields have 56 Cryo gauge units. This means you need 28 Pyro units to break them fully.
  • Xiangling Pyronado is 1U Pyro with no ICD and hits 13 times for nearly half your Pyro needed
  • Guoba applies 1U Pyro in an AoE with no ICD. 3 hits = 3U Pyro
  • Bennett Burst is 2U + 2U per E in Burst for up to 5x2 = 10U extra Pyro for 12U more Pyro
  • 13 + 3 + 12 = 28 so just a single National rotation here deletes both Cryo Lectors from existence
  • So ideally you want to position so that both Cryo Lectors to sit on your face and eat AoE Pyro for a fast double kill
• Hydro Lector shields have 28 Hydro gauge units. This means you need 14 Dendro units to break them fully
  • My preference is to run to the right and fight the Hydro Lector first to put it into shield mode fast so then Nahida E procs while you’re killing the Cryo Lectors will auto-kill the Hydro Lector for you
  • Nahida E applies 1U on skill application and 1.5U per Tri-Karma proc per 2.5 sec
  • Nahida N1C is another 2U
  • So a quick E N1C means you only need 7 Tri-Karma procs over 17.5 sec to erase the Hydro Lector
  • Completely doable while you beat up the Cryo Lectors since a Xiangling rotation is 20 sec so it lines up very cleanly.

Floor 12-2-1

• Mushroom Chicken is mushroom chicken
• This is a big dumb boss with highly telegraphed moves and you’ve faced this before
• If you're using a yolo team Right side for shield breaking, saving time here is huge to give you more time breathing room for fk ups on Right side

Floor 12-2-2

• Thunder Manifestation returns. Does Thunder Manifestation things.
  • It has a set attack pattern where it does set up -> Collapsing Wall -> Beyblade x2 -> Homing Cage -> Repeat
  • Take advantage of this and don't waste your Stamina chasing after it if you don't need to
  • It takes a pause before each move. This is your DPS window if you are melee / short ranged

Floor 12-3-1

• Consecrated Beasts x4 doing what they do best
  • Stick to the Hydro beast. The Tiger will try to keep leaping towards you, but the Crocodile does not really care / its targeting doesn't track you very well
• You can wall hug for better camera management as well as less chasing by making them charge into the wall behind you
  • One approach is to lure them towards the wall by positioning yourself in between the Crocodile and the wall and kiting backwards and letting them chase into the wall
• The key to this fight is careful positioning
  • Good positioning = Don’t die to something you can’t see = Easier to dodge attacks
  • Keeping them close together = Easier to DPS down
• The Hydro Crocodile will spawn on the East on Wave 1 but West on Wave 2
  • However, if you’re hugging the East wall when the Crocodile spawns, its first move will be to gap close towards you anyway
• Iniquitous Baptist is a pushover. So you can afford to spend 2 min (or even a little bit longer) on this Floor if you need to

Floor 12-3-2

• Iniquitous Baptist is basically Simon Says Shieldbreaking
  • Pattern is always Cryo -> Hydro -> Pyro -> Repeat
• Shield Gauge Units:
  • Cryo Shield is 12 gauge units requiring 6U Pyro or 12U Electro
  • Hydro Shield is 12 gauge units requiring 6U Dendro or 12U Cryo to break
  • Pyro Shield is 12 gauge units requiring 6U Hydro or 12U Electo to break
• Use the initial spawning in animation to funnel some energy or pre-case Bursts if you need it since it is targetable
• It has surprisingly low HP… just match damage to its shield type and the fight is pretty free
• The Iniquitous Baptist has about 4 sec vulnerability after each Shield phase, and then about 10 sec after all Shields are down before it repeats the Shield cycle

Nahida National comments:

• You can delay your full rotation until it fully spawns. Xiangling can snapshot Nahida Burst EM buff so that’s the big one to pre-cast
  • Bennet 2U Burst -> 2U E -> Xiangling Burst + Guoba almost instantly crushes the Cryo phase
  • Nahida Charge Attack can be animation cancelled quite early if you want to really shave like half a second every Normal Attack pattern
  • You can also delay casting Xingqiu Ult until after you've done Bennett + Xiangling. You don't need Hydro to break the first few shields, and it will give you some extra uptime to clear Pyro shield faster
  • Stand close and hug the Lector so Xingqiu orbiting Rainswords can also eat elemental gauge for you while you attack
• Don’t hold your skills after the first Cycle. Just go to town and DPS it since the Cryo phase dies so fast to Xiangling Pyronado + Guoba + Bennett E anyway to get to the post-Cryo Shield DPS window to fill it faster

GL HF clearing the Abyss~! (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧

Dinner guest is delayed. How long can you hold wings at lowest setting without over cooking them?

Do any of you experience discomfort after eating? Like you feel that you will have a heart attack or something like that. I want to understand why. Today I was with a friend then after eating I just couldn’t feel well. It was some wings, fries, and beer. I just felt like I would fall my chair and my heart started to race. Is it just my paranoia? Are any of you experiencing the same? This is very annoying and it feels like there is no end to this. I have been like this six years and I just can’t find an explanation. Thinking that I will live all my life like this is really depressing. Like I feel my mind at ease but why is my body not ok. I can’t enjoy little things like going out to eat or things like that because I always feel the same. I feel that if I walk I’ll die, I exercise I’ll die because of the body feelings I get. I even feel guilty with my wife and sometimes think that she would be happier with someone else. I try to be strong I try to tell my mind that I’ll be ok but it’s just so difficult with all the sensations I feel. I only feel good at home and being inside and I don’t want that. Even then the feelings of dizziness, heart attack, and all the other BS comes to me at home. I’m so desperate if God exists why am I suffering like this has he forgotten about me. I’ve pleaded so many times to feel well. Changed my mindset, gone to therapy and nothing. I hope that the next therapist and EMDR helps me. I want to live to my full potential I want to exercise and be outgoing but my anxiety symptoms are killing me. Even try to find comfort in stupid quotes I find in fortune cookies. Thinking that this thing will finally disappear one day. I’m tired and yeah this posts sounds very negative but it’s just very difficult to live with something that doesn’t kill you but in a way it holds you down and slowly takes the joy out of you.

finally i can run a Game like this i already wrote A lot of lore made multiple cities ,created 2 classes and a bunch of other sub classes and we just had our session 0 like an hours ago and I’ve been giggling like a girl ever since,i explained the setting And showed The sub classes and my 2 classes(the hunter and a summoner)each Has 2 subclasses
-the hunter:the nightmare of the old gods:the Hunter of the old blood
-summoner:fleshcaller:necromancer(I created this thing called summon slots which are just spell slots but a little different and it doesn’t matter what level the summon slot is just how many you have)
there’s a few more like a warlock subclass Called the host of the demon And a fighter subclass called the executioner Which mainly focuses on Breaking the limbs off its enemies or just cutting them off I think it’s a cool idea if you deal enough damage to A certain body part of an enemy you can just chop it off I made more sub classes than this but these I think Are my favorite ones
i have 6 party members(it’s a little too much for my liking but it’s fine)they chose to make
-a hunter of the old blood(basically a beast hunter)who’s family and village were slaughtered by bloodthirsty beasts So he became a hunter(I plan to get him infected with the scourge and he’ll have to battle it and his urge to eat)
-a hunter of the old gods who lost everything and has basically nothing to live for so he prayed to a great one which is an eldritch god which made a deal with him he basically hired him and made him kill other lesser gods for him(I think the idea is awesome for a character so I allowed it)
-an artificer who prays to a machine god which encourages you to replace your body with mechanical parts To ascend to a higher plane of existence and he also has a gun a sawed off shotgun to be specific
-a flesh caller Who can talk to his summons which are horrific monstrositys of flesh And I homebrewed basically every monster you could summon And you get some cool abilities as a flesh caller when you Level up you can make weapons out of blood And flesh and create wings for you to fly by the point your level 10 and this guy wears a red cloak and covers his chest in flesh
-an executioner who Basically is just doing his job there’s not much to say I guess my player got lasy with his character creation maybe later he’ll Show me his backstory later he also just Wear a block cloak and some heavy armor which covers his face and he carry’s a giant great sword
-a vile blooded knight of the nobles whos loyal and powerful and a fighter subclass who have special weaponry like a powerful light metal armor Infused with blood of a noble and an infused katana which can turn blood red and make you take bleed damage called the chikage and it’s 100% my idea fr fr No cap No one has done this before me
i also made another mechanic sanity the more insane you become the more monstrous you are it’s different for each player theyll each turn into A different monster ,then have to go and face their party When they cant resist the urge Anymore and they’ll have all their old abilities plus the abilitites they gained from becoming monster like the flesh caller will become a giant Monster of flesh which can still summon monsters and the beast hunter will become a bloodthisty and terrible beast much worse and powerful than any normal beast
and the campaign starts in a village(which I haven’t named please help)where children are constantly disappear in the night And that’s gonna be the first quest Finding the lost children and then after it they’ll face a cult of flesh callers who are creating a giant failed abortion of a god
but the main city Is where the campaign is gonna take place most of the time And I also don’t have a name for it(please help give me names)it’s basically yharnam it’s infested with beasts caused by a plague Which was born from cursed blood of a great one and there are tons more horrors Like whats under the city which is a large graveyard where giant monstrosity’s Called elder things which are experiments of a cult trying to ascend to the level of the great ones and failing miserably which ends up in their downfall turning them into horrific eldritch Beings that can’t speak and are in constant agonizing pain and they also look like bugs
i also made a new race called vile bloods(I completely just robbed the idea from bloodborne just made a few changes)they have a ton of lore I wrote but I can’t write it all here so I might make a separate post
-any ways the main goal is to kill great ones Which are eldritch gods which ascended higher than any being has ever done before and there gonna be the best boss fights ever also I know I reread my own paragraphs and I know how shit my writing is I’m sorry Im Just excited

So yeah, second part. I forgot to say the page count last time of this chapter last time, so I'll say it now. Chapter four is about fifty pages long, so it fits the bill when it comes to these things. Not much else to say, so enjoy.
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* * *
Jacob pondered.
On what exactly? Oh fine, I’ll tell you.
Jacob had just received what was, hopefully, a relatively unfiltered version of the recent events and situation on the planet. After about an hour of explanation, A had finished on the arrival of the disassembly drones, and the subsequent widespread assault on the worker drones. When Jacob had asked for the specific story of A’s squad, A had skirted around it, only lightly touching upon the subject. It was slightly suspicious, but Jacob didn’t plan on doing anything about it.
However, if it was the truth, it only raised more questions than answers. The fact that a company was willing to exterminate the entirety of what was probably a massive investment was just baffling. Jacob could only come up with two explanations, one of which was rather worrying to think about. The first was that of changing times; perhaps the company was so rich, and technology so advanced, that the worker drones could be replaced with the ease of buying another shipload of tissues. If you threw away an entire box of tissues, it would be annoying to say the least, but it wouldn’t cost a lot to just get another one.
But, it just didn’t make sense to Jacob that that would be the case. The United States military in the time of Jacob had heaps, thousands of missiles, and could afford to replace them as they were used. But if they all disappeared at once? It would take lots of time, money, and effort to replace each and every single last one of the lost payloads, and not to mention the logistical nightmare it would be.
So, that led Jacob to his other solution, one that insinuated a scenario far more confusing and sinister. If the company decided to just annihilate every worker drone, which is a very radical and illogical decision by a galaxy-spanning megacorporation, then it would line up with certain other decisions made by other people in the past.
During the Second World War, the U.S. government was fearful of a potential Japanese invasion. They believed that, if they did land boots on American soil, that the Japanese-Americans would rise up, taking the side of the invaders. And so, Roosevelt made the Executive Order 9066, ordering over one hundred and twenty thousand Japanese-Americans to be interned in concentration camps, where they would remain until near the end of the war.
This was an apt example for how even the most level-headed of individuals could make bad decisions under the influence of fear. If Jacob assumed that the same was true for this day and age, then perhaps the administration at the company had sent machines to kill the entire worker drone populace due some or maybe even all of them being much more dangerous than what was being let on. It was a bit far-fetched, but was the one of the only viable solutions at the moment, aside from his theory that nothing was real and they were all figments of the imagination of a being so complex they were nothing but fiction to it, but the chances of that were little to none.
Right?
Jacob’s pondering was interrupted by someone waving their hand in front of his face.
“Ugh, hello?” A snapped his fingers twice. “You there?”
Jacob blinked, refocusing on his present company. “Uh yeah, just processing.”
A scoffed. “Processing what? I thought humans were superior or something?”
Jacob smacked A’s hand out of his face. “Me too.”
A raised an LED eyebrow.
“Doesn’t matter.” Jacob waved hand in a dismissive way. “What now?”
“I dunno. That's all I had.” A shrugged.
“Nothing else you’re hiding?” Jacob questioned.
“No. There isn’t.” A glared at Jacob. “Now drop it.”
Jacob held up his hands in surrender. “Okay, jeez man, calm down. I just don’t wanna be bored for however long I’m stuck here.”
“Yeah well, that's not really my problem.” A stated.
Jacob didn’t reply, only sighing, before standing and getting up out of his seat.
A startled. “Wait, where are you going?”
“Out.” Jacob simply replied.
“Why?” A inquired.
Jacob shrugged. “Bored.”
A got to his feet as well. “Fine then. I guess I’m going as well.”
“You’re coming with?” Jacob asked incredulously.
“Yeah. I can’t have you running off and getting yourself killed.” A reasoned.
“They kept saying that too.” Jacob grumbled.
“Who said that?” A tilted his head.
“K and X.” Jacob answered. “Also, why don’t y’all have normal names? Why just letters?”
“I dunno.” A non-committedly replied.
“Huh.” Jacob took that as a cue to leave, turning to the ladder.
A followed closely behind, waiting until Jacob had gone through the small exit to ascend himself.
Jacob didn’t bother to use the ladder on the way down, buckling his knees and dropping the last few feet, hearing the snow crunch beneath him. He had been prepared to absorb the impact, but it seemed like whatever advanced mechanics his suit possessed had done the job all by itself, which was pretty nice. He made a mental note to test out the capabilities later on, just to get a general sense of the limits and what would be a danger to him.
Jacob heard a similar crunching noise behind him, causing him to look backwards, seeing A just awkwardly standing there.
“Just gonna follow me? Really?” Jacob was slightly annoyed.
“Yeah. I’ve gotta keep you safe until someone else takes you off my hands, or else I’ll-” A cut himself off.
Jacob took note of that, inferring what he might have been about to say. It only served to confirm his notion that he was sort of a VIP on the planet. He was to be protected at all costs, which was pretty nice for Jacob.
“So, you gonna do anything?” A asked.
* * *
The sound of snow crunching filled the empty room as the pair walked into it.
“Can we go back already?” X complained.
“No, and be quiet.” K scolded him. “It’s too echoey in this room, it’s annoying.”
X scoffed. “Pff, it’s fine. Nobody’s around for miles, we’re all good. Now when can we go back?”
K rolled her eyes. “We can go back when we find something, You heard what he said.”
“What who said?” X inquired.
“You idiot, our squad leader!? Our boss that we’ve spent who knows how long with!?” K cried out.
“Calm down, just messing around.” X leaned against the wall.
“Whatever, you know what A said. We can’t come back until we’ve found water.” K reminded X.
“Why do we even need it? I’m sure he’ll be fine.” X waved off the issue.
“He’ll die.” K deadpanned.
“He can walk it off.” X waved off the issue again.
“I don’t care, just get off the wall, we’ve gotta search every building.” K gestured for X to follow.
“How can we even find anything in here? Everywhere else we’ve checked has been empty.” X took his place next to K.
“You never know, now get to it.” K kicked over a rock, exposing a small marble.
X trotted over to a dented metal counter on one side of the room, peering underneath it.
“Nothing here, this is useless.” X whined.
“Shut up.” K called out.
X surprisingly obliged, kneeling down and searching the small cabinets that were connected to the counter. After finding nothing but a small skeleton huddled inside one of them, X sighed heavily, before making his way over to a large metal box. It might’ve been taller than him if it wasn’t tipped over on its side, with an assortment of power cords snaking out from an outlet on the back of it. Seeing a small handle on the front, X tugged on it, the slight rust giving way to superior strength.
However, X’s eyes went wide with shock, which changed to glee.
“Hey, look what I’ve found!” X called out to K.
K’s head whipped up, staring at the prize that X was brandishing. “You found- what is that?”
If the two had any idea what warm food was, they would’ve recognized the lumpy frozen good that X had in his hands as a perfectly preserved rotisserie chicken. If they had any sort of reheating device, and if they had proper taste buds, they might have been able to enjoy the sweet experience of a Thanksgiving dinner. However, they were ignorant robots who were about as smart as a middle schooler, so the only reaction that they, or at least one of them had, was confusion.
“I dunno, but it says chicken on the side!” X proudly exclaimed.
“What’s chicken?” K questioned.
“I’m . . . not sure . . . but I’m pretty sure it's food.” X’s LED eyebrows furrowed in thought.
“How do you know that?” K asked.
“Uh, I don't?” X seemed more confused than ecstatic now.
K shook her head. “Did you find anything useful?”
“Well I found this clear thing, but it only says something called ‘Dasani’ on the side.” X held up a clear plastic bottle, putting his finger in quotation marks when he said it.
“Give me that!” K dashed across the room, snatching the item out of X’s hands.
“Wha- hey!” X tried to grab at it, but K held it out of his reach.
“Back up!” K swatted X in the face, inciting a squawk of surprise.
“I found it first, give it back!” X shot back, tackling K, causing the bottle to roll across the ground.
The two began slugging at each other, scrabbling across the ground for dominance over a goddamn bottle, like a gang of the aforementioned middle schoolers. Nearly crushing the contested item multiple times, the two spent a good thirty seconds duking it out. And after K finally managed to curl into a ball around the bottle, X tried to no avail to recapture his former possession.
“You motherfu-” X was cut off by a noise from the door that led deeper into the building
The two highly professional disassembly drones shot to their feet, their gazes snapping to the origin of the sound. Standing there was a figure, about the same height as K and X, with familiar black plating and armor, kneeling down to grab a small blue marble that was on the floor. It appears as though the idiot had been trying to be sneaky to avoid capturing the attention of the killer robots, which clearly didn’t go as planned.
“Uh, hi.” The drone said after a moment of silence.
Even more silence.
The military drone took that as a cue to scoop up the marble, before dashing out of the room.
K and X instantly took chase, with K pocketing the small bottle for later. The military drone wasn’t quite fast, but it did make use of its head start well. The unnamed drone disappeared behind the corner, with the pair of disassembly drones right on his heels. However, when K turned around the edge, a bullet tore through the air, finding its home in her head. Completely unprepared, she fell to the ground.
X, contrary to what some might do, didn’t stop to assist her, instead just simply vaulting over her body, speeding onward. He was rapidly closing the distance between him and the military drone, when his prey suddenly whipped around with a pistol in its hand. X, unlike his comrade, was prepared for this inevitability, turning to the side and out of the path of the trio of bullets as they flew by him. X followed up on this by diving down onto the hapless drone, trying to skewer it on gleaming metal claws.
The drone didn’t have a chance to fight, but unknown to X, he did have time to press the small panic button on its jawline, or where the jawline would be if it was a human. If anyone on this planet was familiar with standard police or even military practice, they would recognize the small button as the useful yet annoying panic button.
For a bit of context, the panic button is usually represented as a small and easy-to-access device that, when activated, sends out an emergency distress signal that would notify the proper authorities of the panic button’s location and a dire situation. The panic button is common in the military, police personnel, elderly homes, schools, corporate buildings, apartment buildings, and basically everywhere else that isn’t a ghetto.
The drone, however, proved to be much smarter than his predecessors, much to the dismay of X. It dove to the side, dropping down and through a weakened rusty grate. As X’s claws scraped against the wall, the fleeing drone tossed a metal panel that was blocking the way out to his side, before dashing through the door. X jumped down to the lower floor, before continuing his chase.
A flurry of bullets ripped towards him, but X brought his arm up, letting his forearm absorb the projectiles that hit, and most missed. The drone ran down a comically long flight of stairs, taking three steps at a time. The stairs continued downward, eventually opening up to a basement with a gaping hole in the wall, which led straight into darkness. The drone nearly fell into the hole from the momentum of jumping down the stairs. But, it just managed to skid to a stop at the edge.
X landed at the foot of the stairs, crouching to absorb the impact. X’s gaze focused on the drone that was pointing the pistol at X, sights drawing a solid bead on his head. However, when it pulled the trigger, it was only met with a slight clicking sound. The drone gaze jerked down to the pistol, then straight back up to X, who was now diving towards it, claws outstretched.
The drone jumped backwards, losing his balance. Its foot slipped off the edge, and while the sudden space between it and X saved its life for the time being, it did have to contend with gravity, which was now pulling on the drone by a considerable amount.
X watched as the drone tumbled down the pit, hitting the sides. However, the sides of the pit were both sloped and slick with a thin sheet of ice, causing the drone to slide down to the bottom. The drone slammed against a large rusty metal pipe, which was a solid indicator of the pit’s identity as a sewer.
The drone scrambled to its feet, caving the skull in of a skeleton that appeared to have been a former inspector when one took into account the corpse’s clipboard and tattered clothes. X slammed down onto the large pipe, causing it to resonate like a gong. The drone snatched up a small length of rusty metal rebar that had impaled itself on the ground, the edge of the steel surprisingly sharp. The drone adopted a fighting stance, pointing the business end towards X.
The robotic predator didn’t care, however, just simply stabbing his prey with his own pointy stick, the sharp end of his nanite acid tail. The sharp tool stuck itself in the drone’s shoulder, causing it to drop the bar and curse. X took the opportunity to grip the drone by the head, while digging the claws of his other hand in its chest. X then looked into the opaque black visor of the military drone, before pulling in two opposite directions.
The effects were made known quickly, with the head of the military drone migrating away from its home connected to the body. Oil splashed down onto X, who took the opportunity to feed. X dropped the head, letting it hit the ground with a clang, dropping the body as well.
X stood over the fallen corpse, claws gleaming with oil. K landed next to him, retracting her wings.
“So you got it?” K asked.
“No I didn’t, he got away. This body right here is just a random pigeon, and you’re just hallucinating.” X replied sarcastically. “Also, how the hell did you get here so fast?”
K rolled her eyes. “Oh, be quiet. I’m just making sure, because knowing you, you would probably let him go for the funny.” She ignored his latter question.
“Well now that you mention it . . .” X looked sorrowfully at the body.
K punched him in the arm. “Whatever, we gotta go. I seriously doubt that he was alone-”
She was cut off yet again by a loud crash that originated from the hole up on the wall. The duo whipped around, only to see several guns pointed straight at them.
“Sup.” X nodded at the intruders.
* * *
The sound of conversation could be audibly heard from the lit tent.
The tent had been designated as the de facto headquarters for the former facility personnel, with a smaller offshoot serving as a meeting room for the leadership. The offshoot tent in question was currently being used for its purpose, with an emergency meeting being called. Not because of the discovery of a dead body, but for a different matter entirely.
“Can anyone at least tell me how this happened?” The Lead Engineer leaned on the table.
One of the data officers stepped forward. “We believe that when we were evacuating the facility, an error occurred that declassified the file.” They answered.
“An error did this.” The General wasn’t convinced.
“Well, yes. The computers had been degrading for a while now, and we had noticed that several of our autonomous programs were misbehaving, or just outright not working at all.” The data officer replied.
“And we did nothing about this?” The General glared at the trio of data officers that had joined them.
“We actually were doing all we could, but we didn’t have the materials to make a complete fix.” The Lead Engineer interjected.
“Why didn’t you tell me then!?” The General exclaimed.
“I did. You probably just forgot again.” The Lead Engineer suggested.
“What? I have the best memory here.” The General puffed out his chest proudly.
“Alright then, what were we just talking about?” The Lead Engineer inquired.
The General frowned. “We were talking?”
The Lead Engineer facepalmed. “Goddamn idiot.”
One of the data officers stepped up. “Uh, sir? There is still the matter of the ones who discovered the information.”
“Oh yeah, uh, dump them off the eastern bridge.” The Lead Engineer waved off the issue.
With a simple nod, the data officers left, accompanied by a few guards as well. The Lead Engineer sat back in his chair, before steepling his fingers on the desk. He looked back and forth between the assembled leadership, before the General spoke up.
“So, are we gonna continue or what?” He crossed his arms.
“Yes, sorry.” The Lead Engineer motioned to one of his ministers. “You take the lead, Kane.”
Kane got up, walking to the front of the tent, dragging a projector on a cart with him. When he arrived, he pulled down the white screen, securing the hook on a latch on the bottom. He then adjusted the cart, facing the lens towards the screen. He then attached a laptop to the projector, pressing a few buttons and fiddling with a few switches, cursing once. Finally, the projector flickered to life, shining an image onto the screen.
Kane cleared his throat. “Ahem, so. What you are seeing here is the first page of the document in question. As you can see here, it appears to be warning against a drone viewing whatever the contents of this file is.” Kane flicked to the next slide. “It continues to vehemently express this multiple times, not really differing in its warning at all.”
One of the military ministers, Alicia, raised her hand. “Uh, question?”
Kane paused. “What is it?”
“Its warning against drones? She asked.
“Yes, it is. I’ll explain this later on, so save your questions for the end please.” Kane looked back to the projection, skipping through the slides until he landed on the first one without a warning.
“Ah, here we go. So, as you can see here, this appears to be a logo for JCJenson-'' Kane was interrupted by a faint, “In Spaaaaacee!” from an unknown source. “Uh, anyway, as all of you know, JCJenson was the company that owned this planet, and the one that provided the drones that the government were using in their facility, which was us.” Kane flicked to the next slide.
“Here we can see a title for a project, along with several bits of accompanying information, like locations, associates, page number, references, you get the picture.” Kane then produced a long ruler from what seemed like thin air, before pointing the end at one of the words. “Pay attention to this one here ‘AbsoSolv’ as it’ll come up several times later on.” Going to the next slide, Kane cleared his throat yet again.
“This page is more confusing, as it appears to be mentioning several unit serial numbers that don’t match up with standard format, which are mixed in with several other ones that are in different format, like this one here,” Kane pointed his stick at a random one from the line. “This one says, S-010011X01, which I believe has a main identifying letter instead of a string of numbers based on time of construction.”
“Additionally, while some of these feature the normal serial numbers that worker drones use, they have another identifier after it, separated by a dash.” Kane flipped to the next slide.
“This one is more straightforward, as it appears to be featuring a set of technical designs of a modified worker drone with the serial number and other associated information listed at the top. The notes on the side are observations on the modifications that can be seen in the designs. Some of the original worker drone parts can be seen, but a majority of the inner and outer mass seem to have been altered or replaced with a substance that is described as ‘fleshy’. You can see at the very bottom a signature of an unknown human administrator, and a notice that marks the drone for ‘disassembly’ as an addendum can be seen that marks whatever this is as a failure, and a recommendation to request more data from their source.”
Kane took a breath, before going to the next slide. “This is essentially the same as the last one, and this continues for a few slides. Nothing of note can be found in them, save for a few different serial numbers that were listed in one of the prior slides.”
Kane flicked to the next slide. “This one has two addendums, which I will say in a moment. The image is different as well, with noticeably less random mutations and more of a form taking place. This one was supposedly much more successful than the others, and while it was still marked as a failure, the first addendum said that the team working on the project should strip the data from the drone in as best a condition as they could. The second one simply noted they were naming the specific strain of code they were using to ‘Absolute Solver’. The addendum does not mention any reason or motive behind the name, only noting the fact that their shareholders would be pleased.”
“The next one is the first apparent success in the line of experiments that JCJenson seemed to be doing. A single growth can be seen protruding from the back of the spinal transmitter, and several other growths have sprouted inside. However, it is noted that the drone survived the process, and remained somewhat coherent for a period of time afterwards, which seems to be an outlier when considering the others. There isn’t an addendum on this one, only a request from the team for more extensive data from their source to compare to this experiment.”
“This trend continues for a good while, so I’ll just summarize the important bits for all of you.” Kane stated. “Each version continued to show more and more productive attributes and traits, as is par the standard course. Throughout the notes, requests, and addendums, whoever was typing up the document repeatedly noted some things that I will review later, such as Absolute Solver, the ‘source’, Camp 98.7, Cabin Fever Labs, and disassembly drones.”
Kane flicked to the final slide. “This is the final page, with some items to note. It appears to be a reiteration of the specifics of the agreement between the government and JCJenson, with a few additional key things. It includes the standard formalities and the usual junk that we all know, but something else as well. When mentioning the exchange of data that came from the asset-” Kane paused as the room underwent an uncomfortable shuffle in their seats. “They mention a clear correlation between this project that JCJenson is, or was, working on, and the asset. They also instructed the government contacts that any unauthorized personnel, which included government agents, were now barred from entering Camp 98.7 due to ‘hazardous environmental conditions’ and that this was nonnegotiable.”
Kane turned away from the projector, clasping his hands in front of himself. “And now to explain.”
“From what me and the team I assigned could gather, we deduced the meanings and purposes behind several items that were mentioned in this file. The first and most obvious, the ‘source’ that is mentioned. They are receiving data from this source, which seems to be essential to the development of what they were working on. Based on their words, we figured that the source is likely the asset, and yes, the same asset that we are all familiar with.” Kane paused, seemingly to let his words sink in.
“Continuing on, we began to dissect what Camp 98.7 was. It was very clearly a location of sorts, but where it was and what it was used for was more complicated. While we never arrived at a solid conclusion, we believed that the most likely avenue was that Camp 98.7 might have been an outpost of sorts, perhaps used in conjunction with these Cabin Fever Labs.”
“On the matter of the Cabin Fever Labs, we can clearly assume that research and development of this Absolute Solver was being conducted there, and perhaps Camp 98.7 was a sort of staging ground or other type of location related to the lab. We believe that the location of one or both of these sites are hidden within another file.”
“And perhaps the most intriguing and complex matter of them all, Absolute Solver. We figured that it was likely that this Absolute Solver was instrumental in whatever experiments they were doing, or even being one of the subjects of the experiments themselves. From what we gather, Absolute Solver is something, maybe a piece of alien machinery, some sort of unknown lifeform, an experimental strain of cutting-edge code, one of those things, but whatever it is, it is not something that is ‘normal’. It appears to have a unique effect on those it hosts or comes into contact with, rapidly generating new organic material, with sometimes uncontrolled effects. While the file only shows the experiments that used drones, we don’t know if any humans or other organic lifeforms were included either. Likely not, considering the legality of the situation, but it's open to discussion.”
Kane took a large breath, before continuing.
“And finally, the disassembly drones. They seem simple, but my team believed it to be heavily related to our current situation. They aren’t mentioned very often, but they appear to be a direct result of their experiments or related to one. From what we could gather, they are meant to, well, disassemble. Drones on par with military-grade ones that are capable of a variety of things, like bullet fire, rocket launching, melee combat, flight, digital warfare, and regeneration.” Kane watched as his words dawned upon his audience, expressions filling with shock.
“Yes, those drones. The disassembly drones that we read about are likely some variant of the unknown assailants that attacked the facility, and stole the asset in the process.”
The General sputtered. “B-but that would be a severe political incident! If those drones were under the command of JCJenson, and they stole GOVERNMENT property, then they would be liable for retaliation!”
Kane tried to calm the room. “Now, hold on, I’m not done-”
The Lead Engineer also appeared to be shocked. “Why didn’t you tell me this earlier!?”
“You told me to wait for the meeting!” Kane exclaimed.
The room erupted into disarray.
“We need to mobilize, hunt down those damn traitors!”
“What's their last known location!?”
“Where is the nearest transmitter, send out a request for retaliatory action!”
Suddenly, a drone burst into the room, knocking over the projector cart in the process. Everyone turned to look at him, ceasing the chaos for a moment.
“Er, uh, sirs?” The drone asked.
“Yes?” The General and the Lead Engineer stood up at the same time.
“I, uh,” The drone looked back and forth between the two administrators. “Well, we received a panic signal from one of our scouts.”
The General scoffed. “Why would that be enough to warrant our intervention? He probably just tripped on a conveniently placed banana peel.”
The messenger fidgeted nervously. “Well, his partner reported moments before the signal came in that he heard gunshots.”
The administrative drones shared a collective uneasy look.
“What did you do?” The General asked slowly.
“The officers who received the signal first sent in two of the patrol squads that were nearby at the time.” The messenger answered.
The drones in assembly all either looked down in disappointment or facepalmed.
The General spoke up after a moment. “Send in a squad as fast as you can to their last known location. Only veterans, and outfit them with heavy weaponry and explosive ordnance.” The General paused, before adding an afterthought. “And give them some cutting equipment too.”
The messenger blinked in surprise. “Wait, sir, are you sure-”
“Just tell the officers already!” The General slammed his fist down onto the cheap plastic table, which formed a crack.
The messenger saluted quickly, before dashing out of the room.
The Lead Engineer took a cursory look at the assembled drones, before he sighed.
“We’re screwed.”
* * *
“Are you going back anytime soon?”
Jacob looked back at his unwanted companion.
“No.” He answered simply, before resuming his casual trot.
“We’re getting too far away from the spire, and the sun is coming up in an hour or two. I for one don’t want to get caught out.” A insisted.
“Well I don’t die from a bit of sunlight, so too bad.” Jacob stepped over a tire rim.
“I’m not sure that’s your choice.” A stated.
Jacob paused and looked backward. “Oh, so you’re bossing me around now?”
“Maybe, if you keep on making dumb decisions like this.” A stopped as well.
“Pff, I’ll be fine.” Jacob waved his hand in the air to emphasize his point.
“You won’t last ten minutes.” A dead-panned.
“Nah, I’ll speedrun this stuff, I’ll be off-planet in an hour.” Jacob proudly said.
A shook his head and sighed. “Whatever you say.”
Jacob didn’t answer.
Jacob then looked around. “Wait, where are we? I wasn’t keeping track.”
“And you said that you would- whatever, we’re like, three miles away from the base.” A replied.
“Huh, went that far?” Jacob asked.
A frowned. “Three miles isn’t that far-”
A was interrupted by a rather loud crack that resonated through the landscape.
Jacob blinked. “Uh, ok then-”
Jacob was also interrupted by a trio of cracks and bangs, sounding slightly familiar.
“Are those-” Jacob was, yet again, interrupted by even more bangs.
“-gunshots?” He finished.
“I wouldn’t worry, those idiots are probably either messing around, or they found a worker drone to kill.” A nonchalantly answered.
“Shouldn’t we go check it out though?” Jacob inquired.
“It isn’t a problem.” A said, annoyed.
“Well it would give me something to do.” Jacob insisted.
A checked the time, before looking at the horizon for signs of sunlight.
“Eh, fine. Wouldn’t hurt, I guess.” A shrugged.
“Nice.” Jacob grinned underneath his ballistic visor.
* * *
K sliced through the head of the last desperate drone, before spitting out a bullet.
“You done?” K called out to X.
“Yeah, I guess. By the way, do you still have my Dasani thing?” X looked at K hopefully.
“Yes, I do. And besides, it isn’t yours, it's for Jacob.” K answered.
“What? Why is he getting it? Why not me?” X exclaimed.
“Because it's water, idiot. An uncontaminated source, like A told us, remember?” K glared at X.
“I guess, but that's water?” X asked.
“Yes, it is. It matches the description.” K replied
“Description?” X questioned.
“Yeah, the description. You know what description means, right?” K seemed even more annoyed.
“I know what it means.” X snapped. “But how do you know what water looks like?”
K just shrugged, before turning towards the exit.
“Come on, we gotta get back soon.” She flew upwards, landing on the ledge.
X followed suit, tracing their steps back through the building. X looked back up at the rusty grate that the drone had fallen through, which he now identified as being part of a weirdly placed catwalk. Scanning the environment, X found that the only entrance to the small alcove would be the hole in the catwalk. The basement that the small room was connected to didn’t have an entrance either, only having the gaping hole in the side of the room, which likely wasn't intended. That would mean that a person would have to chop through the sewer wall to get into the basement and adjoining alcove, or jump off the catwalk. Both of those options didn’t make any sort of sense at all. In fact, the catwalk wasn’t even needed, someone could have just removed the entire basement-and-alcove plan entirely, which also removed the necessity for a catwalk. All in all, whoever designed the building was either high off of some crazy drugs, an idiot, or both.
But, none of these thoughts went through X’s head, as he was only thinking about the devastating loss of his cool plastic bottle.
K hefted herself up onto the rusty catwalk, with X following close behind. K went through the doorway, only for a rather eventful event to stop her momentarily.
A rocket screamed through the air, smacking K straight in the chest. The resulting explosion blew X backwards and K apart, with oil splashing onto the ground in the process. With a clatter, X hit the ground, slightly dazed. He looked to his left to see what looked like the arm of K, twitching slightly. X tried to get up, only to fall again, after he put his weight on a hand that wasn’t there.
X, seeing the failure of Operation: GTFU, adjusted his position so that he could get up with his other hand only, which was thankfully still there. Investigating his left arm, he could see that everything down from the elbow had been separated from himself in the blast. He didn’t have time to look for it or go get it, so he simply let the matter go.
Standing up, X stared through the smoke, before diving back down onto the ground when another rocket came streaking past him. It scratched his face, sending small sparks up, before heading down the other hallway. X pointed his own rocket launcher into the fog, before firing off a flurry of shots. He heard explosions, but wasn’t rewarded with screams or grunts of pain. Problematic, to say the least.
X took the opportunity to kick K’s assorted dismembered body parts down into the lower alcove, where she should eventually reassemble herself. She was really taking a beating recently, and she would probably be frustrated about that when X was all done, but that wasn’t his problem-
X nearly met the same fate as K when another rocket flew from the open doorway, the fog starting to clear up. X jumped up and over the RPG, letting it fly into the unexplored depths of the building. He couldn’t do this dance forever, so he made the executive decision to charge into the unknown.
* * *
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Anyway, I'll be posting the next part tomorrow, so hang on tight for the singular person that made it to the end. No need to like, this is purely for my own benefit. See ya.