(Note: this is the second half of the story. Will link the first half shortly)
The two teens both looked toward the front of the room. There was a gray sphere. Hovering in the doorway.
But if you asked Marc, it was an annoying gray sphere. And it hovered in the doorway like an absolute rustnut.
Marc wasn’t sure where on the sphere to level his disdain. The whole dumb surface was the same all over. It was a series of interconnected, translucent hexagons. Stupid yellow lights blinked sporadically across its many faces—for no apparent rhyme or reason—perhaps just to further annoy Marc.
An electronic voice called out from the sphere. “Did I hear muuuuuusic?” he asked. “Before that last plasma burst?”
Marc shot Sid a glare that could kill. But the big blue alien didn’t back down.
“Last impression. Remember?” he told Marc before going toward Tōn-E with a brimming, sharp-toothed smile and arms extended. “Tōn-E! Glad you could make it! Come on in.”
On the inside, Marc cringed. He mostly tried to forget that Tōn-E walked (hovered?) the same Levels as them. Tōn-E represented the most self-destructive habits of the Outpost. The only features of the city indifferent to survival.
But Tōn-E was all too real. He entered the room like a ghost in a nightmare.
“I am also happy to be here,” he said. The faces of his sphere randomly lit up as he spoke. “I otherwise had no plans for tonight. Because the planet is set to explode.”
“Yes, I’ve heard,” Sid joked.
“I approximate it will only take a few more—hold on. What is this??”
Tōn-E spun slowly in the air. The side previously facing Sid rotated toward the ceiling. When it reached the top, a spotlight shot toward the ceiling—right where Sid’s door had slotted in.
The spotlight stretched horizontally across the door until it resembled a straight line. This line swept back and forth across the raised door. It moved as if he was cleaning it.
“I don’t believe it!” Tōn-E said. “What an exquisite painting. A remarkable addition to your growing and ever-expanding portfolio, Sid.”
Tōn-E finished his scan of the painting. His expanding spotlight shut off. And he re-centered himself to face Sid.
“Aww, shanks,” Sid said. Each of his right arms latched onto the bends of the left ones. “You really think so?”
“Of course! There are colors here I’ve only seen named in the logs. You have tastefully incorporated /#FF00FF: a color our ancestors previously referred to as ‘magenta.’”
“Yes! That’s right! I was going for ‘magenta!’ You really think I did it?”
Marc looked down to hide his face. He rolled his eyes. Magenta. He would have loved to tell Sid how much he liked it too. But Marc had spent his years surviving, not studying colors in old, useless historical archives.
Sid and Tōn-E continued their snooty, pretentious discussion.
“I made it mixing legblee blood and just a liiiiiiittle bit of groundwater,” Sid said.
“That was a very clever! Allow me to save your painting to my internal memory.”
“Really??” Sid’s cheeks greened a little.
“Yes, I will review at a later time when I am both unable to view the original but would still like to once again be inspired by your clever and skillful hands.”
“Tōn-E, I—I don’t know what to say. Thank you.”
Marc simmered in his anger. Stupid Tōn-E. Always ruining things. Making them about him and his dumb, endless archives.
“I am perhaps only more impressed by your chosen ensemble! Do my eyes perceive veritable Lenorkian armor?”
The talkative orb whooshed toward Sid. It began revolving around him like an annoyingly-attached moon. As his exo-orb hummed excitedly, Tōn-E rattled off his useless knowledge of antiquated armor.
“Snorp-resistant spiked shoulder caps?!” He spun around Sid’s midsection. “Triple-layered chest plates?!” He dropped closer to the floor. “Anti-gravity shin guards made from the rare lenorkium alloy?!”
Tōn-E giggled as he orbited Sid. His laugh disturbed Marc. It sounded like a space rat being strangled in the bowels of an undersea air vent.
Sid could hardly keep up with Tōn-E’s flying. But he looked happy with the attention. “Yeah! I’m told this suit was built for the Frost Ring wars,” he said. “It never got used.”
Marc continued to not engage. He slunk deeper into his shawl, folded his arms, and sighed.
“I don’t believe it!” Tōn-E said.
He backed off from Sid, flying back toward the doorway. He turned on his spotlight once again. It now stretched over Sid’s body. “Saving! Saving!”
Sid wasted no time posing for the occasion. He flexed all four arms and gritted his snaggling teeth. His irises turned a deep red and his two small horns protruded from his forehead. Tōn-E was overjoyed. “I did not think I would ever have the chance to record your agitated state,” he said.
I’ll show you an agitated state, Marc thought to himself.
“I’ve got a relic you’re going to love,” Tōn-E said. His tiny sphere filled the cave with noise. But it wasn’t Tōn-E’s usual metallic voice. The sound came from another species entirely.
“GwwwwwwuuuhhhAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRR!”
His orb played an intense, ear-shuddering roar. The recording may have been slightly fuzzy, but Marc knew the source. It was unmistakably Lenorkian.
And like the gears in a drill, something appeared to “click” inside Sid. His eyes widened. His armored chest expanded. And he joined in. But Sid’s roar was… authentic.
“HRRRRRRRRRGAAAAAAAAHHHHH” he blasted out of mouth. Marc’s entire rib cage vibrated uncomfortably.
It spooked Marc. Igniting some primal desire to escape a dangerous predator. That was a feeling he never felt around Sid. He didn’t like it.
Sid himself even looked embarrassed for a second. Something he’d kept suppressed had slipped out. But Tōn-E turned up the volume on his recording. And with a cautious smile of someone nervously breaking a rule, Sid matched it. And then some. The two bellowed together. It was enough to make Marc queasy, although it was unclear whether it was due to the vibrations or Sid bonding so much with Tōn-E.
The roaring continued. Their talking continued. Tōn-E went on about Sid’s armor some more and his people’s valor and the hardship his ancestors must have faced.
“Usually I keep this stuff stashed away,” Sid said to Tōn-E in his soft normal voice. His horns had retracted, and his eyes had returned to normal. “These are shameful pieces of our history. Truly. And with a people I never really fit in with. But tonight, it just felt right to wear it, you know?”
“I understand completely,” Tōn-E said. “It is in these end times that we gravitate toward those traditions that were so much of what made us feel alive in the first place.”
The statement made Marc want to hurl. He didn’t want to entertain such stupid notions. But the gremlin rotated to him next.
“Hello Marc! Did you find any good junk today? Any new additions to your scrap pile?”
Marc seethed. “I didn't scavenge today, Tōn-E. There wouldn't be any use. It's the end of the universe.”
“That surprises me. Humans love their junk and doodads.”
“Yeah well, we don’t have to cling to the past, do we? Not like that ever saved anyone.” He hugged his wrapped arms even tighter, tilting his body away from Sid and Tōn-E. His cold shoulder ended the conversation.
Sid picked it back up. “So Tōn-E, do you, uh… drink?”
As it turned out, he did. Tōn-E accepted a cup of fludge. He held it with a robotic arm—one that had suddenly extended from his exo-orb. Tōn-E’s orb whirred as the center of his “face” sprouted a grotesque, needle-like proboscis. It poked outward like a long nose.
This straw extended into the cup he held. Tōn-E sipped the fludge like an insect sipping nectar (whatever those two things were; the Archives were spotty).
Sid waited with anticipation. Then Tōn-E’s sphere shuddered. The fludge must have reached the insufferable little creature on the inside. “Scrumptious!” he said.
Marc sighed quietly to himself. For some reason, he thought the night would have made a turn for the better if Tōn-E had hated it.
“Two for two!” Sid pumped three victorious fists into the air. He grinned as Tōn-E’s straw dipped into the cup once more. The straw made a little slurping sound.
“My taste buds are tingling!” Tōn-E said.
But the big cup was too much for him to finish. He returned the mostly-full drink to Sid. And his robotic straw receded to his exo-orb. Sid of course finished the cup, slurping up the remaining pool of fludge.
“So…” Sid said. He wiped his mouth. “Should I put some tunes back on?” He pointed over his shoulder to the idle vent. Then he looked across his two guests for an answer.
Marc shrugged. He didn’t care about anything anymore. Next to Marc, Tōn-E bobbed excitedly.
“Oh, yes!” he said. “One reads about concepts such as scales and measures, but it is entirely different to actually experience them with one’s own body!”
What body? Marc thought to himself. And what were the other things Tōn-E had mentioned? Something about… measuring… dragons?
He studied the cave floor while Sid skipped to the vent.
“That’s what I’m talking about!” Sid said. “Get those Level 7 legs ready!” He tugged at the creaking cover once more.
It came off easier this time. With a pop! the storm above returned to the cave. Its natural melody filled the room.
“Woooooooo!” Sid raised his hands again and walked back toward the other two.
Tōn-E mimicked him with two twig arms.
But the music didn’t have the same magic as before. The beats were stale. And Marc found himself unable to ignore the sting of the sand pelting his face. He lifted his shawl over his mouth. His voice was barely audible.
“I’m sitting this song out,” he said.
The other two didn't seem to hear him. They were facing each other, waving their arms sporadically against the air current.
Marc didn’t care. He grabbed his unfinished drink from the kitchen. Then he searched for a place to sit.
He found a couch, just in front of the dancing aliens. As he took his seat, his bottom started to sink into the sofa. The tarp covering the couch crinkled.
He tried guessing the material underneath it. Clay, maybe? He pondered the question while watching Sid and Tōn-E figure out dancing without him.
“This is how Marc was doing it before!” Sid said to Tōn-E. His four arms fanned across the breeze.
But he got everything wrong. His arms whipped around the wind, not with it. And he was thinking too much about his next move, as evidenced by his scrunched brows. But the greatest offense of all was his midsection: his hips and legs stayed in place—as if someone had threatened them.
A part of Marc wanted to get up and show him how it was done. But another part wanted to see Sid fail. Realize the effort was futile. Give up on bonding with Tōn-E. And kick the Sphere of Useless Facts out of his house.
“Am I doing it right, Marc?” Sid asked while each of his arms flew in a different direction.
“You look great!” Marc replied. He took a long sip of fludge.
Tōn-E, on the other hand, did his best to replicate Sid. He waved his skinny arms erratically. It almost made Marc laugh; Tōn-E looked like he’d been set on fire.
But in all, the whole thing was awful. A bad impression giving birth to an even worse impression.
And they didn’t seem to be enjoying it much either. Despite Marc’s glowing endorsement, Sid and Tōn-E danced themselves to the brink.
Sid kept losing his balance. He tried to keep up with the music but flung himself too hard in any one direction. And every time he made a misstep, he’d let loose an acidic snarl. Tōn-E grew frustrated as well. Every few seconds, he simply froze. His exterior lights would blink red in error. As Marc had hoped, the two “painting pals” quickly ran out of steam.
The dancing halted altogether. A tired Sid returned to the vent and hoisted the grate back onto the vent’s mouth. The music stopped.
“I’ll just turn it down for a minute,” he said. He adjusted a dial on the grate. The metal slits creaked open. And a muted sandstorm flowed through them.
The music reflected the overall energy in the room: depleted. Sid secured himself two more cups of fludge before joining Marc on the tarp couch.
Tōn-E followed his lead. The little troll took a seat too, which meant hovering over the last open spot on the other side of Marc.
The boys took a minute to relax on the couch. They sat quietly while the plasma storm above the Outpost boomed and cracked.
Well, Sid and Tōn-E relaxed. They chugged down another couple cups of fludge and floated quietly over the couch (respectively). Meanwhile, Marc continued to be annoyed. He considered stepping outside and climbing to Level 1. Offer himself to the plasma storm a few hours early. The non-stop hum of Tōn-E’s exo-orb goaded him further.
Brrrrrrrrr!
Did it really have to make that noise?
Marc didn’t think the afternoon could get any worse. And then it did. Because Tōn-E’s insufferable humming suddenly quieted. And that only could have meant…
“Oh!” Tōn-E exclaimed, “I know what we can talk about!”
Marc braced for impact. His nails dug into his knees.
Don’t you dare, he thought.
“I read the most interesting fact about cats today!” Tōn-E started.
Not again, Marc thought. Absolutely NOT again. His fists trembled with rage.
“Did you know cats were the central deity across ten different ancient civilizations? The trend started with humans, of course, but the religion quickly spread across the galaxy as interplanetary travel became more widely available.”
“I actually didn’t know that,” Sid said, entertaining Tōn-E’s ridiculous theory. “Where did you find that?”
“The Archives! They have somewhat documented this phenomenon. You see, it was a common practice to capture footage of cats, even in their sleeping state. They were so important to these cultures that even the most mundane moment yielded significant reason to capture and worship them. If you want to see, I can—”
Marc had had enough. He slammed his cup down on the floor and flew off the couch.
“—SHUT UP. SHUT UP ABOUT CATS!” he shouted. He swung back around to face the other two. “CATS AREN’T REAL TŌN-E! AND THEY WERE NEVER REAL!”
“That’s enough, Marc!” Sid clenched his teeth.“Don’t start this.”
Marc returned fire, “I didn’t start anything; that was YOU. Going behind my back! Inviting more of these… fairy tales!”
His emotions overwhelmed him. He didn’t know whether to yell more or start crying. He did both.
“It’s the end of the universe!” he said as tears streamed down his face. “We can’t keep clinging to the things that brought us to this point in the first place! All these stupid traditions are the reason no one’s even here with us now! IT KILLED THEM ALL! And anyone stupid enough to keep believing in them is—"
“—I said THAT’S ENOUGH!” Sid growled. Marc didn't care.
“NO!” he said. Then he looked back at Tōn-E. “NONE of what you’re seeing in the Archives is real! The data is corrupt! It’s ALL CORRUPT! And CATS are just another dumb fairy tale to keep people like you going, while…”
He ran out of steam. He realized there was no more “going.” In fact, there was no time remaining in the universe for anything. But that didn’t diminish his animosity and anger toward the world. He glared down at the gray sphere. His chest heaved.
Meanwhile, Sid kept a cooler, bluer head. He too looked to Tōn-E, but with compassion in his eyes.
Tōn-E didn’t immediately respond to either. The only sound in the room came from his exo-orb. Well, the exo-orb plus the ladle on the counter, which suddenly blooped into the big pot.
All eyes were on the atypically quiet alien, whose hexagonal faces began to light up.
“I suppose,” his voice trailed, “that cats may not have been real after all. You said it yourself: records are foggy. They’re all from thousands of years ago...” He sighed. Tōn-E’s lights transitioned to a new blinking pattern. “And I also suppose… that I should have been more mature about interpreting error-prone information in the Archives…”
“It's okay, man,” Sid said. “I like that you dream big.” He reached across the couch to place a comforting hand on Tōn-E. But Tōn-E floated out of reach.
“I understand my presence here is probably upsetting,” he said. “You two have a special bond. I should not have interfered with it in its last moments. I will go.”
“No, Tōn-E,” Sid said. Each pair of his hands met in front of his chest “Please stay. You have every right to be here too.”
“I should go,” Tōn-E said. “I will spend the rest of the evening focused on real things. And because I will no longer be here, I suppose it will be the perfect opportunity to review Sid’s art so I can feel inspired for the end times.”
He slipped between Sid and Marc toward the doorway.
“No, don’t!” Sid called after him. “We should do this together.”
But Tōn-E had already vanished outside.
The Lenorkian, hand extended, waited for Tōn-E to come back. But the floating sphere did not reappear in the doorway.
And that was when a low trill emanated from the couch. It was coming from Sid’s his chest. He looked up at Marc, glaring. He bared his pointed teeth. His horns reappeared. And his eyes flushed with scarlet pigment.
Yuh-oh, Marc thought. About half his prior anger evaporated. Fear of a fight took hold.
Marc didn’t exactly dislike his chances. Lenorkians may have been stronger, but Sid wasn't a fighter. Marc was.
But Sid stuck to his morals.
“GET OUT!” Sid shouted.
Marc reflexively jumped out of reach. The short hop sort of ruined his show of anger. But he was still boiling mad. After all, fifty percent of him hadn't abandoned the cat grudge.
“Fine!” he shouted back. “Have fun exploding alone.” He whipped away to the exit.
The party was finished now. He almost stopped and went back for his fludge. But he didn’t want it anymore either. He just wanted a nice end of the universe with his friend. And now the end of the universe was ruined.
At least the apocalypse outside was behaving predictably. Marc stepped into the adjacent cave corridor. He surveyed the damage outside, looking through the long, horizontal gap in the cave wall. As the experts had predicted, the plasma storm took its toll.
The canyon glowed eerily bright, despite it being evening time. The wind howled as it raced through the canyon. And the cliffs around the gorge flashed white and pink as the storm charged with electricity, preparing to make its final jump.
Lightning cracked toward the ground. Some of the bolts hit the opposing cliff, sending rubble deep into the gorge. A gentle tremor rumbled in the ground beneath him.
The plasma storm overhead only creeped further around the planet. As the canyon brightened, shockwaves coursed through the entire city. They threw Marc off his feet again. He hit the ground.
Behind him, thunderous clacking erupted. The sound of falling rocks filled the corridor. He flipped over to see what explosion had thrown him.
It was bad. He stopped breathing. Because he could no longer see Sid’s home. All he saw was a pile of rubble.

Hi,
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I've been looking to move to VT since before Covid. I prefer the St. Albans area. Right before Covid, that was a lot easier, looked at a few homes that fit my bill (nice, wooded acreage, not remote) but since Covid, that area seems to have virtually no homes that fit the bill, or at least they come up very infrequently, so I've been considering other areas, maybe even giving up on VT because everything that I like sells in five minutes and I don't have the chance to get there from Boston in time.
Right now, there are three homes that I like but I'm unfamiliar with these areas. My concern is becoming isolated. After a lifetime in big cities and hating every moment of it, I want nature and privacy but if things are too far out, I'll never meet anyone and become a hermit. I think I need to be 20-30 minutes to civilization. While VT is amazing, it's also very weird IMO because it's totally decentralized. Most places I've been, everything revolves around city/town centers and you can live in the bush, but everyone comes into town to do things. VT seems to be totally scattershot. With this layout, it's very difficult for someone not familiar with the area to know if the region lends itself to areas where people can meet or where the big draw is the grocery store where you might see five people at any given time.
I was already thinking of maybe Swanton due to its proximity to St. A, but then I've heard a couple people offhandedly speak quite negatively about it, so now I'm not so sure. The other two towns I know nothing about at all.
Btw, the kicker here is that right before Covid shut everything down and fundamentally changed VT's realty, I almost bought an amazing log home in Enosburg but ended up passing because I was worried that I'd become a hermit because it was in the middle of nowhere and 20-25 minutes to St. A. Now I wish that I would have bought it. 20 minutes to St. A now seems like nothing, and the house itself would probably sell for $150-200K more than what it was, and sell in 30 seconds, even though the guy selling it just could not move the place to save his life in the world before covid.
​
Thanks.

hello sorry this might be a bit of a long story and very jumbled up, but I’m needing some advice on how to proceed with my relationship. What and is there anything I can do? I (18f) have been dating my bf (18m) for almost 2 years in October. When we started dating I knew about his anxiety and some of the trauma he had in his life. He dropped of high school in may last year. In June we took a break because my mental health deteriorated and I didn’t know what to do so I broke up with him and explained I wasn’t doing well. In that time he started talking to a few girls. We worked things out and started dating again in July. In august he got diagnosed with PTSD. He got prescribed medication and that started making him act out impulsively. He quit his job and that afternoon got pay monthly phone. He brought tickets to his home town. Ignored me most of the time he was there. Then broke up with me and told me he didn’t love me and didn’t feel anything for anybody. All of this happened about two weeks after he started and the events all happened in a week. I mentioned that he was acting different and thought it could be the medication he’s on. I did some research sent it to him. He eventually went to a doctor got off it and was feeling better. Then in october we had an argument he went home and I wanted to apologise so I tried calling him. It took over 3 hours for me to get a reply telling me he didn’t want to talk. I checked his discord status and it said he was playing Roblox. I joined the game trying to talk to him and saw he was playing with his friend and was hanging with a girl. After a while he said he wanted to break up and that he was done. I checked his following on instagram because last time we broke up he followed a bunch of girls. It showed he followed a new girl. I recognised the name from the user of the girl he was playing with and realised he was playing with her and ignoring me. He them followed another girl he followed in our first break up. This really hurt and after a while we got back together. At the moment I’m studying with a job and he still doesn’t have a job and I frequently pay for his phone ($80 a month), I’ve payed for it for the past 5 months. We hardly ever go on dates because he doesn’t have the money and I’m usually the one paying. I hardly see him because he doesn’t want to bus and he can’t drive. I can’t afford to pick him up either because I’m studying and working at the same time so I hardly have money for gas for work and school minus driving across town. It’s also been hard cause I want to go out with my friends clubbing but he gets really jealous when I’m gone so I try invite him but he gets really anxious the whole time. I’ve been feeling really distant from him and I’m just craving feeling loved and happy in a relationship again. I really want to be his friend but I don’t want to feel hurt every time I see him.

All credit goes to the one and only u/BlueFishcakes, owner and creator of the SSB universe.
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discord wiki part 1 part 13 part 15
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Mi'aera broke record after record. She had been talking to the xeno for hours now! What's more, Natalia was already practically her friend!
"I have a xeno friend! I'm progressive!" She couldn't get over her happiness.
The girls were already on first-name terms.
Natalia, or Natka, was very friendly. Even though she was a bit older than Mi (well, everyone was), Mi'aera felt like they were the same age. The optimism and openness of the human woman were a nice change, something the young militiawoman had been waiting for for a long time. And it was contagious.
"- So, Mi…" Natalia, driving the patrol car, spoke to Mi'aera, who was sitting next to her. Literally, a few minutes earlier, the girls had agreed to call each other by short names. "- I've never met Shil who doesn't have a surname, just a number."
Mi nodded.
"- Once upon a time, in the entire empire, only the nobles had surnames, over the generations, in most provinces, the commoners began to adopt the surnames of their lords or the nicknames of their occupations, and so on," she explained. Natka nodded her head.
"- Heh, it makes sense, on Earth it was basically the same, there were still some constructions on the principle of Son or Daughter of Somebody," the human added. This time, it was Mi who nodded.
"- Yes, it is common in many places."
"- But you only have a number?"
"- Yes," Mi admitted and continued: "- The noble families of the Palatinate are somehow not numerous, and their respectable names serve them well, there is no need to give names to millions of commoners."
Natka focused on the road and did not speak for a while.
"- Ok, not even any Daughter or Son of Somebody?" the human asked.
"- If someone has a known father or mother, that would be allowed. I grew up in an institution." Mi explained.
"- Oh! Mi, I'm sorry, I shouldn't delve so much into the subject," Natka said in a very apologetic tone. Mi'aera just smiled kindly.
"- No need to apologize, a large proportion of the population of the entire galaxy was born with some form of in vitro fertilization, at least once a race has acquired this technology. The Empire has been doing this for hundreds of years. After all, with such a small number of males, our population would be numerically impossible. In the Palatinate, every few years, based on the census, the government determines how many additional children are to be born. I had a good childhood, if that's what you're concerned about, I'm not an orphan." She replied with conviction.
Natka digested the information for some time.
"- It probably is just like you are saying..." Natka finally said, "- I have no reason to doubt the Empire," she confessed.
Mi nodded instinctively but hesitated and asked the human:
"- You're the coolest woman I've ever met on Earth, even the other Shils stationed here sometimes have a more ungrateful attitude towards our government," she confessed.
Natka smiled a little faintly.
"- I'm sure a lot of politicians are still corrupt, but that's, you know, life. I also think that the war that preceded Liberation could have been avoided and that most of the casualties were tragic and needless. But in the end, it wasn't human governments that ended famine on Earth, it wasn't human governments that ensured that every child had access to clean water or that people no longer died of cancer. The only things that matters "
Hearing these words, Mia shuddered.
"Die of cancer? Goddesses! Were they that backward?"
"- Look" Natka took one hand off the steering wheel and grabbed her phone out of the pocket, quickly scrolled her finger across the display to open the gallery, and then handed the device to Mi'aera.
The militiawoman looked at the photo. It was a selfie of the shill doctor embracing a much shorter, bald, and incredibly emaciated human male…
"- No…. wait…. impossible!"
It wasn't a male or a boy, it was Natka! incredibly thin, completely unrecognizable. And without any breasts… Mi'aera shifted her gaze to the human woman sitting next to her, whose cleavage was decent even by Shil standards. Natka, seeing where the militiawoman's eyes wandered, smiled.
"- Doctor Major Mile'ana Vespaena, she also helped me size the implants so that after the treatment I would look like a normal Imperial woman," the human explained.
Mi nodded. Natka was actually very proportional, her athletic figure was deceptively similar to Shil's, she was just much, much shorter.
"Like a little xeno sister," Mi thought.
"- Natka, you look really great now," Mi said honestly.
"- Thanks," Natalia replied, glancing briefly at her passenger.
"- Monsoon-B, the name of the drug that cured me, developed to fight cancer in human cells, developed at the Pharmaceutical Complex in Ghaab…"
"- Ghaabhush in east Ugrecnurc" Mi'aera uttered native words that her human friend found difficult.
"- In the Imperial fiefdom of the Palatinate," finished Natka, and she looked at her passenger again.
"- The war was still going on on Earth, and in your homeland, scientists had already thought about how to cure our diseases," Natalia spoke almost with tears in her eyes. Human women were terribly masculine, but Mi could not be angry with her companion. The woman went through hell that no modern inhabitant of the Empire should ever experience.
"Breast amputations?! Goddess! What a nightmare!"
Natka quickly turned her head away and focused on the road, apparently ashamed of her manly behavior.
"- It's a pity the Empire didn't send more personnel from your region to the Liberation of Earth, Mi," the human confessed. "- It would probably look completely different."
​
The Municipal Guard's working day was not fundamentally different from a typical militia shift. Mi and Natka caught several juvenile cyclists exceeding the speed limit. Mi'aera shuddered at how firm Natka could be with these cute, roguish boys. The pair also managed to catch one boy painting graffiti on the wall, no anti-government slogans, just some drawings.
"- So Natka, apparently you can help me with accommodation…" Mi started when they were both back in the car.
"- Yeah, sure, listen. I recently took out a mortgage on an apartment in a new district, you know, such an investment for the future. Everything in Shil style, but it's hard to find a good tenant…"
"- Well, my pay isn't that high either," remarked Mi.
"- Oh… I don't want to rob anyone, it's just that people are still quite wary, only men respond to my ad." confessed the human. Mi'aera froze.
"- You don't want to rent a room to a male?" She asked with undisguised surprise. Natka sighed.
"- You know... those guys who want to live in the Shil district... they're usually prostitutes. I don't want someone like that in my house, you understand?"
Mi was confused by the information. But couldn't deny her human friend's logic.
"Natka is so moral," she thought appreciatively.
"- Right, sure."
​
***
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"- I don't even know your name," Gabriel said carefully as he lay beside Ysariah.
The woman turned her gaze on him and stretched, flexing her naked body.
"- Indeed," she said, but seeing some flustration on her lover's face, her hand quickly grabbed gently his cheek. Gabriel wanted to break free but stopped himself. Ysariah moved closer to the male and looked him tenderly in the eyes.
"- This knowledge has a price, Gabriel, are you willing to pay it?"
- I…"
"- You're afraid of me, aren't you?"
"- Yes," he answered honestly. The woman nodded.
"- But do you hate me?"
"I… I don't… I don't know, I don't think so… maybe a little?" The man spoke uncertainly.
"- You may call me Ysah," she said, stroking his cheek. The man bit his lip at her sudden response to his earlier inquiry.
"- It's a diminutive of Ysariah, isn't it?" he said finally. The woman smiled and nodded.
"When he's lying next to me on the bed like an offer, it's easy to forget he's an intelligent, educated person," she thought.
"- Yes, of course, Gabriel." She agreed. The man took a deep breath.
"- So... Ysariah... agent of the Interior? The secret agent?" he asked carefully.
The woman snorted a genuine laugh. Which made the man a bit uneasy.
"... But... you work for the government, right? Right?" he inquired with growing nervousness.
The woman stopped giggling and nodded.
"- Yes"
​
***
​
It's been a few weeks since the Imperial Envoy incident. The woman's family name was slowly disappearing from Imperial databases. The process will take years, but in the end, it will be as if her bloodline never existed. When Palatine destroyed her enemies, she made them disappear as if they had never been there.
Ancient bloodlines don't just vanish without a trace. But if you have enough money and determination, anything is possible.
However, both Palatine and her daughters knew that something like this would not go unnoticed by the throne. The ruler of the moon did not contemplate the possibility of the empress's reaction, she was waiting for it.
It didn't take long for an emissary of the sovereign, a prince of imperial blood, to arrive on the moon's surface. In the Palatinate, male nobles had no formal authority and were not recognized as emissaries. Of course, the capital knew about it, the choice was not accidental, the representative that the empress sent was not only a male but also one of her youngest relatives. The boy was short and frail, no more than eight standard years old. He would have been of legal age in the Palatinate, but not in the capital from which he came. So the empress sent a child to meet her vassal, and there was nothing the Palatine could do about it.
The Child lad strode proudly from his craft to the landing platform, accompanied by a great escort of capital dignitaries, where Palatine and her daughters, as well as local nobles, awaited him.
To all this, the young prince was dressed in a modern fashion, in a golden blouse revealing the navel. At the same time, he was wearing the insignia of a representative of the imperial family.
The custom commanded that Ysariah's mother and her daughters kneel before him, face down.
If he would wish it.
"- Aunt Aivui!" The young prince broke free from his retinue and unceremoniously threw himself on the Palatine's neck.
The moon lord caught him neatly, making the whole situation look completely natural.
Standing nearby with her sisters, Ysariah blinked. She had never in her life heard anyone refer to her mother as Aivui, not even her own partner Mo'othu allowed himself to use her diminutive name.
"- Prince Kri'jha." Palatine Aivuilpar Otharasoth replied warmly, setting the young man back to the ground. "- I'm honored that you remember me, the last time I saw you, you have bearly reaching your mother's waist, and now... by the goddess, you're a beautiful man."
"- Oh Aunt Aivui…" the boy waved his hand. "- stop it, please, otherwise I'm going to turn blue. How could I forget the godmother who gave me my own town on a tropical planet and a private yacht as a gift? I just got back from a party I had there!"
"- Well…I'm glad you like it, prince," Aivuilpar said modestly, to which the boy nodded and slowly began to survey his surroundings.
Ysariah kept her face neutral but remained attentive. Someone who could talk to her mother so casually had to be taken deadly seriously. The prince first greeted the Aivuilpar's firstborn, Ysariah's older sister, and only then focused on her.
"- Oh, isn't that the paragon knight herself?! Lady Ysariah of the house Otharasoth?"
"- My liege," Ysariah said, going down on one knee as her older sister had just done.
"- Oh..." the young prince covered his mouth in excitement. "- I must have watched the video a hundred times, you are so brave," he said, then looked at Aivuilpar "- Auntie! Your daughter is the hero of every gentleman-in-waiting. Anyway… we will discuss it later…"
"- We can discuss whatever you desire, my prince, over dinner," Aivuilpar suggested kindly. Kri'jha smiled.
"- Oh sure, Aunty, I hope, just please… I know the Palatinate is traditional and all that, but do you serve here any meatless courses…?
​
After a banquet in his honor, Kri'jha ordered his servant to fetch a small box. With the object, the young prince sat down in the Palatine's study, in her chair behind her desk, while the woman herself stood in front of him. Aivuilpar did not stand alone, Kri'jha demanded that Ysariah accompany her.
"- I will now convey to you our dear empress's wish," said the boy, who had been still acting like a spoiled urchin a moment ago.
Aivuilpar straightened up and craned her head up. Ysariah watched her mother prepare to take responsibility for her recent actions.
Kri'jha stared at his aunt but as he formed his mouth for words, he turned his gaze towards Ysariah.
"- Knight Ysariah of the house Otharasoth, your bravery has drawn the eyes of our gracious empress. It is her Imperial Majesty's desire, for you to carry her unspoken wishes. Deeds that can't be ordered or asked, not even spoken out loud. You have been called to be her Wishwraith." With that said, Kri'jha stood up and walked over to Ysariah with the box in his hands. The boy stood in front of a much larger woman than himself and opened the container, revealing its contents.
"- The Red Mark," whispered Ysariah's mother, glancing over her daughter's shoulder.
​
discord wiki part 1 part 13 part 15

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A while ago I posted here about having finally written a letter to my dad as a way of making sure he knew exactly how his alcoholism effected/effects my life (I’ll put the original post at the end of this). I wasn’t trying to change anything really, i just thought it would maybe make me feel better to know for sure that he knew how he made me feel. So after talking it over with my therapist I sent the letter as an email and my dad said he needed a bit to think through it. I thought I should mention why happened next to complete the story for you guys and for other people who may be thinking about the same thing.
Anyway, after a few days my dad emailed me back which was good. I wanted to establish a firm boundary and I told him I specifically did not want to talk to him about it over then phone, and I knew that once he got the email his first reaction would be to call. He responded by saying the email I sent was pretty devastating and he talked to his counselor about it. He also told me that he wanted to talk it through but in person. I shouldn’t have bent on that, but I told him I could meet up with him for coffee to talk about it the next time he was in my area (I live like a 10hr drive/1.5 hr flight from him).
He asked my work schedule and then a few hours later he told my he booked a flight for one of my days off. I was pretty pissed at the assumption that I didn’t have plans but I told him we could just meet for coffee if he insisted on coming that day.
So the day of I show up at the coffee place and he said his flights are booked so he could pretty much spend the whole day with me. I told him I couldn’t do that because I had to take my dog to the vet (an excuse I had already come up with). He said he was sorry I felt the way that I put in the letter, and asked what I was hoping to get out of sending it and what I wanted in a relationship with him. I had already told him in the letter that I didn’t know and I don’t know how long it’ll take me to figure out. He asked me a bunch of things that I had already explained in the letter, and I pretty much just ended up repeating it to him, which was exactly what I didn’t want. I was pretty done and trying to wrap up the conversation when he said “I wouldn’t say I was a bad dad though, right? You and your mom and your brother had a good lifestyle and we went on trips sometime.”
At that point I realized he was never even really going to try to see things from my perspective. Sure we were financially well off until I was in middle school and he got fired for being drunk at work and then was hospitalized for months due to pancreatitis which did quite a number on the family finances. Sure he didn’t physically abuse anybody, but he would throw shit at us and yell an inch from our faces. We were still scared of him. I told him I had been scared of him as a child and I still have an instinctive fear response to him when I can tell he isn’t happy, even though he knows better that to raise his voice to me now. If I had kids I think I’d be devastated if they told me they were afraid of me.
Anywho, I was done and started wrapping things up. I just wanted to get out of there. He seemed so chuffed and was like “I’m really glad we talked about this. I hope we can get to the point where we can go on trips together. How long do you think that will take?” “After the vet appointment where do you want to go to dinner?”. I told him I couldn’t eat dinner with him and left.
He’s completely diluted and self centered. That conversation was the last push I needed to cut him out of my life. I’d love to talk to his therapist to see what kind of nonsense he spouts. I still haven’t blocked his #, but I decided to give it a year before completely blocking him just in case he has a miraculous realization. Based on his messages so far, and thinking back to how he tried to steamroll over everything I wanted when we last met up, I’m not regretting my choice.

ORIGINAL POST (including update to original post):
I’ve written a letter and I don’t know if I should send it
My dad has been sober for a long time but his behavior is pretty much the same. I’ve written him a letter about how he make me feel and makes me feel now and I’m in the process of working up the courage to email it to him.
Has anybody ever done something like this? What kind of effect has it had?
EDIT: I sent it and he said he was going to take a while to think about what I said. I’m glad I sent it even if it doesn’t change anything. I just wanted to know for sure that he knew my perspective, so I can hold him 100% accountable for everything.

Previous
If I were to guess, I’d imagine they took Andrew to Boss Harold before anyone else and the rumors around Golgotha seemed to support this supposition; the Bosses enjoyed their personal retribution away from the eyes of citizens, maybe it was talking or maybe more, and although there were whispers of the boy being strung up on the wall or maybe he’d be violated in the stocks for all to see, I imagined that the council I held with Boss Harold might’ve had something to do with that never materializing. When I was allowed to the boy’s cell, it was dark, and his face was bruised and the bandaging I’d applied to his severed wrist had been removed probably for amusement. The room was small and there were no windows and only a single doorway let out into the hallway which contained other cells and further, near the exit, there was the office of wall men. The guard that’d let me in locked the door behind me and Andrew sat on a metallic cot without cushioning, and he stared at the grimy floor through swollen eyes.
“Hello,” he said. And I was taken aback by the comment because he spoke it as quickly as he might passing a person in the street. He'd been through so much that the word was abrupt, skittish. I nodded and moved to him, reaching for his arm where he’d been nearly fatally wounded. It was infected. Without fighting me, he allowed me to tend to it without even a question; I wiped it and applied salve. Once it was cleaned and rewrapped and only after I’d settled on the cot beside him, he spoke again, “I heard stories about the cells, but I never thought they’d smell.”
I withdrew a handful of antibiotics, and he took them without putting them to his mouth. “You should have them,” I said, “You might lose the whole arm if not.”
“I might lose my life.”
“Maybe not,” I offered a grim smile and water with for the pills. “You’re alive still.”
“How much longer though?” He took the medicine and grimaced hard. The boy looked older than he was. “It smells like blood here. I can smell the people that’ve been here before.”
I patted him on the back and removed myself from the cell and he did not call after me, not even to ask for the return of his hand and I hoped that I could stave off whatever tortures the Bosses might have in store for him.
It’d been two days since I’d returned with Dave and Andrew and quickly after our arrival, I’d tried departing from the man and hoped he’d drop whatever revenge he believed I could assist him with, but it was to no avail for he attended everywhere with me since our return to Golgotha. Although he’d not been allowed to enter the cells alongside me, he was waiting for me outside as I stepped through the wall men’s office and into the noonday sun; I deftly plucked a pre-rolled cigarette from my pocket and tried at lighting it but before I’d even gotten the chance, he was there at the stoop of the office, pestering, “We should go somewhere quiet,” he said.
“What do you take me for exactly?” I asked while maintaining eye contact with the flame off a match.
“You’re capable enough. You could be a hero. I’d do it with you. We could scrounge up a handful of people and change things. We really could.” Dave was casting sidelong glances at those that passed us in the dirt street just off the stoop, but nary one seemed to care about our conversation.
“Leave it.”
“I won’t.”
I sighed.
He put a hand on my shoulder, but I shrugged it off.
Felina’s was a structure partially built from ancient shipping containers directly in the heart of the hydroponics towers in the center of town; the chicken shit smell from the base of the towers came with nauseating stagnation and could make a passerby sick, but upon entering Felina’s, the smell subsided and was replaced with the smell of body sweat. The older barwoman stood behind the counter and me and Dave took up on the far corner where we sat around an old card table, using crates as chairs; no one else was there—the smell of the hydro towers probably had some hand in that.
Dave took in close to me so that I could feel the moisture off his breath, “I’ve been talking to a few others over at the towers and they feel the same way I feel—but with you—well without you I don’t think I’d want to do it.”
“No, please go on without me,” I slanted my body across the table to push my face away from Dave’s; with me positioned with my back against the wall, I spied Felina beyond the counter, arms across her chest and watching us with an air of suspicion. She came to our table, slowly with her club foot and upon reaching us, she used our table for mild support with her big hands and greeted us without excitement.
Dave asked for water and her gaze shifted to me and I dismissed her, and we were alone till she limped back over with a pitcher and glass and Dave drank it greedily while Felina watched on from beyond the counter—her eyes suspicious but pretty blue too. She kept the haft from a dismembered axe behind the counter and was known to throttle unruly patrons with it.
Although some might have called Felina’s a bar, it was just short of it because of the rarity of spirits—besides, it was the upstairs brothel portion that the establishment owed to its popularity. Anyone might brave the smell from the street for companionship and if the noises from the rusted overhead support beams were anything to measure, the clientele was content indeed. A man descended from the stairs by the bar, gave a brief nod to Felina then to us and disappeared through the front door; a waft of the outside air rushed in, and Dave scrunched his nose.
“It’s a funny thing, I’ve passed by here all the time, but I don’t think I’ve been inside since before—” he paused, “Well, since before anyway.” He took a drink of water and rubbed his palms against his cheeks. “I know someone that works underground and could get us some gunpowder.”
I merely laughed at this. “Gunpowder, huh?”
“Well sure. The Bosses have reserves in the basements. We could blow them sky high.”
“More likely that you’d blow your hands off.”
“What’s it going to take to convince you?”
I thought, “Could you promise no one would die?”
Dave seemed baffled at the question. “Who cares?”
“These things hardly ever happen quietly—or without collateral. How’s this? Could you promise that no innocents get caught in stray fire?”
“Yes.”
“Then you are as ill prepared as I’d imagined.”
“What’s that mean?”
“The meek are intended to inherit, but many will die before all that.”
“What?”
“Nothing. I wish you’d leave it be.”
Another patron stumbled down the stairs, a scrawny tall man with a thin beard came charging into the chamber without clothes and a voice followed him, crying loudly, “Sonofabitch tried choking me!” A pair of arms and legs came stumbling down after—the source of the cries. There was a topless woman, a belt secured around one of her wrists and a pink mark around her throat. The naked man protested and put up his hands as the woman swung the arm with the belt and whipped at him with it, striking across the forearm he’d shielded himself with.
Felina moved carefully from around the counter, raised the haft, then brought it down across the man’s back. He stumbled to his knees, pleading. The barwoman raised the weapon once more and the sound was like wood against wood as it met the man’s head and his body was taken to the ground completely, perhaps dead, perhaps unconscious. The two women lifted the man out the door and Felina spat through the opening. Outside wind came again and Dave scrunched his nose once more before the door shut. The topless woman removed the belt from around her wrist, tossed it to the floor, then secured an arm across her chest before hurrying upstairs.
“So, gunpowder?” I asked Dave.
He nodded and took another drink of water while eyeing Felina as she took herself back to the counter and stowed the makeshift club into whatever place she kept it. “Yeah.”
“Go for it then and leave me out of it.” I fiddled with my thumbs across the table. “I’ll even make you a deal for when you come running to me for help later. If you blow your fingers off, I’ll try and help you find them. How’s about that?”
“I’ll wear you down.”
Another gust of wind came from the far door and I half expected to see the man that’d been removed there in the doorway, standing on his feet and ready for another round of punishment, but there was no one there in the hollow spot; as my gaze drifted from person-face level, I saw a medium sized mutt there in gray fur, pushing the door in with its nose and then sliding the rest of its starved body through—each of its yellowy sad eyes peered in and I could not tell the breed but Dave lifted himself from his seat and Felina went to the dog too.
“No dogs,” stated the woman.
Dave, the indomitable sweetheart that he was knelt to the dog’s face and touched its snout; it licked his hand and Dave said to Felina, “He’s not mine, but have you got some water for him?”
“No dogs inside. I don’t like repeating it.”
“Fair enough,” said Dave, “I don’t know who he—” he froze and then examined the rear of the dog before petting the dog on the head, “She belongs to, but I’ll take her outside. Just. Please some water, won’t you?”
The barwoman first drummed her fingers against her leg then went to the counter and I noticed Dave flinch as she reached under there, but she came back with a bowl and he took it and ushered the dog out; as he exited, he called to me, and I sighed and moved with him.
Remaining in the street was the man that’d been tossed out, face up, half-opened eyes, and flies buzzed about, and I touched him with my foot, but he didn’t move. Blood leaked from his ears. “Dead,” I said.
Dave took the dog from the body around to the side of the building and the feces smell was strong with the hydro towers, but he sat the water down and the dog went at it quickly, without restraint and spilt half before the man went to steady it with his hand; he knelt by the dog and pushed a shoulder against the wall of the brothel.
“There you go,” I told him, “You’ve found someone dumb enough and maybe loyal enough to follow through with your little gunpowder plan. Strap a handful of dynamite to him and watch him go boom in the Boss’s faces.” I genuinely did try it as a joke.
“You can be very mean,” said Dave.
Once the bowl was dry besides dog spit, he returned it to Felina, reentering briefly, and it was just me and the dog and the dog looked up at me and I turned away while its voice whined in the back of its throat and I took a piece of hardtack from my pocket and tossed it on the ground—the dog went after it, assuredly snapping up dirt in the process. Then the creature made a dry and throaty sound from swallowing too quickly, but moments after the thick cracker was gone. It licked my hand gently, and I scratched its chin and Dave returned and upon seeing me with the dog, he gave me a look and then brought himself to the height of the dog in a hunker.
“Hey there,” he said to it, “Someone’s beat you up pretty bad, huh?” It was true; scars stood out in places where the dog had no fur.
In response, the weathered mutt hoisted its forepaws onto his knees and pushed its nose into his.
“Yeah, girl,” he took one of the dog’s ears between his forefinger and thumb and rubbed it gently and the animal looked up, sad eyed, “What’s a good name for you?”
“Dog-meat?” I proposed.
Dave shook his head. “What sort of sick joke is that?” but he was smiling, “No. I’ll come up with something to call her. Isn’t that right?” He asked the dog, massaging the face of the animal with his thumbs; the dog stared dumbly at him. “Maybe a Beth or a Patty might suit you. How do you like them?”
The dog licked his face but couldn’t speak.
“Well,” I said, “It’s a shame it got you, you’ll pick a person name for it and that’s strange. Why not call her Mary if you want a person name?”
“Bah,” said Dave, rising to a full stand; momentarily, even with the other folks passing us in the street, he took a moment to see the dead man we’d passed on our way out of Felina’s and for a moment he remained quiet. “I’ll come to you again Harlan. Maybe when I’ve got more of a plan. I only hope you’ll listen to the stuff I’ve said about it. I really do. I really hope you’ll be on the right side of this thing.”
“Sides are overrated.”
Dave put a hand on my shoulder, “Of course,” he nodded, “Whatever you say.”
He left with his new friend—the dog following him traced from left to right close behind Dave and I watched him take off and around the nearest hydro tower and I was alone on the street and evening wouldn’t be far away, so I took to home while staring at my moving feet and speaking to no one. A few people along the way tried nodding at me or saying a small greeting here or there, but I was absorbed in my own head, and nothing took me from it once I got going. Maybe that was one of the reasons I enjoyed the wastes; there were no pretenses out there and with the constant thought of death there was no other thing to think about than each passing moment. I could not shut my thoughts up. I could ramble more about the motivations of a scavver, but I don’t think I should—leave that for someone that cares.
Upon taking the catwalks where I could look out on a swatch of Golgotha with the sun beating down and the constant hum of people going about their business, I was frozen on the railing and wishing I’d taken my own life and wishing that Dave had not found me out there; maybe if I was faster or smarter or better in whatever way that mattered.
I pushed into the door into my small abode and cool blood pushed through my body on seeing the robed girl there on my mattress, holding a shotgun with its barrel angled directly at me; she donned a flowy mess of dresses and kept her head wrapped in garb so that only her eyes shone through, but her arms stuck from the mess of cloth and I could see they were skinny with long scab marks like a blade had drawn across the flesh.
“Harlan?” asked the girl.
“Is that mine?” I nodded at the pump-shotgun in her hands. The slowness of the world was gone, and I could think again; if things were different, I’d have been a dead man, but it was unloaded, and I knew it.
“It was hanging on the wall—I don’t know how to use the thing anyway. I don’t know what I was doing with it,” she said, “You just scared me, and I didn’t know who you might’ve been.”
“This is my place.”
She laid the shotgun on the bed and unwrapped her face; it was Gemma, “You were with Andrew.”
“I was.”
“You said he was dead.”
I brought in air slowly through my nose. “I did.”
“You lied.”
I nodded, letting the air come out.
“Why?”
“I needed to find you.”
“But you found us both then, I guess.”
“Not on purpose.” A thought occurred to me, “Does you father know where you are right now?”
She shook her head; although rest had done her good, there was still a fair amount of fatigue present on her. “I snuck out.”
“Would’a though you learned your lesson on that front.”
“Is Andrew okay? No one will tell me anything about it.”
“He’s locked up right now, but he is alive. For how long? I don’t know. I figured your pop paid a visit to him already—wouldn’t you know about that?”
She shook her head again. “Woo,” Gemma slumped onto the side of my mattress and gathered the robes around her, “I’m feeling faint.”
I moved to the bed and gathered the shotgun, putting it back on the hooks in the wall. “You shouldn’t break into people’s homes.”
Cupping her brow in a hand so that I could only see her mouth and the bottom of her nose, she said, “I just needed to know he was alive. These past days I’ve been so worried about him. I knew you told me he was dead, but I knew you were a liar too. So, I had bad thoughts about what might’ve happened to him out there. If what happened to me was anything to go off.” Her voice broke for a moment and then she pulled her hand from her face and blinked a few sudden times. “I just.”
“I get it. You love the boy.”
She nodded without looking at me.
“So, beg your dad to let him go.”
“Everyone’s so mad at him. It’s funny that everyone’s so mad at him, but it was my idea, and they all treat me like a darling little flower. Like I couldn’t have been the one with the idea of running away. I had more reason to run than he ever did.”
“You should leave.”
“I don’t want to. Can’t you see that’s what I’ve been saying? Judge all you like. Call me rich all you like, but I can tell you this: I don’t feel like it.” Gemma grabbed the edge of the bed as her head wavered on her shoulders. “Dizzy spells are awful.” She shook her head. “Like no sickness ever.” Her eyes locked on mine. “Help me.”
“I’ve already tried convincing them not to kill him.” Taking a pause, I thought to add, “And I personally saw to his injuries. Please go and leave me be.”
“Oh, but you’ve asked for it,” she said, “You put yourself in the business of it.”
“Look. All’s I wanted was to save you if I could and get the water running again. That’s it. Now go.” I put my arm up to wave her out the door and she stood to make her way there, catching herself on the frame, then out on the catwalk railing before turning and looking at me over her shoulder.
“Bastard.” she said.
“Yes.” The door shut between us, and I took myself to sitting on the bed’s edge and reminiscing over how Dave reminded me so much of Jackson. Jackson was a real tough one; whatever happened he always kept a cool head (so I reckon him and Dave would be different in that way) and the idea of being a hero was so big for him. It’s a curious thought: whether Dave would have such ideas if hadn’t been for the tragic loss of his family.
The shotgun sat on there on the wall, and I took it and looked over it, putting the stock in my left hand then my right and laid it across my legs; the woven strap on it had gone thin so that the place I’d once worn it over my shoulder was mostly threadbare. I moved to the cabinet by the sink where I kept a few essentials and in the very back there was an old box of shells—it was a surprise they still seemed good, but with old ammo you never could tell, and the shells were just as likely to fire true as they might be to never send pellets from the barrel. I took a knife and began whittling into a shell I’d plucked from the box. Pellets spilled between my feet as I sat on the bed and they rolled across the floor and then I found the gunpowder and rose again, sprinkling it onto the cabinet top into a neat pile. Dave said he had a fella’ he knew that worked in the underground—the sort of person that could get him all the gunpowder he needed. Was he familiar with its destructive force; had he ever fired a gun? He promised me no one innocent would die and I knew that was a lie and there’s surely a piece of him that knew it was a lie just as well.
It was just then as I took a forefinger and thumb and pinched up a bit from the gunpowder splat that I remembered a thing that Jackson told me all the time when he thought none of the others were listening. The gunpowder rained from my fingertips as I rubbed them together and I sniffed the place where they’d become sooty, taking in a smell I’d not smelled in a long time. Jackson would say, “Whoever fights monsters should be sure that he don’t become a monster.” It wouldn’t be for a long time—after I’d visited the libraries in Alexandria or Babylon (take your preference)—till I realized it was a quote that Jackson stole from some guy named Neet-chee. It seemed like a good thing to adhere to, and it was certainly something I wasn’t good at keeping with and if I couldn’t then there was little certainty that Dave would keep to it either. Maybe I had become a monster; morally dubious anyway.
Jackson was a hero, and he was dead as was Sibylle as was Billy as was John and all of them. We’d tried heroing and it got all of us dead. Almost all of us.
I hung the shotgun on the wall and left it there and swept the gunpowder into the floor with a flat palm where the pellets were and chucked the box of old shells into the cabinet again.
Ringing of bells came from the hall of the Bosses and it was time for a display. Denizens gathered in the front square by the gates and awaited while they trotted out Andrew; perhaps the words I’d passed to Boss Harold rang hollow after all. The Bosses were there just as always, drinking their wine on the platform, and Maron was out front with his wall men in the semicircle of gathered Golgotha residents. Of the population, only a hundred or two gathered for this poor boy’s execution. The guards had, at some point after my departure, removed the bandage on his empty wrist and he looked more sickly in the face than before and his cheeks were swollen and he wept, seemingly not from the terror of it but from the skin around his eyes having been so damaged; tears came through swelled eyelids and a wall man kept him by the elbow and Maron marched to the boy and lifted the boy’s face with his hand to look into it and maybe he whispered something to him.
I weaved through the crowd, moving to the steps that led to the stage where the Bosses stood with their foods and wines and their plenty and upon approach, I was stopped by a wall men, but upon catching Boss Harold’s eye, he told the guard to let me through and I took the stairs and from the platform, I could see over the crowd—Dave was far in the rear of those gathered, totally disconnected from the others for he hunkered by a set of crates, patting the head of the dog we’d found just earlier in the day. For a moment, I wished I was there with him and not on the stage at all.
“Dear boy!” Boss Harold shouted at me over the excited jeers of the others, “It’s so good to see you again. You are quite the hero, and it’s always good to be in the company of those.”
I nodded at him and within a flash, he’d slammed his cup of wine into my hand, telling me to drink, and only moments passed before his own cup was replaced by a nearby servant. “We spoke about this?” I tried.
His face was red, and I could just make out the miniscule veins vibrant along the corners of his nose; the man was far gone drunk. “That boy’s been a thorn in my side for too long, so I know you understand it when I say that he needs punishment. I took all that you said into account,” his words slurred, and the sweet sick came off him in a breath of hot air when he pulled me in, resting his ear on my shoulder. “Nobody dies today, but ‘spare the rod and spoil the child’,” the Boss paused. “You’re not a father yourself, are you?”
I shook my head.
“Ah! Then you might not be familiar with that proverb required in bringing a child up in this world.” Boss Harold laughed. “I’d never take my sweet Gemma out in the square like this, but God there’s been times I’ve wanted it. ‘Spare the rod’.” He repeated. “But we’ve something a fair bit more interesting than a rod for that boy.” Boss Harold swayed on his feet and took the fist containing his cup of wine, pointing with his index finger at the open place by the wall where Maron and Andrew and the wall men were. “Speaking of!” Boss Harold was giddy, and he took a magnificent gulp from his cup, throwing his head far back. “You’re a learned man, yes?”
“What?”
“You know how to read? Maron said something about your reading. That’s a rare quality! I’d love to talk about books with you sometime. I’ve my own personal collection.”
The wall men stripped Andrew of his clothes then threw them to the ground and a gasp escaped the audience and the boy shouted and Maron moved to a nearby bucket and reached into the mouth of the container, coming back to a full stand; a whip was coiled around his arm. The Bosses didn’t even look on. The punishment was for the benefit of Boss Harold, and not even he looked on. He jabbered on about how he’d like to speak with me over an old philosophy called Objectivism then he went on about how he’d learned long ago the greatest achievement of man was his own happiness and I listened to the drunk man and when the whip broke skin the first time, I’m sure Andrew felt every bit.
Blood exploded in violent dew off his back and the crack of the whip struck the boy till he couldn’t stand and then several times more. Splatter reached onlookers each time Maron lifted the whip over his head, and it was only once the boy stopped moving that the Boss Sheriff swaggered over to inspect him; Andrew had fallen face down and Maron took his boot to the boy’s side so that the boy rolled onto his back and seconds passed without movement and even Boss Harold quit with his talking. The prone body just lay there and for a moment Andrew looked like the body I’d seen earlier out front of Felina’s. Then the boy spasmed and gasped air and Maron shouted about how he was still alive before giving the toe of his boot to Andrew’s ribs.
“What a show,” said the Bosses—what a show indeed.
The crowd dispersed in clumps, taking back to their jobs or leisure and I left the platform only after agreeing that Objectivism sounded good and Boss Harold laughed and stumbled in pivoting to take on in conversation with the other Bosses and I briefly imagined giving him a nudge, so he’d fall off the stage, but refrained from doing so.
When I met the boy lying in the dirt there, there was me and Dave moved in too and Maron had taken to his station where there was a table by sandbags, and he was engrossed in a game of solitaire; it seemed the man was totally unfazed by the justice he’d dealt. There was a time when that body could’ve been a hero and yet there he was, poisoned.
I called out to the Boss Sheriff, “Ain’t you going to put him back to his cell?”
Without even looking over, Maron swept his mustache with his fingers and waved me off, “Harold was real clear on letting the boy out of custody once it was done.” He lifted his cowboy hat and scratched his head while looking at the cards on the table then he laughed. “He’s a free man. I’ve heard that was your meddlin’ that did it.”
I moved to the boy and snatched up the clothes they ripped from him and Dave, not saying a word with his new mutt by his side, helped me to return some dignity to the boy.
We took him to my small apartment and washed him and tended over him while he lay in my bed.
Gemma came soon after Andrew had been draped in a sheet—she was there in disguise as she’d been earlier and upon me opening the doorway, she began to ask me if the boy was with me. I merely stepped aside, and she rushed to Andrew’s side; if he was aware of her presence, there was no way to tell.
“They killed him.” She’d taken to her knees to be nearer his level. “Oh. Oh, he’s dead.” She touched him and he shivered at the touch. Gemma removed the wrappings of cloth around her head and looked at her sweetie closer and she put a hand to her mouth. “They took his hand!”
“No,” said Dave, “He’s going to live.” The man looked to me and I shrugged. “Yeah,” his voice didn’t sound sure, “He’ll live.”
I moved to the catwalk and Dave came with me, the dog following behind him—the timid mutt looked over the edge of the catwalk to the city below then stepped away and returned to my room. When Dave took up beside me, leaning over the railing, and the sun hit his face just so, he looked exactly like Jackson and maybe that was why when he raised eyebrows then cut his eyes at me with a question—the question was everything and I finally nodded.
Previous
RoyalRoad
Neovel

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We were together for four years, we spent almost 20 hours a day together during that time. We were traveling during covid, and lived in a cabin when not traveling.
We had small problems, which I thought could be easily fixed. The problem is I didn't begin work to fix them until after she left. We were on and off no contact for the first month. After I realised she was serious, I went no contact. Flew overseas to get drunk on a beach for a week. After a few days, I came home intent to become the person she deserved.
I spent the month working on myself. I got fit, I got extremely fit, the first time I've had a sixpack in my life. I reflected on what went wrong with out relationship, I wrote a list of items I needed to apologise for, as well as items to say thank you for.
After 73 days since breakup, 50 days no contact, I was traveling to her town for an event, so in the evening I messaged to ask if she would like to meet up, she did not, however she seemed happy to talk on the phone. She was more than happy to hear my appologies, as a way to let her know that a lot of problems I previously ignored, I had now accepted, addressed and apologised for. We talked for about an hour, I went point by point, through my poor behaviour. I was glad to get it off my chest, I think she was glad to hear it.
I told her I would be going for a run along the beach for sunrise the next morning if she wanted to join me. To my surprise, she invited me to come surfing with her.
So at 5am the next morning, I went running along the beach until she arrived, when we crossed paths on the beach, we didn't even say hello. We just went straight into the surf, swiming, talking and surfing. While in the surf, she asked me for a hug, commenting that I am 'shredded' and have a new tattoo.
After surfing, we sat on the beach, for a bit before she suggested we go for coffee. We had breakfast together and talked for a few hours, she commented it was as if we were traveling again. We were both obviously loving being back together. She agreed to my invite to meet me at the beach in the evening, for fire twirling.
During our time together that morning, we even held hands briefly, she put hers on the table and was talking about intemacy, so I held it, she didn't remove it, or flinch, I held it and corressed her for a minute.
When we left, she held onto the hug, I was the one to break it. I said 'see you tonight'
Within a few hours, she'd messaged. Today was hard on her, so we wouldn't meet tonight, and my number would be blocked. We tried, we failed and she wouldn't go backwards.
A few hours after this, she tried to call twice, however I was in a meeting so couldn't answer. She sent a text, saying we shouldn't have met, as her heart is broken all over.
In the evening, I didn't bother going to the beach, or even ask if she still wanted to go. I went back to my city.
I sent her a message, saying we need more time apart, a month. I told her that it was obvious we were both deeply in love with each other, to the point I can invisage our future family. I let her know I had already left, so wouldn't go to the beach. I told her I loved her, and now I'm back in no contact.
I suspect our meeting coincided with the dumpers timeline of nostalgia. Along with her seeing me looking so happy, healthy and fit. I think she expected to come and confirm her decision. However the reality was that we were still heavily attracted to each other.
In the evening, after the long drive home, I had the realisation, that the script feels it has flipped. Almost as if I broke up with her today, she is now at home upset, I am not to bothered as I had a greate weekend, and enjoyed seeing her.
We arn't back together, I still don't know if we ever will. However the levels of respect between us changed.
We broke up because she lost respect for me. I think the respect is back, the love is there. However she is the most stubborn human I've ever met, when it comes to her following through with a decision.
Take from this what you will.

​
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Throwaway.
I (29F) recently had a friend (37M) found an abandoned kitten he took it to a vet and it wasnt microchipped or anything and while his kids loved the kitten him and his wife decided not to keep it and offered it to me knowing I looking at getting a cat soon. I said yes. I was travelling the following week and they live about 5 hours from me so I asked if they'd be okay holding onto the kitten for 2 weeks and they were happy to do so and he would actually be in town for work the week after I got back so would bring the kitten then. When he brought the cat over it was bittersweet goodbye for him and he mentioned how he's kids were sad saying goodbye.
The next day I got messages from him asking how the kitten, that I've now named Jiji, was going. We did some back and forth texting and he kept going on about how sad they all felt and my gut just felt off but I just ignored it. Finally, he says it outright, asks if he can have Jiji back, I said no. He asks again asking if I'm sure, yet again I say I'm sure. Then not long after maybe 30 minutes he calls and says he's coming over to get Jiji. We did some back and forth and throughout all of this I felt like shit as he called me selfish saying they had the cat for 3 weeks and I had him for one night and that his relationship was now on the rocks if he doesn't get this cat back and that he'd even help me find a new cat and pay for all the items I bought (and let me keep them). I keep saying no and say if he comes I won't be there. I ended up taking Jiji and going to a friends place as I didn't want to be there if he did just turn up at my door.
After all of this I feel like crap and guilty because while I feel like it was wrong for him to ask for JiJi back he offered a lot in return to get him back and I don't want his wife and kids to be miserable over something they also love and I'm wondering whether it is fair to not give a pet back they had longer than me even if it still is only a few weeks.
So AITA for not giving Jiji back?

https://au.news.yahoo.com/voices-andrew-tate-vs-bbc-122222377.html
The mind boggles.
An article from a BBC journalist reviewing another interviewer on her Andrew Tate interview.
Now how about another journalist reviewing this piece by EMiLy MaTIs ... no.. alright then, here is my review
It was a contrived, self centered article, on the continuing hit pieces against Andrew Tate to encourage the public opinion that Andrew has done evil, is encouraging young men to rape and demean women, despite hours of video evidence contrary to this ongoing media assassination of Andrews reputation.
The BBC intervie was terrible. A rude, out of her depth, mind made up feminist who clearly has not done her full homework on the mindset that Andrew has and the message of good he puts out to the troubled young men and women of the world on how to change your mindset to be successful and at peace with your self.
Other views the same, totally against Emilys opinion that the interview was a success.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wN9h2DFhb8o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFTNiXPYusk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2SiItdwhJM
Another channel trying to educate women on the male mind and expectations of good behaviour for a stable and successful future, with happy well balance children, as much as that is possible.
https://www.youtube.com/@whatever2ND
The irony of these dumb "news media" outlets is they spread the very message they are whining about by whining about it on national television and news media.
I would never have heard of Andrew but for the dumb news media.

​
https://preview.redd.it/xbbmvwk05y2b1.jpg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=116c1a4c80219604524cc4a321c8086cdb93a5a7
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Just returned from a 2.5 week trip in Japan.
I started in Tokyo, before flying to Kagoshima and making my way back through Kyushu. I was by myself, making friends along the way.

TOKYO (Kuramae)

Tokyo was exciting and overwhelming. I really enjoyed staying in Kuramae on the east side. It was really peaceful at night along the Sumida river.
The first night I got in, being totally delirious from sleep deprivation, I ran around Asakusa in the dark. With the day trippers gone, I had Senso-Ji almost to myself.
I stayed in a hotel/hostel with a popular, upscale locals bar and cafe on the first floor, which led to a lot of commingling between travelers and locals. (named Nui). Fantastic idea.
I found a few tiny music venues in the neighborhood which were exclusively filled with locals. Me and some new travel buddies I met were welcomed as tourists, and it led to fun interactions with the bands and random Japanese.

• Asaka’s Gold Sounds
• Pure’s Sound Market

Ueno and the area around the national museum definitely deserve a visit, as does Asakusa obviously. But it’ll be busy. Save for a quick trip, I stayed out of Shibuya/ Harajuku which I didn’t enjoy.
The most interesting day trip was to Fukushima area. I used a legit tour outfit (Real Fukushima) run by the community and was able to go into the exclusion zone area, and make visits to areas that were devastated by the tsunami. We stopped by one of the few combined community centerestaurant/market centers that had reopened since the disaster. It had such a hopeful feel to it after hearing about the problems getting folks to return to the area.Was a great experience overall.
The food in Tokyo was incredible in general and the 24 hour conbinis and ubiquitous vending machines were awesome for drinks and late night snacks.
Out of all the izakayas I went to, only one server was annoyed to deal with English speakers. The rest were friendly and inviting. Always useful to know a handful of Japanese and get your phone translation ready so you don’t burden them.
By far the highlight of my time in Tokyo was being able to attend the Kanda Matsuri festival around Akihibara. I’ve never experienced anything like it. The mix of ancient and modern, with the mobile shrines being paraded while chanting in front of Akihibara’s high tech backdrop was wild.
If you get a chance to attend a local traditional festival — any festival — do it.

KAGOSHIMA

Kagoshima was a cute little city. You won’t need a lot of time in the city itself. The Sengan-en garden was beautiful, as was the ferry and bus around the Sakurajima volcano. I did both in a day.
I stayed in a really cute guesthouse called Hostel Tomal. It was a group of private Japanese style rooms in an old building that had been rescued by a sort of art collective group. The owner was very nice and helpful and spoke English.
At night, it’s a quick walk up to the observation point which has a great view of the city lights. (If using Google maps, keep going through the parking lot when you reach the top). This is really popular during the day for the view of the volcano over the bay.
The entire city was surprisingly calm and quiet at night, especially outside the entertainment district. There were very few western tourists walking around, but I did meet a few.
Food highlights: - western cafe called “CAFESHOP”. Delicious sausage omelette and croissant after eating Japanese style breakfasts for a week. - little curry place called “Friend and Bird”, nice old man running the shop.
If you are into table top games or just want a fun bar to drink and hangout mostly with locals, there is a place called “NEWGAME BAR” with a flat fee.

ASO

I made an overnight stop at Mt. Aso, which was a quick express train from Kumamoto. It’s definitely worth a visit, especially if you are spending a lot of time in the cities. It was incredibly peaceful, I just biked around all evening.
The guesthouse I stayed in was lovely. It was run by a Japanese guy who had worked in California for a time, so he had all this American memorabilia and a big flag flying which I thought was cute.
There is also a great “red beef” restaurant there called “あか牛丼専門店 ごとう屋阿蘇店”.

FUKUOKA

Fukuoka was probably my favorite place, and I stayed for 4 nights.
I was in Hakata, at Webase. It’s sort of a cross between an upscale hostel and a hotel. My private room was equivalent to a business hotel, but had the benefit of a shared kitchen, common space and rooftop patio.
Walking around Hakata, Nakasu, Tenjin at night was beautiful and a lively experience. Similar to Tokyo in that way, but more relaxed.
I ended up at a local music festival out at Uminonakamichi Seaside Park over the weekend. I was one of very few western tourists at the show, and this led to meeting some locals which gave me a ride back and took me to dinner. We went to a local izakaya that looked like an abandoned building on the outside (intentionally) and had a secret doorway. They called it the “ninja house” which was just a joke I think. (The place was called “Chinpunkampun Haruyoshiten”). They did get a chuckle out of making me try to find the hidden door. This experience was easily the highlight of my entire trip. Google voice translate works very well and really makes these experiences possible.
I also took a day trip up to Kitakyushu to see the Sarakurayama Observatory via cable car. It’s a quick trip and definitely worth the detour. Nanzoin was also beautiful to see, but I think I had more fun just stopping at random train stations out that way and walking around.
Food highlights: - really cool Izakaya called “Takenoya Kawabata” - modern Yakiniku place with great beef that will serve a single person called “Yakinikutokasudon Tatsunosu Nakasukadomis”

HIROSHIMA

I only had a short time in Hiroshima, and did the typical route of the Atomic bomb dome/museum and Miyajima/Mt. Misen.
The Atomic bomb museum and surrounding area was a very somber and emotional affair, but important to see.
Miyajima and Mt. Misen were as spectacular as everyone says, but be prepared for lots of crowds. I think I most enjoyed the ferry ride over the most. Absolutely beautiful.
One major food highlight to point out:
“Hakushima Brunch”. The most adorable cafe you’ll find in Japan. Run by a lovely older couple who opened it when they retired. They were so happy to see tourists and interact. The French toast was fantastic and very cheap, and they gave me free home made matcha.

YOKOHAMA

When I got back to Tokyo, I headed to Yokohama the night before I flew out. I didn’t have much time to see everything, but the harbor around the Gundam factory was absolutely stunning at night. Train ride was worth it just for the view.
After two weeks of almost exclusively eating Japanese food, I found an American style BBQ joint (including wagyu brisket!) there which was fantastic. In fact, some of the best BBQ I’ve ever had period. Place is called Midtown BBQ Yokohama.
Overall, I had a wonderful trip. Be polite, greet people in Japanese, don’t fear the trains, get off the beaten path when you can, and get ready to walk like you’ve never walked before.

I’ve been with my boyfriend for 8 years. It was on and off in between but I always believed, very strongly that we are endgame. There were lots of infidelity issues from his side, followed by trust issues that I developed, followed by more cheating. In the last couple of years it felt like he has matured a lot, and I was in therapy to help heal what was broken so we could have a chance at a happy life together.
A couple of months ago, my boyfriend revealed to me that he has been seeing some astrologer who’s been a great help, apparently a lot of big shots from our town go to this guy. I was feeling very low at that time due to other issues in my life and told him I’d like to see him too.
When we first walked in, the astrologer looked alright, he asked me some basic questions and basically told me someone has done black magic on me so I don’t progress in life. He told me I need to do this ritual with betel leaves, put oil on them and rub them on my navel. It was a little weird but I was like Ok let’s give it a try I guess? I know how dumb it sounds but I was in a horrible state mentally. He asked us to visit him the next day with the betel leaves and he’ll also keep a tabeez prepared for me.
We go in the next day, after some small talk he asks my boyfriend to leave the room, he again starts explaining to me how I will have to rub the leaves on my belly and but this time he adds how I need to rub it on my vagina, he really emphasises on how I must rub it really well. This alone made me so uncomfortable I think I travelled to a different dimension for a bit. He then asks me to lift my top I do so, and he straight up puts his finger on my navel and does it once more within like a minute’s time. I visibly look shaken and he asks me to call my boyfriend back in. I pay him for the tabeez and leave.
Upon reaching home I threw away the tabeez and the leaves etc, but decided not to tell my bf anything because he really believes this guy and thinks the fact that he is clearing his exams after a couple of failed attempts is because of the astrologer. I think to myself that if I tell him something now and then his exams don’t go well, he will think it is because the astrologer did something and he might resent me for it. After clearing all his exams, about a week ago I sat him down and told him what happened.
His reaction was.. nothing basically. He sat there in silence, not even a “are you okay?” Or “why didn’t you tell me before?”, he gave me nothing. I broke down a few hours later and went like please say something at least? Like do you not care? Again, nothing. He didn’t take off his tabeez and from what I understood, he will continue seeing this guy and probably doesn’t think there is anything wrong with what he did. I don’t know why, how, finally after all these years.. I have lost all feelings for him. I look at him and feel nothing. It hit me that he is not on my team, never was, never will be.

I'm currently out of town, two and a half, three-ish hours away from my parents (I don't live with them, I'm married and live on my own, but our houses are only ten minutes away from each other).
The first person who called me was Dad. He was crying so hard I couldn't understand him. He was growling/screaming through his tears. He asked me to relay a message to my mom, because she wasn't picking up his calls (before anyone mentions it, yes, I know it was not fair of him at all to do that. that is not what I'm venting about here).
My mom might as well have told me she decided to take up crocheting for all the lack of emotion in her voice. That is how I know it is happening. She is done.
I'm two glasses of wine deep. Though I've been expecting this more or less, I don't know what to do. I know that it's not my marriage, and there is nothing that I can do, but I'm not prepared for the emotional labor I'm about to endure. My dad grew up in an enmeshed family, an only child, and both of his parents have passed away. He feels that he has absolutely no one to talk to... except me. He treats me like I'm his therapist. As much as I love him, I hate him for this. I am so mad at him right now.
How long does it take to get used to it? How do I stay out of it? How do I cope with it when my parent brings home a new S.O. and I'm obligated to feel happy, when I just want shit to go back to normal?

The Blackwood Forest has always been a source of legend in our town. Not for anything good, though. Everyone here fears it. They always remind newcomers to “Never go into Blackwood Forest.” Nobody who enters it ever comes back. At least, that was how things used to be.
​
One of the most famous incidents surrounding the forest occurred around 1989. A family of 6, the Franks, moved into a house not far from the forest. It had an expansive backyard, stretching up until the edge of the dense clusters of trees that make up the boundary of Blackwood Forest. One evening, they decided to eat dinner in their new backyard. They weren’t going into the forest, just the fire pit about halfway between their house and the trees. Another family of 3, the Andersons, joined them. At around 8:30, screaming was heard by nearby neighbors. The police were called. When they arrived, they found that the benches, tables, and chairs were soaked in blood. The grass was smeared with it in a path leading into the forest. There was no sign of either of the families. The police confirmed the blood of 9 individuals was present at the scene. Enough blood was lost to assume the deaths of all 9 individuals.
​
After that day, a massive fence was built around the forest, to keep us out, or keep other things in. The fence is 11 feet tall and designed to be impossible to climb over, with almost no footholds. A gate is kept locked tight, located at the end of a worn path leading out of the side of town. Nobody goes in, and nothing gets out. Not that anyone knows what took the Franks or Robinsons. Except, of course, for me. I’ve seen what lies beyond the gates of Blackwood Forest. I’ve seen the beasts that took those families, all those years ago.
​
The fence wasn’t really necessary to be perfectly honest. There aren’t really any trails to hike through the forest, and we don’t have many issues with kids doing stupid things like trying to sneak in for “fame.” Even if we did, the fence keeps them out. Therefore nobody has any reason to go into the forest. Everyone is too afraid.
​
But, although I listened to what everyone always said; “Never go into Blackwood Forest,” I was curious. My morning run took me past the fence and gate, and I would sometimes glance in to see what was in there. I thought it looked like a normal, albeit dark, forest. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was very off. There weren’t many animals, like birds or squirrels, and you couldn’t hear the ones that were there very well. It was oddly quiet. At night, no crickets would be heard. No fireflies during the summer. It was oddly devoid of animal life for a dense forest with so many places for a small critter to live or a bird to make a nest. However besides that, it really didn’t seem that dangerous.
​
A few weeks ago, my curiosity got the best of me. I decided to see if there were any openings that I could slip into. Sure enough, on the very far side of the fence, opposite the side with the town, I found a small gap I could squeeze into. I decided that the next morning, I would grab my phone and camera and explore some of the forest close to the fence. I was excited to see what lay within, and wondered about what sort of stuff I might find. After all, nobody ever went in there.
​
The next day came, and after eating breakfast, I jogged to the small opening I’d found the previous day. I had a backpack with some water and food, as well as the camera and phone. I pushed my backpack through first, and then squeezed through the opening.
​
The first thing I noticed upon entering was how dark it was. The trees blocked out much of the sunlight. It was hard to see very much. Thankfully, I could use both my phone’s flashlight and the one attached to my camera. As I walked, the quiet of the forest around me felt eerie. There should have been the sounds of animals beginning to wake up and start their day, but instead there was silence. Every sound I made, like stepping on a tree, quickly was dampened out, as if swallowed whole by the trees.
​
After a few minutes of walking and taking pictures, I came upon a worn path. I was confused, since there was no reason for any path to have been here because nobody had ever lived in the forest. I took another photo, and decided to follow the path. After another few minutes of walking, I noticed a clearing with sunlight pouring into it ahead. In the very center of it sat an old, decrepit stone building. Off to the side, there was an old well. The building had a very weathered but readable sign, identifying it as “Blackwood Church.” I took a photo of the church and well and decided to enter. I was very curious, as nobody should have ever lived out here, this deep into the woods. There was a church that had been built as part of the original town, so it didn’t make sense for this one to be there.
​
I walked through the place where the doors would have been, had they not rotted off of the hinges. I could see the space around me because of several holes in the roof allowing sunlight in. It seemed like it was once fairly normal, though weeds had sprouted up through the floorboards which were falling apart. I stepped outside after snapping some photographs. I was going to leave back along the path and get out of the forest. As I walked, I noticed that there seemed to be several old buildings, almost destroyed, spread out on the edges of the clearing. I began to see the old worn paths made of cobblestone and dirt, almost invisible, having been reclaimed by nature. This wasn’t just some church, this was an entire town.
​
I was both shocked and excited. I spent the next hour taking photographs of all of the somewhat intact buildings and their rubble counterparts. I spent around an hour exploring the town, exploring a butchers shop, clothes store, and general store. I finally made my way to the path I had come in on. I noticed, underneath all of the foliage, there seemed to be a sign. I brushed some of the growth away and read the faded words; “Welcome to Blackwood, Population: 349, c. 1903.”
​
At this point, on top of the confusion, there was a growing feeling of nervousness in my gut. I’d never heard of any town in Blackwood Forest. Our town, Greyrock Springs, was founded in 1909. I searched the other houses on the outskirts of this ghost town. In one of them, I found the journal of a 19 year old girl named Ellie. She had moved into the town with her family, the Wilsons, and another one they were close friends with, the Millers. They had moved in 1905. The first dozen pages were normal entries about life around the town, her friend, 19 year old Janie Miller, and her older brother, 21 year old Shaun Miller. She and Shaun were apparently set to get married in a year, something Ellie wrote almost endlessly about. The 20th entry, dated September 17, 1905, however, was different.
​
The 20th entry said that 7 townsfolk and gone missing suddenly overnight. It read, “Last night 7 of our neighbors vanished. The Smith family and Mr. H. The Sheriff doesn’t know what happened to them. Their beds appear to have been slept in, and their homes appear normal. But nobody has seen or heard of any of them since 8:00 last night. I’m getting worried, some of the other neighbors are talking about dark shadows in the trees snatching them away. I hope they’re alright.”
​
After reading this, my anxiety started growing. What could have happened to the people who lived here? I looked at the next entry, 6 days later. It read “Almost everyone has vanished. The night after the first disappearances, 14 people vanished. The numbers got worse from there. The Sheriff, the butcher, the schoolteacher, all gone. Last night, 34 people, including the Millers, vanished. There are only 115 of us now. Janie and Shaun are gone, their beds unkempt, everything else in place as if they just got up and walked out. It’s 7:52 at night according to my clock. There are things making weird screeches out there. I can see the shadows outside. They’re drawing closer. I think I’m going to join Janie and Shaun tonight. At least I won’t have to live on without my friend and love.”
​
Terror was beginning to take hold now. I looked around the room. I realized that it was now noon. I had been reading for so long I had lost track of time. I got up, grabbed the journal, and ran out of the house, the feeling of being watched nearly overwhelming me. I got to the path I had walked in on. It was then that the screeching and wailing began.
​
It started as an inhuman, deep, gravelly sound, and then cracked and sounded like a dying person giving a final cry for help. Soon, a chorus of these other-worldly howls filled the forest. Terror shot through my body. I felt chills. I turned and scanned my surroundings, searching for the source of the sounds.
​
That was when I saw one of Them for the first time.
​
I don’t know how to describe Them here, but I will do my best to give you an idea of what lurks in those woods.
​
They are tall, around 7 feet, with pure black skin. No light reflects off of any part of Them, except for their milky white eyes. Brown veins reach for the center of the eye, where the iris and pupil would have been. Instead, there was just more white. In some places, Their flesh clings to Their bones as though they have been vacuum-sealed. In others, the flesh is gone, and only bone remains. Their entire body has pulsating, grey veins spiderwebbing from place to place. And Their mouths stretch from one side of the head to the other, nearly to the hinges connecting the jaw to the skull. Their teeth are thin as a needle, and they have hundreds of them.
​
One of Them was standing close to me, looking at me. It let out a screech-wail and started to run towards me. I turned and bolted, running towards the church, hoping to escape through an window-opening. As I reached the church, I turned and glanced back, only to see It standing near the well, not moving. Instead, it was growling at me. As we stared each other down, more of Them began to appear. They formed a ring around the church. I was now trapped. Panic began to set in more deeply, as I looked through the window-openings, trying to look for a weakness in the circle I could use to escape, and there was one. Directly behind the church, there was a large opening in the ring of monsters surrounding me. Taking several deep breaths and becoming as calm as I could given the circumstances, I took my opportunity and ran. I jumped out the window and sprinting with more force than I have ever used in my life.
​
I made it to the trees, hearing their horrible screech-wails following uncomfortably close behind. I didn’t stop, running through the foliage like my life depended on it, which I could tell it did. Most of Them remained behind, but a few followed me deeper and deeper into the forest, not letting up. The trees and brush whipped at me, stinging and cutting my skin, but a continued, even going faster. I finally stopped when I couldn’t hear Them behind me anymore. By this point, it was closer to 2:00 P.M. I had run in the opposite direction I had entered Blackwood from. The adrenaline I had felt began to wear off, and I wanted to collapse from exhaustion, but I knew those things would keep looking for me until they found me.
​
I spent the rest of the day cautiously searching for the fence, but no matter how hard I looked, I couldn’t find it. By the time it got dark, I was exhausted. The adrenaline from the whole day had turned into a mix of emotions, namely fear and anxiety. I decided to hide in a tree, in the event They found me. As I sat there, looking, I began to hear that screeching wail and those deep growls and grunts. They were close. I held my breath as the first one approached. It looked around, peering through the forest, searching for me. I got the feeling it knew I was close.
​
It started to scan some bushes near the tree I was in, when It looked up suddenly. I fell from my spot in surprise, hitting the ground hard and with a grunt. It let out a wail, and started to approach me. I searched for something to use as a weapon, and found a sharp rock. I looked at the large veins covering It’s chest area. It seemed like the perfect target. It began to run, screeched and then lunged. I pulled the rock from behind my back and sliced with ferocity, cutting through the veins like paper. It screamed and shrieked, black ooze shooting out of the wound like a hose until it stopped. The creature let out a final wail before collapsing to the ground. I looked at it. I could hear a sickly breathing coming from the thing. Before it died, I heard a distorted but human voice mutter a weak “Thank.. you..” and then the breathing stopped. I was stunned. I didn’t have much time to think about it, because more wails could be heard approaching fast in the distance. I continued to run through the forest, more adrenaline pumping through my veins, fear at the back of my mind. I ran for a long time until I ended up back in that town. I hid in the church, underneath the floorboards. At some point, I fell asleep from exhaustion.
​
The next 6 days were awful. I spent most of them hiding, slowly running through my food and water I had packed. One morning, as I reached the last of my water, I realized I had to escape. Although They searched the forests for me, I thought I could slip past Them and make it to the fence. But after a few minutes of preparing, I heard those wails approaching from the distance yet again. I grabbed my backpack and stepped outside again. I looked, seeing the creatures from before step out from the trees. I prepared myself, and ran. All of them began to follow me, their screeches cutting through the quiet of the forest and reminding me of how close I was to death. I went down that same worn path, sprinting through the woods. One jumped out in front of me, forcing me to veer off the path and into the forest. I ran, nearly tripping and getting cut on the branches. That was when I saw it. Ahead of me, finally, lay the fence. I took off the backpack as I approached. There was the gap. I was about to escape. They were close now, just a few yards away. I forced the backpack through the opening, forcing myself through it just as they reached the fence.
​
I turned to look back at them, snapping one final photograph. I’m not entirely sure why I did that, but maybe I just wanted proof of the truth. That I wasn’t crazy. What I saw was real. I grabbed the backpack and ran back towards town, towards safety, towards home, their growls and wails fading behind me.
​
I want to say that I’m safe now, that everything is ok, but it isn’t. A week ago, I started to hear whispers from my neighbors of wails, screeches, and growls coming from the fence. If anyone looked in the direction the sound was coming from, it stopped. I had to walk past the fence a few days ago, and I heard it. I was all alone. The fence started to rattle as well. I turned to look, but only saw a tall shadow slipping into the darkness of the trees.
​
Last night, two people who were walking past the fence vanished.
​
That brings us to today.
​
I know what They want. They are angry. I wasn’t supposed to escape. I don’t want to do this, but I won’t endanger anyone else who lives here.
​
I’ll leave the photos, camera, and journal in my desk for safe keeping. That way people will understand what I saw, at least partially. People will hear the story of the townspeople of Blackwood. That is the reason I’m posting this. So more of you know.
​
I have accepted my fate. After I post this, I will walk to the gate, and I will be taken. I don’t know for sure, but I think I will become one of Them, cursed to walk Blackwood Forest forever. My consciousness will be left a fragment, my humanity gone, as I walk the forest and wail, screech, and growl. This is the end for me. If anyone cares, my name is Daniel. I am 29 years old. I live in Greyrock Springs. If you come here, to find me or Blackwood or those things, or maybe even the pictures and journal, remember one thing.
​
Never go into Blackwood Forest.

NOTE: This is a very long post. There’s a tl;dr summary at the bottom
Background:
This is coming from a long-time lurker, first time poster, and an Evil Dead fan for decades. For background, I have previous game dev experience, including Unity and Unreal, so I’m (mostly) not talking out my ass, and I've played both sides of this game roughly equally for more hours than I’d care to admit (primarily solo q, sometimes survivor with friends, and otherwise just playing demon when survivor queue times are high, as they have been many times since release). Usually, I just play whichever side has the lowest queue time.
Despite its flaws, this has been one of my favorite games of all time. The original development team was clearly passionate about the Evil Dead. The art, audio, and overall atmosphere are excellent and have superb attention to detail. I love all the random chatter from my survivor, the feeling of rushing through the woods as the Kandarian demon, and the intensity of a close game regardless of who wins. However, most of us would agree that this game has been held back by very poor "balancing" patches since release, as evidenced by polls on this subreddit confirming it is indeed the most frustrating problem.
We've endured shemps duping, brokenly OP characters, fear looping, and many other game-breaking exploits throughout. Bugs can be tolerable and are even to be expected, but the "fixes" almost always cause new issues and take far too long. It is painfully obvious that there has been very little time or effort expended on these issues by the post-release support team. Some patches have been so bad that they shouldn’t even make it to QA, let alone production – I’d be ashamed, esp. given that some of these issues can be fully and precisely patched in a few lines of code. I don’t need to see the source code to know that – even a rat’s nest of blueprints and disorganized C++ code can’t justify it.
I can only hope the skeleton crew that's continuing support for this game will take a few hours to address these issues. More importantly, I hope someone higher-up will recognize that this game still has millions of copies floating around and a lot more opportunities for profit, so it’s worth it to invest just a little time/thought into balance to keep new players and veterans happy. Frankly, each issue could be hammered out in minutes by someone familiar with the codebase, but I know it takes some time for building and testing across multiple platforms - days is fine, weeks/months is insane, esp. given the current state of the game.
I think it is important to first precisely define how the game is unbalanced, and how this imbalance can ruin the fun of many matches. Based on previous posts and my own personal experiences playing with friends and family at various skill levels, the following pattern becomes clear:
3+ Bad/Low-Level Survivors – Essentially 99% Demon Win
2+ Bad Survivors, All Others Decent to Excellent – Heavily demon-sided (~90% Demon Win)
1+ Bad Survivor, All Others Decent to Excellent – Somewhat demon-sided (~70% Demon Win)
All Survivors Decent, Not Very Cooperative/Sharing – About Equal (~50/50 on Win)
All Survivors Decent, Mostly Cooperative – Somewhat survivors-sided (~70% Survivor Win)
All Survivors with Good Skills/Teamwork/Knowledge – Heavily survivors-sided (~90% Survivor Win)
All Survivors with Excellent Skills/Teamwork/Knowledge – Essentially 99% Survivors Win
Note: Skills/teamwork/knowledge are not necessarily related to prestige level nor gameplay style, though usually survivors with prestige levels have stuck with the game long enough to at least be “decent” (even if they’re still not perfectly cooperative/sharing/etc.). This pattern is only somewhat altered by the demon’s skill level – new/low-level demons skew much more to higher survivor win rates in every scenario, and excellent high-level/prestige demons playing the current “meta” demon skew toward higher demon win rates. Any level 45+ demon that’s decent to good and usually plays non-meta demons like the current versions of Warlord or Necro (that’s me) will likely not skew these results.
I believe my personal experience is a microcosm of the overall balancing issue, and we’ve seen posts on this subreddit that consistently confirm the above pattern. It should be painfully obvious by now to anyone who’s played both sides long enough, and it should also be even more painfully obvious to any developers/publishers pouring over analytics data for the game. What adds insult to injury is that, at the more extreme ends of the pattern, a lot of toxicity emerges. Many survivors go into flashlight-clicky mode when they have the upper hand, and many demons retaliate by dancing with possessions over corpses or other means, whether it’s in the current match or against some innocent victims in the next match (I’ve sometimes been guilty too – I usually just take a break when toxic matches get to me and I turn toxic, but I’m truly sorry to anyone who’s had to deal with any of this crap from me)
Anyway, what will happen if the above pattern continues over time? Well, newer players who are consistently getting absolutely destroyed and possibly taunted at the same time (as either survivor or demon) will either (a) quit the game, or (b) get better. Now, run through that scenario while looking at the pattern and assume the game remains roughly in the current state. There will be more and more new/”bad” survivors quitting the game entirely, and a smaller portion that will only stick with the game if they level up and “git gud” over many hours (becoming good to excellent players). The same thing will happen to demon players. What happens when all we have left are good to excellent survivors and good to excellent demons? Well, check the chart again. Every match will be at least heavily survivor-sided if not a guaranteed win. Survivors get bored, even most masochistic veteran demon players give up, queue times for survivors reach new heights, and the game “dies.” This sequence of events has happened at various times in the game’s lifecycle, but I fear it’s headed toward extremes that will eventually make the game unplayable.
Obviously, it’s no fun to win virtually every time and it’s no fun to lose almost every time. Competitive games are most fun when you have close matches – ideally, there’d be a win rate of about 50% for either side. “But wait,” you say, “the pattern above indicates that there already IS a roughly 50/50 balance for that scenario!” And yes, that’s true. But how many matches are actually like that? How many matches have you personally played that felt close and competitive the whole time? It certainly wasn’t common when we had strong SBMM, and it isn’t common without SBMM either. Why? Because players who stick with the absolutely brutal intro to this game today are almost guaranteed to at least become good/high-level players with solid game mechanics/knowledge (though some will still become toxic/uncooperative teammates or toxic demons). Those who don’t become competent players are virtually guaranteed to quit in frustration, some after just the first several matches where they are either getting consistently annihilated by all the veterans, or clearly being “allowed” to win if the other side takes pity. In essence, the game is just plain brutal for HOURS on end for newer players and can become stale for solid veteran players. For veterans, we have survivors who team up with 3 other veterans (boring due to easy wins, low challenge), demons who can only win by repetitively attacking an inanimate stationary book (boring due to minimal ability to challenge survivors throughout match), or demons who see 2+ bad survivors and have to decide whether to let them win or immediately stomp them to move on (both of which can be boring due to low challenge, and frankly feel bad if harassing beginners). I absolutely LOVE any close matches, win or lose, but they are unfortunately exceptionally rare.
Clearly, the goal of balancing patches should be to make as many matches as close as possible. How? Well, it’s very simple – give beginners a chance and give veterans a challenge. Specifically, force or incentivize gameplay that elevates beginners, challenges veterans, prevents toxicity, and basically “evens the playing field” so that the chart above reads more like “20% through 80%” win rates for survivors rather than 1% through 99%. Thus, the fixes below mostly take aim at mechanics that are abused by veterans of the game or seek to better prepare beginners. Additionally, nearly each of the fixes below can be implemented with the equivalent of just a few lines of code.
I fully believe that this game can achieve a decent balance as a 4v1 asymm. It only seems impossible because the patches for balancing have often failed to address root causes and/or caused new issues. The game can be more welcoming for newcomers (both survivors and demons alike) while still having a lot of the same learning curves and leveling systems to reward higher level play without it becoming outright oppressive to either side.
Anyway, based on a lot of previous posts and my own observations, here are some easy fixes for the next patch:
1. Revert demon traps to their previous behavior (i.e. make it so possessed survivors can be walked into a trap) and fix the fear looping mechanic for SchemeBaal specifically
The latest "fix" for this had a workaround from the community within hours to fear loop survivors anyway and nerfed all other demons for no reason.
This can be easily resolved by reverting to the previous code/blueprints/whatever (or hell, going back to the previous build if necessary), and then implementing a simple solution for Schemer. This solution requires a scalpel, not a sledgehammer, so it should apply ONLY to Schemer. I can think of two easy possibilities, either of which would only need a few lines of code.
First possibility: If a survivor has set off a trap that was set by using the Schemer's special ability, then that trap now has a normal cool down and cannot be "reset" again by Schemer's current use of the special ability. This would allow Schemer to set a trap manually, possess a survivor, run them into it, get the trap reset immediately by their special ability, but then only run the survivor into the same trap a 2nd time. Thus, Schemer would still be the demon associated with traps and fear, but wouldn't be able to loop a survivor in one spot endlessly. A survivor that's slightly separated wouldn't necessarily immediately die, but a demon could still down a lone wolf by harassing, lowering health, raising fear, and then doing this method.
Second possibility: The trap setting special ability of Schemer could be disabled when Schemer possesses a survivor. This may nerf Schemer specifically a tad bit too heavily, but is still a far better fix than what we've got. It's also super easy to program with something like the following pseudocode:
If (demon.ability == true && demon.name == "Schemer" && demon.possessing == true)
demon.ability = false;
2. Implement a stamina cost for vaulting windows/railings (e.g. the stamina cost could be the same as dodging)
This helps keep gameplay fair for both sides. It's clearly unfair and unfun to have a demon that can easily fear loop a survivor to death even if their teammates aren't far away, and the same holds true for a survivor that can "loop" a demon and never die. Survivors can still use objects, dodges, and other means to postpone death if they're alone (as I've done myself and seen done as demon) but it's at least possible for a demon to get in an occasional hit and whittle down health (i.e. it cannot be done indefinitely, at least if vaulting also uses stamina). Alternatively, at least give demons the ability to vault all the same objects as survivors, such as railings, so a 1v1 chase is fair – it just doesn’t feel great when a survivor jumps over a porch railing and looks back to flashlight click your possessed unit, knowing that there’s somehow zero threat in this 1v1 encounter in a 4v1 game due to a simple exploit. Personally, I think just adding a stamina cost would be fine to try at least, and many others in this community seem to agree. Plus, it should again only be a few lines of code to adjust the stamina bavariable of a survivor whenever he/she vaults.
3. Edit the text for the "hints" when a match is loading. There are absolutely no CLEAR tips about giving the right resources to the right players, nor hints about any newer demons (i.e. the hints have never been updated)
Regardless of which side we've played, we all know solo q for survivors is a total crap shoot. None of us started playing this game knowing that we should be gathering supplies for ourselves AND our teammates, dropping shemps for support, dropping ammo for hunters, etc. Many players quit before learning these things and there is no in game explanation for them (besides one single vague tip I can remember about how you can share resources with teammates, but no clear indication of sharing based on class).
I think the lack of instructions for basic team play is one of the major causes of low player retention for the game. The tutorials are helpful for basic controls, but there needs be a lot more emphasis on the basics of this game that many of us on this subreddit take for granted.
I’d start by making sure the following tip text is the first to be shown to all players for a few matches after this is patched in:
“Stay close to your teammates and focus on the current objective to survive. Going off to loot alone is very dangerous”
(yes, veteran players can often get away with this, but man, it feels terrible playing on either side and watching someone just wander off to loot the whole game)
The other tips could be a lot more direct:
“Players should stay within the blue aura of leaders whenever possible to get additional buffs”
“Warriors should generally be given the best melee weapons but do little ranged damage”
“Hunters should generally be given the best ranged weapons but do little melee damage. Drop ammo for them if they ask”
“Support players are generally weakest, but can heal or shield all their teammates by using shemps and amulets near them. Drop spare shemps for support”
Now, the above “tip texts” at the loading menu are super quick and easy to add to the game. However, if the developers would like to go a little above and beyond, it would be amazing to add some additional text boxes within the game to warn players about bad choices. For example, there could be blinking text in the center bottom half of the screen for awhile if you’re carrying another survivor’s specialty weapon and they don’t have one (or if yours is a higher rarity). Also, there could be similar warning text that you’ve wondered more than, say, 100m from your team. Again, just trying to give simple, clear instructions to beginners (and those that are somehow still selfishly playing after reaching level 25+). And yeah, there are always arguments and exceptions to be made about how to play optimally, but some updated/clear tips could go a long way.
4. Implement a bonus XP on the results screen after a match is over that gives each side a bonus based on how many points the other side gained. Also, fix demon leveling based on survivodemon level
This one sounds a little weird and complicated, but it's really not. What I'm saying here is that veteran survivors should be rewarded for taking it easy on a baby demon, and a veteran demon should be rewarded for taking it easy on baby survivors.
Basically, regardless of which side you play or if you win or lose, I believe you should get a bonus XP based on how the other side did. For example, let's say you're a veteran pup player that gets matched to novice survivors and down them all with a power possessed basic before they even get the first map piece. In this case, those survivors will have very little points after the match (maybe even under 1000 per person) and the demon should get no bonus reward. The survivors here should at least get a bonus for enduring the slaughter and staying in the match. Let's say the demon takes it easy on them though, let's them progress, maybe even just throws AI at them (hell, I've personally spawned a boss and walked them to good crates when they're clearly new and can barely take on bots). Let's say they get 10k points per player this way - the demon now gets bonus XP for good behavior.
I'd say that there should be a bonus XP for each player if the other side reaches a certain point threshold, say 30k, or if the survivors are wiped before first objective (as in, survivors get a bonus for enduring such a match and demon gets no bonus). This would help discourage immediately stomping new players and help retain them (remember everyone, this game will die if it's just a few hardcore people with long queue times all doing cheesy strats and stomping anyone who dares try joining as a newbie).
Anyway, in psuedocode, something like this could work:
If (survivor.totalscore >= 30000)
demon.bonusxp = 3000;
If (demon.totalscore >= 30000)
survivor.bonusxp = 3000;
[Loop thru survivors to apply bonus to each - obviously, these values can be tweaked]
Obviously, you may have survivors or demons who go AFK and then it may make it impossible for the other side to get a bonus. Therefore, there could also be some basic code for checking if someone is AFK (i.e. hasn’t not moved more than a certain small distance in a decent amount of time, hasn’t set a trap or possessed anything in a certain time, etc.). Frankly, I have no idea how we still don’t have AFK checks – just about any other online game I’ve ever played automatically disconnects you if you’re not playing.
As a bonus idea to this bonus idea, you could also cancel ALL XP points for a player for a round in which he/she is toxic, such as a check for repetitive flashlight clicking. I find this irritating whether I'm a survivor or a demon (and I def didn't deserve a bunch of XP the few times I've been guilty of it when I felt a demon was being toxic). I don't think there's an easy way to detect all toxic demon behavior with code, but it would be trivial to keep track of flashlight clicking in code. Maybe if a demon is "hovering" (dancing) directly over a dead body too long with a possessed unit or survivor, then they also have their XP completely canceled for the round - that would also be easy to check via code. The key to promoting good, non-toxic behavior would be to implement these checks without specifying precisely how many flashlight clicks count or how long dancing over a corpse counts – just note that specific toxic behavior will result in zero XP for the round for the offender and automate it in code.
Finally, as another incentive for fair play, the leveling up of demons should be dependent on the level of the survivors they are harassing AND on the demon’s current skill tree level. In other words, there should be modifiers so that new, low-level demons get leveled up more by the same actions as high-level demons, such as downing a player, and there should also be modifiers so that high-level demons cannot get leveled up as much by harassing low-level survivors, such as constantly downing a newbie, but can get slightly more leveled up by downing a high-level survivor. This goes back to the idea of elevating beginners and challenging veterans, esp. since it’s incredibly frustrating to be constantly singled out as a brand-new survivor. This could be something like:
Demon:
Lvl 1-24: x1.5 for demon leveling up
Lvl 25-44: x1.3 for demon leveling up
Lvl 45: x1.1 for demon leveling up
P1+: x1.0 for demon leveling up
Survivor (being attacked, hitting traps, or otherwise affected by demon):
Lvl 1-24: x0.5 for demon leveling up
Lvl 25: x1.0 for demon leveling up
P1+: x1.1 for demon leveling up
Specific examples:
Lvl 10 demon somehow downs a P3 survivor – demon levels up 1.5 x 1.1 = 1.65 times as much as now
Lvl 45 demon downs a Lvl 4 survivor – demon only levels up 1.1 x 0.5 = 0.55 times as much as now
P5 demon downs a P5 survivor – demon levels up 1.0 x 1.1 = 1.1 times as much as now
5. Disable the ability to start both the dagger and pages objectives at the same time
This "split cap" method is usually only used by high-level teams and can be almost impossible to counter by anyone who isn't a very experienced demon, at least on certain maps or when these objectives are at certain locations. I've managed to counter it myself most of the time as demon, but it can be very hard to deal with, esp. given that survivors are resurrected after either objective finishes. Depending on the map and RNG (esp. light sources at objectives and other variables), it can be impossible to counter.
Basically, if the timer is running on either objective, it should be impossible to start the other objective. This still allows creative play by high-level coordinated teams (e.g. maybe Pablo hides at the next objective waiting to kick it off immediately while waiting for others to race there by car). It also feels a lot more fair, particularly to less experienced demons.
Again, this could be fixed in just a couple lines of code. Literally, just check if a timer is running for daggepages and if so, don’t allow interaction with the other objective.
6. Add a call out in the in-game communication wheel to say "demon is on me” or “I need help” for survivors
We know from polls on this sub that most people are dropping into solo q most of the time (I’m sure Saber’s own analytics could prove this too). Also, many people don't have or don't want to use a headset. These are just common facts for most online games.
I know some people have resorted to using the "need matchsticks" chat option to indicate they're being attacked by a possessed unit but this is frankly absurd. We need a simple chat option for survivors for this. Honestly, if the text for “I need matchsticks” were simply replaced with “I need help!”, I'd be satisfied because I often need help fending off a possessed unit or boss a lot more than I need matchsticks in solo q.
This should be easy to add to the game (it’s more than a few lines of code and would require minor image/text adjustments and possibly kicking off existing voice lines, but should still be doable). I’m pretty sure that most characters already have a voice line recorded that could work (I picture Scotty already literally saying “I need help”) and if not, we’ve already been shown that voice lines don’t really have to match their context anyway (I picture Mia saying “fire’s lit. Anybody needs fire, it’s here” when turning on her flashlight – so hell, just make that what she says when she uses “I need help” on the wheel – we’ve already accepted she’s crazy anyway and the text would be clear at least).
7. Keep car possessions consistent on all maps. Demons either can't possess them until they "spawn" when survivors are near (like Castle Kandar) or they can possess them at any time anywhere
Personally, I think that it should only be possible to possess cars when survivors have "spawned" them by being close to them like on the Kandar map. The method of flipping all cars on a map at the start of a match is generally only used by a few high MMR demons and feels cheesy to me (I also feel it's cheesy to drive 3 cars to each objective, but cars are always going to be divisive and they can also be used to cause a lot of damage at objectives at least).
I think car possession should've followed the lore of AvED, kept survivors inside, and done something different like having both driver and demon fighting for control of the vehicle, like maybe survivor controls keep randomly reversing while demon controls it normally and the driver tries to counter the demon driving until infernal energy runs out - survivors take a little damage whenever the car crashes. However, this idea is complex, so I'll stick to easy fixes.
No matter what, it just seems like the ability to possess cars should be consistent across all maps and it should be easy to implement, esp. since there's already code/logic for the two scenarios.
8. Add a single menu option at the main menu when choosing a game mode to select "random"
This could immensely help queue times. I know there are others like me who just want to play and don't care about whether they're survivor or demon.
This may take a tiny bit more work to implement than some of the pieces above (e.g. need a little artwork for the button, menu programming, some matchmaking programming, etc.) but it would help queue times, which have been problematic at various times in this game's life cycle.
9. Adjust RNG based on the overall levels of survivors
Again, this goes back to elevating beginners and challenging veterans. I’ve been in too many games with all prestige survivors that can split up and loot a large portion of the map without fear of consequence until each character has his/her own purple/gold specialty weapon (which also goes back to looping/vaulting endlessly and depends on map, demon character, etc.) – those games are a wash for demon. On the other hand, I’ve been in too many solo q matches where people are bringing grey weapons to defend the book and hobbling in without shemps knowing it’s just a slaughter. I’d really like to be in more balanced matches where veteran teams don’t all have perfect weapons for an easy win, and novice players don’t all hobble around with garbage for a guaranteed loss.
As a simple fix, it would make sense to simply increase the odds of chests being purple/gold if 2 or more survivors are under P1, and decrease those same odds if all survivors are P1 or above (in all other cases, odds can remain the same). And yeah, I know prestige does not perfectly equal pure skill, but odds are you’re at least “decent” at the game if you’ve made it that far (if not good or excellent). This RNG adjustment for chests could be multiplied by whatever Ed brings to the table. For example, if the decrease for all prestige players is to have 0.75x the amount of purple/gold chests and the increase Ed brings is 1.5x, then there would still be slightly more purple/gold chests on the map than normal even for all prestige players (and a lot more good chests for new players, who definitely could use the boost).
10. Give out more XP/SP – we need more double XP/SP events and there should be a bonus given to any low-level players (say, anyone who hasn’t gotten a single character to P1) to get and retain new players
This last point shouldn’t need much explanation. The community obviously overwhelming voted to have more double XP/SP events. It would take such an incredible number of hours to P5 every single character that I’d imagine only those who have literally played non-stop for thousands of hours since release could have done it already. For some, like me, who only took a brief hiatus from the game since release, it feels like a herculean task to even get 1 or 2 characters to P5 on either side. Such events literally help with balance by elevating beginners and they also give a reason for veterans to return. Queue times were noticeably lower during the last event, even though it was poorly announced, clearly timed to try and mess with TCM (which is just a bad look, esp. since there was nothing for this game’s own anniversary), and wasn’t even VISIBLE in the game menus. Despite all this, it was still a success. Saber, unless you’re actively trying to eliminate your player base, it makes no sense to not do these regularly. And since you timed it to try to pull attention away from TCM, it would seem as though you want to retain players (or you’re just petty, but I’m guessing you’re more motivated by profits than such emotional considerations).
Anyway, more XP/SP please. Also, please put some kind of indication that an event is planned and/or is actively occurring in your game. I mean, it could literally be a freaking sprite on the main menu screen with some text announcing a double XP event and the duration – this is really basic stuff.
Finally, I don’t think anyone here would argue with giving away a large number of spirit points to every newish player the next time they open the game. I think a one-time bonus of at least 100K would be very reasonable for anyone who has not reached P1 for any character. I personally know several people IRL who would be back to playing the game if this were done (and almost certainly give you money for DLC when they get a chance to actually enjoy the game in a semi-competitive way) – these people just don’t have the time or patience to grind through hours of straight losses to even have a chance.
Closing thoughts:
I know there are a lot of other great ideas from the community on future content for the game (maps, characters, etc.) so I've just tried to stick to simple, easy to implement fixes for the developers.
Saber, this game could still generate a lot of (mostly passive) revenue if you support it well. There are many of us who are ready to throw money at any random DLC or cosmetic (myself included as a huge Evil Dead fan). However, the fans will only stick around to throw money at the game if the basic fundamental gameplay is somewhat balanced and glaring exploits/bugs are addressed. Seriously, if it's tweaked to feel good to play either side without major exploits being used by anyone, I (and many others) would keep throwing money at literal outfit accessories that could be crafted by a single 3d artist - it should more than pay for servers and labor, at which point you're just watching the money roll in.
Anyway, I've tried to stick to easy fixes that could improve the game for both novices and veterans. It would be easy to just say "buff the other side" whenever queue times are long for one side. At this time, it's obvious that average to excellent demon players are at a disadvantage when compared to equally skilled survivor players (as evidenced by queue times). I also remember times when demon queue times were long and I just played survivor because a certain demon was overturned or using cheesy exploits, so more people wanted to play demon.
However, I've been honestly sad that playing either side has just not felt good lately. It doesn't feel good to sit in a long queue for survivor, and it definitely doesn't feel good to crush noobs or get crushed by full prestige teams on coms. I can count on one hand the number of fun/close matches I’ve played in the last several dozen – I’d love to play more like those. Even if none of the changes above happen, I'd at least enjoy receiving some love for the older demons so they're at least fun to play and a challenge to go against (Plaguebringer Witch getting her original movement speed back, Necro and Warlord getting some minor buffs in any areas since they're pretty universally considered weak right now, etc.) – I mention these buffs in case you want to fall back on the tired old “just buff the other side” method.
Saber, please implement some quick and easy fixes for this game . Even if you're just in it for the money at this point, I'm literally here wanting to throw more money at this game, but only if some basic balancing changes are made. If the next patch surgically tweaks some major pain points rather than bludgeoning fundamental gameplay elements, then I'll be here waiting to throw money at any random DLC you've got. Otherwise, I'll sadly have to find another game (as many others have or will, given the overall sentiments after this latest patch and some patches before it). You can still turn the ship around - you have 3 million copies of this game floating around. That's literally millions of fans who likely want to return to the game and throw money at DLCs if the gameplay experience is fun. It's up to you now.
Tl;dr Summary:
The game can be balanced by elevating novices and challenging veterans. Here’s how…

1. Revert demon traps to their previous behavior (i.e. make it so possessed survivors can be walked into a trap) and ACTUALLY fix Baal specifically
   
2. Make vaulting cost stamina
   
3. Edit/create hints for new players at the match loading screen that are clear and direct
   
4. Give out a bonus XP for "good behavior" (not demolishing newbies), cancel XP for “toxic behavior” (flashlight clicking as survivor, dancing on corpses as demon), level up demon based on levels of victims
   
5. Do not allow dagger and pages objectives to run simultaneously
   
6. Add a call out in the in-game communication wheel to say "I need help" for survivors
   
7. Keep car possession rules consistent on all maps
   
8. Add a "random side" menu option to be able to play either survivor or demon, whichever happens to get matched first
   
9. Adjust chest rarity RNG based on the overall level of survivors
   
10. More XP/SP events. Also, give a bonus 100K+ SP to anyone with zero prestige characters
    

​
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I'm recently engaged to a beautiful woman named Larissa who makes my head swirl. Looks, personality, and a similar taste in food, I mean she had it all. For my birthday last year I got to drive one of those Lamborghinis across the track, and fire a round out of an Abram tank. A tank round! I'm not much of a gun aficionado, but a tank round!
Which was all the worst, when 3 weeks before the wedding I had to tell my drop dead gorgeous fiancée that I needed to leave for a couple of days.
It's not an easy thing for a bride to swallow: juggling food prep, alterations, cancellations, seating arrangements, two sides of the family, busy bodies, food allergies, one aunt that won't stop calling, and another one that keeps asking if her wearing white to our wedding as she's sort of the matriarch of the family was going to be a problem (side note: we told her multiple times that it was not okay). The list goes on, trust me.
So when my fiancee asked for an explanation. I had to tell her the truth no matter how terrible it sounded. It wouldn't feel right knowing that the precursor to our marriage was a lie.
"Is it kids? Oh God, do you have a little Jimmy running around somewhere? No, Jim. I can't handle this right now."
"Lars, what? No. It's not a kid."
She was peeling and stamping invitations in our tiny 625 square foot apartment. "Well then what is it? I thought we agreed to no bachelor parties. I thought. We agreed that those were for people who were ready for a wedding but not the marriage. I don't care if it's tradition." She stamped the envelop extra hard.
"No, it's nothing like that. Trust me." I shuddered just thinking about it. "It's not any kind of thing I would be doing if I didn't have to."
She glared at me, "But you have to."
I nodded.
The table shook again. "Okay. So spit it out." She handed me a few envelopes. "If it's not a kid. And it's not a bachelor party. Then what is it?" She scoffed, "It's not like you're married right?" Her smile slowly started leaving her face, "Oh my God." She crumpled an envelop against her forehead. "You've got to be kidding me."
"Larissa..."
"Don't you Larissa me!" She looked me right in the eye, "Tell me I'm not the other woman Jim!"
"Well not technically."
"What does that even mean," she exasperated. "Go on, tell me how it's not technically."
So several years ago I was straight out of college. I could have worked some menial desk job and climbed the corporate ladder. But the idea of never leaving my home town ate me up.
So when an ad for native English speakers to come teach on some remote island presented itself to me. I jumped at the opportunity. Next thing I know I was booking a one way ticket to begin my new life as an expat.
In my head, I thought I was going to land, check into my hotel, enjoy the sights, and come the first Monday walk to the nearest English Cram school and get a job on my good looks alone.
On Monday, the school I went to, the hallways were packed with other Americans, British, Australians, and I think some Canadian was squishing himself into one of the tiny student chairs. All waiting for a job interview.
The next place was like that as well.
So was the next.
By the end of the first week I was beat. Tired and defeated, I thought my luck had run out. So I did what any 20 something would in a brand new city. I hit the bars. I hit them hard.
After the last place kicked me out as they closed I was stumbling around trying to make my way back to the hotel. Grumbling, groggy eyed and trying not to vomit all over the street. When something shiny caught my eye.
It was a silk red purse with gold embroidery tied with a thick yarn. There weren't many people out this late. But everyone who passed by it acted as if it wasn't even there. Like they didn't see it or something.
The bag alone looked like it was worth something. At the time all I was thinking was that, maybe someone would trade a drink for it, as my pockets were empty and all I wanted was for my head to be the same way.
I stumbled as inconspicuously as possible, or as much a drunk guy could finesse and made my way toward the bag. Looking around the entire time, making sure no one was running up claiming that it was theirs, or worse calling me a thief and have me thrown in jail in a different country.
And when no one did, I finally scooped it up and untied it. To my surprise, the bag was filled with money. Bright colorful bills with huge figures even at the current exchange rate. And there was even gold. Some rubies. I took one out and bit into it, almost breaking my tooth.
I couldn't believe how my luck had changed. I flipped through the cash and realized that there was enough to fund my trip for a few extra weeks. AND get me a plane ticket back home. The jewelry even, seemed sizeable.
There I was in one of the lowest, darkest moments. And a pot of gold seemingly dropped out of the sky for me. Thoughts of finding its real owner never even occurred to me.
I was quickly pocketing the thing and planning to high tail it out of there when a frail old man approached me from the shadows. Now I had learned some of the language before hand, but I couldn't understand what he was saying.
He kept smiling though and patting my shoulder, spouting words so quickly that if they weren't already gibberish to me, they would still make no sense in my drunken state.
I fumbled the bag around before juggling it into the crook of my arm, in order to reach my phone to help translate what the hell the old guy was trying to tell me.
The translation caught him mid sentence but all I needed was to hear one word back then and I regurgitated the last couple of hours all over the sidewalk and blacked out.
When I came to, I was back at the hotel with a killer hang over. I was wondering how I made it back when I remembered faintly of the old man helping me. That's when I remembered the pouch and my eyes darted around the room and to my relief, "It wasn't just a dream." The pouch was there, full and plump with a few bills sticking out from the throat.
Next to it was a note, that I would later translate to read about a woman who had turned 18 that year. The numbers 3 and 13 were inscribed as well. Her approximate height, which seemed weird. I mean, why would they go through all this trouble and not just tell me her actual height? Her name, her sign, and her address.
I was completely fucking baffled at all of this information, when I suddenly remembered my phone. I pulled it out and looked up the last thing still on my screen, which was a translation from Google. It read: my future son-in-law. I am so happy you've agreed to marry my daughter. Don't forget to come to the wedding.
No wonder I passed the fuck out.
I shook my head and checked the purse again. Yeah there must have been close to 5 grand in there. Not including the gold, the rubies, or a jade piece I found at the bottom.
Whatever was going on. I had no clue. But I sure as hell wasn't about to get married to some girl I didn't know. Even if I did need the money.
So I used a bit of the cash to get a taxi to the address. When I arrived, the old man saw me from his courtyard. He was smiling and happy, pointing and calling for someone inside the house. A few seconds later a short lively woman appeared. And she was just as happy to see me.
I didn't know what was happening but next thing I do know was they surrounded me in a hug. Happy and joyous, bouncing and wobbling, enough for me to almost hurl again, which I did, except this time I swallowed it.
"Hey, I'm sorry. I don't know what's going on. But the note says something about marriage."
The pair looked at each other and exchanged a series of phrases. "Marriage," the old man finally enunciated.
I nodded. Then shook my head. "No, not marriage."
We went back and forth in a similar manner for awhile before the woman ran off to get someone. When she returned with a young man about 14 or 15, wearing glasses and sporting a bowl cut, he explained to me about the pouch.
"It's a tradition in this area for a ghost dowry. I think that is how you say it."
"A ghost dowry?"
"Yeah. In our area. When a daughter dies really young, especially as an infant. THe parents will start saving money for her ghost dowry. Because we believe that when she turns 18, she'll return and ask to be married off."
"You've got to be kidding me."
"No, it's quite common. Mostly everyone knows about it. Which is why they don't pick up the pouch. Not unless they're really in need of money."
"I'm really in need of cash kid, but I'm not about to get married. I'm especially not getting married to some...girl that passed away." I handed him the money but he wouldn't even touch it. Avoiding it like some kind of plague. I even tried handing it back to the old man but he kept pushing the pouch back at me and shaking his head.
The kid shrugged, "You can't give it back. Those are the rules. Once you've picked it up, you've accepted the dowry and MUST get married."
"Why me," I asked rhetorically.
"She chose you."
"What? Okay. Listen kid. What if I don't get married? Are they going to report me to the cops or sue me?"
"No."
"So I can just walk away?"
The kid shrugged again, "You'll be back."
"What?"
"I'm not sure. But from the stories I've heard. The groom to be always comes back. It might take awhile, but he does. Sometimes it's because he's traditional himself and his family tells him he must do the right thing. Other times he comes back because the girl won't leave him alone."
"Won't leave him alone?"
"Yeah. They say that the bride will come find the man at the hour of her birth, haunting him until he returns and agrees to fulfill his end of the bargain."
I rolled my eyes. "Yeah. Sure. I'm sure that's it kid. Either way. I can't take this money knowing what it's for." I put it on the table. "Please tell him that I wish their family luck in fulfilling their tradition. Also, tell them that I'm sorry for using some of the money for the cab fare. I had no other choice to return what is theirs."
The boy shrugged a third time, "It's yours now. You should take it. What are you going to do? Walk all the way back?"
"That's exactly what I'm going to do."
"It'll be dark by then," he added. "She could come find you."
"I'll be fine. And plus what if she was born in the day time?"
"They only come at the dark time of her birth hour. If she was born in the afternoon. She'll come at midnight," he shouted after me as I left.
I tried not to think about everything that's happened to me this past week as I walked back. But it wasn't a rocks throw by any stretch. Which gave me plenty of time to think. About my maxed out credit cards, the hotel stay winding out by the end of the week, and of course the wedding.
By the time that I got back to the hotel I was a tired, hot mess. I was also hungry and my feet were swollen as they were unused to the tropical heat. But I was sure glad that the showers were already paid up. I took an extra long one before crashing into my bed. Snacking on a candy bar I had brought from back home.
I turned on some tv and tried not to let the impending doom of being kicked out on the streets bother me too much. As a plan began brewing in my head on who I'd call in a few hours when it was morning stateside. A few people still owed me favors back home, which I hoped they would be good for, which I hoped was good enough to get me back home.
Several times I dozed off as the tv buzzed in the background. Each time I woke up staring at the bright red alarm clock blaring its red angry dashes at me. By the third or fourth time my head jerked me awake as it fell to my chest. I looked up to see the time on the clock. It was 3:12. When something clicked in my head and I fished for the note still in my back pocket.
Su-ru Yen
18 this year.
3:13
I stopped reading and glanced back up at the clock. The little kids words reaing in my ear. "She comes at her death hour."
I waited, not realizing that I was holding my breath until I felt my lungs start to burn.
In a blink the clock changed and I glanced around as if waiting for something to happen. But nothing happened. My stomach suddenly growled, echoing in the empty room and I laughed, "Maybe I should have just taken the money."
*dak dak*
Came a knock from the motel door.
*dak dak*
My heart was caught in my chest. The main artery was constricted and wouldn't let go.
*dak*
I was shaking in my bed, too afraid to move or answer the door.
*dak dak* *dak dak* *dak*
It went on like this a full 4 minutes before it stopped. WHen it had finally stopped I tried getting out of bed, but I couldn't. For a second I was afraid to look down, afraid that her hand would be there holding me in place so that we could elope.
But it was just my hand clenching the bed sheets so tightly that I couldn't budge. I had to use my other hand to pry my own fingers off in order to creep slowly to the door and look into the eyehole.
It felt blurry as I blinked my eye, trying to clear it. Tears had welled at the corners without me realizing it. I wiped them away and slowly, reluctantly bent down and stared into the peephole.
No one was there.
But for the next 3 days. My door would knock. It didn't matter if I was on the bed, or in the bathroom. The closet was the worst as the knocking felt like it was right against my face. It didn't even matter if I ran outside, as no one would be around within eyesight. The knocking would always find me.
On the fourth and last day of my stay. The door knocked right on time.
*dak dak* *dak dak* *dak*
I felt the familiar twinge in my chest and my body was numb all over. But this time I was determined to take a look. And finally catch whoever or whatever it was that was playing this cruel joke on me.
*dak dak* *dak dak* *dak*
I tried gettoung out of bed but I couldn't. I was too scared. Several times I glanced from the clock to the door. Afraid to take my eyes off the door for too long, afraid that she would come through it if I did. Afraid that I would miss her and she would haunt me forever. And as the clock started ticking down. I kept whsipering myself. "She's only here for four minutes. She's only here for four minutes." And it was almost 3:17.
Seconds before the clock changed I jumped out of bed. Determined to end this thing once and for all.
*dak dak* *dak dak* *dak*
I didn't have time to look through the door. Even if I did I was afraid if I saw something there. I'd be too chicken to open the door. So I tore the band aid right off and swung the door open wide.
There was no one there.
But then from my corner cornea, something caught my eyes. A trail of something translucent was dragging away. I tried to take a step after it but my first step out of the door stopped me dead. My foot was drenched wet and it felt sticky beneath my sock. The coldness of it traveled up my spine, and to this day I can only describe it as the feeling of something metal scraping across my vertebrate. By the time I looked up, the wisps were gone. ANd the trail it left behind was already drying.
That night I couldn't sleep a wink. I waited until morning came and took to the streets. Desperate to find the old couple's house. Stopping several times to ask for directions and circling around streets and street signs that I couldn't read until I heard a familiar voice.
"I told you you'd be back."
"Kid," I grabbed him.
"Whoa. You look like you've seen a ghost." His eyes grew wide as he looked me over. "So the stories are true!" He didn't waste any more time. "Come on," he called after me. Leading me down the street and to the old couples courtyard. The pouch was still on the table outside where I had left it days ago.
The kid knocked on the door and shouted until the old man answered. He was still in his sleeping clothes when he saw my face, and his demeanor completely changed. He was so happy to see me. Opening the door wider and ushering us inside.
"Tell him I want it to stop," I told the kid. "Tell him I want her to leave me alone."
The kid translated but the old man shook his head before speaking. The kid looked at me and said, "He says then 'Marry her'."
"I can't do that!"
"Then she'll never leave you alone."
"She just going to keep knocking on my door? Forever?"
The kid turned to the old man and told him in their language what I said. The old man gripped his cane and tapped it once lightly on the ground, almost as if he were proud, before he told the boy who then told me, "She's a kind and gentle soul. He knew she would be. If she's only knocking on your door so far."
"So far? So far? Okay. What? Fuck. So then what? What happens if I marry her?"
The kid asks the old man and after a few words were exchanged he turned to me, "Then you will be wed."
"yeah. I get that. But what does that really mean?"
The kid clicks his tongue, "From what I understand. I think it means you'll have to honor her every month."
"Honor her? How? Like make a sacrifice? A blood sacrifice or something?"
The kid laughed, "No. Just Bai Bai. I don't know how to say it. Pray?".
"Pray to her?"
"Acknowledge her. Talk to her wooden nameplate. It's what serves as a gravestone for our dead."
"So just pray to her once a month, and that's it?"
The kid talks to the old man for awhile before turning back to me. "Yeah. That, and you'll be blessed."
"Blessed?"
"Yeah. Not sure about that one."
"Okay. Fine. What else. Like what if I want a girlfriend someday. Or get married. Have kids. Can I not do that? Will she haunt me? Haunt them?"
The kid asks the old man before turning to me, "Not if you ask for her permission. In a ghost dowry, you're allowed to have concubines. As long as she is consulted first and agrees."
I shake my head, "This is fucking crazy."
The kid shrugs. I seem to get the feeling he likes to shrug. "It's either that or she keeps haunting you."
I mulled that over in my head. "Shit." I stomped around the courtyard. "Okay. Fine. Fine! What do I need to do?"
The kid looks up at the sky. "We'll have to prepare."
"What? But it's already late. I want to get it over with as soon as possible. I don't want to wait another night of her coming to my door."
The kid smiles, "Don't worry. You won't. This kind of wedding can only happen at night."
For the next several hours I waited. Watched as neighbors and family. Cousins. Came to help. Food was brought in. Large round tables were set outside the courtyard. A tailor came and measured me up, twice. Decorations were strung and the sun began to fall.
When night came, the people who had gathered were tired but pleased with themselves that they had finished. I was asked to change into my wedding clothes and to wait outside the door of the couple's house until called. The lanterns behind me burning and the smell of food wafted in the air.
I waited until the doors finally opened.
Inside I saw the old man and the old woman start constructing something before a traditional wooden shrine at the back of the room.
They started with the legs. Sewn pieces of white cloth. The torso. The arms. And finally the head. When it was put together, the couple slipped on a white dress over the effigy they had constructed. Then the old woman went off through one of the side doors and returned with a box. From inside the box she withdrew a folded blanket. It looked faded but the edges were crisp and completely clean. The old man reach into the box and removed a sickly green thread that seemed to stick to his fingers, from it hung tiny strands of black hair, which he stuck gently to the back of the effigy's head.
The woman threw the blanket over its face, covering it.
Then the old couple turned to me and beckoned me forward. I looked behind me and none of the other guests moved.
Even the kid stood next to the door, unwilling to step inside as I entered.
I walked slowly up, next to the effigy until we stood side by side.
The old woman turned toward the shrine where a wooden plaque stood at the table. On it were three character words that I couldn't read. And she began to speak, the kid behind us translated in suit.
"Dear daughter. Mother is glad that you're finally being wed off. Though Mother will miss you as a girl. I am so glad of the woman that you have become. I am so proud of you. Please, continue to make me proud." She sighed. "When you were born I was so happy. Even if you only lived for a few short minutes. And I am sorry that the fates have been cruel to you. But I am thankful that they at least showed mercy enough to give you a husband. Take care my sweet girl."
"We love you," the father finished.
The old couple hands me a bowl. Inside are small boba looking balls swimming in a clear soup.
The kid behind me, "It's tradition to take a bite, and then feed your bride."
I looked at the old couple and they nodded at me, motioning for me to eat. I dipped my spoon in and took a mouthful. Chewing slowly. And swallowing.
Then they motioned for me to feed her.
I dipped my spoon again. And awkwardly raised it towards her. Slipping it under her veil to where her lips would be. Pretending to feed her.
Now I watched them put this thing together. Besides the creepy hair and the swaddling cloth for a veil. It was nothing more than cloth and stuff. I knew this.
At least that was what I thought until I heard it chew.
I could hear her jaws sticking as they moved up and down. The room was dark but signs of the veil moving completely terrified me. I couldn't even hear the people breathing behind me or the lanterns burning. All I could hear was her chewing.
When she finished. There was silence. Then everyone cheered.
After that, it was like any normal wedding I had attended. The guests poured in and I shook just about everyone's hand. Hugging complete strangers. My new parents. And even the kid.
Then we ate and drank, for almost a week. Someone was sent to get my things from the hotel and I stayed with my in-laws for the remainder of my stay. Which turned out to be several years. Because the following week I was offered as job as an English instructor at a nearby school.
I was told the principal owed the old couple a favor, but something told me that it wasn't the whole story.
I enjoyed my work at the school but didn't stay for long. As I started traveling to film a documentary about the local cuisine after a few of my YouTube videos mysteriously went viral as an expat who tried weird but delicious treats.
Eventually, my in-laws passed away. First it was mom. And four days later dad followed suit. I lived alone in the house for awhile, before I hit the jackpot at the weekly supermarket draw from one of my receipts. That, along with selling the house, was enough for me to go back to America and start a brand new life. Where I opened several shabu shabu restaurants that were met with great success.
"Eventually meeting you during one of my rounds."
My fiancée who had been listening to my story slack jawed the entire time couldn't believe what she was hearing. "Bull-fucking-shit!" She slapped me playfully across the arm. "You are such a good fucking liar!" She laughed. "I've always heard about guys not wanting to help out about the wedding arrangements. But this one takes the fucking cake. I'm going to post this in the group chat tomorrow. Bra-vo."
I laughed with her. "Yeah. That's it. It's just a great story."
"Now finish this up and let's go upstairs," she commanded. We stamped the last envelopes and went to bed. She was still laughing sporadically as I closed the door to our bedroom. "Knock knock," she joked.
I humored her, "Knock knock."
And we watched tv until she fell asleep.
I made sure she was sound asleep, before I gently crawled out of bed and put on my slippers. Softly opening the door and closing it behind me as I walked through the house. Down to the first floor. Then to the basement. Where I pulled the key I kept around my neck and slipped it into the lock.
Inside the basement was bare, except for two chairs and some boxes that I had taken from the old house, and the table, and the small wooden plaque that had my first wife's name inscribed on it in her native language.
"I'm going to get married soon," I told her. "She's a great person. Funny. Beautiful. And devoted. Kind of like you." I held the wood plaque in my hands. "I hope you approve." I waited as if she would answer. But she didn't. Never in all the years we've been married. "I can't go back home to ask for your permission. But I hope that this is enough." I looked at her name, almost longingly. As I had grown quite attached to our time together. "And I hope that this will be the last time we talk as I move on with my life. Thank you so much," I told her as I put her away."
Months flew by, and I never revisited the basement. Knowing full well that I had missed our visiting days. Though I'd often catch myself talking to her on some tough days. But nothing bad happened, by not seeing her plaque. Nothing bad at all.
Soon the wedding day was upon us. And it was a great party, as great as the best there ever was. Great good. Great company. And tons and tons of alcohol.
Larissa and I were giggling at the end of it, drunk as we stumbled upstairs from the venue to the presidential suite. Laughing all the way, kissing, barely able to keep our hands off each other as we got into our room.
My new bride pushed herself off me as we entered the threshold, and sprawled herself on the bed. Her legs rubbing against each other as her eyes invited me to come closer. I propped a knee on the bed to join her.
*dak dak*
We both shot our eyes to the door and then at the table side where the clock blared at us an angry red of 3:13.
Larissa looked up at me with a horrified look. I could see her bottom lip quivering.
"Hello," I called out. With my back to the door. "Sam? Bobby?" But no one answered. "Room service?"
*dak dak*
*dak*

Thanks and Credits in the Comments Section due to LONG chapter.
Chapter 31: A Whale of a Tale and it’s All True
“IT’S FUCKING J-POD!”
Kalai watched in shock and awe as the two humans collectively lost their minds, hopping up and down and letting loose a series of high pitched vocalizing as she, Papa, and Mama Sakalbi stared in confusion at the two ecstatic aliens.
Andy turned and ran back to where Kalai and her parents were still staring in amazement and held his hand out, face alight and happier than she’d ever seen him before. “Binoculars! Quick! I want to see who’s out there!” Mama Sakalbi tentatively held them out, and he took them with a nod of thanks before rushing back to the bow. Kalai started as he jumped up on the bow and balanced against the roller horns to spot the black and white whales that were swimming fast towards the net.
“Eyes on Mama Shachi! Look, over there, see her?” Kalai approached cautiously as Andy pointed in the direction of a cluster of porpoising black shapes that were coming nearer.
“Eyes on! I got Grammie Slick out there too; the WHOLE POD’S HERE!” Jackie cut loose an undulating cry and waved her hands as little geysers of water and air shot out from the water on the other side of the net.
Kalai nearly jumped when a miniature version of the Orcas from the clone tank at Headquarters breached the water, leaping almost twice her height into the air before splashing back down in a massive wave.
“Look at that! Butterball’s getting some good air these days!” Andy crowed as he hopped back down from the bow and passed the binoculars to Jackie.
“Butterball?” Mama Sakalbi asked as she and Papa joined them. Kalai stared as the Orcas formed a line and charged at the middle of the ‘S’ bend in the net before diving down in front of it, sending a wave that pushed the corks back. She saw the spouts and the dorsal fins rise again for another charge at the net.
“He’s the baby, only about four years old. Grammie Slick’s taking the family hunting, see how they’re flattening the net out? We’re about to have a great fucking day!” Andy took Jackie’s shotgun and took it back to the cabin as Kalai and her parents crowded the rail.
“What are they doing?” Mama Sakalbi’s question was directed at Jackie and the woman turned to answer with a gigantic smile.
“Herding! See the ones circling around the net?” Jackie pointed to the two dorsal fins that were almost invisible in the fog that was starting to burn off in the morning sun that had started to clear the eastern mountains. “They’ll be starting to round up small schools of salmon once they’re done turning our net into a reef. Right now, they’re running along the line and probably seeing what they have to work with.”
Mama Sakalbi did a double take, “You must be joking, that level of intelligence would almost be-”
“Human?” Jackie interrupted with a smile, “Yeah, that’s our original teachers out there. We learned to fish from them.”
“I was going to say ‘sentient’, but I take your point. What I want to know is, what are they doing?” Mama Sakalbi gestured out at them, with a bewildered look on her face.
“They’re using the net as a sea wall. Thing is, the net’s hard to see in the water, but the fish can feel it. They’ll put their heads into the net, but that doesn’t catch them. They’ll try to swim around it so that’s why we put an ‘S’ bend. That’s where most of the fish get tangled.” Andy returned and picked up the explanation. “See in the center of the line? That fin with the black and white little checkmark behind it? That’s Grammie Slick, the Matriarch. She’s around sixty now, and grew up out here LONG before you all came down. They don’t always do this, but I guess with you all keeping the fishing fleets docked, she saw the net and wanted a big meal for the family. They’re going to keep pushing the net until it’s in the shape of a crescent and herd a bunch of small schools into a big baitball with pickets to keep the fish pinned in the middle. You watch, there’ll be salmon jumping all over in the middle as they school up.”
“That’s when you’ll see them charge up the center and take big old mouthfuls of salmon. It’ll be a smorgasbord for ‘em!” Jackie pulled up Andy’s omnipad and started recording.
“Wait, but you hate seals for competing with you for food, why are you this excited about Orcas who take so much more?” Papa asked as he also took out his omnipad and started recording as the pod of Orcas finished repositioning their net just as Andy described.
“Because they’re using the nets as a reef to trap the fish! See? Look! There they go! The wolves are out scaring every salmon in the area here!” Kalai dug her own omnipad out at Andy’s words and watched as the dorsal fins sank below the waves, with only a faint and fading wake to tell where they’d gone.
“Now watch ‘em set pickets! They’re going to start patrolling the outside of the net. When they get enough salmon in the middle, they’re going to charge. When they do, watch the entire middle section of our corks go under from the salmon trying to get away. They get whole heaping mouthfuls of food and we get a full net!”
Kalai watched the Orcas swimming in circles around the net like Helix Sharks, and felt a pang of fear seeing the big predators that seemed so gentle and inquisitive in the tank. “But what if they get caught in the net?”
Jackie suppressed a laugh before sweeping an arm out at the net. “I’ve never seen that happen before, and I haven’t even heard of it happening before… at least not here in the Salish Sea. All our Orcas grew up around these nets, so they’ll either avoid them or use them like they are right now.”
“I think it’s because they can see them and the fish can’t. Either way, we’re in for a show!” Andy patted Kalai on the back before pushing Kalai and Mama Sakalbi forward.
For a long while, the surface was calm, save for the circling Orcas as they all watched. Then, by degrees, there was movement on the surface of the water as fish the length of Kalai’s arm started to jump and kick in the baitball. Kalai watched, fascinated, as Orcas seemed to appear and disappear along the edges but never approached the middle of the net.
All the fins disappeared from the surface and an eerie stillness settled over the water. Suddenly, the water in the middle of the crescent erupted, with hundreds of fish shooting out of the water and a sudden surge that hit and pushed the corks outward before they sank completely out of sight. Jackie and Andy started vocalizing those strange undulating cries again, raising their fists in the air before shouting something in their language. From as best as Kalai could guess, it was encouragement as the Orcas started breaching and jumping. In those moments, Kalai could catch glimpses of their mouths full of salmon.
Kalai watched as the terrified fish swarmed towards the net, and watched as many seemed to jump over it and swim away as the Orcas gorged themselves on the enormous school of salmon they had trapped. It was an awe inspiring sight to see, and Kalai lost herself in the moment watching the amazing display of symbiotic hunting and fishing between them and the Orcas.
The engine of the boat turning over broke the spell they were all under as Andy moved the boat at a dead slow pace back towards the net. “Alright, let’s haul it in and reset for ‘em! Jackie! Get on the bow with the billhook!” Jackie whooped in agreement and gently pushed passed Kalai to grab a long pole with a small metal hook at the end.
“We’re gonna have to work fast. They’re hungry, and we all want salmon today,” Andy called over the sound of the engine as they approached the giant buoy that marked the end of the net. “Doc! Open that hatch back there and watch your step! Mrs. Vaida, stand clear in the cabin; I want no accidents today, and three on deck’s going to be a crowd with how many fish we’re going to be taking in. Kalai, I want you back in the-”
Kalai shook her head as she put her omnipad away. “I can do it! Let me help!” she was riding the high feeling of watching the Orcas, and seeing Andy and Jackie preparing to go to work while she was to be just a passenger galled her.
Kalai saw Andy give Jackie a look that she couldn’t quite interpret. “Alright, but you’ll work with me picking fish. Jackie, you’re on the Drum; trade places with me!”
Kalai saw Jackie huff and give Andy a piercing look as she handed off the billhook. “Watch out for jellies, they tend to explode,” the native woman muttered to Kalai as she took over at the net drum’s controls. Kalai was about to volunteer to grab the line with the hook, given her longer reach, but Andy had already leaned almost all the way over the side. Kalai had a momentary scare as Andy seemed to dip forward, seemingly in danger of falling overboard, until he seemed to almost levitate himself using his lower legs back into the boat and pulled the line over the roller horns. She stood there for a moment, unsure of what to do when Andy braced a foot against the side and began to pull on the line and feed it back towards Jackie.
“Way, haul away, we’ll hang and haul together! Way, haul away, haul away Joe!”
Though she didn’t understand the words, Kalai knew a sailing song when she heard one and didn’t wait for any instruction. She moved forward opposite Andy and lent a hand, pulling the heavy line in to the cadence of his chant. After two verses, Kalai heard the whine of hydraulics and the slack in the line behind them went taught.
“Stand back! Here we go!” Andy called to her and the line began pulling the net back aboard. Kalai looked back to see that Jackie had wrapped the line around the center pole of the drum, with the wheel turning to pull the line and net in out of the water. A small set of guide poles that moved when Jackie twitched the controls kept the line evenly distributed on the drum as the first corks and the dripping wet net began to appear out of the water.
“Put your hoods up!” Andy yelled at her over the noise of the machines, and demonstrated the motion. “It’ll keep the water, seaweed and Jellies out of your face and eyes, and take this!” Andy tossed her what appeared to be a handkerchief and he mimed the act of tying it around her face like a mask.
“What about you? You’re sleeveless!” Kalai’s voice was slightly muffled from the cloth as she tied it around her face before pulling up both hoods.
Andy didn’t respond, except to grin at her as he leaned out to watch the net coming up out of the water before it got pulled aboard.
From behind her, Kalai heard Jackie start singing another human sailing song. It was a bit fast paced, and Andy joined in for the chorus. On the third time she heard it, she joined in too.
“Blow ye winds in the mornin’, Blow ye winds, high ho! Haul away your running gear, And blow ye winds, high ho!”
“Coming up!” Andy shouted as there were several loud thunks before six large salmon appeared in the giant fluorescent green tangle of the net. The drum stopped, bringing the fish to a halt as Andy pulled on the corkline and scurried his hands back and forth, gathering the net up as he did until he reached the first fish. Kalai watched in awe as he seemed to magically pull the fish from the tangle and shake it out onto the deck. The second one seemed to be resting on top of the tangle and he flipped it over the corkline and shook the fish out onto the deck.
“Just watch these first few. When you get a feel for how I’m doing this, jump in. Until then, slide these beauties back towards the stern. Jackie’ll pitch ‘em into the hold.”
Kalai nodded and watched Andy’s movements intently. It looked like sorcery, with how fast he moved his hands and zeroed in on a fish. As soon as he was done, he’d whistle to Jackie, who kept singing the cadence out to pull more of the net in, only to stop when more fish were pulled up and over the horns.
The song changed twice before Kalai felt confident enough to jump in. She almost got tangled in the net herself trying to pull out her first fish, but Andy gave the net a quick tug and she was free again. Maddeningly, the fish had simply fallen out of the net without any help from her, and she fumed just long enough for Andy to point to one that was closer to her.
“Hoist up the thing, batten down the whatsit! What’s that thing spinning, somebody should stop it! Turn hard to Port! That’s not Port, NOW I GOT IT! Trust me, I’m in control!”
On the second refrain, Kalai managed to dig her first fish out and drop it to the deck. She let out a whoop, and Andy paused for a moment to give her a quick applause.
“That’s one, girl! There’s a thousand left if we’re lucky!” Jackie called out as Andy sang a verse and tackled another fish in the net.
“Keep an eye on the lead line; make sure it doesn’t go over the corks!” Andy called as Kalai ran down her second fish and was about to throw the excess net over the other side. She stopped, and Andy helped her get the fish without tangling the net.
It took until the end of the song for Kalai to find her rhythm, and soon she and Andy were running down fish in the net in a crisp and quick manner. Kalai felt like she could go faster, but Andy had cautioned her to keep pace with the songs, as there was still a lot of net to go. When Kalai spared a glance at the length of net still in the water, she saw that Andy wasn’t kidding. It looked like they hadn’t even really started to reel it all in. Ok, it’s hard work, but so is sailing, and he’s my size so I should be able to keep up with him. If he can do it, I can do it!
“Haul away you rollin’ kings! Heave away, Haul away! Haul away you’ll hear me sing, We’re bound for South Australia!”
Andy was impressed. Kalai had jumped in without complaint, and she was very coachable. He could feel himself start to flag as they were starting to come to the last third of the net, but Kalai’s persistence, even though she was sweatier and more haggard than he was, kept him going.
The pile of salmon was almost as deep as their calves, and the deck was getting slick with fish slime. For that matter, so was Andy. In a momentary lull in the fish coming over the horns, Andy caught a glimpse of himself shimmering with all the scales that had flown off the fish as they scraped against the net to hit the deck, flopping. He took a big gulp of air and Kalai groaned as she straightened up, cracking her back as she twisted and bent to relieve her aching muscles.
Andy groaned a bit and looked back towards the stern. It was getting hard to see over the amount of net they’d pulled back in, but he could see Doc and Mrs. Vaida doing their best to help throw and shove the piles of salmon into the hold. Everybody’s getting their hands dirty today. Andy smiled and heaved a happy sigh. This, this is what I want. Being out on the water and doing good, hard work.
“SHIT, JELLYFISH!” Kalai shouted as she twisted away to hide her face behind her rain slicker hood. Andy blinked just in time as a wet squelching sound sent a spray of disintegrating jellyfish exploding all over the bow as the net bunched up and got squeezed together.
Andy felt it splatter all over his arms, neck, and face, before he felt it start to slide down his shirt to his chest. Almost immediately, he started to feel the burn. His arms, neck, and chest he could stand, but the blossoming pain on his lips, eyelids, cheeks, and most horribly the inside of his nose overwhelmed all his conditioned pain tolerance.
“FUCK!” Andy screamed. “FUCKING FUCKER! RIGHT IN MY FUCKING FACE! GOD FUCKING DAMNIT! FUCK!” Andy only barely avoided bringing his hands to his face. It was a hard fought thing to deny his instinct to try and scrape it off, but he felt his boots loose purchase and his feet slide out from under him. He hit the pile of fish that surrounded him hard. He was aware of Kalai yelling for her father and Mrs. Vaida, while Jackie’s braying laugh carried over everything else.
Andy felt Kalai trying to grab him, but her gloves were too slick to get a grip and all she did was spread the stingers more evenly over his arms. Andy kept his eyes squeezed shut as he heard Jackie start to direct the confused and panicking aliens.
“Hold your breath, cuz, vinegar incoming!”
Andy felt the bitter stinging splash as Jackie poured a steady stream of vinegar out from what he assumed was the giant jug he kept for these occasions underneath the little kitchenette in the cabin. Though nothing about the intensity of the burn changed, in the back of his mind, Andy knew that it was killing the stinging cells.
“Alright, Kally, take that bucket and fill it with seawater from over the side, then dump it on him.”
Andy sputtered a bit and spit as he scrabbled onto his knees. He steadied himself with one hand on the rail beside him and the other which found the corkline. He kept his eyes shut and growled as the burning spread from his hairline down to his navel. A sudden bracing splash of cold water nearly bowled him back over. Without warning, Andy hadn't had time to get a breath and he sputtered and yowled as the water soaked down under his rain gear.
Andy shook his head like a dog, whipping his braid back and forth before daring to open his eyes. “Son of a BITCH!” Andy growled as he got a look at Kalai holding an empty bucket, while Jackie was shoo’ing Mrs. Vaida and Dr. He’osforos away to give him some room.
“Jesus, quit your bawlin,’ you big baby, you’re acting like you’ve never been stung before!” Jackie called back to him as Andy ripped the gloves off his hands and plunged them over the side to clean off the stingers.
“It’s in my fucking nose you horse’s ass!” Andy shouted back as he splashed his face. A few strings of purple stingers fell into the water and Andy reared back aboard. “Ugh, get another bucket of seawater! I can still feel this shit!”
“Andrei, as a medical professional, I advise you to cease work and-”
Andy looked over as Dr. He’osforos spoke but waved him off mid sentence. “I appreciate it Doc, but I’ve had it far worse than this. There’s a brown and yellow bottle in one of the drawers under the bench that says ‘Motrin’. Get me the bottle or enough to tranq a cow, and I’ll go back to work just fine.”
Kalai let loose a piercing scream and Andy looked over just in time to see her rocketed herself backwards, dropping the bucket over the side. The Doctor caught his daughter before she fell into the hold, but he too had a look of fear plastered on his face. Andy and Jackie moved to the side to see what had scared her so badly, and the two of them couldn’t help but laugh out loud.
Grammie Slick and two of her daughters were there, sticking their heads out of the water with their mouths open, while Butterball was playing with the bucket.
Jackie laughed and stuck her hand out, rubbing the Orca matriarch on the snout. “Raggedy Andy’s fine, Grammie Slick! He’s just milking it for sympathy from these gullible hwun’eetums!”
“What in the Balance of Nature is going on here?” Mrs. Vaida’s shocked voice caused Andy and Jackie to look at her as she stared dumbfounded at the Orcas that were gathering alongside the boat.
“Oh they’re just saying ‘hi.’” Andy shrugged with a smile, despite the burning.
“More like ‘What the hell, cousins, you still got fish to pick. Quit loafin’ around and get another set in!’”
“Jackie, Motrin… NOW!” Andy growled at her. Jackie blew a raspberry at him before diving into the cabin.
“They’re pretty friendly, if you’d like to be introduced,” Andy held out a hand and motioned for Kalai and her father to step forward. Andy dipped his hand in again to make sure it was clear of any stinging cells, before he gently guided the hesitant Kalai to stick her ungloved hand out toward Grammie Slick.
One of the daughters blew a spout before sliding back under water, but Grammie gave a few clicks before briefly touching Kalai’s outstretched hand. “Kalai, this is Grammie Slick, Matriarch of J-Pod. Grammie, this is Kalai… a purple hwun’eetum.” Andy laughed a bit at the look of incredulity on Kalai’s face and the concern on her father’s.
There was a series of shutter clicks from behind Andy, and he turned to see Sakalbi snapping pictures as fast as she could. Kalai was clearly torn between fear and wonder as she held perfectly still and silent for Grammie, who was letting her touch her before she slid back under the water herself. Andy laughed as several clicks and whistles from the pod reverberated through the hull of the boat and he leaned back in.
“Alright, break’s over,” Andy called as he caught the flying bottle of pills Jackie threw at him. He popped two and swallowed them dry before washing the gloves off and putting them on. The extra rinse would have to wait, and he’d have to tough it out until they got back to shore. His boots squelched as he picked his way through the fish on the deck to get back to his station and nodded for Jackie to restart the drum.
It was another twenty minutes before the last of the net was pulled aboard and they were able to clear away all the fish into the hold. Andy stuck his head in and smiled. In a single set, they’d filled three quarters of it, and they had more than enough fish for the gathering and to feed another ten to fifteen families besides. The spouts and the clicks of J-Pod hanging around the boat, however, told Andy that they wanted their reef back and were still hungry.
Andy ordered them to prep the net for another set and helmed his boat again, only to bomb out in a straight line and let J-Pod take care of the fishing from that point on. Once they’d finished, Andy moved the boat out of the Orcas’ way and stood outside the cabin with Jackie while the three aliens crowded the bow, watching and recording the whales going to work a second time.
“Ok, I think we might get a moment to talk,” Andy muttered to Jackie in Salishian. “New orders from the Council. There’s going to be a raid.”
Jackie sucked in a breath and looked at him, all levity gone. “Cambrians, Militia, or the Dummy Bunnies?”
“Militia and the Interior.”
Jackie whistled softly in surprise as her eyebrows shot up. “Really poking the bear, cuz… When and where?”
“Uncle Willy wants us to hit the Militia Supply Depot out by Tanner on Saturday,” Andy growled quietly as he watched Kalai pointing to Grammie Slick’s dorsal as she swam out on the picket around the net.
“You mean the one close to the Snoqualmish?”
“Yeah. Full raid, we’re to hit it and take any supplies, especially military, that we can and destroy what we can’t. The messier we can make it the better. We’ll meet up with the Resistance on the old Bessemer Logging road by Hancock Creek and they get half for taking the credit. Me and Chuck’ve been assigned to ‘lead’ you.” Andy nodded and tried to flick some of the fish scales off himself, but got nowhere.
Jackie sat down on the rail with a groan before looking back up at him with a smirk. “You mean babysit on overwatch while we do the real work.”
Andy pursed his numb lips together and considered the ramifications of folding his arms on the jellyfish burns that had started to go quiet thanks to the Motrin. “Grandma and the Council want me to ‘get my hands dirty.’” He gritted his teeth in frustration.
“What? I’m sorry, that sentence made zero sense.” Jackie shook her head like she’d just been slapped.
Andy couldn’t keep the frustration and anger out of his tone when he spoke. “Apparently there are doubts about my loyalty to the tribe and whether or not I’ve lost my way.”
Jackie huffed in amusement. “Everyone knows the Council’s fucking stupid, but this is a new level of dumb. You got us land back, you got them to allow you to break the rules to feed our people, they’re fixing the fuck ups on our waterways because of you and they think you’ve gone to the dark side?” Jackie started laughing at the nonsense of the politics.
“Last time we talked, you thought I was playing with fire and-” Andy started to throw back at her before she snorted loudly.
“Results talk, cuz. Three of our Hatcheries returned, and my whole family drawing good money in Imperial Credits? Fuck, even if you had sold out, we need more Clan Heads doing the same thing.” She smiled as she nodded towards their guests on the bow.
“They still don’t trust that I know what I’m doing,” Andy growled as he folded his arms unconsciously and immediately regretted it.
Jackie snorted. “Of course they don’t. You didn’t talk to them or get their permission first. Hell, I’m surprised your grandma didn’t chuck you out on your ear for even suggesting that you should work for the dummy bunnies.” Jackie stretched and hopped up and around Andy to grab a water bottle. “But it’s working out. There’s land being returned, money in our hands, and food about to be on our table. You’re doin’ what a Chief is supposed to do.”
Andy scoffed and started to object. “I’m no Chief-”
Jackie gave his shoulder a slap and grinned evilly as a starburst of pain and burning cut through the painkillers, shutting Andy up mid-protest. “You keep saying you aren’t, but that don’t make it true.” She resumed her seat as Andy fought the yowl of pain back so as not to give her the satisfaction. “I mean, case in point, what are you going to do with all these fish Grammie’s catching for us right now?”
Andy blinked a few times as he regained his composure and thought seriously about his answer. “We’ll pull fifteen for the gathering they got invited to… Then all the fish you can pack into the truck goes to the Exiles. The rest? I’ll call Chuck and get some folks from the Council to claim the rest and distribute it to the families that need it.”
Jackie deepened her voice and adopted a cowboy drawl. “He never eats until he sees the pots are full of meat in the lodges of the widows and orphans-”
“That’s Comanche Law, not Salish, and that’s from a John Wayne movie, you ass.” Andy huffed and Jackie giggled wickedly, flipped him off.
“Still haven’t refuted my point, cuz.” Jackie’s singsong voice caused Andy to glare spitefully at her, until she raised her hands defensively. “Alright, you’re not a Chief. So, Not Chief Tsu’titsi’uqw; you need to get your hands dirty and lead a raid. I’ll scrape up what we need and scout the target. You just meet up with us Saturday night at the Snoqualmish Casino and I’ll put a gun in your hands. Don’t worry, we’ll only get dirty enough to make the Council happy.”
“I’ll be a bit late; I’m escorting them to the Hwatcom Family Gathering on Friday.” Andy took a step back as Jackie stood up and twisted a bit to stretch out.
“No surprise there, grandpa’s an old school traditional Indian. They’re dummies, but they’re trying to do right by us, finally. Again, thanks to you, Chie-” Andy slapped the back of her head hard and growled at her, but she just started laughing, making him even madder.
“Alright, enough. Let’s get on the bow and not look like we’re sketchy Indians plotting to attack an Imperial fort.” Andy snarled, shoving her past him while she just kept laughing.
Andy stomped forward, aware of the wet sounds his boots made as he walked. Kalai turned and smiled at him as he moved to stand beside her and her father. “So how are they doing out there?”
“They just started their attack. This is fascinating! Their coordination, their ingenuity, and adaptation to human activity is astounding! I wish I had brought observation drones!” Sakalbi was glued to the binoculars and holding her omnipad up while she muttered observations into the speaker. Andy was content to watch as the pod put on a repeat performance and the net sagged again until they all came up and started swimming lazily around the net and the boat. All of them except Butterball and one of his older brothers. The two seemed to be getting into a jumping contest.
“He’s feeling a bit hyper. Must be nice to be full,” Jackie commented as the two whales took turns jumping out of the water and twisting in the air. Andy smiled and nodded and felt a hand go to his shoulder. He looked down and saw it was Kalai making eyes at him. Andy hid the grimace at the burn and gave her a wink.
“That one’s getting closer, should we be concerned?” Andy looked over at Dr. He’osforos and Kalai quickly moved her hand as they watched Butterball getting closer and closer with each jump.
Jackie hopped up and straddled the railing as Andy and Kalai shared a concerned look. Jackie hooked a hand around one of the roller horns and peered down into the water. “I don’t think so, I mean he knows we’re-”
The sudden appearance of a flying adolescent Orca only a scant few feet away from the boat right next to the lot of them cut Jackie off. Most of them only had enough time to watch the little playful bastard hang in the air for a moment before he twisted to almost shoulder punch the water as he came back down. Andy had just enough presence of mind to pull Kalai and her father down, and braced himself as the plume of water rose from where Butterball landed.
“Oh shi-” Andy heard Jackie say before water cascaded down on them and drenched them all, sending the boat rocking violently.
It took a moment for Andy to recover and he helped the two Shil back to their feet. “Quick check, is everyone alright?”
“HEY! WHAT THE HELL, BUTTERBALL! GRAMMIE! YOU HAVE A TALK WITH YOUR GRANDSON! HE’S GONNA GET SOMEONE KILLED ONE OF THESE DAYS!” Jackie screamed at the water, shaking her fist.
A camera shutter sounded and a dripping wet Mrs. Vaida stood, wide eyed in fear, staring out over the water.
Andy started laughing at the sight of his boss soaked to the bone, her hair and her fur a dripping mess. “That picture right there? You can title it: ‘Angry Native Woman Yells at Whale.’”
Kalai looked like she was on Krek’s doorstep. Akil’eas knelt next to her as he finished his examination and was looking over the readings on his omnipad. His daughter sat in front of the cabin on the little step, legs splayed out in front of her while she leaned against the railing on the side of the boat. Her father stood next to her as he finished a quick check of her vitals and her viral load.
“Unsurprisingly, you’re a bit elevated, but given your numbers over the last week, that’s saying that you’ve come back up to your normal levels.” Akil’eas had been worried. When they’d hauled in the net the second time, Kalai had stayed on the bow with the boy, Andy, while Akil’eas’d stood over the human woman’s shoulder and studied the controls.
Akil’ieas had also pitched in and helped fill the hold, but when he and Sakalbi could no longer stuff them in, they’d given up and stood out of the way. His old friend and colleague had spent the rest of the time recording, either the large predators that continued to circle and play around the boat, or the seemingly inefficient fishing practice of Andy and his people. No wonder he was so big, and his brother had been that strong. It beggared belief that their people worked at that backbreaking pace for so long, but there Andy stood, proud and tall at the end of it, while he and Sakalbi struggled to stay standing.
Akil’eas had to focus on keeping his hands from shaking and retrieved another water bottle for his exhausted daughter. Andy had them moving at a slow pace back towards a different harbor from the one they’d left that morning. They’d stopped briefly at the pier they’d started from to allow Jackie to disembark. The two humans packed all the fish that couldn’t fit in the hold up to Jackie’s truck and filled the bed of it without any help. She drove off with close to a hundred fish.
Now with the deck cleared, Andy told them they were on their way to the harbor most of his Band used. The trip had been slower going than the morning had been, but only because they were riding much lower in the water than they had been.
“King Triton’s farewell,” Kalai muttered looking up. Akil’eas followed his daughter’s gaze up to see a flock of white and gray seabirds calling out loudly as they kept pace with the boat as it headed towards the docks.
“It means work’s almost over. It’s a great sound, isn’t it?” Andy called out from the cabin where he sat at the helm.
Kalai shifted herself with great effort to look around the door to the cabin. “It sounds amazing.”
The smile Andy gave Kalai caused Akil’eas to have a pang of fatherly protectiveness, and only fatigue kept the scowl off his face. “Just wait, we’ll clean a few once we’ve off-loaded to the families. Fresh salmon tonight for everyone, and I’m cooking! Doc, we’d love to have you, too.”
“I’d love to but-”
Kalai grabbed his arm and stopped him. “Trust me, Papa, you don’t want to miss it.”
Akil’eas chewed his tongue for a moment, looking from Andy to Kalai. Sakalbi caught his eye and nodded emphatically. “Alright, if you’ll allow me to help. You must be exhausted.”
Andy beamed at Akil’eas, “You won’t hear me turn down free help.”
“Vaascon fellas don’t have no frills, Haul away, haul away! They’re plain and skinny as a lodthfish gill, And we’re bound away for Vaasconia!”
Kalai sat back and started singing between sips of water. Akil’eas sat down next to her and joined in the chorus for a Vaascon sailing song. It was strange to think that these humans also sang to their sea gods to placate them and coordinate the work. What else could you expect from a sailorman? Some things call to the soul across time and evidently even the gulf space and peoples.
“So heave him up my Turry Turry girls, Haul away, haul away! Heave him up and let the sails unfurl! And we’re bound away for Vaasconia!”
Andy’s voice joining in on the chorus startled Akil’eas and Kalai and they both turned to look back at him.
He gave them another wide grin, “I started learning some of the sail songs after Kalai told me about sailing on Shil.”
“Akil’eas, a word?” Sakalbi motioned with her head towards the bow and offered him a hand up. He followed her to the bow, leaving the two children singing together.
The harbor mouth was coming up fast, and between the noise of the engine and the net drum keeping them out of sight, there was some privacy. “I’ve heard some rumors about your feelings toward humans…” Sakalbi leaned against the railing, giving him the look that every teacher and professor had when questioning a belligerent student. When Akil’eas didn’t answer her, save to throw her back his own look, she continued. “Kalai is quite taken with Andy. It’s been quite a refreshing thing to see her come out of her shell.”
“It’s a vacation romance, nothing more.” Akil’eas felt his stomach clench and couldn’t stop himself from looking back.
“I don’t think so, Akil’eas. This is the first time I’ve seen her so on thorns and thistles around anyone, much less a male. She’s been very keen around him.” The smile she gave him was a bit galling, but he had to admit, he didn’t really know Kalai as well as Sakalbi and her spouses.
“He is… I’m sure he is a very nice young man, but as a fit consort for a soon to be Duchess? No, and I’ve yet to meet a human that is.” The thought of a human becoming the next Duke He’osforos was absurd. Sure there had been the occasional non-Shil Kho-liebhaberin or even the one Duke Aurar’ian He’osforos who was a Triki, but a human? “They’re far too individualistic and self centered to rise to the responsibilities of the Peerage.”
“That’s not exactly as large a sample size as you think it is, Leas. If you had Andy in your class, or on your crew, disregarding the fact that he’s human, what would your read on him be?”
Akil’eas locked his jaw and pursed his lips, defiantly. “I don’t know.”
“Come on, Leas, you’re better than me at reading people, and I’m damn good at it.” He hated how Sakalbi’s eyes flashed and her right ear would twitch when she thought she had the upper hand in an argument. He huffed a sigh and decided to play her little game, just to humor her enough so that she’d drop the subject.
“Dependable, fastidious and competent, judging by the state of his equipment and his boat. Self sacrificing, diligent, hard working, given what I’ve observed today. He’s got a temper, but it takes a bit to get there, and he’s carrying some pretty heavy emotional scars.” He’d not seen very much of Andy, but the old Sailing Master and Professor in him started to come out and assess the boy just as he would any of his students or junior sailors.
“That’s my read, too. Doesn’t sound so individualistic and self-centered to me. Blighted Nature, Leas, from what I’ve learned about him and his people, he broke with several of their traditions and customs to help us. He’s stuck his neck out far further for us than we would have for him and his people, for no other reason than to try and save his homeland. Were he an Erbian on Myr or even back home in Vaasconia, there’d be Groom-War over his hand.”
Akil’eas was a bit piqued about her statement, “What about your daughter? Kalai made no secret about little Sitry mooning after him, and her disapproval of their courtship.”
“She thinks she’s in love, and it very well might be that she is, but Kalai’s disapproval should tell you what it tells me, given your own rather astute assessment of the man.”
“HEY DOC! TAKE THE WHEEL, I GOTTA DRUM US IN!” Andy’s voice cut their conversation short as Akil’eas turned to look back around the drum. Andy waved him back as he slowed their approach to come in. “Take us to Dock 5, straight back and to port.”
“Straight back and to larboard, aye!” Akil’eas rattled off as he traded places with Andy at the helm.
Kalai heaved herself up to stand as Andy grabbed a large leather circle and ran forward to jump up on the bow. As Akil’eas piloted the boat into the harbor and made the turn, he saw a large crowd of humans gathered on the pier and the shore. As soon as they were in sight, he watched as Andy, standing tall, began to drum a beat and vocalize, projecting his voice over the water to those on shore. Akil’eas sputtered a bit in surprise as he guided the boat slowly towards the open mooring.
“That’s their call. His family’s song lets the people on shore know who he is and that he’s friendly.” Kalai looked back at Akil’eas before moving inside the cabin to stand next to her father. “All the families know it, but only he is allowed to sing it. It’s their version of a family crest and coat of arms. Elder Hwatcom taught us about those. There’ll be a reply in a second granting us permission to come ashore.”
There was indeed a response of drumming and singing from the assembly of humans as many started to crowd forward carrying what appeared to be coolers. Andy reappeared and took the controls back and reversed to kill their forward momentum as Sakalbi threw out their mooring lines to the waiting humans. Andy killed the engine and moved quickly out of the cabin to speak in a language that Akil’eas did not recognize. There seemed to be a bit of confusion from those gathered on the dock, but Andy opened the hatch to show the hold full of fish.
“Don’t thank me, thank them. Sockeye and Kings to all comers, courtesy of the Vaidas and the Vaida Warren!” Andy shouted happily in Vatikre as he pulled two giant fish out by their gills and handed them off to the applauding humans.
Sakalbi managed to shoot Akil’eas a smug look before she plunged her hands into the mass of fish and began helping Andy hand them out to the people.
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Possible Late Post Due to Vacation. I will try to post on time, but it may be as late as 6/12/23