3404 wake forest road raleigh nc

For the Raleigh, NC and surrounding areas.

2009.06.24 17:21 Geminize For the Raleigh, NC and surrounding areas.

Raleigh is the capital of the state of North Carolina as well as the seat of Wake County. Raleigh is known as the "City of Oaks" for its many oak trees.
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2008.04.14 16:03 Triangle - Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill, North Carolina

The Research Triangle, or simply The Triangle, is the combined NC area of Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill. It is anchored by three major research universities.
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2008.03.24 16:22 North Carolina

A subreddit for the state of North Carolina.
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2023.06.09 17:31 Khan_Entertainment The geekiest campaign ever: The Eternal Cohort

So, I basically made a multiverse-spanning campaign...enjoy!
Warning: This campaign incorporates elements from multiple universes and involves complex lore from sources such as Lord of the Rings, Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion series, the Alien Anthology, Terminator (especially Terminator: Resistance), and Magic: The Gathering. To fully understand and appreciate the story, a significant amount of knowledge about these respective universes and their lore is required. Readers who are unfamiliar with the lore from these sources may find it challenging to follow the intricacies of the plot and the connections between different storylines. It is highly recommended to have a solid understanding of these universes to fully grasp the nuances of the campaign. If you are not well-versed in these sources or find complex interwoven narratives overwhelming, this campaign may not be suitable for you. However, if you enjoy delving into intricate lore and relish the challenge of connecting multiple universes, this campaign may offer a rich and rewarding storytelling experience. Please consider your familiarity with the relevant lore before diving into this campaign, as it may greatly impact your ability to engage with and enjoy the story. I will explain the story the way it turned out for my party. This is a very basic rundown of the story, basically the core of the campaign.
Also, these might greatly help you:
One wiki to rule them all: https://lotr.fandom.com/f
Moorcok's Multiverse Wiki: https://stormbringer.fandom.com/f
MTG Wiki: https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Main_Page
Xenopedia: https://avp.fandom.com/f
Terminator Wiki: https://terminator.fandom.com/f
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The Lord of the Rings: Where the Shadows Lie
The first part of the campaign takes the party to the year 2000 of the Third Age of Middle-Earth. The Realm of Angmar has been defeated and the Nazgûl are gathering in Mordor. The Elven Lord Glanduril of Mithlond, brother of Gildor Inglorion and wielder of the black sword Anguirel, recieves a message from a Stranger. It tells about the actions of the other Nazgûl during the Witch-King's campaign against Arnor, including third of the Nine, Gothmog, once a great Númenórean lord who fell to Sauron and led the black númenóreans to Dark Land, where they established a colony and became the Hyarmenóreans. Now, nothing is left of them but the city of Nazgkadar, led by a powerful necromancer named Mordu (who would much later become the Mouth of Sauron). And the elves suspect that Gothmog might have been preparing them for war. They also suspect a Nazgûl in Dol Guldur, Rhûn and Harad, who have recovered one of the remaining dwarven rings and unleashed the black plague upon Gondor.
https://ibb.co/4gJs8Qm (yes, I made this)
https://ibb.co/MVmZyL6
Glanduril and Galadriel assemble a group of heroes to investigate this threat and the other Nazgûl's plans. (This and subsequently the next adventure are the only ones where I'll incorporate my players' characters into the summary, because they sometimes are key elements.) Among the group were Galadhorn, an elven lord of Doriath and brother of Celeborn who now lives in Lórien and posesses a ring gifted to him by Melian with the power to heal others, but it has been broken during the second Kinslaying at the hands of Fëanor's sons; Tauriël, the lost daughter of Eluréd, and therefore heir to the Kingdom of Doriath; Arathar, Brother of Aranarth and Prince of Arnor, a Dúnedain of the north; and Elethrond, an elf of Nargothrond and apprentice of Finrod, who now lives in Mithlond with Glanduril. He also carries the sword of Ecthelion.
With the exception of Elethrond, they first meet in the Prancing Pony in Bree, where they also encounter a Stranger who ensures (in whatever way you see fit) that Tauriël and Arathar eventually fall in love. When the group travels to Dark Land and enter Nazgkadar, they have to avoid being spotted. They break into a Melkor temple/library and find out about the Hyarmenórean's history and that Gothmog had returned to recruit them for Sauron. After fleeing from the city, the group and Glanduril stop in Minas Ithil on their way to Dol Guldur, their next stop. Then the 2-year siege of Minas Ithil at the hands of the Nazgûl begins. After a fierce battle, the heroes depart. At the outskirts of Greenwood, while the others are sleeping, one of the player characters' wakes up and sees Glanduril talking to the Stranger they've encountered in Bree, a concerned expression on Glanduril's face. They can not understand what they're talking but they see that the Stranger carries a sword identical to that of Glanduril, on his finger shines a ring like the one Galadhorn possesses one if it wasn't broken and on his head sits a helm adorned with a dragon figure. The next morning Glanduril tells the group that what they thought to be a Nazgûl in Dol Guldur could be Sauron himself, according to the same Stranger that told him of the other Nazgûl, as he has encountered him last night. And that he will depart for a while to search for an ally that might be challenging to recruit. He sends the players north to the land of the Éothéod to help Fram slay the dragon Scatha and recover one of the dwarven rings of power from his hort to delay Sauron, if it is really him. (So this is kinda like a Hobbit scenario, including Fram's dragon sickness; Also, the ring tempts the players.) Following that adventure, Gildor arrives at Framsburg to give the group a message from Glanduril that tells them to investigate the ruins of Utumno in search for Sauron's past and maybe find a clue if he's hiding in Dol Guldur. They have to pass by the orc-infested Gundabad to reach the ruins in the far north. Once deep underground they encounter the fellbeasts, which would later become the mounts of the Nazgûl during the War of the Ring:
"Nonetheless the Valar did not discover all the mighty vaults and caverns hidden with deceit far under the fortresses of Angband and Utumno. Many evil things still lingered there, and others were dispersed and fled into the dark and roamed in the waste places of the world, awaiting a more evil hour; and Sauron they did not find."
But then they are confronted by a Balrog, and Glanduril comes to their aid, and they slay the balrog using Anguirel and Elethrond's sword, as it has slain many balrogs in the hands of Ecthelion and could wound their fire.
https://ibb.co/xgvrhT9
They then travel to Amon Ereb north of Mithlond, where once was the fortress of the sons of Fëanor. On their way, a group of Dúnedain bring Arathar a gift from a stranger: The Dragon helm of Dor-Lómin. Once they arrive at Amon Ereb, they are greeted by Maglor, last living son of Fëanor, who Glanduril has recruited for one final mission. Though he's first met with Suspicion and hatred from Galadhorn and Tauriël, Maglor wants to at least partly redeem himself and (as a son of Fëanor) repairs Galadhorn's ring and gifts the recovered treasure of Doriath to Tauriël and agrees to join them. Returning to Dark land, Maglor sings a song to recruit the huorns and ents of the forest, which is destroyed by the Hyarmenóreans for their industry. The ents destroy the city and the huorns kill any fleeing Hyarmenóreans, while the group (without Glanduril and Maglor) face Mordu in his palace. After this final boss fight, Mordu manages to escape and Gothmog turns up and takes the dwarven ring from the group, before Maglor and Glanduril arrive to drive him back. Afterwards, Glanduril offers the group to join him in searching for the legendary city of Tanelorn in the new lands in the west. With nothing holding him in Middle-Earth Maglor joins them.
Michael Moorcock’s The Eternal Champion: Stranger in a Strange World
Years later, Arathar and Tauriël have an adult son, Heledir, that lives with them in Tanelorn. Being a descendant of Lúthien, Tauriël had chosen a mortal life with Arathar. Heledir is gifted Glanduril's sword Anguirel, as well as the dragon helm of Dor-Lómin.
https://ibb.co/2SwPV60
One day, the black ship arrives at Tanelorn and the captain recruits the group. On the ship, they meet with Dakkon Blackblade from the MTG universe. They learn that Dakkon and Heledir (and Turin Turambar before him) are both incarnations of the eternal champion and wield incarnations of the black sword; and that Glanduril is Heledir's eternal companion. They also learn that the group is an incarnation of another archetype: the Eternal Cohort, which will always help the eternal champion in one way or another, if he himself is not able to fulfill his task. They don't have to be with the champion though. (Also, Heledir has a dream avatar: Valentine Michael Smith from "Stranger in a Strange Land")
They travel the second ether until they reach Elric's world. Their mission is to defeat the nemesis of Dakkon and chaos demon Geyadrone Dihada, who wants to disrupt a meeting between the lords of chaos and law. They travel to R'lin K'ren A'a, where Dihada's Unholy Citadel is located. Upon arriving on the jungle continent, they are ambushed by Mairon (Sauron), or rather his incarnation in Elric's world. Turns out, that Melkor is actually a chaos lord and Mairon a chaos demon in his service. But his power in this world isn't strong, and the players are able to drive him back.
https://ibb.co/KmDdqzx (Mairon)
After defeating some of the reptilian Olab, they meet with a man called J'osui C'reln Reyr and the departing royal family of R'lin K'ren A'a, as they made a deal with Arioch to leave for Melniboné and leave the gods their land for their meeting. (They also see the great jade statue of Arioch). Heledir and Dakkon forge their helmets together, creating a black shimmering helmet adorned with a dragon figure; they gift the helmet to the king, and it would later become the dragon helm of the melnibonéan emperors. Before they launch their attack on Dihada, they return to the ship, where they are met with a strange group of people, that kinda look like this:
https://ibb.co/wycT5Kz
They give Heledir a vial of a silver liquid, before the group must depart. They ultimately defeat Geyadrone Dihada by becoming The-Two-Who-Are-One and banish her with the black sword before Dakkon planeswalkes away. Then, Mairon returns and after this final fight, Heledir banishes him from Elric's world using Anguirel. But this evokes a bloodlust in the demon sword and kills all of Heledir's companions. Heledir curses Anguirel and swears to defeat Sauron once and for all. He takes Galadhorn's ring and travels the multiverse via the moonbeam roads...
https://ibb.co/JCcxNNt (the Two-Who-Are-One)
https://ibb.co/H7mBVbc
Aliens: Nemesis
These last two parts are played in the Alien RPG System by Free League
It's the year 2183, the USS Corum has been dispatched to locate survivors of the Hadley's Hope incident, that have crashed on the nearby moon of Lv-223, while trying to escape with the Onager. Among the crew is the android Evans.
Upon landing on the moon, they notice the jungle that has been created by the black goo emitted from the crashed Juggernaut. While investigating the terrain, one of the marines is infected with Neomorph spores. The Neomorph emerges from it's host in the shuttle's medbay but breaks out, so that it isn't safe to return to.
Soon they find a boy who has been surviving on the hostile moon (kinda like Eric Kirby in Jurassic Park 3): Timmy Jorden; Newt's brother. He then leads the group to the engineer temple, where Evans discovers that the engineers have created humanity and have created the black goo out of some sort of (phyrexian) oil that they have encountered during their travel around the multiverse, as they are a highly advanced species. He also finds out that the Deacon is an incarnation of the "Black Sword" and that the engineers worship it as a symbol of the cycle of sacrifice and creation, that drives the whole multiverse and the balance of chaos and order. Evans takes one of the black goo vials and creates a silver liquid out of it's nano-material, that david had already discovered; an alloy that can form into anything.
After several Xenomorph attacks, Timmy leads the group to the wreck of the Onager to get it's transmitter to call another shuttle, but it is now a xenomorph hive. The group eventually floods the hive with liquid nitrogen, but they only have a limited amount and not much zime. They place explosives within the hive, but don't make it out before the Xenomorphs attack them again. The group sacrifices themselves, destroying the hive with the queen for good. The last thing one of them sees is Evans rising from the flames, but his skin is gone, revealing that he is not a normal Weyland-Yutani android:
https://ibb.co/pXz1MNS
Suddenly, the group seems to wake up in a shattered city, dispersed, and with their memory of their adventure fading like a dream and being replaced with others...
Terminator: Renegades
The group awakes in the middle of a battle, they are part of the 124th, Colorado division. The group is marked for termination and an infiltrator tries to kill them but is then attacked by another terminator. Both get destroyed in the process. The group recoveres the chip of the other terminator and brings it back to the shelter to investigate why it saved them.
https://ibb.co/HHxDjJK
They find out that the chip has been altered using a mimetic polyalloy. Apparently, these "Renegades" have been appearing lately, sabotaging SkyNet's assets. But there are more pressing matters. After destroying a SkyNet train transporting titan for new terminators, they recieve the coordinates of the SkyNet central core from Jacob Rivers and John Connor gives the order for the final attack.
The 124th attacks the Cheyenne Mountain Complex, where the core is; But it is too heavily defended. Suddenly, the renegades launch a massive attack on SkyNet, diverting SkyNet's forces away from the complex and giving the 124th the chance to attack. The players place the explosives and hack the central computers before destroying the core. The resistance is victorious, but SkyNet has sent three terminators back in time, among them the "T-1000". After the battle, they are met by a figure who reveals himself to be a "Heledir", the creator of the renegades. He explains how he has used the polyalloy to alter the terminator's programming to defeat the servant of the singularity called SkyNet. But SkyNet has captured one of them and recreated the polyalloy, creating the T-1000. He then goes on to meet with John Connor together with the group. He explains that he has to go back in time using the captured time displacement equipment to ensure his own birth and defeat of Sauron: He is the Stranger from the first part. He also explains that the group is the Eternal Cohort and explains that they and a renegade (Evans) have to go back in time too and travel by the black ship, to ensure that he recieves the polyalloy.
Heledir would go on to inform Glanduril of the Hyarmenóreans, bring Arathar and Tauriël together and live by the Gladden Fields to ultimately ensure that Déagol and Sméagol would find the One ring, ultimately sealing Sauron's fate; before joining the warriors at the edge of time.
submitted by Khan_Entertainment to rpg [link] [comments]

2023.06.09 16:03 Thingstodo919 Things to do this weekend!

FRIDAY
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SATURDAY
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SUNDAY
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Join the Thingstodo919 email list here for a weekly events newsletter. Doing anything interesting this weekend? Let us know your plans in the comments!
submitted by Thingstodo919 to raleigh [link] [comments]

2023.06.09 14:08 lovemypennydog Looking for a good dentist

I'm looking for a dentist in the N Raleigh/Wake Forest area. I need someone who does nitrous and is good with slightly phobic patients.
Thanks guys!
submitted by lovemypennydog to raleigh [link] [comments]

2023.06.09 14:05 CIAHerpes I was raised in a secret religion. Our members have learned to travel between dimensions (part 1)

I always knew my family was involved in some strange things. We never celebrated Christmas, Easter, or even Festivus. No, our main holiday was the Overtide on the first full moon after the summer solstice. As my parents constantly drilled into my head, we were Reepiners, the few remaining mystics of an ancient path. The Reepiners devoted their lives to travel. We explored other worlds, other universes even. Many of us died on the way, or sometimes, travelers from our spiritual path would come back totally insane and rambling. Some had even clawed their own eyes out, as if trying to stop the horrors they were seeing.
My father had no real power in the Reepiners, but he was one of the most accomplished travelers in the world. The young male children of the leaders would often accompany my father out to the woods and ancient cave systems near our house where he would show them unimaginable things. One of the young trainees, a brash young man who couldn’t have been older than seventeen, came back with totally white hair after a single night in the caves with my father. When I asked my dad what happened, he simply gave me a sly smile and walked away.
On my own seventeenth birthday, which took place a few years ago, I was to follow my father out into the forest before sunset. We would be heading to Hollowhead Cave, a ten-mile hike from the parking area. My father found the dirt road, pulling over on a slight turnaround. The nearest neighbor was miles down the road. We took no cell phones or supplies with us. We didn’t have so much as a knife.
We had been hiking for hours. I could feel blisters starting to form on my feet, and trickles of sweat rolled down from my hairline. The insects buzzed and chirped in the ferns and trees surrounding us, and a cloud of gnats followed us everywhere we went. There was a slight smell of flowers in the air mixed with pines. Other than the insects, it was a beautiful and peaceful forest. Finally, my father broke the long silence.
“Are you scared?” my father asked. I looked over at him. His strange, gray eyes were watching me, studying me. They seemed to snap and sizzle with inner energy. My father looked younger than his age, sturdy and well-built. Muscles grown over a lifetime of work filled out his clothes. Even though he was in his fifties, he had almost no wrinkles on his face and few white hairs.
Those are eyes that have seen beyond, I thought to myself. Those are eyes that have seen other worlds. The light that seems to shine from them must be holy. It must be the light of a thousand other universes.
“Does traveling really bring enlightenment, Pa?” I said. He shrugged, looking forward again.
“It may, or it may not. Enlightenment is already here at every moment, just like the same deathless mind is always present in every universe, or the same eternal soul is present in all the seconds of your life. Traveling to other spaces may help you see how this eternal consciousness is the same in every universe, how that endless mind stretches everywhere. It is more of a deepening awareness that you get from travel, one that brings enough wisdom to see the eternal is already here. But you didn’t answer my question,” my father said.
“Yes,” I said, “I’m afraid.”
***
It was nearly dark when we got to the cave. My father had been quiet most of the way. Now as he knelt in front of me, I saw what looked like a hand mirror in his back pocket, rolled up in cloth.
“What’s that in your pocket?” I asked.
“I always hold the black mirror,” he said. “We use it for training the young, opening them up to the idea of traveling, showing them a little of what is out there waiting for those with courage and fanaticism on their side.” The cave was cool and refreshing. Torches had been put out all along the walls, though I don’t know when they were lit. I heard what sounded like a babbling stream echoing up through the rocky chambers, and I smelled far-off water mixing with the smoke of the torches.
“What about the red mirror?” I whispered. I had heard rumors about it, but they were vague and contradictory.
“The red mirror? We don’t generally speak of it. High Priest Arkovitch personally attends to it most of the year. He tries to make it sleep. He tells me that prayer and meditation seem to soothe it. But sometimes it wakes up. I’ll tell you a story while we walk. It’ll make the time pass faster.” His voice seemed to crack slightly at this. His face looked grimmer and thinner in the flickering light. He looked at me with his strange, gray eyes, and in them, I saw the traveler my father truly was. He had an iron core that was so fearless, it almost seemed mad. He gave a nearly inaudible sigh, then he started the story.
“High Priest Arkovitch was given the three mirrors in a somewhat strange way. He was on a meditative retreat, sleeping outside, drinking from the streams, eating ferns and mushrooms and whatever else he could scrounge. After the first day, he woke up to a pile of dead squirrels next to his head. Their necks were all snapped, and they were stacked in a little pyramid.
“The second night, he tried to stay up, but after hours of standing guard, he lost the battle. He says he fell asleep with his back against a tree. When he awoke, he found a pile of hundreds of shoes surrounding him. He says that when he left the spot to forage or drink, these piles were taken away in the blink of an eye. It was as if they hadn’t been there at all. And there was no sign of anyone in the forest. He was out about a dozen miles from the road, far down a winding deer trail. He wasn’t going to be spooked by these childish pranks, he told me. He stayed another night.
“This time, he awoke to find a black box next to him. He opened it, expecting an animal’s head or some other rubbish, but instead, he found these three strange mirrors. He touched them all in turn, the white, the red and the black, and then he pulled them out. He looked into the red. The flat, polished stone on both sides sure made a poor mirror, he told me. In fact, all three of them were almost totally useless. They were clearly hand mirrors, of that he was certain, but who would put just a slightly reflective stone inscribed with strange runes in place of the actual mirror glass? And then his mind made a connection. He had heard of shamans doing similar things to this, making special hand mirrors for rites involving psychedelic drugs or mystical experiences, such as the shamans in Africa with their iboga vine.
“As he looked into it, though, he said the strange runes seemed to start glowing. They sent out red light that pierced straight into his head. He said he tried closing his eyes, but even with them fully shut, all he could see was swirling tunnels of red light. And then he was gone.
“When we travel, son, you know we hear the ringing. Any time you cross universes, all you can hear is that incessant, high-pitched sound which seems to vibrate your teeth and makes your eyes water.” I nodded. I had done some astral projection and lucid dreaming, both of which were considered vastly inferior by the Reepiners, like toys for children to play with. The most advanced in our religion always traveled bodily. It was considered the way to Liberation. Enlightenment itself was the goal, and seeing the true nature of all things by travel was the principal path. But some of the older members of our religion had told me that it was also terrifying, especially since anyone who traveled bodily could die if something in these strange, alien worlds attacked them.
“Arkovitch says the ringing was the most intense he had ever heard. He said he thought his head would split open. The red light still blinded him, but he felt himself floating. And then he felt the light receding and opened his eyes. The ringing in his ears gradually faded as he looked around, realizing he was in a strange jungle, still holding the red mirror in one hand. But the runes had stopped glowing and faded back into the stone, and the mirror again just looked like a useless decoration.
“He says the trees of the jungle stretched hundreds of feet above him with slippery, yellow trunks and thin branches periodically reaching out. Ferns taller than a man surrounded him. He could barely see over the thick vegetation. There were no cries of birds, no insects, no animals or any kind he could see. And then he heard a rustling, just a slight movement. Turning, he saw a blood-red shape duck into the ferns.
“Arkovitch began to run. He ran for his life. He didn’t know what kind of world he was, but he knew when he was being stalked. He heard more of those things, saw glimpses of that bright red hide they had. Then one jumped directly in front of him.
“It stood over ten feet tall, he said, with dozens of black eyes on stalks rising from the top of its thin, oval head. Its legs were sleek and reptilian, like the legs of a velociraptor, and long arms with knife-like claws at the end. It opened its mouth wide, showing rows of parallel serrated teeth, and from a bulging orange sac in the back of its throat, it spit at him. Sticky white webs shot out and wrapped around his legs before he even knew what was happening. And then he heard dozens more of those things closing in all around him, ready to begin shredding his body. These were clearly the apex predators. He was stupid for not realizing why there were no animal sounds now, he said. Likely the life in the area had gone silent and moved on when they realized a herd of those things were in the area.
“As the nearest one bent down, hissing, silver streams of saliva running down its pointed chin, Arkovitch picked up the red mirror. Instinctively, he traced his fingers along the runes, hoping for any sign of life from it. At once, it lit up, blinding him with red light, and he felt himself floating again, the ringing in his ears. He awoke at his house, nearly twenty miles away from where he had started just minutes earlier, still wrapped in webs.” My father stopped in front of me. We had just come to a sharp turn in the cave, the rocks jutting out on both sides and making it thin and claustrophobic. I had to turn my body to slide through. I saw my father having more trouble with his larger frame, but eventually he pushed himself through, sweating and slightly scraped up.
“Wow,” I said. “Where do you think he went?” My father shrugged.
“Son, the mirrors can send you anywhere at any time, but the red mirror in particular tends to send travelers to the worst places, where predators or demons are waiting. Other times, people have found themselves on nearly dead planets where strange robed beings floated in the mists. Arkovitch’s son used the red mirror, and he never came back at all. The mirror just showed back up in Arkovitch’s office after his son had been missing for three days. We don’t know where they went, and we don’t want more people being lost in such a way.
“And now, we are here,” my father finished saying. I looked around, frowning. It looked like just another part of the cave to me. And then, I realized I did see something. Out of the corner of my eye, one of the walls of the cave seemed to shimmer and glow. When I got close to it and touched it, it felt warm, too- much warmer than the other stone walls of the cave. It was only a space about the size of a door.
“Yes, my son,” my father said, “that is the gateway where we will send you through. Your test of manhood will be to see where the black mirror takes you.”
“If the red mirror took Arkovitch without any door, why do we need this one?” I asked. My father leaned in close.
“So that you don’t come back twenty miles away, at the bottom of a lake, or two thousand miles away at the bottom of some volcano,” he said. My heart was beating fast, and my stomach started to hurt. I was having second thoughts.
“OK, let’s do this,” I said. “Let’s see where the mirror takes me.” He nodded and took out the supplies for the ritual. With a prayer to the eternal mind, he handed me the mirror.
It felt much heavier than it looked. Moreover, it was as cold as death. As soon as I touched it, the runes lit up, blinding me. Pure white light shot out of them, and the shimmering of the doorway was so intense now that I saw sparks and electricity. And then, the wall opened.
Every hair was standing up as I watched it happen, as if I were underneath a forming lightning bolt. All I could hear was buzzing. Holding the mirror tightly, I walked forward, through the doorway. Instantly, everything went black and the buzzing and electricity stopped.
I opened my eyes in a strange place. The sun was warm, and the wind blew so fiercely that during the strongest gusts, I stumbled and feared I may lose my footing. Looking around, I saw mountains with iron and other metals peeking out, forming sharp, irregular blocks at the bottom. The tops disappeared under thick, stratified yellow clouds that blocked out the sky. Even the sun here was no more than a hazy, orange silhouette in the impenetrable cloud layer.
I looked around, unsure of where to go. I could barely see any signs of life on this planet, besides some strange, brown moss growing on the bases of the mountains. I couldn’t ask my dad or the mirror for help. But then, I heard something. At first, I thought it was part of the wind. But I quickly realized that it sounded more like gurgling and screaming. I realized with horror that it was in English.
“Help…” the voice said. “Please, for the love of God, help me before it comes back.” I followed the voice around some rocks standing twenty feet high and found a man on the ground- prostrate, bloody and missing a leg. He raised his head at my appearance and I realized I knew who this was. It was High Priest Arkovitch’s son, the one who had gone missing a while back. It was almost hard to recognize him with stringy hair, bloody scraped skin and nearly all of his clothes torn or missing, but I could still see it in the eyes and construction of the face.
“It’s OK,” I said, leaning down. “I’ll get you out. It’s going to be OK.”
“No,” he said. “It’s coming back. We have to go now…” He looked behind me, and his eyes widened. “Oh God, it’s too late.” Without any weapon or even an idea where I was, I turned to look at what horrors this world held- the same ones that presumably had torn off or even eaten this poor man’s leg. As soon as I saw it, I began to scream.
submitted by CIAHerpes to nosleep [link] [comments]

2023.06.09 14:01 Liberty-Prime76 Letter of Marque - A NoP Fanfic 12

As always, thank you to u/SpacePaladin15 for the wonderful universe that is NoP
Thank you to u/cruisingNW for proof reading and helping me out of some hang ups, you're the man! Honestly LoM wouldn't have gone very far without him! If you haven't you should absolutely go read Foundations of Humanity! It's very good.
First Prev. Next
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Memory Transcription Subject: Christopher A. Dewey, Human Merchant Sailor, Venlil-Human Exchange Participant
Date [Standardized Human Time]: August 29th, 2136, Very Early Morning.
We got a message an hour ago from Videk, ordering us to report to Hangar-08 to start On-Stick training; and to bring our bags! I guess the guy had wanted to get as much out of the day as he could. That or he wanted to get this over with as soon as possible.
Videk met us at the doors to the hangar, a small travel bag sitting on the floor by his side, tail swaying slowly as he watched us approach. “Good Waking, Taisa. Good Waking… Christopher.” An improvement, I’ll have to ask Taisa about that talk they had.
“This,” He continued, motioning to the shuttle parked in the hangar behind him with his tail. “Is your training shuttle: registration C1-0V3R-HR-EX.Your first On-Stick training assignment will be to follow appropriate lift off and departure procedures, plot and follow a course to The Capitol on Venlil Prime, seek permission to land from the proper authorities, and land safely and legally following those permissions. All of this, while following proper procedure and regulations. All of this will be graded.”
As he speaks the door behind him slides open, revealing a broad hangar bay, heavy clamshell doors dominate the far wall. At the center of the bay sits a stout craft painted white and black, a pair of stubby wings jutting from its sides flowing into a pair of engines flanking a singular tail. Venlil script is painted at the root of the tail and on the top of the rear ramp.
“Upon arrival in the Capitol you will have some paperwork to do at the U.N. offices with regards to your habitation. I will need to pick up some equipment from the training facility at the landing fields. After our respective errands, let’s say half a claw, we will meet up back at the shuttle and from there you will be plotting an in-atmosphere route to Shadetree, Sunward of the Capitol, to drop me off and wait for me to install and calibrate the remote instructing equipment. Once that is completed, you will plot another in-atmosphere course to Heartwood River, concluding this paws evaluations. Do you have any questions?”
I shook my head, and Taisa flicked her ears, in what I believed was a negative. “Very good, load your stuff and we’ll begin immediately.”
After a few minutes of finding places to tie off our belongings and get everything situated, I sat in the pilot’s seat and ran through the pre-flight check with Taisa. We caught a pair of faults in the starboard fuel delivery units. Videk seemed pleased we had caught them, and that he hadn’t had to tell us they were there. I could feel a slight smile tug at the corner of my mouth.
Devious little bastard makes for a damn good instructor.
Once the preflight was complete I closed the rear ramp and hailed the flight control tower. “Tower this is shuttle C1-0V3R-HR-EX requesting clearance for departure, place us enroute to Venlil Prime with planned landing zone of Capitol Shuttle Field 13-Bravo.” A Human voice came back over the line, a bit of mirth in their voice. “Shuttle, Tower, you are clear for departure, opening bay doors now. Good luck and Godspeed.”
The doors to the station hangar yawned open, filling the viewport with the void and all its stars beyond as I slowly brought the shuttle off the hangar floor, easing it out through the opening. I reached over to the nearest display and opened the Nav-computer interface, plotting our course to VP, and then on to the Capitol landing fields. Once I was confident I had the proper navigation commands and sequences set I called over Videk to have him review my work.
He gave me a quick flick of his tail before saying “Looks good, Christopher. Feel free to spool and jump when you’re ready.”
Videk’s approval given, I reached over and pushed forward on the throttles, engaging the drive and hurtling the shuttle into subspace.
It. Was. Beautiful. Everything seemed to stretch, stars in the distance turning from pinpricks of light into brilliant colorful streaks, lengthening as we bounded through the void. Lines of light far off in my periphery zip past like tracers as the ones before me feel as if they’re pulling me in with their kaleidoscope of color. The hum of the shuttle fell into the background while I became entranced by the light show in front me, picturing myself on the set of one of those old sci-fi shows I would watch with Pa on the weekends. The Future my ancestors had imagined was Here, right before my eyes and at the tips of my fingers! This view was… Hypnotic. The simulator couldn’t hope to do it justice.
Two hours. That was it.
Two hours to travel what, until very recently, would have been considered an insurmountable distance for Humanity. Dropping from Sub-space into the proximity of Venlil Prime was another astoundingly brilliant view. Scorched white deserts flowing into massive swathes of golden sands cut by the occasional streak of blue before blending into a beautiful verdant mix of turquoise and green fields, with vast lakes and rivers dotting the forests, flowing into wide marshy wetlands. Before finally, the curve of the planet fell away from its star, allowing the fading sunlight to showcase glittering city lights dotting the countryside.
The thrusters burn to life, crackling and thrumming with power as they drive us forward through the void to the beautiful marble before us. I flip two switches on the overhead, tapping the leftmost display to call up the local channel list and place a hail to the Capitol’s landing fields to request clearance and pad assignment. A quick ping, signifying my hail had been acknowledged, chimed over the console speaker.
“Capitol Shuttle Field 13-Bravo this is Shuttle C1-0V3R-HR-EX requesting clearance for landing at an available pad of convenience.” “C1-0V3R-HR-EX, you are cleared for landing, 13-Bravo, direct to pad Charlie-5.”
The Flight through the Void may have had some feeling of familiarity and nostalgia to the old Sci-fi shows at home; but in-atmo had the far better view! Rolling turquoise fields and towering thick trees, with their canopies tilted greedily towards that unmoving sun, falling away to a gargantuan metropolitan area, its architecture entirely alien yet still somehow familiar. Massive skyscrapers soar to touch the sky, reflecting light in brilliant angles and colors, the space below them populated by squat sturdy buildings and deep black roads. The Venlil going about their lives below look like ants as I ease off the throttle, taking the speed down to prepare for the final approach. The display on the viewport flags my landing area with a small pip guiding me in, slow and easy.
The cabin jostles slightly as the ship settles onto its landing gear. Videk seemed impressed; his ears up as he tapped away at his data pad! Taisa’s tail sways happily back and forth as she runs through the diagnostics of the landing, checking system status reports.
“Looks like we’re all clear. Videk do you have a time we should try and be back by?” Taisa beeps, showing the flight instructor the console in front of her.
“I just need to pick up the equipment and get it linked up, that should only take about a half a claw. Walking to and from the landing field and the U.N. Offices should put you at about the right time.” Videk turned away and made for the ramp; Taisa’s talk helped, and he was clearly trying, but he was still a bundle of nerves around me. His fur was so puffed out it looked like he was holding more static than a thunderhead.
As we stepped out of the artificial gravity of the shuttle I felt like I was carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders. My first step faltered making me stumble down the ramp and bounce off the… soft pavement? “Oh, forgot about that.” Videk winced sympathetically, “Our gravity is about twenty percent more than earth’s, so be careful. Falls are likely to hurt a little bit more here.”
“Would’ve been nice to know first, Videk.” I groaned, rolling myself over and sitting up, luckily the visor hadn’t fallen off; I would need to add one of those new back braces and some knee compressors to that order of stuff from home. “Do you know where the U.N. Offices are? Or should we just ask around to find our way there?”
“I do not, but you should be able to get directions on your pad. I trust the two of you can figure it out, so I’m going to go get the equipment I need. I will wait for the two of you with the shuttle once I am ready.” With a parting flap of his ears, Videk turned and walked away; flicking the tip of his tail back and forth as he did.
“Alright then,” I grumbled, forcing myself up off the pavement, swaying as I found my new equilibrium. “let’s get going. Can you pull up those directions?” She nodded slightly, flicking her ears forward. “Got them up already! You alright there?”
“I’m fine.” I grunted, rolling out my shoulder a little. “Feels like I weigh a quarter ton, but I’ll get over it with time. Lead the way.”
After a few minutes of walking we were off the landing fields and into the streets of the city. My boots sinking into the pavement a little with each step, just like on the landing field. “Taisa, what is this stuff? I figured it was just to make landings a little softer on shuttles but it’s everywhere! Looks like pavement but it gives like rubber; why are your roads like this?” “Anti-stampede concrete.” She stated, matter of factly, like that meant literally anything to me. My silence must have tipped her off that I wasn’t getting it as she focused one eye on my visor. “Oh… I guess Humans wouldn’t need that. It’s to help reduce stampede fatalities, it’s the same reason the roads and buildings have gentle curves, no sharp angles.” Looking around at the way the groups of Venlil flowed through the streets I realized she was right, what I had thought was a futuristic aesthetic design was just to keep people from killing each other against walls or trampling them into the ground when they got scared. How strange… and slightly worrying.
“Weird, that sounds like some crazy wonder material. Bet we’d have a bunch of uses for it back on earth.” My eyes watched the tips of skyscrapers towering above us, “How far out does it say we are?”
“Only a little further, about one and a half kilometers.” She responded, a slight pant in her voice. I wasn’t in the best shape, cardio wise, but I couldn’t imagine getting winded after 10 minutes of walking; guess all that talk about the Venlil having less stamina than us was right.
The U.N. Office complex was a series of giant flowing buildings built on a large park area. It wasn’t any design I had ever seen so I figured it had to have been an existing complex that just got turned over to the U.N. for their uses.
Passing through the heavy glass front doors we found a wide receptionist's desk, with several Humans sitting behind it, answering questions and directing people where they needed to go. One of the receptionists, a short dark haired woman with a visor obscuring her face, beckons us over. “Hello! How can I help you today?” “H-Hi!” Taisa beeps excitedly, her tail swaying behind her confidently as she takes a deep breath and straightens her back. “We’re part of the ‘integration’ experiments, we were told we need to fill out some forms for habitation. Where do we go to do that?” “Oh! Congratulations! That would be Suite 216-B” The receptionist answered, excitement in her voice as she pointed to a room on the map infront of her.
“Thank you!” Taisa responded, turning to head up the stairs behind the receptionist's desk. Halfway up the stairs she swiveled her ears over to me before saying. “Sorry, I figure if I’m probably going to have to work with Humans other than you for this I should try and at least work on being able to talk to them.” “It’s alright,” I chuckle, patting her shoulder. “That’s a great idea and you’re doing alright!” Walking down the hallways we saw prints of landscapes from Earth, Machu Picchu, the Uyuni Salt Flats, The Grand Canyon, YellowStone, Hạ Long Bay, The Zhangye Mountains and Plitvice Lakes. I pointed out the places I had been to as we walked past them, finally stopping at suite 216-B.
The door was open so we knocked, getting a quick ‘enter’, before stepping in. A man sits behind a desk, the top covered in organized files and folders, a placard on his desk declares his name as ‘Obediah Kamara’ with a small Liberian flag stamped beside it.
His visor obscures his face as he looks between the two of us before beginning. “I presume you are…” He sorts through a couple of the files and folders before stopping on one and opening it, pulling out a document packet. “Christopher Dewey and Taisa. Correct?”
We both respond in the affirmative as he gestures for us to take the seats across from him, sliding the documents across the table as Taisa’s pad pings on her belt. “These are agreements to ensure that you,” He starts, looking at me. “Understand the rules in regards to your habitation here on Venlil Prime. I understand that part of your integration will be taking you off world to and from Earth, these rules primarily apply to your time here. We ask that you remain considerate of the provided rules and guidelines on the ship if you are carrying Venlil passengers. Taisa, those are the terms, conditions, compensations and requirements for your family to house a human when the two of you are present. Virtual signature of that document is required within the next 3 of your ‘paws’.” Taisa stiffened a little bit, likely thinking about her Mother’s response to my arrival; that was something we were probably going to have to have a talk about later. I had an idea for the short term, at least. I ran through the paperwork real quick and it was all pretty simple: don’t be without the visor or some kind of face covering in settings where you couldn’t guarantee that an unprepared Venlil wouldn’t see you, avoid aggression, speak quietly, no eating meat, animal products or byproducts, no hunting local wildlife; bit odd considering I didn’t even have a bow or a gun but rules are rules, I suppose.
“Sounds good to me,” I said, signing the indicated portions of the document. “When are my items supposed to get here?”
“We don’t expect your requested items to arrive for another week or so, for now you’ll have to make do with what you brought with you.” Obediah responded, shuffling the packet of papers back into the folder they had come from. “With that complete you are free to go. I understand you have training to complete, so I wish you good luck with your endeavor. If you have any questions or needs with regards to your habitation you can contact Sam, their details will be forwarded to your communication devices.”
I caught Taisa’s tail twitching as her ears swiveled nervously out of the corner of my eye; even with her attempts to push through it I think the amount of Humans around was starting to get to her. Still, she was doing better than I think a lot of Venlil would be able to manage. I reached over, gently tapping my hand against her paw, trying to ground her a little before motioning to go, she nodded slightly as she flicked her ears.
“Thank you, Obediah, we’ll be sure to get into touch with them once we get their contact. Have a good day!”
Taisa and I stood, exiting the room and making our way out of the building, stopping to look at another picture or two along the way. Something needed to be done about possibly not having a place to stay to put my, and more so Taisa’s, mind at ease. I figured I could sleep in the shuttle, if I had to. It wouldn’t be particularly comfortable but I could certainly do it; I’d need a mat, maybe a sleeping bag or some blankets and a pillow.
I had no clue where I was going to get my hands on those, or at least a set of them big enough for me to actually use.
Then I saw the temporary units in the field near the offices. Men and Women in U.N. fatigues were milling about the area. Barracks? That could solve the problem, if they’re willing to help out a man in need, of course.
“Hey, Taisa, I need to make a stop real quick.” I state, walking briskly towards the largest of the buildings. “What’s up?” She asks, ears focused on me as she tilts her head a little.
“Well, I was thinking, I don’t think your parents, your Mom especially, won’t, uh… won’t want me around. At least not for a little while until she gets to know me better.”
“I think you can get past it, she’s not that bad… It’ll just be tough.”
“Oh I’m sure I can get past it, but I’d rather not just sleep in the grass in the meantime.” “I don’t think she’d make you sleep in the grass…” “I like being prepared, if she doesn’t want me in her house I’m not going to push the issue.”
“I just… I hope it doesn’t come to that, I’m not going to let her toss you outside like an animal.” She sighs quietly as we push through the front door of the barrack building.
A desk manned by a napping U.N. Marine with Private ranks stuck to his shoulders filled the space beyond the doors. He stirs as the doors clank shut behind us before scrambling to throw on his Visor as he notices Taisa.
“Hello, Uh… Can I help you? This area is for active U.N. personnel only.” He starts, his voice finding its authority only about halfway through the statement.
I stand straight, trying to muster the stern demeanor I’d found in my father and his friends so often when they tried to get something on base after their retirements. “Easy, Private. It has come to my attention that my accommodations lack proper bedding.” “O-Oh, uh, I apologize…” He stammers out, searching for something to say, likely looking to find a way out of trouble for sleeping on duty.
“Sir.” I state. “What’s your name, Private?”
“A-Alvarez, Sir.”
“Alvarez. I’ll remember that, Alvarez, how about we make this quick, you get me a wrap of blankets, 3 pillows and a bedroll and I don’t find your commander to report your… lack of enthusiasm.”
The private snaps to attention before firmly stating. “Yes Sir! I’ll be right back, Sir!”
As the private turns and walks away crisply I hear Taisa whistle with laughter a little beside me. “I’m surprised that worked.”
“You’d be surprised what a hard voice, straight back and the right slacking Private can get you if you just don’t go pushin' it too far in your story.” I whispered with a wink.
After a few minutes of waiting Private Alvarez returned with a duffle bag, stuffed full with blankets and pillows, as well as an inflatable bedroll under the other arm. “Here you go, Sir. Will this be ok?” He asked, passing the items over to me.
“Perfect, thank you Private.” I took the bundle of bedding and turned to the door, before turning my head back over my shoulder, “Oh, and Private? Do try and get proper rest before duty.”
A shaking “Y-Yes, Sir.” followed Taisa and I out of the door.
The first half of the walk back to the landing field was quiet, I was scanning the skyline again, I just couldn’t get over the fact that I was on another planet. Taisa however had her ears pinned back, her paws lightly holding her tail tuft as we walked.
“What’s got ya down?” I asked, watching the herd of Venlil glide around us as we came, trying their best not to get too close to me.
“I’m… concerned.” She sighed, the tip of her tail twitching between her paws.
“About?”
“My mother, what she’ll say… What she’ll do.”
“I can’t exactly say I know what her reaction’ll be… But, whatever it is we’ll just have to deal with it. It’ll probably take time, but we’ll get by.” I soothed. She let go of her tail, placing the tip of it on my back, but her ears didn’t let up at all.
The rest of the walk to the shuttle was quiet as she fidgeted with her paws, trying to take her mind off of the subject. Videk was there waiting for us, a few crates secured to the cargo area of the shuttle that weren’t present before.
“You two ready?” He asked, flicking his tail at us.
“I think so.” I responded, stowing the bedding in an empty compartment as Taisa flicked her ears.
We ran through our preflight checklist again, finding another pre-placed failure from Videk waiting for us, this time in the starboard control surfaces. Once the check was done we radioed the tower for clearance to take off and set an in-atmo course for Shadetree to drop off Videk. It was a short hop, about a half hour of flying or so before I had to call ahead for clearance to land again.
Most of the flight from the Capitol to Shadetree had been rolling turquoise and green hills or open fields of produce growing in the everpresent light. A sudden dense forest rose from the fields, thick dark brown trees with fluttering golden leaves stretched as far as the eye could see in every direction. A sudden break in the forest revealed a clearing for the Landing field, much smaller than the one at the Capitol. The city was built under the canopy of the trees, giving it a constant filtered light casting down through the shifting leaves. It was certainly a beautiful town, I’d have to come back to visit some day. Maybe once Videk had warmed up to me a little bit more.
As the ramp fell ,a small cargo truck arrived alongside the shuttle to collect Videk and his equipment. I offered to help but the Venlil driver just about ran when I started talking so I figured it was probably best to just keep out of it. Once the cargo truck departed, Taisa came back up to the cockpit, plopping down in her seat, and looked through the viewscreen at the trees beyond. The soft hiss of the ramp closing marked the finality of Videk’s departure.
“So, how are you feeling about Venlil Prime so far?” She asked, one eye on my face as I finally slipped the visor off.
“I like it! Between the beautiful scenery, interesting architecture and hanging out with you and Shamrock, here I’m having a great time!” I responded, rubbing my hand on what amounted to the shuttle's dashboard.
“... Shamrock?” She asked, her tail swaying in what I figured for amusement.
“Yea! Remember how I told you Humans like looking for patterns? Well it works on words and numbers as well. The tail number for the shuttle could be taken to spell ‘Clover-HR-EX’, or just clover for short. Clovers are a type of plant on earth that a few cultures believed to be lucky, one way or another. One of the nicknames for them was a Shamrock!”
She laughed at me.
“You are such a dork.” She said, wiping a tear from her eye as her tail whipped back and forth. “It’s a good name, usually shuttles don’t get one. I think it fits.”
I chuckled, a thought crossing my mind. “Think we could get any shuttle-grade paint? Preferably green, yellow and black?” She raised an eyebrow at me as her ears cocked at different elevations. “Oh? Someone feeling a little artistic?”
“Well, I could always paint a Shamro-” I was interrupted as the ping signifying we were being hailed sounded off. “We’ll finish this later.” I said, pointing at her as I accepted the hail.
Videk’s voice bled through the speakers. “Ok, looks like the connection is secure. Let’s go ahead and run through getting you familiar with the software, it should be quick and easy.”
It was not.
It took two hours. After a lot of trial and error, stop and go flights to test the connection and a few near misses with an especially tall tree we had gotten the system setup such that Videk was confident it would work in an emergency if he needed to step in. With that all squared away Taisa and I settled in to get on our way to Heartwood River. Sleeping on the blow up mattress or on a real bed hardly mattered at this point, I just wanted to sleep.
The overall flight time was set to be about an hour and a half, not too bad and man was the view beautiful: rolling fields, roaring rivers, pristine skies and alien forests abounded across the countryside. We had just passed over Hidden Plains when Taisa and I were just settling back into talking about her parents and our best route to try and handle them, when the hail system chimed and immediately spat out a harsh tone without acknowledgement, the same one the simulator used for distress calls.
“Mayday Mayday Mayday. Report of shots fired at residence housing humans. Need immediate medical evac at The Berrypatch Farm in The Grove, 11 minutes Night-ward from Hidden Plains. Hailing all airborn craft, we need a medical evac immediately!”
I immediately returned the hail. “This is cargo shuttle C1-0V3R-HR-EX. Responding to Mayday from the Grove. We are en-route to render aid. Hold tight, we’ll be there.”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Taisa tighten her flight harness as I reached for the throttle.
---
First Prev. Next
submitted by Liberty-Prime76 to NatureofPredators [link] [comments]

2023.06.09 04:23 rheise311 Looking for suggestions on cycling destinations / routes on my (USA) summer road trip

I will have about a week on my own to leisurely make my way from Savannah, GA back home to Maine, and will have my road bike with me. I will likely take a route along the lines of:
Day 1: Savannah, GA to Charlotte, NC Day 2: Charlotte, NC to Norfolk, VA Day 3: Norfolk, VA to Yardley, PA Day 4: Yardley, PA to Hartford, CT Day 5: Hartford, CT to Portland, ME
I was thinking I'd try to get in rides in the Savannah area on Day 1 before I leave, and then something in the Winston-Salem and/or Raleigh-Durham area on Day 2, and along the Delaware coast (Dewey Beach area?) Day 3. I have ridden around Yardley before and like the area. I have not ridden in the Hartford / neighboring suburbs much, but have driven lots of it.
My question is, if I'm going along this route (ish) are there any must-ride areas for scenic / iconic / enjoyable rides? Please let me know any / all thoughts!
submitted by rheise311 to cycling [link] [comments]

2023.06.09 03:57 sillyhatsonlync1 36 [M4F] Wake Forest NC (or nearby) Looking for Fun Open Minded Gal

Hello!
What I'm looking for is good conversation, a solid connection, and someone I can have great chemistry with. I'm also hoping for a physical connection, mutual attraction, and so forth if possible.
However, I'm looking for something casual, not something serious. It can be long term, but still casual. On the flip side though I'm ideally not looking for a one night fling or anything like that either.
To put it simply, I want a great fwb, with the latter part happening only if we click that way. No pressure, no obligations. Let's just chat and see how things go!
Take a chance :)
About me: caucasian, 6ft tall, mostly slim build, blue eyes, nice smile. Intelligent, athletic, funny/silly, into sports, movies, and video games. The type of guy who holds the door open for people and will say 'excuse me' for sneezing even if no one is around.
About you: age 21 - low 40s, any race or height, good hygiene, at least a decent smile. Good sense of humor, able to carry a conversation, not into 'ghosting' people. Open-minded is VERY important as is patience. The closer to Wake Forest/Rolesville/NE Raleigh, the better. Area code 919
If you'd like to chat and go from there, feel free to send me a message!
submitted by sillyhatsonlync1 to R4R30Plus [link] [comments]

2023.06.09 03:46 Both_Canary1508 Used to live up a mountain that was mostly abandoned with an eerie past/history

I grew up on the top of this mountain that was mostly abandoned since the 60s when an old ski kill burnt down. There were 2 other full time residents up at the top where we lived. The rest of the houses stood empty the majority of the time, or were abandoned. The history of this mountain dates far back, hundreds of years ago, before the colonization of Canada, there were two native communities at war. One lived on top of this mountain, one lived in the valley below. At the base of the mountain the two communities were supposed to meet for battle. During the journey down, the valley tribe snuck up behind the mountain tribe and slaughtered all their woman and children. When the mountain tribe returned home, they were apparently slaughtered too. On the entire mountain side these vining wild strawberries grow and its said they grow from the spilt blood of the mountain tribe.
Many people have died on this mountain. When i was growing up there were hundreds of old crosses littering the twists and turns up the mountain. My father later became one of those crosses.
In a small meadow surrounded by trees sat a small cottage, no driveways and only an overgrown pathway to lead you to it. If you looked inside their breakfast sat still prepared, oatmeal and eggs, untouched for years. The man that lived there was supposedly a fugitive who disappeared further into the mountains when the police came up and found him one day.
We had these weird neighbour’s who would come two weekends a month from the city with their daughter who was my age. They would bring friends over, get high, drunk, and naked, and have orgies in their yard or the forest.
There was this eerie feeling you had while on this mountain, which was aptly named ‘forbidden’. I stood looking out my bedroom window at night, i swear i could see things moving in the forest below.
We had the highest concentration of mountain lions in the world and i was often stalked home. One night my mother woke to the sound of the sliding door opening and closing. She walked downstairs and my sister was standing there sleep walking, whispering over and over ‘here kitty kitty’. My sister had never been a sleepwalker until this. My mother grabbed her, closed and locked the sliding door, then flicked on the lights, and right there on the deck pacing back and forth was a cougar.
My father also became a violent sleepwalker while living up there. He would have screaming matches with the wall, sometimes ended up throwing items around. This wasnt something he did until the last few years of his life. My father was a skilled driver and had driven up this mountain, (and many narrower, steeper logging roads around the area) many times. A few months before the accident i started having waking nightmares of my fathers death. Something was telling me he was going to die. I remember waking up frequently and looking out the window into the forest during this period and feeling like something was communicating with me that he would die.
He kissed me goodnight one night and went out the door to go to town with his friends. They left in separate vehicles, him first, from the accounts of what happened it was a freak accident. They were driving below speed limit down a straight stretch nearing a cliff/corner when my dads truck suddenly lost traction and started skidding sideways towards the cliff. My dad opened the truck door and jumped out. And the truck suddenly veered the other way and flipped onto him on the ground. Something that physically shouldn’t have been possible. It crushed almost every bone in his body. He survived for 8 days in hospital after being airlifted. The day he died i knew again. I knew he was dead and it was like this feeling that something was communicating this to me. I didnt need to be told, i was so sure of this feeling that i collapsed onto the ground the second i got this feeling and starting screaming hes dead isnt he, hes dead isnt he, over and over again. I was 8. I had never experienced death before.
Theres alot more that went on up there to alot of different people over the years. Its known locally as a haunted, and weird place. Nothing good ever happens there, people do weird and crazy out of character things, commit heinous crimes, die, or just loose their minds. We moved when i was 9. I never felt that feeling again anywhere else, that feeling of something insidious all around you. Ive only been up there a handful of times since, and every-time i do that feeling returns.
submitted by Both_Canary1508 to BackwoodsCreepy [link] [comments]

2023.06.09 03:09 danderson24 List of Current GCC Churches.

Even though Great Commission Churches officially dissolved in 2020, many of their churches are still active with the same leadership, same problematic teaching, and same toxic culture. We have been able to gather a list of them and they will be labelled by splinter group. If we have forgot to add a church or need to update information about a church (whether they are still active or inactive or if they have changed their affiliation), please let us know ASAP. Also, PLEASE NOTE, we are sharing the names and websites of these churches to warn others, NOT to harass the church members already involved. We will NOT support any calls for violence or calls to harass anyone involved with these churches. Any such calls will be met with an immediate ban.
Without further ado, here is the current list:
M28 Alliance
SECA (Southeast Church Alliance)
C1 Network
Reliant
Other - Unknown Affiliation Status - Former GCC Churches
submitted by danderson24 to exGCC [link] [comments]

2023.06.09 03:09 Alone_Advantage_961 Post Your Teams Schedule of This Year and Decades Prior

College Football has changed crazily. What does your teams schedule look like in 2023 and what did it look like in 2013, 2003, 1993, 1983, 1973, and 1923.
For Example, using Maryland:
1923:
Randolph-Macon W @ Penn W Richmond W vs. VPI (Washington DC) L North Carolina W St. John's (MD) W @ Yale L @ NC State W Catholic W vs. Johns Hopkins (Baltimore) T
1973: West Virginia L @ North Carolina W Villanova W Syacuse W @ NC State L @ Wake Forest W vs. Duke (Norfolk) W Penn State L Virginia W @ Clemson W Tulane W
1983:
@ Vanderbilt W West Virginia L Pittsburgh W Virginia W Syracuse W @ Wake Forest W Duke W North Carolina W @ Auburn L @ Clemson L @ NC State W
1993:
Virginia L @ North Carolina L West Virginia L @ Virginia Tech L Penn State L @ Georgia Tech L Duke W @ Clemson L Florida State L @ NC State L @ Wake Forest L
2003:
@ Northern illinois L Florida State L The Citadel W West Virginia W @ Eastern Michigan W Clemson W Duke W @ Georgia Tech L North Carolina W Virginia W @ NC State W @ Wake Forest W
2013:
FIU W Old Dominion W @ UCONN W vs. West Virginia (Baltimore) W @ Florida State L Virginia W @ Wake Forest L Clemson L Syracuse L @ Virginia Tech W Boston College L @ NC State W
2023:
Towson Charlotte Virginia @ Michigan State Indiana @ Ohio State Illinois @ Northwestern Penn State @ Nebraska Michigan @ Rutgers
Its crazy to see @ NC State appear every decade listed. It won't this season, but we did play them in the Duke's Mayo Bowl in Charlotte at the end of last season, so close enough.
Virginia has played us in a 3 year since 1963 and each game has been in College Park. The last time Virginia played us in a 3 year at Charlottesville was 1943.
The biggest observation is the geographic shift in opponents from mid-atlantic schools in the state, DC, Virginia and the Carolinas to Ohio State, Michigan, Nebraska, Illinois, Rutgers, Indiana and Michigan State. Although Towson, Charlotte, and Virginia give a mid-atlantic feel out of conference.
How does your school compare?
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2023.06.08 23:23 Affectionate-Ad2081 The Case for Tim Duncan as the GOAT

I know what you're thinking: no way; there's no chance Tim Duncan is the GOAT. He's not even the best player of his generation you might say. You're thinking there's no way Tim Duncan belongs in the same category as MJ or LeBron. If you believe this, there are three things that you'll probably bring up as I make this argument.
  1. The Second Act: If you're the kind of person who rates players through spreadsheets, his career in the 2010s is statistically underwhelming.
  2. The Peak: You might say that Duncan never had a real peak where he was the most dominant player in the league on a daily basis, like Shaq.
  3. Greg Popovich: Duncan has always had Pop, arguably the greatest coach of all time in his corner.
I hear you, and I will address these later on in this post. First, let me address Duncan's stats and accolades.
Duncan's notable accolades from his NBA career are as follows:
Duncan's 5 championships are more than Larry Bird or Wilt Chamberlain, his 15 All-Defensive selections are the most of anybody ever, his 15 All Star appearances are tied for 3rd all time, he has as many regular season MVP's as Kobe and Shaq combined and only MJ has more Finals MVP's.
Don't forget about his college accomplishments though, because remember: Duncan came out of Wake Forest after four years despite people like Jerry West who said he could have been the number one overall pick had he left after his sophomore year.
Duncan's accolades form his collegiate years:
These NBA and collegiate snapshots of his basketball career, should be enough to have him at the table of the GOAT conversation. You're not convinced yet, let's dig into some more numbers.
Here's where Duncan ranks all-time on some of the major statistical categories across his NBA career:
These career totals, admittedly, are substantially less impressive than other players at his position, like Kevin Garnett (19th in points, 9th in rebounds, 18th in blocks, 18th in steals, 55th in assists), Karl Malone (3rd in points, 7th in rebounds, 70th in blocks, 12th in steals, 61st in assists) or Dirk Nowitzki (6th in points, 26th in rebounds, 53rd in blocks, 94th in steals, 155th in assists). And that's because you can't judge Tim Duncan's numbers like you can with most players. Imagine in 15 years if somebody said to you that Russell Westbrook was better than Steph Curry, citing how many PTS, AST, and REB Westbrook had. You'd laugh right? Because you know that numbers do not always tell the full story. It is impossible and irresponsible to discuss a player's ranking without mentioning the stats that exists, but by measuring players purely by their basketball reference page, you're leaving out context and the story in which those numbers were achieved. That context is what makes those numbers meaningful.
Such is the case with Tim Duncan, whose success and greatness transcends a box score. You can't judge Tim Duncan with numbers alone. The fact of the matter is, that if you ran a team and if you could pick from any NBA player that ever played the game, and your goal is to win, you would pick Tim Duncan.
Offensively, Duncan was dominant for his first ten years in the NBA. From '98 to '08, he averaged 21.6/11.8/3.1 while playing on one of the slowest teams in the league. In that span, the Spurs never ranked in the top half of the league for PACE. Adjusting his stats for PACE and looking at his stats per 100 possessions (31.2/17.1/4.5 with 3.5 BLK at 50.8 FG%), you're looking at a big man who was every bit as productive as any other offensive player in the league at the time.
You already know about his skillset. He was, after all, The Big Fundamental. He could pass out of double teams, face up and break down the defense with surprising agility, consistently knock down shots from the elbows, and torch any big man in the league with his array of moves in the post and suddenly imposing physicality. He could masterfully run a PnR with any guard with working limbs. And, of course, he had his signature bank shot, one of the most consistent and reliable shots of all time along with Kareem's Sky Hook and Dirk's fadeaway. Those skills never deteriorated throughout his career, except perhaps his last year.
This is where I want to attack the 2nd idea that his second act was unexceptional. His scoring numbers dipped in last 8 years, where he never averaged over 20 PPG. But, as the Spurs offense became more collaborative and free-flowing, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili shouldered more of that scoring burden as Duncan aged. Duncan's shot attempts fell, though he remained efficient. His skills hadn't waned; the Spurs just didn't need him to score 28 points every night. He retained his role as alpha dog during this stretch and contributed in other facets of the game. He could pick his spots, put his teammates in position to succeed, and save himself undue punishment and wear until is was needed. That's why in 2013, at the age of 36, he became the oldest player ever named to First Team All-NBA.
Duncan was never a prolific scorer, even in his prime. His game was never predicated on gawdy point totals like Malone or Dirk. With a different offense, he took fewer shots, and with fewer shots, he scored fewer points. In his last eight years, he remained a tremendous rebounder, was the go-to guy in crunch time, and the best defender, maybe ever. And this is what hurt his stats: the lack of flashy numbers for defense outside of blocks and steals. It's so hard to measure how much a drive was cut off because of his presence or a shot that was altered because of his contention. There are some metrics that attempt to measure this, like DRTG, Defensive Win Shares, and Defensive +/- , and while it is an inexact science, these measures do a fairly good job at assessing a player's impact on defense. Duncan's ranking in those metrics is unmatched:
"Duncan guarded centers and power forwards (sometimes even small forwards) with equal success. And as the NBA became more and more of a high pick-and-roll game, Duncan accepted the extra responsibility of getting involved at the perimeter, while never abandoning basket responsibility. Nobody was better than Duncan at being both an advance guard and the final fortress."
FiveThirtyEight published this article in 2016, where analyst Neil Paine calculated career WAR values that took into consideration defense and offense, and Tim Duncan led the WAR rankings, by a mile:
  1. Tim Duncan: 109.2
  2. KG: 96.2
  3. Karl Malone: 95.4
  4. David Robinson: 89.3
  5. Hakeem: 85.9
  6. LeBron: 82.8
  7. Kareem: 78
  8. Larry Bird: 74.2
  9. Shaq: 73
  10. Pippen: 72.7
What does all of this mean? It means that Duncan was a tremendous offensive player, despite the lack of volume, and one of if not the greatest defenders of all time. In short, his value as a two-way player is virtually unmatched in the last 50 years of NBA basketball.
Enough with the numbers. I want to talk about Duncan when it mattered the most: the playoffs. You can look at any numbers, read any article, or talk to any fan who paid attention to the game at the time, and you'll come to the same conclusion: Tim Duncan was a killer in the playoffs. All of his most memorable performances came in the postseason, and more often than not, came in crucial games when his team needed him most. From his near quadruple double in 2003 to close out the Nets and earn his 2nd championship to his 25 point first half against the Heat in Game 6 of the 2013 Finals ten years later, there was never a moment too big for Duncan. Here are his playoff numbers, significantly higher in almost every category than he his in the regular season:
His '99 championship run was phenomenal, where he tore through a young Kevin Garnett, the newly assembled Kobe-Shaq Lakers, Rasheed Wallace's Trailblazers, and the Patrick Ewing-less 8-seed Knicks on his way to being named the second youngest Finals MVP ever. His 2002 campaign was incredibly underrated, as he carried one of the worst teams of his career to 60 wins and outplayed Shaq before being beat by the two-time champs. His 2003 season was his best season, and we'll get to that in a second. Just know that his running mate, David Robinson, averaged 8.5 PTS and 8 REB in the regular season and that Duncan's 5.9 win shares in that playoff run remain the most of anybody in a single postseason.
In the mid-to-late 2000s, Duncan's Spurs remained a fixture in the playoffs against competition like Dirk's Mavs, Nash's Suns, and Kobe's Lakers. He repaid them with two more titles in '05 and '07. He also gave us one of the clutch shots of his career in Game 1 against the Suns in 2008 with this 3 point game-tying three pointer in OT.
Like I said earlier, in Game 6 of the 2013 Finals, at age 36, playing against Wade, Bosh, and apex LeBron on the road, Duncan put up 25 points in the first half. It would have gone down as an all-time series clinching performance had it not been for Ray Allen's iconic game-tying 3-pointer. Looking for revenge in the 2014 Finals, Duncan set the tone in Game 1 with the classic 21/10 game, while shooting 9/10 from the field. As his final playoff hurrah in 2015, trying to defend the title at the ripe age of 38 in Game 7 of a first round series against the Clippers, Duncan reached all the way back and put up 27/11, sinking crucial free throws to tie it, before Chris Paul hit a clutch, game-winning shot near the buzzer.
The same Tim Duncan giving the business to a 22-year-old Kevin Garnett, was the same Tim Duncan taking a 26-year-old DeAndre Jordan to school. Duncan was ready to win championships from the day he entered the league to the day he left. And I think that is why his peak is used against him as an argument for GOAT status. The fact that his championship window lasted his entire 19-year NBA career and that his teams were always somewhere between 50 and 60 wins meant that it's hard for any one of his seasons to stand out from the rest. And for some unfathomable reason, being consistently great is less of an accomplishment than being great for short stints.
Like I said, his 2003 season was his best, after leading his team to 60 wins and his 2nd consecutive MVP, Duncan eviscerated everything in his path as he tore through the playoffs. He upended the Suns, ended the Lakers 3-year reign as champions, and outdueled Dirk before absolutely torching the Nets in the finals. By the time he was holding the trophy, it was clear beyond a shadow of a doubt that Duncan was the league's best, most complete player.
Now, I'd be lying if I said that Duncan's peak was higher than Shaq's. But I also wouldn't feel comfortable saying that the difference between the two is great enough for me to lose sleep over. To me, the truth is that Shaq was so much more of a spectacle. To watch peak Shaq was an experience unlike anything else. To see someone of his size and stature move so powerfully and fluidly is still something of a miracle. To see Duncan at the peak of his powers was a lot like seeing him seven or eight years later. He was just a little faster, a bit stronger, and a touch quicker in his prime. But do aesthetics denote superiority? I'd say, no. And though Shaq in his prime was certainly a more dominant offensive player, there was never a time where he could match Duncan's abilities as a defender, leader, or teammate. The two are the antithesis of each other. Shaq loves fame; Duncan loathes it. Shaq would sometimes show up to training camp out of shape, often battle with his co-stars and finished his career having played for six different teams. Duncan took great care of his body, cemented himself as the cornerstone of his franchise, and is one of the most celebrated teammates in NBA history. Shaq left a little on the table. You can never say the same thing about Duncan. Shaq cared a little too much about what everyone thought of him, while Duncan couldn't have cared less.
Let's tackle the third criticism: that he always had Pop. To me, Pop is the greatest coach of all time, but he would be the first one to tell you that he wouldn't be here without Tim Duncan.
For one, Duncan can play any style of basketball, in any era. You want to go slow school, old-pace, dump it off to the big man down low, let him bang and be solid on defense? Titles. Remove the hand-checking and illegal defenses, increase scoring and start moving toward the perimeter? Titles. The league goes small ball, the pace explodes and shooting and ball movement is more important than anything? The largest margin of victory in NBA finals history.
Secondly, he can play with any team. Honestly, has any superstar done more with less? Jordan had Pippen his entire run and Rodman for the last half. Bird had McHale and Parish. Wilt had West and Hal Grier. Russell had Cousy, Jones, and Havlicek. Magic had Kareem and vice-versa. Kobe had Shaq and vice-versa. And LeBron has had Wade, Kyrie, and AD. Duncan's best teammates? Old David Robinson, Tony Parker, and Manu Ginobili, who combined for 5 Third Team All NBA appearances and 4 Second Team appearances during their time with Duncan. Parker and Ginobili are long shots for the HOF, and even though Robinson's in the HOF, he wasn't playing at a HOF level alongside Duncan.
Third, and most importantly, Duncan forged the culture of the Spurs. Pop was essential in acquiring players and reinforcing the culture that Tim wanted, but Duncan was truly the most vital component. The NBA is a star-driven league and finding a great player who hasn't gotten a coach fired is like finding a good Star Wars movie: they're few and far between. Not only did Duncan not get Pop fired, he let Pop coach him harder than any superstar ever. If Tim had ever thought to himself, "you know what I don't feel like getting my chops roasted in front of the whole team today because I didn't box out well in practice" he could have gone right to RC Buford, and Pop would have been gone - end of story. But Tim understood what Pop was about, and trusted him enough to be mentored in an unprecedented way. He set the example for his teammates, that no one is immune to criticism and that it's expected of everyone to leave their egos at the door.
In 2017, the Spurs SB Nation blog, Pounding the Rock, spoke to Sam Walker, author of "The Captain Class," a book which examines winning culture in team sports, from field hockey to rugby. In an exchange, Walker said this:
"[T]he book's main conclusion is that the only one factor that must be present in order to maintain greatness over a long period of time is the presence of a particular kind of selfless, relentless, independent-minded, publicity-averse, emotionally composed captain with strong communication skills. And that's Tim Duncan. Duncan was a pure example of the species."
I love Pop, but I have to believe that Duncan was the catalyst that powered Pop to be what he is now. This isn't Belichick-Brady where you wonder who made who. Pop is the greatest coach of all time, because of Tim Duncan. If you want to take credit away from Duncan by saying he played for the best teams, you might be right, but only because he made them the best team. He gave up touches, let other guys hold the torch, put everyone around him in the best position to succeed, and he enjoyed it when they did.
When I said earlier that the thing that hurt Duncan's stats more than anything was a lack of defensive numbers, I lied. The thing that hurt Duncan's stats more than anything was the fact that he never gave a shit about stats or awards. Ever. He wanted his teams to succeed and he wanted to win. That's it. Just read about how his teammates talk about him:
"The best PF ever! Thanks for the memories old man. A great player and teammate."
- Lamarcus Aldridge
"Sometimes all you NEED to say is THANK YOU....To the BEST EXAMPLE of a Leader, Brother, Friend."
- Bruce Brown
"Even tho I knew it was coming, I'm still moved by the news. What a HUGE honor to have played with [Duncan] for 14 seasons!
- Manu Ginobili
I don't think there is a more beloved teammate than Tim Duncan. In the words of NBA commissioner Adam Silver, "...his understated selflessness made him the ultimate teammate." Duncan was always the big brother. Correcting his teammates when they made mistakes and throwing his arms around their shoulders when things didn't go their way. He led in the most effective way possible, not with tweeting, bombastic words, or showy halftime speeches, but by example.
Of all the end-of-career farewell wishes, the one from his former teammate, Brent "Bones" Barry stuck out to me the most. He quoted Mark Twain, saying "'To be good is noble, but to show others how to be good is nobler and no trouble'; for your brilliance TD, I am grateful. For your skills as a player I am in awe. And for your friendship I am honored."
Milwaukee Bucks coach and former Spurs Assistant, Mike Budenholzer said to ESPN's Kevin Arnovitz in 2016: "The magnitude of that, the number of people in this league who have enjoyed opportunity or found fortunate spots in the league, you can trace it back to this one guy -- to the way Timmy played ball and the way he conducted himself. The 'culture' is Timmy."
The NBA is a league of superstars and dynasties - from Russell to Jordan, from Wilt to LeBron. We'll remember its history through its champions, and in the history of North American sports, no team has been as good for as long as the Spurs. San Antonio's success is completely unprecedented in the world of basketball. Aside from his lockout shortened sophomore season, Duncan won 50 or more games and qualified for the playoffs in every season of his NBA career. He finished his career with a win percentage of 71%, the highest of anyone, in any sport, ever. The Spurs run of success started in 1997, the year they drafted Duncan. Since then, he was the cornerstone, the engine of the franchise that has perpetually defined what winning culture looks like - in and outside of basketball.
And so I say again, if you could pick any NBA player from any era of basketball and your goal was to win, you would pick Tim Duncan. His abilities as a basketball player are what made him a superstar. But his consistency, willingness to be coached, love and support of his teammates, and humility are the things that make him transcendent.
I'll let Pop have the last word. This is what he said to the press after Duncan announced his retirement:
"Everybody always talks about who they'd like to eat dinner with, if you had one night and you could go to dinner or lunch with someone. Some people say Mother Teresa, Jesus, the Dalai Lama...I could honestly tell you, my dinner would be with Timmy. He is the most real, consistent, true person I've ever met in my life."
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2023.06.08 19:08 ConstProgrammer Bright Colors, Strange Entities, and Baffling Vanishings

This article is not my original creation. It was from "Mysterious Universe" website. Unfortunately the site has since been taken down. I was able to find the wayback machine (internet archive backup) for this article. However it is not a reliable permanent solution, hence I decided to post the duplicate here as well.
https://web.archive.org/web/20210507065339/https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2019/08/bright-colors-strange-entities-and-baffling-vanishings/
Content of the original article:

Bright Colors, Strange Entities, and Baffling Vanishings

Brent Swancer

August 7, 2019

There are numerous cases throughout history of people just seeming to step off the face of the earth to vanish into thin air. We are usually left with only scattered clues, grasping at theories as to what has happened to these unfortunate souls, but in some cases it appears that there is a correlation of sorts. Throughout a great number of these accounts of people who have seemingly blinked out of existence there is the simple but nagging clue that they were wearing brightly colored clothing. It seems to be at first a meaningless quirk, but the number of reports of the mysteriously vanished and bright articles of clothing has increasingly become something that can’t be easily ignored, although the answers as to why might be forever elusive.
A very strange case popped up on Whitley Streiber’s site, Unknown Country, concerning a witness calling himself Alan Lamers and his very unusual, otherworldy story. Lamers claims that he was working on the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia, which is where it first came to his attention that a great many people were said to have gone into the jungles of the area to vanish without a trace. He was first told about this as he visited a small speck of a village in the district of Sandu Batu, in South Sulawesi, where he was warned to only wear clothing that was white or black in color, with no bright colors whatsoever. In particular he was warned not to wear anything that was yellow, and that black was the best one to go with. Odd indeed, but it would get odder still.
When Lamers pressed as to why he should not wear bright colors or anything with yellow on it, the villagers told him that people who did so had a bad habit of disappearing off the face of the earth. Weirder still, sometimes the people would reappear dazed and confused, not remembering anything of their strange incident and missing the articles of clothing with the offending colors. As to why, the villagers had no explanation. After hearing of this, Lamers and his companions warily wore all black when they trekked out into the jungle to investigate some alleged illegal logging in the area, but one of the men apparently broke the rules, and he explains:
One of my friends, who is a Bugis-Makassar, didn’t listen or understand the warning and wore yellow socks. We did our tour and returned. He was strangely quiet. That night he became extremely ill. I had never seen a person projectile vomit that hard. He had an extreme fever also. We nursed him and about a day later he returned to his healthy self. Then he told us what happened. He said something had bitten him on his right legs calf and then his thigh. He showed us the marks. They were huge scratches. He said he could not see what was attacking him. He said he did not want to tell us what happened because he was embarrassed. The villagers stood around us with these knowing looks while we looked at the marks. they said he was very lucky. Usually people disappear. I was stunned.
What was going on here, and what in the world does the color yellow have to do with it? It is unclear, but Lamers claims that he would get at least some theories during his stay. He tells the account of a woman friend of his whose brother had gone hiking in the mountains along with four others, after which they all vanished. After an intensive search finally the brother was found, alive but in a dazed state and looking undernourished and skeletal. When asked about what had happened to them the brother said he could not remember, but whatever it was had obviously and visibly traumatized him. No trace of the others was ever found. Lamers asked his friend what she thought had happened to them, and he says of her response and his reactions to it:
She said it was the Jin. Jin is Arabic for demon. She said many many people have disappeared in the mountains because of the Jin. I asked my engineer friend who I worked with about this early today. He said it happens often and reminded me of Wala Wala the village we had gone to. Entire cultures have developed around this problem. They wear only black because they believe this allows them to travel through the jungle undetectable by whatever it is that takes these people. There is something taking these people Whitley. Something terrible and evil in Sulawesi. The people of Sulawesi have come to terms with it and have tried to adapt themselves to deal with whatever it is. It has gone on long enough to bend culture. I will continue to investigate what this is.
Is that what this was? A Jin? This makes sense considering that the population of the region is around 85% Muslim, but could there be any other explanation? He apparently did follow up on all of this, managing to get more information out of the locals, as well as from the lone survivor from that doomed trek as his memory came trickling back to him about that fateful hike. However, his story seems to make no real sense, and is so bizarre it leaves more questions than answers. Lamers tells Strieber of this additional information:
I found out he kept seeing what the Bugis call Jin Kurcaci. It means little demon people. These things do what is called “penculikan” or abduction. No one knows why they do this. But sometimes the people come back after a bit. The people or creatures who do this have a small nose and their eyes are small and black, but their mouths are very broad and when they smile it is very large compared to the rest of their face. He could not remember the color of their skin. I asked for a picture to be drawn. He managed a crude happy face with a nose consisting of a single line and a huge grimace.
The boy was the only one who could see them out of the five. He kept seeing a lot of them but when he would try to show the others one of the four who disappeared could see them. He also saw a strange animal he could not recognize. These animals are the size of a horse with huge antlers. He said he saw herds of them. He could not understand where they came from or why there were so many. They not an animal indigenous to the area. There is no such known animal that big in Sulawesi. Apparently this is a widespread problem.
Is this Jin, some sort of evil forest people, or just folklore? What is the significance of the colors and why must people wear black? Does this somehow draw these forces in, and maybe they are attracted by these colors? It is very interesting to note that some of the most bizarre vanishings on record are theorized to have had some link to bright colors, according to missing persons investigator David Paulides, author of The Missing 411 series of books.
Paulides has researched strange vanishings all over the world and has compiled a sort of list of criteria that seem to be common to many of the cases. Examples include people disappearing practically right under the noses of nearby friends or family, bodies turning up without shoes or proper outdoor clothing, children who have gone missing only for their bodies to turn up in inaccessible areas where they could not possibly have climbed to on their own, belongings or clothing left behind often neatly folded or arranged, bodies that have turned up in areas that have already been thoroughly searched or are out of reach, and people who have disappeared without leaving a single scrap of evidence behind. There are also the fact that many of these disappearances seem to happen near bodies of water or where berries happen to be growing, that with bodies which are found the cause of death is often unclear or difficult to determine, that there is a lack of tracks, and that search dogs often cannot pick up the scent or are led to places such as sheer walls where no one could reasonably scale. Often people who were with the missing explain that they just happened to get separated somehow without being able to pinpoint when or how. Then there is the curious detail that many of the vanished just so happened to have been wearing bright colors.
This has been seen in many vanishings covered by Paulides, with perhaps the most well-known being the disappearance of 6-year old Dennis Martin. On June 14, 1969, Dennis was on a camping and hiking trip to the Great Smoky Mountains when he and his family stopped off at a grassy mountain highland meadow and popular stop-off point along the Appalachian Trail know as Spence Field. As the adults sat out on the grass chatting, Dennis, his brother, and two other boys on the trip thought it would be amusing to play a prank on their parents. They decided that they would split up, go out into the woods, and then simultaneously jump out from different directions to startle the adults in what was meant to be just harmless fun.
Three of the boys went one way and Dennis, who was the youngest, went the other. The reason he had been chosen to be on his own was that he was wearing a highly visible bright red shirt. This is something to remember in relation to this article, the bright colors. Just as planned, the three older boys jumped out and scared the adults, but then the men asked where Dennis was. Since the other boys had seen him just a few minutes earlier, they assumed that he had merely missed his cue and so they waited for him to jump out of the trees as well, but he never appeared.
Dennis’ father, Bill Martin, went out to get his son, expecting that he would be there hiding in the bushes as he had been instructed, but an immediate search of the area showed no signs of the boy, and calls into the woods went unanswered. Increasingly worried, Bill and Dennis’ grandfather, Clyde Martin, hiked out in different directions farther and farther from the place where the boy had last been seen and still they found nothing. Park Rangers were notified and a search was launched that would last until nightfall, when heavy rain began to come down along with thunder, which hampered efforts to find the boy and the search was called off until the following day with still no trace of where Dennis had gone off to.
In a rather ominous twist, a mere hours after Dennis had gone missing a family named the Keys reported that they had been hiking around 6 miles from Spence Field when they had heard a boy’s scream. The son also claimed to have seen movement in a bush which he at first had thought to be a bear, but turned out to be a man walking in the woods with something apparently slung over his shoulder. As spooky as this may seem, authorities determined that the location was too far away from Spence Field to have possibly have anything to do with Dennis within the time frame of events.
In the following days the search efforts would quickly grow in size to hundreds of people scouring the area, including park rangers, locals, volunteers, the FBI, National Guard, and even Green Berets and psychics, along with bloodhounds and helicopters, and meanwhile the news of the disappearance had started making major national headlines. Since Dennis was described as a robust, healthy boy with plenty of hiking experience it was thought that he was alive and would be found in short order, but continuing heavy rains flooding roads, as well as thick fogs, made efforts difficult. For their part, Dennis’s parents posted a hefty reward for any information leading to finding their son. Dennis Martin has never been found, and not a trace of what happened to him has ever been uncovered. Interestingly, this all fits several of Paulides’ criteria, including the brightly colored clothing.
Similarly there is the case of 4-year-old Alfred Beilhartz, who in the summer of 1938 was on a fishing and camping trip with his family at Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park. As the boy and his parents were taking a hike along a river, little Alfred, who was wearing a brightly colored shirt, suddenly simply disappeared without explanation. One moment he had been there walking in a line behind them, and the next the parents had turned around to find he was gone without a trace. There had been no shout or sign of distress, and all calls to him went unanswered. He had seemingly just ceased to exist.
Although the parents claimed that the boy had gone nowhere near the water, authorities were nevertheless convinced that he had fallen into the river, and immediately went about blocking off the river so that it could be thoroughly searched and so that his body would not float too far away. A 6-mile stretch of the river where Alfred had vanished was searched and dredged for 5 full days without turning up any sign of the boy, and when bloodhounds were brought in they oddly tracked his scent to around 500 feet uphill from where his parents had been when he had disappeared, which was odd considering he had supposedly gone missing as he was walking behind them. Also strange was that allegedly the bloodhounds followed the trail for some time before reaching a fork and suddenly stopping and simply lying down, an odd behavior for trained scent dogs to display, and also strange because it seemed that the trail had just abruptly stopped to vanish just as surely as the boy had.
Even more bizarre than this was an odd report that came in from some hikers in the area in the early stages of the search, the very day after Alfred had vanished. The hikers, who were a couple, had been on Old Fall River Road about 6 miles away over rugged terrain and around 3,000 feet higher from where Alfred had disappeared, and at the time had had no idea that there was a missing boy in the area, yet they reported seeing a rather worrying sight. They claimed that they had seen a young boy perched up upon a high ridge in an area ominously called “The Devil’s Nest,” near the top of Mt. Chaplin. The hikers reported that the boy had been forlornly sitting alone up there and had then suddenly moved out of sight, which the hikers mysteriously allegedly said looked as if he were being “jerked back.” At the time they could not figure out how such a young boy would be out there in the remote wilderness by himself or how he could have possibly climbed up onto that formidably high ridge. According to the hikers, as soon as they had gotten home and seen the news, they had realized that the boy they had seen was the missing Alfred Beilhartz.
Authorities acted on the tip and made the journey out to the Devil’s Nest, a perilous hike through thick, unforgiving forested terrain littered with rough brush and dense trees, and there at the top of the looming ridge they could find no trace of the boy. Considering the difficulty of the terrain, the elevation, and the steep, treacherous climb up to the ridge on which the hikers had claimed to have seen the boy, park rangers came to the conclusion that it would have been impossible for the boy to have made the hike out there in the timeframe involved on his own, and that he could not have possibly climbed the ridge alone without specialized climbing equipment and experience. There are several weird details about this case. How did Alfred manage to just vanish right under his parents’ noses without making a sound? What happened to his scent trail and why did the bloodhounds following him act so oddly? How could Alfred hike all the way up Mt. Chaplin, trudging 6 miles and 3,000 feet through unforgiving perilous terrain in such a short time, and then climb up onto that high ridge by himself? What did the hikers mean that he was “jerked back”? We may never know, and Alfred Beilhartz has never been found. Oddly enough, it is reported that young little Beilhartz had been wearing brightly colored clothing at the time of his vanishing.
Such cases are numerous, and we also have the case of 3-year-old Jaryd Atadero, who in October of 1999 was staying with his father at a Christian retreat lodge at Poudre Canyon, Colorado. On October 2, Jaryd was out with 12 of the Christian group members on a hike along the Big South Trail when he somehow got ahead of the group and talked to some fishermen along the Cache la Poudre River, asking them if they’d seen any bears, to which they replied that the boy should get back with the others. Those fishermen would be the last ones to see Jaryd Atedero alive. In the wake of his disappearances a massive search using bloodhounds and aircraft was unable to find any trace of the boy, and it was largely assumed that he had fallen into the frigid waters of the river and drowned.
It would not be until 4 years later that he would finally be found, when on June 4, 2003 his remains were discovered up in a remote, inaccessible area up a steep incline about 500 feet above the trail he had vanished on. This is where the case gets weird. On the dead boy’s cranium were found a series of odd scratches that were assumed to be from a mountain lion, yet big cat experts pointed out that a cougar would have torn at the sweater and body near the neck and stomach, damage that was absent. Indeed, there were no other apparent injuries on the body. Paulides also claims that he spoke to forensics experts on the case who told him that, although the source of the scratches could not be determined, they were not from any known animal. Other odd details about the body were that the boy’s clothes had been turned inside out, and a single tooth from his mouth had been found placed upon a nearby log, strangely not overgrown with moss or vegetation considering that it had presumably been sitting there for 4 years. The clothes and shoes themselves were also surprisingly brightly colored and new looking for supposedly having been out in the elements for so long. And there is a key word here, they were brightly colored.
Adding to this strangeness surrounding the case of Jaryd Atadero are allegations made by the boy’s father, Allyn Atadero, that authorities were very secretive and dishonest about the whole incident, and seemed to be almost intentionally botching the investigation. One example is when the Atadero family was allegedly threatened with arrest if they tried to go off snooping around on the Big South Trail, and although it was claimed by authorities that the trail was the only way in or out of the canyon, this turned out to be a falsehood, as Allyn found records of various other entry and exit points. Another oddity was that Allyn claimed that he had discovered that the police were using his own shorts as a scent sample for the dogs rather than those of his son, and that when confronted about this glaring error in procedure they got confrontational and irritated, allegedly going so far as to threaten to call the search off. Allyn would also claim that although some strange hair samples had been collected from his son’s sweater, no test results were ever released and he was merely told that they were neither human nor mountain lion, but that he “shouldn’t worry about it.” To top it all off, Paulides also claims that authorities were highly uncooperative with his own investigation into the case, and that the FBI had refused to get involved. What in the world happened to Jaryd Atadero? Was this an animal attack, a kidnapping, or something more? It seems we may never know.
Mysterious cases like this go on and on, with that common thread going through them that they were all wearing brightly colored clothing at the time of their bizarre vanishings. Is this, as David Paulides and Lamers say, a determining factor in such vanishings? If so, then why should this be? Are the colors somehow attractive or maddening to whatever forces are taking these people? And now that we are on it what forces would those be? Is this extraterrestrials, evil spirits of some kind, Bigfoot, some sort of other mysterious animal, or what? One very interesting theory that has made the rounds is that perhaps some sort of large, unidentified winged beast is behind it all, perhaps its attention drawn by the bright colors. One commenter on our very own Mysterious Universe has said of this and how it relates to such vanishings:
I’m pretty sure I know what it is & I’m sure it’s also responsible for some of the National Forest missing adults. If these disappearances have anything to do with what I saw in 2006 in Colorado (less than one mile outside of Pike National Forest), then it’s likely that the same thing is responsible for the cattle mutilations as well:
It’s a bird & it was massive; I startled it off my roof by stepping outside onto my front porch in the middle of the night. I had no idea there was anything there but when the door slammed behind me I heard a “scrabbling” sound; as if there were a small rockslide directly above me.I covered my head with my arms & tried to duck under the eaves when I heard a rippling sound. Almost exactly like the sound one of those huge flags make when a sudden strong gust of wind unfurls it.
Then, there was a boom. A percussive boom that my eardrums felt, to the point where I started to lose my balance & fall backwards. That’s when a huge shadow passed overhead. From 1.5 stories above me, clearing 50ft tall tree in the front yard. The shape of the shadow most resembled a vulture & I can’t conceive of the wingspan being less than 20ft.As it glided up it … screamed. A pulsating croak? Not sure quite how to describe it. It was not a sound I have ever heard before. Oddly; it didn’t seem to have flapped its wings again.I refused to think about it for about a year because it was so ridiculously improbable. When an inspection of the roof occurred, the comment was “It looks like Freddy Krueger attacked your roof!” Along with the gashes, there were a few puncture holes as well. So I started researching & haven’t stopped.
It is of course possible that the presence of bright colors could just be a coincidence. Perhaps it does not matter, and has simply been assigned value by Paulides and others, but then how would that explain the clear link supposedly conveyed to Lamers by the people of that remote area of Indonesia and their aversion to entering the jungle wearing anything other than white or preferably black? Is there any connection to be had here, and if so what is it? It is certainly interesting to note the similarities between Lamers’ stories on the bright colors and people reappearing with no memory of what had happened and the very similar Paulides cases in which the same thing happens. Are there mysterious forces drawn to these colors that somehow make these people disappear? There is no way to know, and it seems to lie beyond our comprehension, but until we do understand maybe don’t wear brightly colored clothing next time you are on that hike through the woods.
submitted by ConstProgrammer to HighStrangeness [link] [comments]

2023.06.08 17:12 Seadragon1983 A Seadragon Shitposting Skit: Hosting the Super Regionals

Now, for something new and original...
The scene: NCAA Headquarters in Kansas City. Mr. NCAA is in his office and about ready to light up a cigar when the alarm on his phone goes off. It's for the Super Regional selections he must make today
Mr. NCAA: Clarice, can you bring in the sixteen winners to the office?
Clarice, the receptionist, sees that all sixteen characters are here. These are the mascots that represent the sixteen Regional winners from last weekend. You have a few human like mascots, like the Duke Blue Devil, the Wake Forest Demon Deacon and the Virginia Cavalier; and you have some animal mascots as well, like Big Al for Alabama, Sycamore Sam for Indiana State, SuperFrog for TCU and Bevo for Texas. Everyone then comes into the office. It's a nice office with a view of Kansas City from the top floor. Mr. NCAA see the entire group and is amazed with at least two of them being here - The Duck and Eli.
Mr. NCAA: Congrats to all sixteen of you who made this far in the Baseball Tournament. I see some old faces and some nice new ones here. Welcome to the party, Indiana State.
Sycamore Sam: Thanks, Mr. NCAA sir. The honor is mine.
Mr. NCAA: Don't worry about it. Anyway, it's time to unveil who will host the Super Regional Round this weekend. You know the rules: If it's seeded vs. seeded, the higher seed hosts; If it's seeded vs. unseeded, the seeded team hosts; If it's both unseeded teams, then the regional seeds decides who hosts. Got it? Good. Let's begin with the Friday games - First off is Duke and Virginia. Blue Devil, you're heading to Charlottesville.
Blue Devil: Sweet! I gave that clown of a Cavalier two of his four losses at his home field earlier this year.
Cavalier: Fluke wins, Dookie. You aren't getting that lucky this time.
Mr. NCAA: Ah, conference rivals. Brings joy to this old and withered heart of mine. Speaking of conference rivals... Cocky, you're heading to Gainesville.
Cocky: Uh... sure... He spots Albert, sitting in one of the chairs in the office, eating a Chic-Fil-A chicken sandwich with a sign next to it that reads "this is your fate, chicken!" All Cocky can do is a loud gulp as he now visibly shaken
Mr. NCAA: I wonder if that bird brain knows that he defeated Florida this season already... meh. Next up, SuperFrog, you're off to Terre Haute.
Sycamore Sam: Hold on, boss man. Can I request that SuperFrog host the Supers this weekend instead of me? I have the Special Olympics coming in and after hosting both the Missouri Valley Conference tournament and the Regional last weekend, there isn't enough manpower or hotel rooms left for me to host. What do you say, boss? We got a deal?
SuperFrog: I'll be a good host and all... oh, and can I barrow a pen from you, Mr. NCAA sir?
Mr. NCAA: Sure.
SuperFrog gets the pens and opens up his checkbook, which he carries around with him (He's old school in that way).
SuperFrog: writes the check for $250,000 Who do I make this out to, Sam?
Sycamore Sam: Indiana Special Olympics.
SuperFrog: Here you go, champ. A $250,000 check for the Special Olympics. It's the least I can do to help out a fellow school.
Sycamore Sam: in shock Wow... that's nice of you, man. Thanks.
Mr. NCAA: Okay, Sam, you're heading to Fort Worth this weekend. That leaves our final Friday game - Eli, you're going to Eugene. Oregon was the #2 seed in Nashville while you were the #4 seed in Stillwater, which means Oregon hosts.
Eli: I'm just thankful for the chance to compete in this part of the tournament. Let's have some good games, Duck.
The Duck: You too, Eli.
Mr. NCAA: That takes care of the Friday games. Now, for the Saturday games - Big Al, you're going to Winston-Salem.
Big Al: Top seed?
Mr. NCAA: Top seed.
Big Al: Best pitchers?
Mr. NCAA: Best staff in the nation.
Big Al: Bring it on.
Mr. NCAA: Well then... Bevo, you're off to Stanford.
Bevo: Okay, I do like my chances there.
The Tree, who is standing off to the side in the office, holds a sign that reads "Good luck, bovine. You'll need it..."
Mr. NCAA: Wildcat, you're off to Baton Rouge.
Wildcat: Never did like going there, whether it was for football or basketball or even baseball.
Mike the Tiger: Oh, don't worry... I'll make sure your visit is worth it. Hey, guys! Get the gumbo pot ready... we got a conference visitor this weekend!
Mr. NCAA: Finally, we come to you two - Seymour and Smokey. Since you were both #2 seeds in your regional, we're going to have a coin flip. Seymour, since you have the better record, you get the choice - heads or tails?
Seymour: Heads.
Mr. NCAA flips the coin and it lands on heads
Mr. NCAA: Heads it is. Smokey, you're off to Hattiesburg.
Smokey: Oh, poo. I can't win on the road this season... let's hope that doesn't come back to haunt me.
Seymour: Sweet! I get to host something... should of hosted last weekend, if you ask me.
Mr. NCAA: Okay, that takes care of everything. Enjoy yourselves this weekend and I'll see the eight winners in Omaha next weekend. Clarice, hold all my calls... As the last two leave, Mr. NCAA finally lights up the cigar he's been holding on to.
submitted by Seadragon1983 to UrinatingTree [link] [comments]

2023.06.08 12:16 TheGeekyZoologist Jurassic World: The Hegemony of Biosyn (JWD rewrite) - Act IV (1/2)

Acts I to III are available in my previous posts. This act is the longest of all and thus, I've been forced to divide it into two posts. Make sure you're comfortable. Enjoy your read!
​

Act IV: The Clouds Burst (1/2)

Maisie's evasion
While Ramsay is secretly covering them in the control room, Wu and Theo enters Katia Lesser's lab and with Rod Drummond's unexpected help (he's tired of working for Biosyn and intend to get out of the valley), they neutralize the scientist and frees Maisie from her cell. They then cross the other secret labs within Biosyn's Citadel and we several interesting elements:
- Dissected animals are seen in one of the labs while others are suffering medical experiments.
- In one of the sections, there are ten rooms. Nine of them are empty and in the tenth one, there are nothing but locusts, which surprise Theo. However, Drummond points out they don't exactly look like ordinary locusts (they're only slightly bigger than modern locusts. They could even be portrayed by real locusts (a bit enlarged by visual tricks) if this was a film) and noticing Wu's guilty look, the two men and Maisie realize he had a role in their creation). But he doesn't have the time to give explanations about those locusts.
- Another room has a window which overlooks a large dark bunker-like hall. In its darkness, they glimpse the shape of a large theropod with raised dorsal spines and crocodile-like scutes but when he sees the creature a bit more clearly, Drummond says something like "Those idiots made their cheap Godzilla knockoff!", recognizing the creature from the short film he mentioned to Wu in the Drinking Confession scene. He calls the mysterious theropod an "Ugly bastard" and a perversion of real dinosaurs.
After the labs, they head for the metro station just as planned but due to his lame leg (in TRQ, it was pierced by one of the Indoraptor's claws), Wu can't go with them and decides to stay in order to win some time for them. He and Maisie have a last look/exchange, with the teenager finally showing Wu some genuine respect and gratitude. Wu gives Theo a flash drive, urging him to send its content to Guillaume Vuillier of the WDMC as it contains the evidences of a scourge Biosyn intend to release soon. They separate, with Wu going in the opposite direction.
While the guards are chasing Wu, Maisie, Theo and Rod enter the metro and picks one of the stations on the eastern side of Auronzo (actually one of the observation towers). The metro leave the Citadel, following the valley loop. However, the metro system was badly designed and it can only follow the loop in a clockwise direction, forcing them to make a considerable detour and waste precious minutes.
Wu is soon caught and Dodgson's arrival in the control room prevents Ramsay from further helping the fugitives. Seeing one of the metro heading east, Dodgson has it stopped halfway of its journey and orders the guards to go inside the tunnels and bring back Maisie. Aware that Wu betrayed him, Dodgson takes a tablet and activates a certain Prometheus protocol.
Underground, Maisie, Theo and Drummond are forced to leave the metro and they try to find an exit before the guards can catch them. They find a door on the side and breaking it, they enter another smaller tunnel. However, the ground is slippery and they fall, descending further down into the darkness.
When the guards sent in the tunnels tell Dodgson that they lost Maisie, the CEO has a fit of anger.
The old amber mines
After their fall, Maisie, Theo and Drummond discover that they're in the old amber mines, which Biosyn exploited until their depletion, and search for an exit. Drummond also mentions that the valley's underground is like a cheese and that he wouldn't be surprised if some tunnels lead outside of the valley, which would explain all the incidents which occurred in the past year. During their crossing of the mines, they find several human skeletons or remains. It's implied that it's all the undesirable people who trespassed into the valley (governments' and rival companies' spies, anti-Biosyn activists...).
Should the giant temnospondyl be scrapped from the frozen lake sequence, it's probably going to be included here, as there are underground rivers and reservoirs by the mines.
Aviano Air Base
At Aviano Air Base, at the very gates of the Alps, Jessica Bigelow boards a US air force helicopter which takes her to Auronzo.
Prometheus Protocol
Wu is brought to Dodgson, which shows him a screen. Wu is aghast as it's a Twitter feed with the following hashtag #MadScientistWu, which is trending. Dodgson then explains that he had a file containing evidences of Wu's ethical misbehaviour (his work on the Indominus and Indoraptor, and especially the use of human DNA in their making ..) be made and ready to be sent to the media at once should he betray him. His reputation being destroyed for good, Wu breaks down and Dodgson orders the guards to bring him to Dr Lesser's lab and put him in Maisie's cell. Several characters (Ramsay, Pellegrino, Chapman, Everett...) watch Wu being led away by the guards.
With Mia Everett being nearby, Dodgson declares that Biosyn shouldn't have accepted a single InGen employees within its ranks has they have been nothing but traitors and burdens, before announcing to Mia he finally decided to pull the plug on her research program, as her rival and his team have much more promising results and shall be soon covered in glory.
Raiding and Betrayal
While the afternoon reaches its end, Owen, Dougal and Kayla end up near one of the Sanctuary's seven observation towers. There's no one inside and Kayla suggest entering it to raid some of the supplies it contains. She also tells her two companions that there is a metro station beneath each of the towers, stations connected to the Citadel by the tunnels. Thinking they could infiltrate the Citadel by those tunnels, Dougal agrees with her plan and the trio enters the tower and steal the needed supplies but a drone has spotted them. Just as they are about to follow the tunnels, they notice flashlights, those of incoming Biosyn guards. They climb back to the top of the tower but a security vehicle parks in front of the building and other guards step out of it. Surrounded, the trio prepare for a siege inside the tower but just as the guards are about to enter, Kayla points her weapon on Dougal's head and tells Owen to drop his or his colleague dies.
From the nearby forest, Claire witnesses the capture of her two colleagues and watches the Biosyn Security vehicle taking Kayla and the prisoners to the Citadel while the sound of helicopters approaching can be heard.
The board arrives
The helicopter(s) transporting Biosyn's board of directors lands on the Citadel's helipad and its passengers (which include Nathan Quinn and Zoe Murdoch) are welcomed by Dodgson and Ramsay.
Obstinacy
At the same time, Jessica Bigelow is brought to the Citadel and asks to see Dodgson but Murdoch stands in her way, claiming he's very busy. The CIA agent insists and Dodgson finally listens to what she has to say. But he wants to carry on with his event whatever happens, but reassure her as for Biosyn's most important research: They're already on a hard-drive in his office.
The cells
We cut to Owen and Dougal as they are locked up in a cell in the Security HQ. Kayla is standing outside, next to Pellegrino who's interrogating the two men about their mission and Claire's whereabouts. The smuggler reveals to the two WDMC agents that powerful friends suggested to her to let herself be arrested by the Italians as they expected they'll use her as a Trojan horse. She adds that there's nothing personal, she's just thinking about herself. While Pellegrino carries on with her questions, Kayla leaves the Security HQ and meets Bigelow by its exit (telling the audience that Kayla's powerful friends are the CIA). She asks her about their next moves and the CIA agent answers that the two of them will leave the valley with Dodgson and his escort. Back in the cell, Owen and Dougal hope Claire will succeed.
Unleashed dragon
As she's nearing the Citadel, Claire is spotted by a patrol of mercenaries or a drone. They chase after her and in her flight, she ends up in an enclosed part of the Sanctuary with several paddocks and cages. Several of them contain animals and it's implied that it's where Biosyn keeps those it just acquired or bred before releasing them in the valley. One of the cages contains a tyrannosaur and just as the mercenaries are about to catch her, Claire releases the predator and the mercenaries panic, triggering the rex's attack. It kills them before turning towards Claire, who's crouched and not making a single move. The rex sniffs her lengthily and Claire notices it's the animal she saw the day before, which left the droppings she used to mask her scent... The rex leaves Claire alone and disappears in the woods, heading north while Claire heads in the opposite direction. On the way, she sees a mysterious large theropod (she and the audience have visual obstacles which prevents them from clearly seeing it but we know it's the one from the bunker under the Citadel) being transported towards the western part of the valley.
In the besiegers' camp
While the sun is setting, a meeting is held in one of the besiegers camp's tents. Among the attendees are Vuillier, Nyamu, Viscontini, the leader of the Carabinieri Colonel Orlando Pasolini, and those of the Italian and Austrian Special Forces (and Pazzi through videoconference as he's still in Rome). They're talking about Biosyn's defenses and forces, the species which might be encountered in the Sanctuary, eventual negotiation strategies, the WDMC agents' mission, the grey guards who are in the valley and currently heading to the Citadel... Argument breaks out as some (like Pazzi) advocates for an immediate offensive, to surprise Dodgson and prevent him from fleeing or preparing some nasty surprise, while others want to wait until dawn, to let time for the grey guards and the eventual surviving WDMC agents to accomplish their mission in addition of avoiding sending men in a valley full of deadly animals in the dark of the night. Pazzi is for an immediate offensive and gives his blessing to colonel Pasolini.
Worried about the fate of his agents, Vuillier contacts the grey guards, which are already heading to the Citadel, following a path in the uplands.
The US spies
From a nearby wood, some people are seen spying the camp and northern entrance of Biosyn's lands. We cut to a meeting room inside the CIA's headquarters at Langley where Gibbon and his colleagues just received news that an offensive is about to start at Auronzo. Some ask the head of the DSD news about his agent inside Biosyn's Citadel.
Open the gates
Bigelow, with Ramsay's help, is trying to persuade Dodgson to cancel the event, take the hard-drive with the key research, and secretly evacuate Auronzo before ordering the control room to open the gates and let the Italian authorities in. While those would be searching through the Citadel, they would leave the area by the mountains before heading to a secret safehouse. Dodgson complains that the only help the US government sends is her but she mockingly retorts that the US won't risk a war with Italy and Austria just because of him and that had he been more careful, all that mess wouldn't have happened.
Watching footage of the besiegers' camp, Dodgson finally orders the opening of the northern gate. He and Ramsay then go to the auditorium, where Biosyn's board and other important figures are waiting for the CEO.
The convoy
Believing Dodgson finally surrendered, Colonel Pasolini and most of his Carabinieri enter Biosyn's lands while the Italian and Austrian Special Forces remain in the camp. After passing by the mercenaries (who were ordered by Dodgson to stand down) and the airstrip, the convoy enters a narrow pass through the mountains, the same one through which the hunters were brought to the Sanctuary.
Chips
In the Citadel's auditorium, Dodgson begins his presentation with a speech about how dinosaurs and other de-extinct animals were used since InGen first cloned them. At the same time, all the non-essential employees are gathered in the cafeteria and locked there by the mercenaries on his orders while others are deployed in some of the Citadel's most strategic locations (the control room, the labs' entrance...)
Meanwhile, the Carabinieri convoy has entered the Sanctuary and following the main road to the Citadel, they pass by the lake seen in A bed in the trees scene and several animals, including predators, which do nothing but watch the convoy. Drones are seen flying above the Italian vehicles. However, just as the Citadel is visible in the distance, the convoy stops when the first vehicle notices that a fallen tree is lying across the road. While it's quite large, said tree is still light enough to be moved by a group of people and with a lot of effort. Colonel Pasolini orders for a certain number of his men to get out and move the tree out of their way but while they start accomplishing their task, the Carabinieri feels the ground trembling beneath their feet and they and those still in the vehicles see ripples in the water puddles along the road. A racket starts to be heard in the woods on both sides of the road and in the distance, trees can be heard being jostled or even falling. Aware that large dinosaurs must be nearby, Pasolini orders his men to get back inside the vehicles and to the last in the convoy to return to the last crossroads and search another way to the Citadel. But just as said vehicle turns around, a tree falls across the road, larger than the one ahead of the convoy. The latter is now stuck between the two fallen trees and when they see human silhouettes running away from the one behind the convoy, the Carabinieri realize that they've fallen into an ambush (hearing the Carabinieri's communications on the radio, Vuillier and Viscontini wonder what treachery Dodgson has planned). Meanwhile, the drones have returned over the convoy and the racket in the woods gets closer and closer and the people in the convoy glimpse three large necks rising from the forest: argentinosaurs, charging argentinosaurs. Frightened at such a sight, the Carabineri are struck with fear and just as the sauropods are about to burst out of the forest at any second, a dreadful booming sound (similar to that of the orcs horns in Battle of the Five Armies; or the reapers' sound from the Mass Effect series) comes from speakers on some nearby elevation and in response, the sauropods let out a deafening bellow heard across much of the Sanctuary. Before they can take action, the Carabinieri are attacked by the argentinosaurs and their suite of small predators.
In the control room, Pellegrino witnesses the attack through some drone visuals and is wondering how it happened. She orders the technicians to send a signal in the sauropods' brain chips (during the Inspection scene at the beginning of the story, Pellegrino explain to the group that the Sanctuary animals are chipped) in order to make them stop but when they try to send the signal, the get an error notification, and one of the technicians say that either the chips fried and are driving the animals mad, or they were hacked. Pellegrino then asks to deactivate the aerial defense system to let the besiegers fly their helicopters into the valley but she's told that some program recently inserted prevent them from doing that for the entire duration of the prenstation. Powerless, the head of security watches the argentinosaurs crushing vehicles and men under their feet, and their suites of small predators harassing them. She's even more surprised when a few Ankylosaurus (first glimpsed in the news montage when the report talks about "tailored dinosaurs". Compared to those from the fossil record and those made by InGen, those Ankylosaurus are bigger and more high-legged, giving them enhanced mobility. Design-wise, it's basically the one from the actual JW films, albeit perhaps more intimidating) join the fray. Having suspicions, she head for the auditorium.
After learning that Pasolini and his Carabinieri fell into an ambush, an offensive is launched against the walls of Biosyn lands. Vuillier and Viscontini watch the Italian and Austrian Special Forces engaging the mercenaries defending the walls by the airstrip. They hope they'll soon make a breach so they can reach the convoy before it's too late (they know they can't send helicopters due the pterosaurs acting as the Citadel's aerial defense).
In the valley, one of the Carabinieri notice that the animal isn't acting on its own will (it's seen blocking its movements for a short moment, like someone resisting to a possession) and even seems in pain.
We cut to the auditorium and his observation is confirmed, with Dodgson explaining to the board of directors that thanks to chips (originally designed by Mantah Corp but Dodgson being Dodgson, he doesn't mention that and instead give the credit to the team rival of Mia's), they can control the animals like puppets. He precise that while the chips work well on some animals, trials have failed with others (like the raptors). On the auditorium's giant screen, various diagrams and footage of trials are seen.
We then follow another POV, that of technicians inside a command centre-like room. The technicians are sitting in front of monitors and each of them is seen typing on keyboards, giving instructions to the argentinosaurs' and ankylosaurs' chips (on the monitors, the audience can notice that they give names to each of the animals. For example, the three Argentinosaurus are named Brontes, Steropes, and Arges; after three of the cyclops from Greek Mythology). Through their drones or even micro cameras attached to the dinosaurs, they see the Carabinieri fleeing northwards while some of the Italians retaliate to the attack by shooting on the dinosaurs. But their weapons are ineffective against the argentinosaurs' hide and the ankylosaurs' armours. On the order of a mercenary officer, the technicians send a second wave of animals.
The speakers make once again their awful booming sound, exacerbating the animals' aggressiveness, and the second wave emerges from the forest. Before the scene cuts, we see it's made of, among other things, a Gigantoraptor (named Jabberwocky on its controlling technician's monitor), a couple of Quetzalcoatlus, probably some medium-large theropods like Allosaurus or Carnotaurus, a Biosyn Triceratops, and maybe even some Hyaenodon/sabre-toothed felid (depends on which will appear in the fighting pit in Malta) and Gigantopithecus recently imported to Auronzo. Many of those new attackers wear armor pieces comparable to those of police and military dogs or horses.
In the auditorium, the giant screen ends up showing the battle occurring in the valley. Dodgson's audience gasps when they see the drones' footage. One of the board members ask: "It's from a video game? Right?"
NOTE: I fear that there might be too many animals and different species involved in the battle. The mandatory ones are the following: Argentinosaurus (maybe have more than three individuals? The Brontes-Steropes-Arges trio could be seen charging abreast, evoking from afar a single three-headed gigantic beast) and their suite, Triceratops (which will illustrate itself soon and show how it's different from InGen's trikes), Gigantoraptor (in order to have a faster and more agile creature in the lot), and another player foreshadowed in earlier scenes (you'll know which when we'll return to the battle).
Sneaking into the Citadel
While battle just broke out further west, a Biosyn guard posted by a large gate carved at the base of the mountain near the Citadel spots a hooded silhouette under the trees: Claire. She retreats into the darkness and as a huge reward has been promised to anyone who would capture Vuillier's she-wolf, he runs after her. However, just like the colleagues she killed the day before, she lures him into an ambush and neutralizes him. She then steals his uniform and badge, and use the latter to open the gate, entering in an underground corridor, large enough to allow the transportation of large animals like the mysterious big theropod she glimpsed earlier. She follows it towards the Citadel.
Unbeknownst to her, the grey guards have also started their infiltration in the Citadel, by walking down the slopes behind the central tower. After neutralizing the few Biosyn guards positioned there, they enter the garden around the tower. In the latter's shadow, they split up in four groups, each heading into different parts of the Citadel:
- Cesare, Olivares and another are tasked with entering the labs.
- Perez, Al-Damiri and a third team member must take over the control room at the top of the tower.
- Chapuy and two others are tasked with searching the archives under the tower and preventing anyone from destroying the documents.
- Massoud, Kapakas and Papadopoulos must find the cells and free the WDMC agents if they're there.
The Battle of Auronzo
Following the road, the retreating Carabinieri reach the Valley's main river and the bridge the convoy crossed on the way just a few minutes ago. However, a controlled animal charging from the other side of the river prevents the first Carabinieri from taking it and they are forced to cross the cold waters of the river itself (it's thigh-deep at best) while the controlled animals are right on their heels. Several Carabinieri get killed during the crossing while some of their colleagues are cut off from them and must escape into the woods on the southern side of the river. Luckily, the controlling technicians didn't notice them. Once Pasolini and his remaining men are all on the other side of the river with the few vehicles they could have gotten out of the ambush site, the controlling technicians have their animals stopped just at the edge. A last animal codenamed Quasimodo arrive on the battlefield, a large Biosyn-made predator which visually, looks like a perversion of the real animal which makes up its base genome: It's the monstrous theropod from the bunker, an Acrocanthosaurus whose DNA was spliced with that of other animals, including crocodile (due to the croc fetish of some Biosyn executives) in order to be bigger and more "Monstrous and cooler-looking" than InGen's Acrocanthosaurus (yes, it's just JWD's Giganotosaurus with a different name). The apex predator makes his way through the other animals, which are seen looking at him with fright (in case of the smaller species) or irritation (in case of the Argentinosaurus and the other megaherbivores) but still controlled, they can't run away or fight it. As they're not controlled by the chips, the members of the Argentinosaurus' suite are showing aggression and one of them dares to attack him, but Quasimodo just grabs it in the air and eats it, discouraging the others from attacking as long as the sauropods won't. Quasimodo then stops in front of the bridge and looks at the Carabinieri on the other side. Confronted to this surreal sight, Pasolini don't know if they shall continue their retreat northwards or wait and hope for reinforcements' arrival.
While the animals are eerily standing still by the river, Dodgson exposes an idea to the board: They will bred new animals which aren't in their official catalogue, secretly release them in various parts of the globe, create "controlled" incidents and then get contracted by governments to capture the animals (capture which will be very easy with the chips, barely an inconvenience...) and send them to Auronzo. Biosyn will be both the disease and the cure, getting profits from this endless cycle of incidents and capture and obtaining absolute control on genetic power while their remaining competitors will die one by one. Basically, they'll soon become the equivalent in the Bio-engineering world of the British East India Company, something InGen aspired to be before crumbling. The CEO adds that his friends within the US government are already very interested by this technology.
Hidden in a technical room right behind the auditorium's stage, Pellegrino heard Dodgson bragging about controlling the animals. Realizing that he's so mad that he is slaughtering her fellow countrymen just to sell a technology, she takes a potentially fatal decision.
Back at the camp near the airstrip, Viscontini tells Vuillier that someone within the Italian government must have warned Dodgson, explaining how he got the time to do his nasty preparations. As the Special Forces just defeated the mercenaries guarding the northern entrance of Biosyn's lands and took the airstrip, Vuillier and Nyamu join them, asking for a weapon and climbing into one of their vehicles, refusing to stay safely in the camp while their friends and colleagues are in danger of death within the valley.
The speakers let out a third blast and hearing it, the few Carabinieri south of the river turn towards its origin. They see the speaker and an movable antenna on a nearby ridge and are aware that it must have something to do with the animals' unnatural behaviour. They rush towards it, hoping to save their comrades.
Irritated by the third blast, the controlled animals stamp and growl/bellow for a moment, before their controlling technicians orders them to move forward, as they were ordered to crush the Carabinieri before the arrival of their allies. While the other animals cross the river, Quasimodo the monstrous Acrocanthosaurus takes the bridge, accelerating his pace little by little before roaring and dashing on the Carabinieri. Aware that they'll be all slaughtered within a few minutes if they just stand there, Pasolini ordered to his men a few moments before to scatter in every direction and flee as long as possible in order to win time while the remaining vehicles will be either used to carry a maximum amount of men to the nearest shelter (could be the Hunting Lodge) before coming back and picking up those they can. Pasolini volunteers to stay on foot.
While flying between the speakers and the river, one of the drones spot the Carabinieri left south of the river. Noticing those troublemakers, the controlling technicians recall two of the animals from the battlefield (probably one of the Argentinosaurus and the Gigantoraptor).
On the other side of the river, the rest of the controlled animals have started attacking Pasolini and his men. The argentinosaurs charge through the forest and crush the Carabinieri like ants while their predatory auxiliaries harass them; the trike basically acts like a giant version of the boar from Australian horror film Razorback, charging, goring with its horns, and cutting off limbs with its sharp beak; Quasimodo devour several of the Italians... Colonel Pasolini ends up killed by one of the creatures and his death ruins the morale of his men who are about to rout.
Meanwhile, reactions among Dodgson's audience are varied:While some are captivated, others are not sure what to think about using the Carabinieri as guinea pigs, and one or two are disgusted. Nathan Quinn has a neutral attitude (he's interested by the technology but even if he strongly disapproves the actual demonstration and the bloodbath, he doesn't show it) while Ramsay avoid looking at the screen.
Hearing one of the Argentinosaurus bulldozing its way through the forest behind them just as they are about to reach the speakers and the antenna, the other Carabinieri start to run but during their race, they are surprised by the Gigantoraptor when it kills one of the Carabinieri, acting a bit like an oversized terror bird. They are forced to climb into a tree near a cliff's edge in order to escape it, with even another of the Carabinieri sacrificing himself to let the others climb high reach its targets, the Gigantoraptor tries to climb on the tree but to no avail, as it's too big. However, the tree bends and ends up uprooted under its assaults. Our characters are now hanging on an horizontal tree which will probably soon fall if the theropod keeps kicking it under its controller's command. They can't escape by one end as the Gigantoraptor is waiting for them and to make matters worse, the Argentinosaurus appears below the cliff and it can raise its head almost high enough to grab our characters. They can't escape.
Sneaky as a viper
After passing by the entrance of the large bunker where the monstrous Acrocanthosaurus was contained, Claire decides to pass by the vents after hearing some guards.
The Goblins of Nublar
During their journey through the amber mines, Maisie, Theo and Drummond stumble upon a lone Pectinodon. Remembering what he said earlier about the network of tunnels and its potential exits leading out of the valley, Drummond realize that the Pectinodons, and not the raptors, were involved in several of the external incidents (including the one from the Prologue). As he had to capture some of those creatures in a post-apocalyptic Nublar for Mills and Wu while he was part of Wheatley's mercenary company, Theo warns his companions about the danger of those animals. Maisie remembers having seen babies of those animals in the manor's basement along all the others Mills sold in his secret auction. The lone Pectinodon let out a series of calls and soon, an entire pack threatens our protagonists.
Ensue a scene where they have to repel them (Drummond tries to use the portable horn he has in his bag in order to scare the pectinodons but they're not impressed) and flee. However, Theo is bitten during that scene and his two companions notice this during a brief moment of respite. Maisie hopes they could perhaps find some cure but Theo answers that while one exists, they won't reach it in time. He adds that the venom will drive him mad (as seen in JPTG and mentioned in TRQ) and turn him into a danger for them. While his mind is still clear, he give Wu's flash drive to Maisie, has farewell words with her, asks Drummond to take care of her, and then runs back to where they came from, intending to win some time for them. While Maisie and Rod flee, Theo stands in the tunnel, preventing the pectinodons from going any further. He battles them to the death, taking several to the grave with him. An alternative could be him attracting a maximum of pectinodons in a room where he either provokes a crumbling, either a flooding, something that kills Theo and his attackers.
Finding a ladder, Maisie and Drummond follows it and climb out of the mines, narrowly escaping the pectinodons. They are back to the surface, somewhere in the northern part of the valley, not far from the dam. The palaeontologist then takes the traumatized teenager to the nearest tower, where they rest and resupply for a time.
Turning the Tide
Just as hope seems lost for the Carabinieri in the western part of the valley, a group of Shantungosaurus steps out from the forest and when the speakers on the trailer let out another blast to infuriate the controlled Gigantoraptor and Argentinosaurus nearby, the hadrosaurs, pissed by the sound made, attack the speakers and in the process, destroy also the antenna which sends the signals to the controlled animals' chips.
Freed of the mercenaries' control, the animals stop for a moment and most being scared by the gunshots or having no interest in killing the humans in front of them, just leave. However some like the Triceratops or Quasimodo carry on with their attacks due to their natural instincts but when the Special Forces finally arrive from the north, they hesitate and after being intimidated by the newcomers, they retreat and disappear in the forest' darkness. The surviving Carabinieri start to rally to their allies.
Witnessing the shift in the situation, Dodgson is frustrated and leaves the auditorium, tasking Ramsay with trying to reassure the board. He calls Bigelow, telling her to meet him at his office. On the way, the CEO is cornered by Pellegrino and some of her men, mostly Italians, who point their pistols on him. The head of security tells Dodgson he's under arrest and orders him to cease this madness and surrender to the authorities. However, the putschists are surrounded in their turn by Dodgson's bodyguards and some mercenaries, and all except Pellegrino are gunned down. While she is neutralized and taken to the cells, Dodgson hurries to the Citadel's central tower. By the entrance of his office, Bigelow and Kayla are waiting for him. They enter his office and Dodgson starts cleaning his computer and putting his most precious belongings in a bag, including the hard-drive with Biosyn's most important research. The CEO also orders some men to destroy the archives.
At the top of the tower, Isabella Perez, Sherif Al-Damiri and their companion reach the control room and while they're securing it, Vincent Chapuy and his two comrades have to fight the men sent by Dodgson to the archives. Perez orders the technicians to deactivate the aerial defense system and the pterosaurs are seen moving away, letting the Special Forces (accompanied by Viscontini) fly to the battlefield. A couple of their helicopters go directly to the Citadel, engaging the mercenaries defending it.
While the dead or wounded Carabinieri are taken off the valley before the scavengers show up, the others regroup and with the Special Forces' ground forces, march to the Citadel where they intend to soon end the battle. Vuillier contacts Cesare, asking him about his progress. Cesare and his two companions haven't yet entered the labs, as Dodgson deployed seasoned mercenaries and not simple guards at their entrance, offering a hard resistance.
While the Citadel's defenders are engaged with the Special Forces dropped by the helicopters, Armand Massoud, Angelos Papadopoulos and Lydia Kapakas enter the Security HQ and free Owen and Dougal after a small fight with the gaolers. Pellegrino is also freed. The Raptor Whisperer asks one of the gaolers where Victoria is. She's in the kennels, in the lower levels. While Owen rushes to the kennels, the three grey guards, Dougal and Pellegrino head for the atrium.
Running out of time (his computer is having some issues), Dodgson sends his last forces to the Citadel's atrium, where a shootout occurs. With the cafeteria no longer guarded, the non-essential employees try to break out. Meanwhile several Biosyn guards drop their weapons and surrender when they see Pellegrino collaborating with the besiegers.
Dodgson's joker card
The defenders lose ground and as they are about to be caught between the Carabinieri, the Italian and Austrian Special Forces, the Massoud-Kapakas-Papadopoulos trio and Pellegrino's followers, one of the Biosyn guard calls for a ceasefire. The fight stops and Dodgson appears on top of the stairs which lead to the main courtyard. Bigelow, Kayla and his bodyguards are with him (while Ramsay is seen arriving from the Auditorium) and Dodgson has his bag with him. Seeing the CIA agent, the trio of grey guards hurls threats and insults at her, declaring she'll pay for Digby who died in Malta because of her treachery.
Dodgson look at his enemies: Vuillier, Nyamu and Viscontini down in the atrium, standing in front of the Carabinieri; the grey guards, Dougal and Pellegrino on one of the floors. He talks to them, congratulating them for taking the valley from him, before adding that they won one battle but not the war. Just as he is about to get arrested, he unveils his joker card: Should he be imprisoned or killed, his agents abroad have the order of releasing the content of nine containers he sent across the globe: Swarms of genetically-modified locusts designed to eat every crop but Biosyn's (a montage show trucks carrying the same containers as those seen in the airstrip. They park in the countryside of the following regions: US Midwest, India, Burkina Faso, Tanzania, Egypt, China, Argentina, Australia, and Germany). Should the locusts be freed, they would trigger a global famine, with people being forced to turn to Biosyn if they want to eat. Even if Dodgson doesn't leave Auronzo alive, Biosyn will have a future as it will be the only entity which could ensure mankind's survival in this apocalyptic scenario.
New attackers
Meanwhile, three helicopters arrive from the opposite side of the valley. At first, it's believed that they are others Special Forces helicopters but as no one on the besiegers' camp ordered them to head for the Citadel, some try to contact the oncoming aircrafts, to no avail. Fearing some ill shift in situation, Vuillier suggest his allies to take cover. One of the besiegers' helicopter tries to intercept the trio of helicopters but they shoot it down and it crashes in the eastern part of the valley, near one of the observation towers. Everyone in the atrium is surprised, including Dodgson, and rushes to shelter while two of the helicopters fire missiles in several of the Citadel's key locations, including the atrium, the helipad (destroying the board's helicopters) and the cafeteria, and spray the control room (Perez is hit while one of the technician accidently release the animals contained in the kennel when he falls dead head first on his console. The freed animals not only include Victoria but also dilophosaurs among other things). After that, they distract those of the besieging forces and attack the Citadel's defenders. Many casualties are inflicted among the besiegers and Biosyn employees.
Dodgson regains consciousness just after the attack, which killed his bodyguards and projected Bigelow and Kayla away. Next to him, Ramsay is still unconscious. He sees the third helicopter of the attackers landing in the courtyard and debarking a squad of armed men who directly rushes to the laboratories. As soon as they're gone, Dodgson grabs his bag, wakes Ramsay up, and takes advantage of the situation to escape, towards the nearest elevator. He chose one of the lower levels, that of the garages. The elevator blocks itself halfway and the two Biosyn executives must force their way out while chaos has taken over the rest of the building.
submitted by TheGeekyZoologist to JurassicPark [link] [comments]

2023.06.08 10:09 WaveOfWire One Hell Of A Vacation - Chapter 89

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Nalah affixed the massive shield to her back, the rectangular form large enough for her to fit behind while only needing to crouch slightly. It was mostly ironwood, but the sides and front were metal-plated, so it still weighed a considerable amount. Despite that, the thing’s bulk hardly seemed to be noticed by the blonde-furred female, likely due to the constant construction work she involved herself in. It paired oddly with the long pike she insisted on using, but he couldn’t deny that poking at things while hiding behind a mobile wall sounded like a good idea.
Jax was wearing his new armour, the bulky chest-piece a mirror of his blond-furred pack mate’s. Though he forwent the protection a buckler or likewise would offer, he doubled up on gear. Gauntlets, vambraces, pauldrons, and anything else he could wear to compliment the massive axe he had taken a liking to.
Where Nalah was fitted to look like an apocalypse survivor—her protections limited to her torso, forearms, and shield—the black-furred male resembled a giant, if underfunded, paladin. All he needed now was some religious imagery and a penchant for exalting the qualities of their god. Joseph almost nudged the guy to suggest it for kicks.
On second thought, he decided that Jax absolutely did not need a reason to start yelling about the Human-turned-religious-figure, because there was no way in hell he wouldn’t. There was no telling what he would choose to say, and the Grand Hunter was perfectly happy never knowing.
Having been with the male as long as he had, it would probably involve ‘taming’ females or something else that would leave him groaning for weeks, if not just contemplating another high-dive from the cliff.
Joseph fixed his own equipment, the ‘Wraith armour’ worn over his own thin iron breastplate. He wasn’t thrilled to wear the extra weight, but it beat being mauled by the thing they were heading out to kill. The trips so far had been tolerable, fog and overcast skies keeping the temperature in check, but he didn’t want to go out in this on a hotter day as Summer really kicked back in. He was sweaty enough without baking inside all this crap.
He adjusted the wolf-skull mask, the rest of the hunting party having gotten over the worst of the unease it gave them. Though they’d needed to rotate people out for the sake of fairness, this would be their eighth consecutive scouting. Using the information that Raine and Faye provided, they narrowed down a likely stomping grounds for the creature and were systematically clearing sectors. It might have been discouraging to keep looking after so long, but the occasional marking on trees and the odd moss-wolf corpse tipped them off that they were getting close. There was still another week’s worth of searching left if today wasn’t the day, but somehow he doubted they wouldn’t need that long.
All in all, they numbered six; larger parties were attempted, but their efforts at stealth quickly became pointless between so many trudging through the forest and stopping for breaks. There was a bit of a scare where one of Mi’low’s pack went missing, but the guy had just stopped to relieve himself. Since the discovery was made by someone else knocking him over in the process by mistake, they decided that keeping the number smaller made communication easier. And lowered the amount of grumbling about needing a bath.
Jax, Nalah, two security members, one of the hunters, and him. Sure, grabbing Tel or the Wraiths would have been a bit more useful for cohesion, but they were all busy with things, and he didn’t want to grind everything in the settlement to a halt for nothing if the search turned up empty again. They were more suited to taking out their fellow Lilhun than some monster in the woods, as much as he disliked the thought.
Scarlet was spending a lot of time with Violet and the new Atmo, Faye was spending much of her recovery with the moss-wolves and moss-pup, and Tel was in the process of helping Harrow shore up the few security members that were slated to become snipers. Kaslin was still learning chemistry with Toril, and Raine was helping whoever needed a hand, so that marked off all of his usual accompaniment. He could have taken more of his direct pack, but they all had important things to take care of as well.
Sahari was managing the pack and putting people where people needed to be put, Pan was working with Idee and Heralt to make a line of armour for the whole pack, and Mi’low was...well, Mi’low. He was pretty sure she was unofficially the master of the hunter’s lodge and spent most of her time keeping track of what came in and out of it, while also making sure that everyone got their fair share. It needed to be done with the settlement growing as much as it had, and it kept Mi’low busy enough to stymie the flow of complaints, so he wasn’t about to complain.
They double checked that they had everything that was needed; food, water, arrows, bolts, and some bags to store anything that the snares had caught on the way back. Four ranged and two melee weapons meant that they would be mostly using Jax and Nalah to soak hits if it came down to it, the others peppering it with projectiles. Given that Harrow was insistent on the bear-thing being resistant to anything they could use at a distance, they also carried spare weapons for the ranged users, just in case. Nodding, Joseph gestured to the group finishing up their preparations for the day’s trip.
“A moment, sir?” Scarlet called to him as she approached the gate, the Wraith flanked by Rose and Cobalt. The two Atmo were decked-out in their own armour, which appeared to be almost entirely metal, save for the palm lining the inside for comfort. Each of their six legs were adorned with broad shields, their bases capped off with a flat storage carriage. They looked like someone had a little too much fun testing how much the insects could effortlessly carry and had ended up with sapient hexapedal tanks.
“Only if you explain why those two would look more at home if they had cannons installed on their backs,” he quipped, an expression somewhere between surprised, amused, and plain dumbfounded plastered on his face. The blackish red-furred female smirked for a split-second before resuming her usual servile presentation.
“The young mistress had extended her request for these two to accompany you.”
Joseph tilted his head incredulously. “Violet told you to send them?”
Scarlet nodded, gesturing to the outfitted Atmo. “They have been under her tutelage for some time now, and wish to be of assistance.”
The Grand Hunter snapped his mouth closed when he was about to ask why his daughter would teach them anything that might be useful for fighting a deadly beast. Of course she did; It was one of the first things he did for her. It would have been weirder for her not to pass on what she knew after all the hours she spent either seeing him coach the others, or being coached herself. With the time she had under her belt, she was the local Atmo Close Quarters Combat specialist, and no one else understood how the modified boxing she learned worked with their bodies like she did.
He wore a hesitant expression, shifting his weight to his other leg. “Well, they’ve certainly geared up.”
“It is a product our smith is rather proud of,” the Wraith affirmed confidently.
He exhaled slowly. “Seems a bit much.”
She seemed to be expecting the remark, barely pausing to register what he said before responding. “Your kit wishes you safe, yet understands you would not allow her to accompany you. These two wish to be of assistance.”
To punctuate her point, the two nodded in agreement, walking forward and slinging some of the backpacks onto their carriages. It seemed ‘no’ wasn’t something they were going to accept after Violet had said her piece. He sighed, conceding that they wouldn’t slow the party down with everyone carrying so much weight in equipment, regardless of the bags. They took breaks frequently enough to accommodate the Atmo, so that wouldn’t hinder anything either.
“Fine,” he relented with a wave of his hand. “We’ll take them. Not like they’d hurt anyway. But–” He put a warning into his tone. “–they’re not playing the hero and getting themselves killed. This isn’t going to work if they think any of us dying is still a net positive, got it?”
The two Atmo mimed their understanding, Scarlet replying with a victorious smile. Joseph couldn’t help but bemusedly roll his eyes. The female had taken rather well to baby-sitting, and that seems to have extended to humouring the young Queen’s schemes now. It wasn’t an unwelcome addition to their little sojourn. At least they could haul back any larger game without it tacking hours onto the return trip.
He thanked Scarlet for her trouble before dismissing her, confirming with the group that everything was accounted for, and set off before it grew too late. He wasn’t looking to get caught out in the woods during the night. The Lilhuns might be fine, but he was pretty well blind unless the moon felt generous.
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Jax watched the two Atmo quietly follow on the sides of the group, their heavily armoured forms posing no issues with their naturally soundless movements in the forest. In the den, they would make moderate clacks and clicks as their chitinous legs contacted the ground, but the soft dirt and foliage stifled all but the smallest report of their travel. With Scarlet supervising alongside Violet, he wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that the former Blade had influenced their movement with the goal in mind, though he had never paid much attention to how they walked before to compare.
He had to admit, having them carry the additional equipment was exceedingly useful. He had proposed having the group use the newly acquired platforms on their more arachnid-like abdomen to rest in shifts, but Joseph was quick to insist that the insects were of lesser stamina than even Lilhuns. The phrasing seemed like a comparative insult, but Jax had more than enough experience with the Human to know that he had simply spoken his mind. To him, everyone had sub-par stamina. Training had gone some way to remedy the discrepancy, but the Grand Hunter could still continue for longer than even the most well-conditioned of them.
The black-furred male rolled his shoulders, feeling the heft of his axe shift with the movement. It was an impressive size, the weight well-balanced and its edge sharp. He had once laid it to the ground out of curiosity and confirmed that it was about as tall as Pan from head to haft, though only if she stood to her full height. Regardless of its size, it was still lighter than the armour he chose to don.
Having only really worn leathers or a few sets of ironwood protections, the encumbering prominence of the iron equipment took getting used to. It wasn’t entirely restrictive, but did put a damper on any chances he had of sprinting from danger. That was fine, he supposed, since he was wearing it against a beast he had no experience with. It could very well outrun him regardless, and he would rather have the defences in either case.
Nalah seemed to be doing fine, the large barrier she kept on her back swaying slightly as she walked. She was unhindered by it, her movements barely affected by the bulk, which was reassuring. Joseph, however, seemed to be panting more than usual, the rolling cloud coverage easing as the sun progressively warmed the environment. The fog from earlier meant that it was rather humid, and that seemed to bode no well wishes for the male encased in dark leathers and thick plates. He had even flipped down his hood, the sweat beading on his skin adding a sheen to his visage.
“I liked this better when the sun didn’t exist,” the Human lamented quietly, just loud enough for Jax to hear. The black-furred male chuckled.
“It would be rather dark.”
Joseph glared at him for a moment before rolling his eyes. “I just don’t rank ‘heavily armoured hike through the woods’ high up on my list of things I want to do regularly.”
“I believe that list would be occupied by your mates, no?” he ribbed playfully, a smirk arising when the Grand Hunter shunted his eyes closed in a grimace.
“I hate you.”
“I can see your smile underneath your displeasure, Joseph,” Jax quipped, nudging the male with his elbow, then giving an apologetic smile when his friend almost fell. Joseph sighed, waving Cobalt over and fetching a water-skin from the luggage that the insect was ferrying without breaking stride—though he needed to be careful not to get stepped on.
The Atmo always amused Jax. Be it their passive demeanour hidden by their towering stature, or his interactions with the den-kit, they never failed to be curious people. Having the two that accompanied Volta with them was an unexpected development, but he couldn’t claim to disapprove. If they had been imparted the methods of combat that Violet had cultivated, then there was little worry of them being harmed by naught but perhaps their current target. At least not until there was a better reference of its strength than the single encounter the first-years had so long ago.
At the time, it had smashed pillars and pierced flesh effortlessly, claws proving to be little more than tempting ministrations of tender touch to the thick hide. Jax only had some of the pack’s recount to base the experience off of, but was content to take their word for it. He was, ashamedly, preoccupied taking care of baser needs when the event transpired, so he was woefully unprepared for the eventual encounter. Still, he was afforded the best the settlement had to offer so that he might serve his duty of protecting the Grand Hunter. Harrow would never forgive him if only he returned.
His thoughts were disturbed by Joseph calling for a rest, Jax’s legs thankful for the break from supporting the unusual weight for so long. The Human dispensed rations and water for the pack, the Atmo waiting until everyone else was supplied before accepting their portion. They rested on their base directly, instead of curling their legs beneath them like Jax had become accustomed. Perhaps the armour impeded such, or they wished to remain mobile in the event such was required. Regardless, they blocked what little breeze there was, forcing the Grand Hunter to walk beyond them to enjoy it in the shade. It was short-lived however, as Rose quickly repositioned to stay between the pack and whatever lay beyond their protections.
It was a futile effort, it seemed, because it repeated again twice before Joseph groaned loudly and threw himself atop the carriage to lay back, his legs dangling at the knee. He seemed perfectly content with the unorthodox arrangement, snorting his amusement along with a muttered comment about a ‘taxi.’
The entertaining sight was marred by a distant yelp, snapping the group to attention. Jax and Joseph traded looks, subtle nods and gestures given to move out while remaining quiet. Ignoring his earlier complaints, the Grand Hunter flicked his hood up and donned the mask, drawing his crossbow and readying a bolt. The hunter of the pack mimicked the preparation, the two security members loosely nocking their arrows while Rose, Cobalt, Jax, and Nalah took point.
They proceeded quietly for far longer than the proximity of the noise would have suggested, but marks and gashes upon the trees implied a moving conflict. Thoughts of it being a lost cause quickly became moot as a closer growl and bark shattered the careful silence they had been maintaining.
Motioning for the pack to stop, Joseph waved Jax forward, Nalah approaching the other side. Using the large shield as additional cover, they peered around a particularly thick tree. Locked in combat were two moss-wolves, both attacking a truly massive grey creature.
Twice the Human’s height, half that in width. Four pillars as legs—the muscular trunks sinewy and defined—supported the disturbing hunched figure, the wide base tapering slightly into a thick and extended torso. A singular eye-stalk replaced the head, the ocular organ atop it pitch black and free of any indication of its focus. Four arms with deadly claws parried and sliced the two yellow beasts as they attempted to drive off the predator, a sickeningly large maw gaping to catch any attempts at a lunge. The mouth of the creature almost occupied the entirety of the available surface area upon its front, the jagged bone tools of manduction undulating with the promise of sustenance.
Joseph pulled them back, cursing under his breath as he tried to fight off the tension. From Nalah’s worried expression, it seemed his caution was rather potent, the other members of the group smelling his reaction as well.
“So, what’s the plan, Jax?” the Human whispered, his grip on the crossbow alternating with his fingers stretching across the trigger lest his fidgeting cause a misfire.
“I thought that, with your record, you would wish to tame it for the settlement,” Jax replied while thinking through a plan of action. He was glad that his friend trusted him, but he wished he had known the true scale of the beast prior. Joseph grit his teeth, turning to glance past the tree again with sarcasm pouring out of his response.
“Can’t quite see Winnie-the-woodchipper there playing great with kids.”
“You say that after adopting an Atmo as kit, Grand Hunter,” he returned, nodding to himself when a plan formed. The Human smiled, the banter easing the tension somewhat. “Rose, Cobalt, you two are the most well defended of us. Circle around and drive the beast this way. You should be capable of such without noise, yes?”
The two insects nodded, emptying their luggage behind a tree so as not to lose any of it before disappearing into the trees. The slight glimmer of their iron armour was the only indication of their position through the dense forest. Jax hoped that the beast was not particularly curious about the dimly pulsing glare, nor finished with its current altercation in time to impede the pair.
Satisfied with their progress, he motioned for the two security members to scale a tree and gain a superior vantage point. Their weapons would be able to maintain a more rapid pace of sustained fire at longer ranges. Joseph and the hunter were instructed to hide behind trees nearby, though the Human would need to remain grounded as his lack of claws made scaling the large flora difficult with his equipment.
Finally, Nalah and he positioned themselves much closer, in order to flank the creature as it fled the Atmo and occupy it long enough for the others to bleed it out, if not outright dispose of it.
With the forms of the Atmo peeking through the brush opposite them, Jax raised his axe to signal the start.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Joseph felt the hammering in his chest, his heart preparing him to fight for his life against the walking abomination that easily outclassed the only other predator that he had experience with. Sure, the moss-wolves were easy to take down once you had equipment and a plan, but that thing screamed danger.
He watched Jax and Nalah set up behind thick trees, their goal being for Jax to hopefully disable a leg or two with the war-axe while Nalah occupied it with the shield. As the two strongest members of his little family, he trusted both to do their job.
As a clusterfuck of animal and torture device, he had no faith in the creature playing along.
Swallowing his hesitation, he adjusted his grip on the crossbow again, mentally tallying his shots and cursing himself for not researching explosives. Sure, Toril didn’t want to be involved in that kind of weapon, but at the moment, the tailless white-furred male could suck it up and make one anyway. Joseph would give his left nut to see how quickly the chemist would make weapons of mass destruction just to annihilate whatever that thing called home.
Jax raised his axe, glinting the sunlight of it towards the Atmo. Receiving the start signal, the two clicked and loosed a deafening screech, the Human’s ears ringing even from this distance.
The beast seemed unperturbed by the noise, though the lack of visible ears may have had something to do with the lacklustre effect. Regardless, it did notice the two armour-clad insects charging at it, and smartly decided to extradite itself from the area. The moss-wolves, however, didn’t quite get the memo, mistaking the advancing assistance as yet another foe to defend themselves from.
He had to say, Violet taught the two well. They flashed their blades out in the same flicker jab that he had shown his daughter, and with an unceremonious squelch, the two bisected canines landed in four pieces, a vibrant green ichor now staining the weapon-like appendages of the Atmo. Undeterred by their first act of violence—as far as he was aware, anyway—they continued herding the beast.
It wasn’t as fast as they might have feared, its quadrupedal gait hindered by its proportions, but it was still quick enough to be damn intimidating. Its arms acted as a counter balance, constantly adjusting this way and that just to keep it stable. That thing was clearly never meant for sprinting, all its mobility being given to the overactive maw that pulsated with the exertion.
He readied his crossbow, the shaking in his hands not ruining his aim against such a large target. He eyeballed the distance between the creature and the ambush point, forcibly moving his finger off the trigger so that he didn’t fire early.
Closer. Come on. Almost.
Now.
Jax wound up like a particularly enthusiastic lumberjack, putting his full body into the rotation. The massive axe swung like a horizontal pendulum striking home with all the finality of a clock tolling midnight. It bit into the front leg of the beast, only sinking a few inches before momentum nearly wretched the weapon from the black-furred male. Luckily, the force and timing was enough to trip it, the creature crashing to the forest floor with a deafening roar of pain.
They could hurt it. That made him feel better.
His relief evaporated as the beast swiftly recovered, hauling itself from the ground faster than he thought possible, but his archers took it for an unspoken signal. Arrows and bolts peppered its thick hide, to no effect—it shrugged off the projectiles like they were nothing more than pine needles, none sinking far enough to gain notable purchase.
Jax hefted his axe for another strike, careful not to over-commit this time. Nalah prodded the beast wherever she could with her pike, the melee weapon sliced and skewered just past the surface of the hide, though not enough to do more than marr. It was, however, enough to gain the attention of the target, the creature swinging two of its four arms to rake across the shield that the blond-furred female held. The iron plating across the front let out an unearthly shriek as claws ripped and crumpled the metal.
Well, fuck.
Nalah was quick to react, treating the shield less as an immovable barrier and more like a slight distance buffer, dodging in and out of range to steal jabs with the polearm. The security members nocked another volley, picking different targets than before. An arrow bounced harmlessly off the black orb of an eye, another finding purchase in what passed for gums in its mouth.
The hint was received; aim for the mouth. Thankfully, that was a large target. Less thankfully, it realized that flashing its teeth was detrimental to its health, slamming the maw closed.
Jax managed another swing, this time into one of the rear legs. It wasn’t as effective as the first strike, but it did warrant a sweeping double back-fist from the creature, scoring Jax’s armour with shallow claw marks as he jumped backwards. Joseph let out a breath as he fired his second shot, only just narrowly missing the sliver of a gap between razor teeth that the enraged attack afforded. It couldn’t keep its mouth shut forever, each frenzied swipe pulling its form enough for glimpses of softer flesh within to appear. The hunter dropped from their tree, darting across to reposition for a wider angle to capitalize on. The creature noticed, lunging forward to eviscerate the easier target.
Joseph blinked as two armoured figures jumped in front of the Lilhun, raising their blades in a tight guard to block the four arms grabbing for a quick meal. The beast recoiled with a thunderous screech, two of its appendages sporting deep gashes that fountained blood, while the others managed to impact above the edged outside of the blades. Rose and Cobalt pressed forward, buying time and space for the hunter to collect themselves and scale up another perch. Taking advantage of its pain, two new arrows ripped through the air, smacking into exposed inner flesh. Two new protrusions joined the first in the mouth, one landing next to the existing projectile, while the other cleared the gateway of serration, driving deeply inside of it.
More flicker jabs and extended straights pushed and cut the beast as it tried to gain distance from the two that wounded it, every retaliatory strike earning it another gash in its grey hide.. Unencumbered by the constant barrage, Nalah thrust into its legs more vigorously, her body leaning into each attack to gain every inch of penetration she could into the muscle and thick hide.
Jax used the chance to score another chopping blow, doubling down on a previous wound to a back leg—striking bone this time, based on the unholy wail the beast uttered. Joseph raised his crossbow to land another shot into its mouth, but the beast flailed wildly to fend off the ambush.
Rose managed to block, Jax lunged backwards, Nalah deflected most of it with what remained of her shield, but Cobalt was caught by a strike, taking the hit to its torso. The Atmo flew backwards, rolling when it landed, the carriage and assorted armoured plates trailing behind it. Rose shifted instantly, covering the direction that their companion had been sent while Jax and Nalah focused on pulling the beast away from the downed combatant.
Joseph’s eyes flicked to the Atmo, waging an internal battle on whether helping the insect would be better or worse for the situation as a whole. He didn’t want to lighten up their assault if it would just mean more injuries, but Cobalt could be in dire need for a patch job. It was hard to tell from where he was.
Cursing, he bolted from his spot, firing off one last round into the gaping maw before clipping the crossbow onto his armour and sliding on his knees in front of Cobalt, healroot hastily retrieved from his pocket.
He paused, sighing in relief when none of the armour bore more than deep gashes, the carapace underneath unblemished by the attack. Cobalt clicked lightly, dazed, but otherwise seeming unhurt. Unlearned in the physiology relevant, he ushered the Atmo to remain out of the fight for fear of concussion or something similar. They could look at the insect back at the base to be sure later.
“Joseph!”
His head spun around at both Jax and Nalah screaming his name, a massive clawed hand sweeping at him—the monster's approach unnoticed while he focused on Cobalt. Lacking a better option, he lunged forward towards the underside of the beast to dodge the swipe, crashing to his shoulder on the dirt below.
The creature raised a leg above Joseph, pounding the earth scant inches from his head as he rolled sideways. Ignoring the kicked up dirt, he brought his fist to the underside of the beast, flicking the release on his bracer.
Blood spouted from the newly formed wound, the blade breaking at the mechanism as the massive animal lurched in pain, Joseph rolling out of the way of another attempted trampling. He scrambled to his feet, feeling the wind of another strike narrowly missing him.
Yeah, that would probably kill him.
Luckily, the injuries renewed the desire to flee in the monstrosity, the group of attackers proving too dangerous to continue challenging. It stumbled away from them, sparing Cobalt from its panicked trudging. Jax and Nalah started to run towards him, worry evident in their eyes, but he barked for them to finish it, redirecting the two to keep the pressure going. He didn’t want to mention the pain in the arm from where the bracer hitched. It didn’t feel broken, and thus was irrelevant.
Pressure applied, the grey beast picked a random direction free of opponents to escape, ignorant of the waiting security. When it was too close for them to shoot into its mouth at a decent angle, they slung the bows over their shoulders and drew the swords they had been afforded, patiently waiting with the blades turned down.
It passed below them, the two Lilhuns dropping from the branches to put their full weight into the plunging blades. Both landed on the large target, one sword sinking deep into a shoulder, while the other managed to pierce one of its hip joints. The beast spun haphazardly to dislodge the ‘new’ threats, both security members kicking off and finding new trees to set up in.
Whatever damage was actually done, it had lost the use of an arm, and its gait shifted awkwardly as the blade lodged in its hip worked more harm with each shambling step.. Emboldened, Jax picked up the pace, struggling to position himself with the amount of metal he wore. Ducking another swipe of its claws, he saw his chance and swung, pivoting with his axe as a counter weight. For the third time, his axe blade found the wound in its leg, adding a sickening crunch as the bone snapped from the impact.
The creature swung wildly, forced to favour its two remaining good legs, and the only other leg that could still support at least some of its weight. It was unstable now, the hunched figure swaying while unmoving. Unable to run, it decided to go down with as many of them as it could.
Rose caught up with the attack, drawing attention from the comparatively squishy Nalah as the blond-furred female deflected a wayward swing with her shield. The once iron-plated ironwood now sporting little more than jagged scraps of metal atop its silver wooden structure, a series of deep gouges marring the surface. Two lunging thrusts with the pike bit flesh, drawing new blood from the beast.
Joseph loaded his crossbow, getting off two bolts, but not managing to keep it steady enough to hit anything of use, his arm faltering under the weight of the weapon. Cursing, he decided to flank the beast and try his luck with the other bracer. If nothing else, the force in which the blade deployed was enough to pierce the thick hide, and the others were doing a good job of distracting it.
The red armoured Atmo let loose a series of directed swings, the fifth severing an arm in motion, the flying appendage forcing Nalah to raise her shield to block the unorthodox projectile. The female was sent sprawling from the weight of the impact, but the beast was too busy voicing its agony to take advantage of it. Jax worked another two chops into the broad legs, but neither managed to incapacitate it any more, and the prolonged exertion was slowing his reflexes.
As if cued into his waning energy, the beast flung Jax with another strike, the hunter of the group sinking a bolt deep into the cavernous flesh of its mouth to prevent an attempt at following up.
Joseph roared, desperate to finish it off before the creature could do the same to his downed pack. He sprinted at the monster's back and slid underneath it with as much speed as he could muster. Throwing his fist into the passing undercarriage, he let the deployed blade leave a long gash in its wake.
The grey monster lost its ability to stand, torn tendons, blood loss, and inflicted injuries taking their toll. The Grand Hunter kicked off his knees to fling himself out of the way of the collapsing figure, grimacing as the remaining bracer proved unable to support the abuse he had put it through. He looked back at the beast, the flailing body failing to right itself as teeth did little more than gouge dirt, its back exposed. Rose approached, raising their blades together and plunging it through the body over and over until it stopped moving.
Exhausted, the Atmo dropped where it was, breathing heavily. Joseph’s instinct to yell their victory was delayed as he hurried over to Jax and Nalah to confirm he didn't need to bring back bad news. Nalah seemed fine, if a bit sore from hitting the dirt and rolling, while Jax just asked to lay down when he heard that everything was over. Cobalt came over to the group, the armour that had come off collected atop the carriage it had managed to loosely affix to its base.
It was light, a chuckle originating from the Human as he slumped to the ground against a tree, but soon the entire group was roaring with laughter as victory settled in their minds. The two security members helped the hunter begin disassembling the beast, their contribution to the fight leaving them with more energy than the rest. They hadn’t been slacking off, that much was certain. The number of arrows jammed into the maw of the thing would have guaranteed a few extra seconds of survival and chances to escape if one of them had been forcibly tossed into there, and it had caused enough pause for the rest of them to get in a few hits up close.
Joseph rested across from Jax and Nalah, letting his heart rate slow from the rapid pace it had been pinned to since the start of the conflict. His arm continued its protests, but from the amount of movement he still had, he guessed that he had just strained the elbow. A few days taking it easy should straighten that right up.
Once the active members were about half way through processing the creature for hide and meat, Cobalt approached him, a mimed request for assistance putting their armour back on being redirected to Nalah since he doubted he could lift the damn pieces without hurting himself at the moment. She obliged, getting the blue Atmo back in full attire, though it took a while.
Rose stood first, stopping over to allow the hunter to place collected bits and pieces onto the carriage before securing it with whatever they could make work. A security member gathered the moss-wolf corpses for a similar treatment. Waste not, want not, he supposed.
Rose ended up carrying most of their spoils. When he was about to ask why, he, Jax, and Nalah were dragged to Cobalt and hefted onto the carriage. A series of confused questions revealed that the rest wanted to head back before it started getting dark, and it was pretty obvious who was the most exhausted of them. Lacking the will or energy to argue it, he flopped back on the Atmo as the trees passed them by, Nalah resting her legs across him as her head sat on Jax’s lap. The black-furred male didn’t so much as smirk, so it was clear he had pushed himself too far to quip about the arrangement as he laid down.
“The next time you wish to exhaust me this much, Joseph,” the Head of Security started after a long while of silence, tiredness in his voice, “I would prefer it to involve my mate and a bed.”
The Human snorted, closing his eyes and enjoying the lack of walking as the surprisingly stable Atmo carried the three of them. “Fuck off, Jax.”
“Of course, Grand Hunter.”
Next
A/N: Patreon is fixed!... aka new one cuz problems with the last. Check it out to support the story, get AI character art every now and then, or even preview sections of chapters as i write them! (aka, before kieve gets to fix them :D)
submitted by WaveOfWire to HFY [link] [comments]

2023.06.08 05:42 F3vor Help With Blurry Grass

Self Explanatory. Is there a specific option I need to change to make my grass look sharper? Is this an anti-aliasing thing? Some help would be appreciated. Here is a link to what my grass looks like in game. I am using Ominous ENB and Northern Grass.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyAYiYSvpxc (Edited post to fix wrong video link)
​
Mod List/INI - https://loadorderlibrary.com/lists/mod-list-25032027
ENB - https://loadorderlibrary.com/lists/enb
​
Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-10900K CPU
ASRock AMD radeon RX 6800 xt 16 GB
Windows 10
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submitted by F3vor to skyrimmods [link] [comments]

2023.06.08 02:41 lechatheureux The Tonpa Kingdoms Part 3 (The Kingdoms of Tsaparang, Taishigang and Khotesh)

Please check part 1 and 2 for context.
The Tonpa Kingdoms Part 1 (Overview and The Gods) : worldbuilding (reddit.com)
The Tonpa Kingdoms Part 2 (The Kingdoms of Jangshun and Monyul) : worldbuilding (reddit.com)
Tsaparang
Tsaparang is a Kingdom to the east of the other Tonpa Kingdoms, it is marked by thick jungles and winding rivers, a small number of mountains dot the landscape to the west, on the border with Jangshun and Monyul.
The jungles of Tsaparang are known for their dense vegetation and towering trees, with rivers that cut through the landscape and create a network of waterways. The jungle clearings are dotted with small villages, where the people of Tsaparang live and work in harmony with nature.
The people of Tsaparang have learned to live with the challenges of the jungle environment, including the risk of flooding during the rainy season and the dangers posed by wild animals. Despite these challenges, the jungle provides a wealth of resources for the people, including medicinal plants, exotic fruits, and valuable timber. The villagers have developed their own unique way of life, with a deep respect for the natural world and a strong sense of community. They work together to maintain their homes and farms, and to protect the jungle from outsiders who might seek to exploit its resources.
The kingdom of Tsaparang was founded by a legendary warrior king named Raja Dhananj, who converted to Tonpa and united several smaller kingdoms in the area left over from the Indraprastha Empire under his rule, he named it after a fortress city on the border of Monyul that was essential to his victory, he eventually built a grand capital city on the banks of the Brahmaputra River, which he named after himself – Dhananjpur.
The city is a bustling center of trade and commerce, and soon became known throughout the region for its wealth and prosperity. Over time, Dhananjpur grew into a magnificent city, with grand palaces, beautiful temples, and bustling markets, the most famous of which is the floating markets called Jalbazaar.
Jalbazaar is situated on the banks of the Brahmaputra River, which flows through the heart of the district. The district is famous for its bustling waterways, where vendors sell their wares from boats and barges that are moored along the riverbank. The floating markets of Jalbazaar are a riot of color and activity, with vendors hawking their wares to eager customers. The markets sell everything from fresh produce and seafood to handicrafts and textiles. The markets are busiest in the early morning, when fishermen bring in their catch from the river and vendors begin setting up their stalls. The air is filled with the smells of spices, cooking food, and fresh flowers, creating a heady atmosphere that is unique to Jalbazaar. Visitors to the floating markets can sample a wide variety of local delicacies, including steaming bowls of spicy fish curry, crispy fritters made from lentils and vegetables, and sweet desserts made from coconut and mango.
To the west of Dannajpur lies the village of Pashupati, the village sits on the edge of a dense jungle, its thatched-roof houses built on stilts to protect them from flooding during the monsoon season. At the center of the village is an ancient temple dedicated to the Dharmist God Pashupati, said to have been built by a powerful Thakur long ago. However, the temple has fallen into disrepair over the centuries, and now it is overrun with large cats, both tame and wild. The villagers believe that the cats are the guardians of the temple, and they feed and care for them as best they can. Some of the cats are even considered sacred, and are allowed to roam freely throughout the village. Despite the presence of the cats and the fact that the villagers abandoned Dharmism for Tonpa over a hundred years ago, the temple is still an important place of for the villagers, the temple's crumbling walls are adorned with faded murals depicting scenes from ancient legends and there is a sense of mystery and magic that pervades the place. Outsiders aren't rare in the village as it sits along an important road between two cities, but the villagers are wary of strangers who do not respect the cats, the temple or their ancient ways. However, they are hospitable and generous to those who show the cats respect and kindness.
The second most populous city in Tsaparang is called Serindia, it is nestled in the heart of a lush green valley, surrounded by towering cliffs on all sides, this small community has long been known for its bustling markets and vibrant culture. At the center of town, stands a magnificent castle, home to the ruling family of Serindia. Built from the finest stone and marble, the castle boasts towering walls and a grand hall where the noble lords and ladies of the land convene to discuss matters of great importance. But it's not just the castle that makes Serindia special. Just outside of town lies a sprawling grove of wild mango trees, known throughout the region for their delicious, juicy fruit. Every year, travelers from far and wide come to Serindia to sample the famous mangoes and to attend the lively festivals that celebrate the town's bountiful harvest.
The Company of the Wind have a large office in Serendia as every year people request them to deliver these magnificent mangoes so often.
As you wander the winding streets of Serindia, you'll encounter a diverse array of merchants and craftsmen, each offering unique wares and trades. You might stop by the blacksmith's shop to watch as he expertly hammers out a new sword, or perhaps you'll visit the town's resident healer, who is renowned for her ability to cure all manner of ailments.
The kingdom of Tsaparang is renowned for its skilled craftsmen and artisans, who create beautiful textiles, intricate jewelry, and exquisite pottery. The kingdom is also famous for its fine cuisine, which blends the flavors of local spices with influences from neighboring regions. Tsaparang has been ruled by a succession of wise and just kings and queens, who are respected and loved by their subjects. The royal palace is a grand structure, with beautiful gardens and courtyards, and is home to a vast library that contained works of literature and philosophy from throughout the world. The kingdom of Tsaparang is also known for its military might, and its armies are feared by neighboring kingdoms. However, the rulers of Tsaparang prefer diplomacy and trade over war, and are respected for their ability to negotiate peaceful solutions to disputes, the most famous army regiment of the Kingdom is called The Jungle Snakes.
The Jungle Snakes is a feared and respected regiment of soldiers who are known for their unique and deadly combination of a large tower shield and a short spear, this is meant to emulate a snake striking from the foliage of the jungle while the large shield allows the user to strike from safety. The soldiers of the Jungle Snakes are expert fighters, they train in their own unique martial art which requires them to train in the use of whip-swords, a sword made with a flexible whip like blade, although relatively useless in a large scale battle these swords are deadly in one-on-one fights and it is believed training with them develops agility and hand eye coordination. The Jungle Snakes is made up of elite soldiers who are chosen for their physical strength, agility, and quick reflexes, they are fiercely loyal to their kingdom and their commanders, and are known for their bravery and determination in battle. The Jungle Snakes are key component of the Tsaparang army, and are often called upon to guard royalty in battle. Their unique weapon and fighting style make them a formidable opponent, and they are feared and respected by enemies and allies alike.
Tashigang
Nestled deep within a treacherous and barely hospitable mountain range lies the kingdom of Taishigang, protected by rugged terrain and guarded by fiercely loyal soldiers. The people of this kingdom are rugged and tough, accustomed to the harsh conditions of their environment and deeply connected to the land that sustains them.
The tallest mountain in the known world is nestled within its borders, it is a revered holy site believed to be the last place on Earth the physical forms of the Three Gods were seen.
Taishigang is named after the two main ethnic groups that reside in the area, the Taishi and the Gangparan, occupying the north-west and the south-east respectively, the Taishi are said to be early cousins of the Jangshun people who migrated into the area hundreds of years before and the Gangparan are a group of people who escaped from the fall of the Indraprastha empire by migrating to the mountains. The kingdom is ruled by a council of clan leaders, with one among them being High Chief and first among equals, these leaders are chosen by their clans for their strength, cunning, and wisdom and in turn these leaders choose one among them to be High Chief, these leaders make decisions that affect the entire kingdom, and they are known for their fierce loyalty to the land and the people. The economy of the kingdom is based on mining and lumber, with the rugged landscape yielding valuable minerals and timber. The inhabitants of the kingdom work as miners and lumberjacks, extracting these resources from the earth and using them to build their homes and defenses.
Taishigang is home to a religious order of healers called “The Order of Spring” who are a a highly respected group of monks, the members of this order are known for their extensive knowledge of herbal medicine and natural remedies, as well as their spiritual practices that are believed to aid in the healing process. The Order of Spring has a long-standing tradition of passing down their healing techniques and knowledge from generation to generation, ensuring that their skills and expertise are not lost over time they are highly revered by the people of Taishigang, who often seek their help when they are sick or injured. Due to the harsh climate and rugged terrain of Taishigang, the Order of Spring has developed unique healing methods that are tailored to the specific challenges of the environment. They are experts in treating frostbite, hypothermia, altitude sickness, and other ailments that are common in cold, mountainous regions.
The members of the Order of Spring are dedicated to their craft and often travel far and wide in search of rare and unique ingredients to use in their remedies. They are known to journey deep into the mountain ranges and even venture into neighboring kingdoms to track down plants and herbs that are believed to hold powerful healing properties. Despite their extensive knowledge and skills, the healers of the Order of Spring are humble and compassionate. They offer their services to anyone in need, regardless of their social status or wealth. It is said that their selfless dedication to healing has helped to foster a strong sense of community and trust within the kingdom of Taishigang. The capital city of Taishigang is called Dzonggar, which means "fortress on the mountain" in the ancient language of the region. It is situated on a massive mountain peak that is over 4,000 meters high, with steep cliffs and a treacherous climb to reach the top. The city is built on multiple levels that follow the contours of the mountain, with each level connected by steep staircases and winding paths. The uppermost level of Dzonggar is the highest point in the city and is home to the Dragar Dzong, which serves as the administrative center for the region.
The Dzong is an imposing fortress with thick walls, ornate carvings, and intricate murals depicting scenes from Tonpa mythology. The upper level is also home to several important temples and monasteries that offer stunning views of the surrounding mountains. As one descends the mountain, the levels become more densely populated with homes and businesses. The middle levels of the city are home to bustling marketplaces, where merchants sell everything from spices to textiles to pottery. The lower levels of the city are home to workshops and industry, where artisans create beautiful handicrafts using traditional techniques. The city's buildings are made of stone and wood, with sloping roofs to withstand heavy snowfall. The streets are narrow and winding, with small shops and homes perched on the edge of the mountain. Each level of the city is connected by steep staircases and winding paths, making navigation through the city a challenging but rewarding experience. Despite its rugged location and challenging terrain, Dzonggar is a bustling city with a vibrant culture.
The people of Dzonggar are known for their colorful textiles, intricate woodcarvings, and exquisite metalwork. The city is also famous for its festivals, which are held throughout the year to celebrate the changing seasons, important religious holidays, and the city's rich cultural heritage. The military of the kingdom is composed of skilled rangers and guerilla warriors, trained to navigate the treacherous mountain terrain and to use it to their advantage. The rangers are experts in archery and hunting, the most famous regiment from Taishigang is called The Mountain Demons.
The Mountain Demons are an elite fighting force said to be established by the Lhakpa dynasty, the Mountain Demons only take the tallest of warriors some are said to reach up to 2 meters high, when one is chosen they go on a diet of carbs and protein to gain body mass, their training regiment consists of lifting heavy things and running long distances carrying heavy boulders, in battle they carry massive heavy weapons like hammers, clubs and sometimes even heavy metal gloves. Taishigang is home to the famous Druk-Lha Tsham, the Dragon-Tooth Forest, an expansive woodland that stretches across the western part of the Kingdom. The forest is named after the imposing mountain range that rises up from the trees like the teeth of a dragon.
The forest is home to a diverse array of flora and fauna, including towering pine trees, colorful wildflowers, and a variety of wildlife such as deer, foxes, and even the occasional black bear, streams and rivers flow through the forest in the summer, providing water for the plants and animals that call it home. Despite its natural beauty, the Dragon-Tooth Forest is also home to danger. Bandits and outlaws are known to hide within its depths, preying on travelers who venture too far from the safety of the nearby villages.
The forest is home to the village of Kulik a unique place where the houses are built high among the trees, the villagers live in beautiful treehouses connected by a network of wooden bridges that wind their way through the forest. The houses are made from local wood and are decorated with carvings of animals and intricate patterns. Some houses have balconies where the villagers can sit and enjoy the beautiful views of the forest.
The village has a central meeting place where the villagers gather to socialize and discuss village matters, the meeting place is just outside the only stone building in the village, the Lalimamandir, said to be a stone temple dedicated to the Dharmist God Lalima but repurposed into the home of the ruling Gurung Clan, the Gurung, saw similarities between Lalima and Caihong, who after a lengthy purification process instead dedicated the building to The Mother but kept the original name to honour the builders. The villagers are self-sufficient and grow their own food in small gardens and farms scattered throughout the forest. They also hunt and fish in the nearby rivers and streams. The villagers are known for their hospitality and welcome visitors with open arms, inviting them to stay in their beautiful treehouses and share in their way of life.
The people of the kingdom of Taishigang hold a special reverence for Caihong for it is her practical ways that help them survive the rugged terrain. The people of the kingdom have a rich artistic and musical tradition, heavily influenced by their connection to the land and the animals. They are known for their intricate carvings, woven textiles, and colorful paintings, as well as their haunting music and dance.
Khotesh
Khotesh is a kingdom to the west, most of it is located in a vast and arid desert, with small portion of the Kingdom located on grassy planes and snow-capped mountains. The kingdom is known for its rugged terrain, with towering sand dunes, rocky outcroppings, and deep canyons. Most of its people are former nomads who converted to the religion of Tonpa and settled in one place, but there are still some nomadic people who travel with their herds across the desert. The people of Khotesh practice religion fervently, with Tonpa's teachings serving as the foundation for their daily lives. Their art and architecture reflect the influence of the Three Gods, with intricate carvings and paintings of Tonpa and his disciples adorning the walls of many buildings in the kingdom. The kingdom is ruled by a powerful monarch who resides in a grand palace in the capital city of Khanbalik. The palace is a majestic structure with domed roofs and intricate carvings, surrounded by lush gardens and fountains. Despite the harshness of the environment, the people of Khotesh have a rich cultural heritage. They are proud of their nomadic roots, and many still wear traditional clothing and practice traditional customs. The former nomads who settled in one place have formed close-knit communities, and their hospitality to travelers is legendary. Its capital city; Khanbalik is a built upon the grassy plains of the hills to the east of the Kingdom. The city is situated at the junction of several trade routes, which has made it a hub of commerce and culture. Its walls are made of wood and earth, with watchtowers at regular intervals to provide defense against raiders and invaders. The city is known for its harsh and unpredictable climate, with hot winds blowing in from the desert and cold winds descending from the mountains. These winds collide over Khanbalik, creating powerful storms that batter the city every autumn and spring. The storms bring heavy rains, lightning, and hail, making travel and trade difficult during these seasons, it is said that the sun-showers that regularly bathe the city in this time are a meeting of the Three Gods as the Sun, Wind and Rain are all aspects of Caihong, Druk-Ta and Daiden respectively, people often dance in the streets when a sun-shower happens. Despite the challenges posed by the climate, Khanbalik remains a vibrant and bustling city. The streets are crowded with people from all walks of life, from wealthy merchants to wandering nomads. The city is divided into districts based on trade and social status, with the grandest buildings located near the center of the city. The palace of the ruling Khan is one of the most impressive structures in Khanbalik, with ornate wooden carvings and sweeping roofs that curve upward like the wings of a bird. The temple district is also a popular destination for visitors to the city, with a variety of religions represented in the many shrines and sanctuaries.
Khanbalik is not only a bustling hub of commerce and culture, but it is also a melting pot of different ethnic groups and cultures. One of the unique features of Khanbalik is the seasonal influx of nomads who come to the city a few times a year during the changing of the seasons. As the seasons shift from summer to autumn and from winter to spring, nomadic herders from the surrounding grasslands and mountains make their way to Khanbalik to trade goods, socialize, and partake in the city's offerings. The changing of the seasons is a time of celebration and renewal, and the nomads play an important role in this cycle. During the autumn season, nomads bring with them fresh produce such as fruits, vegetables, and grains. They also bring livestock such as sheep, goats, and horses to sell in the city's markets. In turn, they purchase items such as tools, clothing, and other necessities that they cannot produce on their own. In the spring, nomads return to Khanbalik with wool, meat, and dairy products from their herds. They also bring with them handmade crafts such as felt blankets, rugs, and clothing, which they trade for goods that will sustain them throughout the summer months. The seasonal exchange between the nomads and the city-dwellers is an important part of the culture and economy of Khanbalik. It fosters a sense of community and interdependence between the different groups, and it has been a tradition for generations.
One of the most interesting places in Khotesh is the town of Rokhala, a town carved into a towering sandstone cliff that rises high above the surrounding plains, the town's location is strategic, as it is nestled in a valley along a popular trade route, making it a profitable place for a settlement, the entrance to the town is a narrow, winding path that cuts into the cliff face, providing a natural defense against invaders. The town is built in a series of caves and carved out of sandstone, with buildings made from the same material, the structures are connected by narrow walkways, staircases, and bridges that cross over the canyon below. The town has a unique charm with its rustic stone architecture and winding passageways that twist and turn, creating an intriguing labyrinth of alleys and streets. The town has a diverse population, including traders, craftsmen, and mushroom farmers who make use of shallow caves to grow them in.
The town is home to a massive sandstone mining operation that exports sandstone all over the known world, sandstone from Rokhala is seen in the Confucian Kingdoms to the East, the Dharmist Kingdoms to the South and even the Caliphist and Mazdan Kingdoms to the West. Another interesting sight in the deserts of Khotesh is Altan Gazar, a bustling caravan that travels in harmony with the seasonal migration of a massive herd of Ibex, tents and yurts, woven from the finest camel and goat hair, are packed up and loaded onto sturdy pack animals as the city prepares to move to its next destination, the inhabitants are skilled in the art of packing and unpacking, swiftly transforming their temporary dwellings into a well-organized mobile settlement. As the herd of Ibex moves across the arid landscape, guided by the keen eyes of the city's inhabitants, the nomadic city follows in its wake, the city's layout is flexible and adaptable, with a central encampment for the tribal leader and their entourage, surrounded by the dwellings of other important individuals and their families. Water is a precious commodity in the desert, and the city relies on natural springs and wells discovered along the migration route, the inhabitants are experts in locating and utilizing these hidden water sources, carefully managing their usage to sustain their community and animals throughout their journey, rainwater is also collected during rare showers and stored in large containers for times when water is scarce.
The Ibex is an integral part of life to Altan Gazar, most adults carry a drinking horn made of Ibex horn, Ibex meat is regularly consumed in the spring with various spices found in the semi-arid grassy plains of their spring migration pattern, Ibex blood is sometimes drunk when water is scarce, fermented Ibex milk is a regular drink among the adults and Ibex skins are worn during cold winter nights. The city's architecture is designed to be lightweight and portable, with structures made of woven mats, reeds, and mud bricks. The city's inhabitants are skilled in constructing and deconstructing their homes as they move, utilizing locally available materials. Life in the nomadic city is intertwined with the rhythm of the desert and the migratory patterns of the Ibex. The inhabitants have a deep bond with their animals, particularly camels, which are used for transportation, milk, and meat. The city is a hub of trade and commerce, with merchants and traders from nearby towns and villages joining the city's journey, bartering for goods and services along the way.
The army of Khotesh is renowned for its hardiness and combat prowess in desert conditions. The kingdom has a long history of fending off invasions and raids from neighboring regions, and its army is specifically trained to operate effectively in desert terrain. The soldiers of Khotesh are known for their ruggedness and resilience, with many of them hailing from nomadic backgrounds. They are skilled in mounted combat, with cavalry units comprising a significant portion of the army. These cavalry units are particularly adept at hit-and-run tactics, using their speed and mobility to strike quickly and then retreat before the enemy can respond.
In addition to cavalry, the army of Khotesh also includes infantry units that specialize in desert warfare. These soldiers are trained to navigate harsh terrain and extreme temperatures, and they are equipped with light armor and weapons that are well-suited for the desert environment. They are skilled in using terrain to their advantage, and are adept at setting ambushes and launching surprise attacks. One of the unique features of the Khotesh army is their use of desert animals in combat. The kingdom is home to a variety of animals that have been domesticated and trained for military purposes, including camels and falcons. Camels are particularly useful in desert warfare due to their ability to traverse long distances with little water, and they are often used to transport soldiers and supplies across the harsh desert terrain. Falcons, on the other hand, are used for scouting and reconnaissance, and are trained to locate and track enemy troops.
The most famous army regiment of Khotesh is called The Scorpions, they are renowned desert survivalists and lone assassins, but in times of battle they are called upon to form a vanguard for the ruling Khan or Khanum, alone they are formidable but as a unit they are immensely dangerous, they are expert hand to hand combatants and excel at short, light weapons like shortswords and javelins. Another famed regiment of Khotesh is called The Hailstones, they are a Camel cavalry unit who use shock cavalry tactics, their camels have two riders, a spearman on the front and an archer on the back, the camels are bred to be massive to carry out such a feat, the spearman on the front charges into infantry lines with the spear and then turns away from the enemy to line up another charge while the archer on the back fires into their ranks, it is a very effective tactic that has won many battles.
submitted by lechatheureux to worldbuilding [link] [comments]

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MC 1489335 USDOT 3979225

OnTrack Group

Address: 1500 E TROPICANA AVE STE 105

LAS VEGAS, NV 89119

Phone: 725-272-6637

Email: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])

Claims of non-payment and double brokering freight

CARRIER SIDE:

MC 1488282 USDOT 3977660

Transportation Services J & K LLC

ADDRESS: 3430 E FLAMINGO RD STE 313

LAS VEGAS, NV 89121

Phone: (702) 447-1522

Email: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])

MC 644584 USDOT 1763801

Millhouse Logistics

Address: 145 CANE CREEK INDUSTRIAL PARK RD STE 150

FLETCHER, NC 28732

Phone: (828) 505-8484

CELL (828) 273-6917

Email: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])

**Claims of non-payment and double brokering freight*

MC 1177261 USDOT 3533601

Sheyenne Logistics INC

Address: 19 8TH ST S STE 368

FARGO, ND 58103

Phone: (701) 941-9889

Email: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])

***Claims of non-payment and double brokering freight.

MC 1177587 USDOT 3534101

Ram Freight INC

Address: 800 4th Avenue Suite 1016, Grinnell, Iowa 50112

Phone: 641-325-4110

Email: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])

Claims of non-payment and double brokering freight

MC 1467536 USDOT 3946813

Fairfield Transportation LLC

Address: 65 Possum Drive New Fairfield, Ct 06812

Phone: 959-202-2402

Email: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])

Claims of non-payment and double brokering freight

CARRIER SIDE:

MC 1473466 USDOT 3955451

BHUNTER LOGISTICS LLC

Address: 3814 Ruby Ave Kansas City, KS 66106

Phone: 913-666-9317

Email: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])

MC 1318230 USDOT 3732644

Glory Transport Solutions LLC

Address: 8601 Six Forks Road Suite 400, Raleigh, North Carolina 27615

Phone: 919-436-3268

Email: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])

Claims of non-payment and double brokering freight

MC 1403401 USDOT 3850573

Freight King LLC

Address: 798 Lawrenceville Suwanee Rd. Suite 400, Lawrenceville, Georgia 30043

Phone: 678-509-5546

Email: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])

Claims of non-payment and double brokering freight

MC1306465 USDOT 3716563

APOLLO LOGISTICS INC

DOUBLE BROKERING REPORTED

INACTIVE CARRIER AUTHORITY

BUSINESS ADDRESS 412 S WHITE ST SUITE 1001

ATHENS, TN 37303

PHONE (423) 405-0005

EMAIL [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])

MC1463625 USDOT 3941022

JBH EXPRESS INC

DOUBLE BROKERING REPORTED

BUSINESS ADDRESS

1194 READING RD

BOWMANSVILLE, PA 17507

PHONE (878) 278-2310

EMAIL [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])

MC1382347 USDOT 3820544

ROCKSTAR LOGISTICS

DOUBLE BROKERING REPORTED

BUSINESS ADDRESS

210 E 3RD ST SUITE 200

LORD MAGUIRE, MI 48067

PHONE (412) 314-8720

EMAIL [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])

MC1177613 USDOT 3534136

XROSS WAYS INC

DOUBLE BROKERING REPORTED

BUSINESS ADDRESS

847 SUMPTER RD STE 550

BELLEVILLE, MI 48111-4905

PHONE (734) 252-6670

EMAIL [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])

MC 861740 USDOT 3847082

DLXB LLC

Business Address:

545 Plainfield Rd. Unit G-2

Willowbrook, IL 60527

Phone: 630-777-0674

MC1177613 USDOT 3534136

XROSS WAYS INC

DOUBLE BROKERING REPORTED

STARTED DEC 10, 2020

BUSINESS ADDRESS

847 SUMPTER RD STE 550

BELLEVILLE, MI 48111-4905

PHONE (734) 252-6670

EMAIL [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])

MC 104773 USDOT 3150848

Chorizo Inc.

Business Address:

11119 Alterra Pkwy APT# 2154

Austin, TX 78758

Phone: 254-246-2285

MC 59571 USDOT 3068459

Smart Way Brokerage Inc.

Business Address:

2460 Dundee Rd Unit 1007

Northbrook, IL 60065

Phone: 773-676-0589

MC 1301593 USDOT 3709892

K&M Transport Logistics LLC

Business Address:

10560 S Lafayette Ave #2

Chicago, IL 60628

Phone: 773-482-1819

MC 1421813 USDOT 3877921

Global Freight Group Inc.

Business Address:

136 E South Temple Suite 1400

Salt Lake City, UT 84111-1143

Phone: 801-406-6223

MC# 1121195 USDOT# 3447174

American Success Trans

Business Address:

1810 E Sahara Ave STE 701

Las Vegas, NV 89104

Phone: 725-228-2345

submitted by KSA-Courtney to u/KSA-Courtney [link] [comments]

2023.06.07 21:17 SouthParkiscool I dreamed an entire lifetime... I've never felt so empty and afraid

Last month, I was driving along the highway, coming back from a trip to my grandpa's house. I can't remember the exact second, but as I was driving, apparently a truck collided with my car and I was knocked unconscious. While I was out, I fell into a dream. One that will stick with me.
I need to type as many details as possible, so here's every single thing I remember.
I was a 7 year old boy, living in New Jersey rather than my real world home state of Massachusetts. My parents would drop me off at a school I never went to in the real world, and I would play with friends I never met.
2024 and 2025 were calm, upbeat years for me. I didn't care much for world events, so I barely paid attention to the news. It was just my toys, Disney Plus, and my friends, Josh, Emily, and Ryan. We played war and crime themed video games and watched hilarious videos on social media.
2026, however, was when things took a bit of a downturn. In March, my friend, Josh, died in a car accident, and they noticed his eyeballs were missing from their sockets after the wreck. I was shown a picture for god knows what reason, and I teared up as I saw my friend's red eye sockets and lifeless face.
That night, I kept my bedroom light on. I don't know exactly what time it was when this happened, but I was lying on my back, staring at the wall when a pair of black pants popped up out of nowhere at the foot of my bed. Sidetracked, I looked up and saw a rusted face. The thing, whatever I saw, vanished as I made eye contact with it. My heart dropped and I called for my Mom.
I chalked it up to the thing having been a ghost. I brought it up to my friends, Ryan and Emily, the next day. Emily told me she was in the car behind the one Josh was in, and saw a man with a rusted-looking face running towards the car, but for some reason she doesn't remember what happened next. Chills ran down my spine as I realized the man was real.
Together, my friends and I decided he was a ghost we needed to avoid. This pact made me feel less alone, and being as afraid of the ghost as I was, decided to never break it.
I slept under my covers to avoid seeing him, and I didn't see him again until the trip I took to Canada's Wonderland that summer. I was riding the Leviathan when I swore I saw a man a few rows ahead of where I sat, with a rust-coloured neck. The adrenaline I felt riding the coaster turned to panic. Time slowed and I wanted off the ride.
This man stole my friend's eyes and was probably after mine too. Once I was off the roller coaster, I looked around frantically for him. I managed to catch him walking into a bathroom. Was he following me? I begged my Mom to take me home as soon as possible.
My friends and I decided to go hunting for the man one day. I think before the end of August 2026. We walked into a nearby forest and waited for an hour. We didn't know where he came from, but Emily pointed out he was around at times we felt the most emotional, and we were telling each other how scared we were of him, which had to count.
Fortunately, he didn't show up. I was overwhelmed with chills, and told the two I didn't want to search for the rusted man anymore, and began walking home.
2027 and 2028 were my preteen years. I took my mind off of the rusted man by focusing on my favourite shows and musical artists. For the sake of getting all the details down, I watched a lot of Simpsons, Gumball, and this show called Camedon that went viral in 2027. The music I listened to was a rapper named Pestilence 40 and a pop singer named Rhonda Miller. In the Spring of 2028, I realized I was Asexual and Aromantic, meaning I didn't feel a sense of attraction towards anybody.
I spent a lot of time researching my favourite things while I'd overhear my parents freak out over a war that involved China. I have a hard time remembering anything more about said war.
The next time I saw the rusted man was shortly after I turned 13 in 2029. I was going through the pictures of my trip to Chicago, and, at the bottom of my camera roll, there was a picture of his face. I jumped.
When did that happen?
I went into the photo's details tab and found out it was dated February 5, 1950. Odd, considering there's no way the phone I was using was manufactured anytime around that year, but I sent it to my friends. Both of them responded by telling me the image was coming up blank. I went back to my Gallary, intenting to study the image closely, but it was gone. It had become lost media.
A lot of the time after that were just casual memories of being dropped off at school, playing GTA 6 with friends, watching my favorite shows, listening to my favourite music, and joking about Secret Wars on Reddit and a viral app called BL. Nothing much about the man...
That is, until sometime in 2032, when I saw him walk by my bedroom window while I was right in the middle of a depressive episode. The chills I felt were one of the four emotional highs I felt that year. For the rest of the year, and for a lot of the following year, I felt numb, anxious, and mentally vacant. I barely cared about anything. Not even the man, or the flu epidemic going on at the time.
My friends were going through the same thing, so we exchanged affirmations and shared quotes from singers who were part of an indie wave trying to bring music back to its Billie Eilish phase. I was pretty much over the man at that point. I cared so much less about him, I considered seeking him out to let him kill me. I didn't think I was going to make it to 2034 anyway... so, why not?
Then in 2033, my depression began to lift, and I started to dread the thought of him again. I started drawing pictures of him and posted them on BL. Over the course of months, I gained a following who claimed to have seen him too. Some told me they saw him in their dreams, some told me they spotted him in a crowd, and others saw him in the window of a house they happened to be driving or walking by. Then there were a few people who told me they saw him running across roads and ripping eyeballs out of the heads of homeless people. By the end of the year, I had 10,000 followers.
In 2034, articles were being published about him. He became one of those big internet mysteries with dozens of videos and posts revolving around him and his actions, with some specific autobiographical drawings of mine being used as artistic renditions.
Some people made and posted highly vivid AI generated videos of him performing various tasks like midnight break-ins, murders, and to be jokingly relatable, cooking and cleaning. The videos looked like big budget movies, and, as I watched each of them, I got a deeper sense of dread. I avoided watching the videos altogether, as they began to scare the living shit out of me.
There was a popular form of technology at the time that let people share thoughts and feelings with others. They were little chips attached to helmets that you could wirelessly connect to each other. Aside from, joking around with my friends, I used it to let people feel exactly how I felt during my encounters with him. I told them I hoped we'd get to a point where we'd be able to share memories with others, in order to give them the full observer experience.
In the fall of 2036, the FBI announced they were on the case of the rusted man after a string of murders across the US left victims without their eyeballs. I was overwhelmed with chills as I read the announcement. It was official confirmation of the rusted man's existence. I called the police, reporting my encounters with the rusted man. They told me they'd keep a look out for him.
Throughout 2037, 2038, and 2039, I'd hear reports about more victims being robbed of their eyes, yet no official photos or video of the rusted man ever surfaced. There were dozens of fakes all over the internet that were debunked, and I just wanted an official one. At the same time, however, I wanted it to be a hoax. I wanted it to turn out the man with a rusted face was just a murderer trying to become notorious by cosplaying an internet legend. I distracted myself from the whole fiasco by keeping up with the mission to Mars.
In 2040, the lack of photo and video evidence of the rusted man began to bug me. That was until that summer, when something was found. The FBI released security cam footage showing a man with a rust coloured face beating a police officer in a parking lot. His face resembled a mask, but looked organic at the same time. It was him. I knew it in my gut. Comments from other victims commented the same.
"That's him! I can't believe it took this long to get official footage of him."
"Yep. Definitely him. Right down to his eyes. I feel cold watching that."
"Yes, that is the man who stalked me when I was 7."
I too felt cold watching it. I deleted it from my search history and closed all my blinds. He was real. It was confirmed. I knew needed to hide away, even though I hadn't seen the man since I was 13. My friends told me they felt the same way.
The early 2040s were full of fear and doing as many things from home as possible. I made most of my money from making videos about music and movies. Occasionally, I'd make a video about the man, but only whenever he hit the news. I decided to share part of my revenue with my friends so they didn't need to go out as much and risk another encounter with the man. Luckily, most people just ordered food online anyway, which solved the hunger thing.
Sharing revenue with my friends became more important amidst a recession I only barely remember taking place in 2041 through 2043.
I began to go outside more in late 2043/early 2044. The man hadn't been in the news for a year, so I joked the FBI had caught him and found out he was an alien. It found it weird he was only reported in Canada and the US. Maybe it wasn't so weird in actuality, but it was as if something was missing. Like he was present in other places, but no reports had gotten out. I chalked it up to a random assumption and went along with my days.
In the summer of 2044, I discovered a conspiracy forum dedicated to the rusted man. I can remember some of the post titles quite vividly.
"The 'Rusted Man': what is his face really made of?"
"Is the Rusted Man the Last Resort for the US Government on Homelessness?"
"DNA CONNECTS THE RUSTED MAN TO DINAH CORTEZ"
I got out of that forum right away and blocked it from my search results. There was no reason to read any of that bologna...
Throughout 2045, Pop singers would insert references to the rusted man into their promotional music videos, but they usually either butchered him, had him get arrested, or portrayed him as a metaphor for the singer's own mental health issues.
While I was glad he was getting attention, I kinda regretted giving him so much coverage, as it meant I had to hear about him everywhere all the time. I brought it up to Emily.
"Yeah, but, I feel the same way," she said. "I sometimes wish I could hit a button and give everyone amnesia for a week."
While I kept hearing about him, I sure as hell hadn't seen him for a while. I thought I was free of him. Maybe he just left me alone... Maybe he leaves certain people alone after teasing them for a bit...
I was wrong. On one especially sunny afternoon in September 2045, I was jogging along the sidewalk on a road not too far from where I lived. I couldn't help but notice the sky looked like a painting. A really good one at that. As I stared up at the oddity, I bumped into somebody. My face colliding with theirs. Their complexion was odd. It was rough and almost felt like duct tape at the same time. I looked at him and told him I was sorry, but that's when I saw his face.
It was him. The fucking man with the fucking rusted out face. I went cold and felt I needed to force myself to step backwards. When I did, the man let out a chilling shriek. It sounded metallic, but like the climax of a sneeze at the same time. He stared into my eyes, which began to tingle. My heart dropped and I broke the stare, turning around and sprinting along the sidewalk.
Once I got home, I shut all my curtains, reported the man to the police, and texted my friends about the encounter. All I could think was, how long do I have to go through this? At least I was 29 years old, so people would believe it when I say it happened to me. I wasn't a kid anymore, but even then, I wished the rusted man was nothing more than a normal childhood hallucination.
I went to my doctor for my eyes, just to make sure they were alright. He found an odd transparent substance under each of my eyelids and referred me to a specialist. Some tests were done and I was told substance was the same one found in every crime scene involving the rusted man. They concluded I needed to be quarantined in my home for upwards of 20 years. I'm not kidding. That was the protocol.
During quarantine, the man never showed up at, or in, my house. I could only wonder what he was doing other than probably killing somebody. I dreaded the idea of him showing up. I had nightmares once a week... other than that, I still had access to the internet, so I watched as society developed while I was unable to go outside.
A political uprising happened in favour of conservatism in 2046, which was met with equal push from the liberal side due to proclaimations of violence towards those that wanted science to be taught in school.
In 2050, Russia collapsed and fell into a civil war, but was avenged by China and India.
By 2053, we were able to use MRI-like devices to project imagined images onto a screen. I ordered one for $100 and used it to recreate my memories of the rusted man and share them online. They were chilling to look at, so I considered not opening them for a while.
In 2056, a major cyberattack brought down various websites. Luckily, no archival sites were taken down.
Personally I just spent the years making content and building a fanbase that sent me emails all the time. The switch from foldable phones to perfectly flexible phones in the late 40s was fun. The phasing out of laptops due to phones becoming ever more useful was welcome.
Things were pretty normal for that stretch of time, aside from the quarantining. I got pretty used to it though, and developed a habit of jogging on the spot for exercise.
Throughout the 2050s, the rusted man made the news once a month. Throughout the early 2060s, he was making the news once a week. This I wanted to look at the news less often, but I had to because it was important. It didn't matter how dreadful the increased volume of attacks was.
Throughout the mid 2060s, reports came out about him destroying AIs, possibly because he didn't have high tech glasses that identified AIs as one of its features, so he likely thought they were human. This led to an upping of security around AIs and advancements in their security protocols. By 2067, a report came out stating less AIs were getting attacked by him.
The man spent the rest of the 2060s and the beginning of the 2070s continuing his murder spree without much to be discovered about him. He was still an unsolved mystery, and had become one of the most notorious figures of the 21st Century.
In 2071, reports about the rusted man's eye thieving became daily and worldwide. Major news talking heads began pushing the idea the rusted man is an alien who could attack a major celebrity or politician. Or course, celebrities and politicians upped their security ten-fold during the mid-2060s due to the weekly attacks, so nothing could go wrong, right?
That's what I thought, until May 2073, when a famous rapper named Fenny DON was found dead, inside his Atlanta mansion, without both his eyes. The security cameras caught the rusted man popping out of nowhere (in a very specific way that's difficult to explain. Either way, I went cold watching it,) restraining the rapper to their bed, removing their eyes, then vigorously ripping their brain out of their head. It was mortifying, and many people said they refuse to watch it, recreate it, share it, etc, but everybody had to have seen the screen shot of the man standing in the rapper's bedroom one second after appearing out of thin air. It was shared all over the internet for months. The video itself was proof this guy could teleport and move objects telekinetically.
The Pentagon released a report soon after, which included speculation about the rusted man's intentions. It was thought the rusted man was after people's eyes because they are impossible to reproduce alone and nothing beats them in terms of perception.
That wasn't the only thing I was wondering, however.
"Why he needs them is still very unknown and multiple theories so far haven't passed the merit test."
There it was. It needed to be figured out soon, because I wanted to know. I anticipated the day the truth came to be known. I needed the damn closure so bad.
In March 2074, I started to thinking of my life as wasted by the rusted man and my fear of him. I was 59 and rotting from the inside out. I didn't open up to my friends about it until I started slipping into a depression in May, despite my quarantine having just ended. That was when my friends told me the most assuring thing they could.
"Remember the little things, and we're here for you," Emily said.
"Yeah, all we can do now is whatever we want to do, because we're probably going to be killed at some point anyway," Ryan said.
It was cliche, but true. The emptiness lingered on through mid 2075, then it sorta lifted. Maybe I was desensitized, but at least I had my friends and the emotionally cathartic shows I was watching.
By the end of that year, I was thinking of upping my dosage of anti-depressants. Emily, Ryan, and I, were hanging out a lot more to make each other happier in spite of our emptiness and fear the rusted man would barge into our homes, randomly appear on the foot of our beds, or chase us down a road. And it was working. On December 29th, I felt the emptiness lift. Who needed pills? We just needed to stick together, like we always had. Emily suggested covering our heads to confuse the man, but I pointed out we'd need to know when he would arrive. We can't wear bags on our heads forever.
"We'll figure something out," Emily said.
In mid April 2076, I was eating dinner when I started hearing a loud rushing water-like sound coming from outside. I went outside to check out what was going on, but I couldn't find the source. I watched as my next door neighbor walked out onto their front porch, then the neighbor directly across the street stepped onto their porch, both of them looked up at the sky with looks of confusion.
I checked the news later on to find the sound was being reported all over Canada, all over the US, in the UK, Australia, Spain, Japan, South Africa, Chile... then pretty much everywhere else. The entire world was hearing this thing. The noise went on for days, then weeks, comments under articles were mixed about the sound. Some thought it was annoying, others enjoyed its fuzzyness. Both Emily and Ryan both told me they thought it was ear-piercingly horrible. Comedians joked about aliens, and NASA started to theorize it was actually extraterrestrial in nature. The sound finally faded in June 2076, and Emily, Ryan, and dozens of people across the internet expressed their relief.
Around August 10, 2076, I was mowing my lawn when I noticed him standing across the street from my house. The rusted man. He stared my way, not moving an inch. As he stared sinisterly into my soul, I was overwhelmed with chills. But that wasn't it. I noticed something off about the my surroundings. The trees, bushes, grass, were no longer moving in the wind. The man even looked static himself. I couldn't help but stare at the oddity. Everything that should've been moving just seemed so two-dimensional all of a sudden.
I pulled my digital glasses out of my pocket and attempted to call the police, but the numbers weren't in the right order. Attempting to dial 9-1-1 brought up a different combination of three numbers each time.
I sprinted back inside and shut all the curtains again, except for the ones in the kitchen, as they refused to move when I tried to shut them.
Over the following week, the fleeting rushing sound returned to the sky. This time, it sounded familiar. Not just because I heard it for two months straight not too long before. It seemed as if I had always known that sound. I realized it more and more as the weeks went on. In early September 2076, I went to the Museum. On my way to there, I noticed the trees were still static and fake looking. I tried my best to not even think about them, but rather on the technology of the early 21st Century.
When my phone decided to work, I texted Emily. Apparently, I had missed 20 messages from her, but I was too freaked out about my surroundings.
"Does anything seem off about the trees?" I asked.
"No? They look fine to me," Emily responded.
"They look fake all of a sudden. The grass too," I said. "Also, I feel like I've heard The Buzzy Static long before this year, and sometimes my phone looks off, which is why I missed your messages."
"Have you told your doctor about this?" she asked.
I hadn't, but I decided to make an appointment. On the day of the appointment, my doctor immediately diagnosed me with Schizophrenia, but I knew there was more to what I was experiencing. The day after my visit to the doctor, Emily and Ryan came over. I showed them the trees across the street and the grass on my lawn. I told them how fake it looked to me. They told me it all looked normal. They didn't notice anything unusual like I did, which only made my obsession deeper. I looked around at everything for a while. My friends tried to convince me to do stuff with them, but I refused. Eventually, they left, and I stood there, trying to make sense of what I was seeing.
Every day, I stood in my front yard for two hours, looking at the trees, bushes, and grass. In late September, the Buzzy Static began to feel more localized to my heart, and I could hear a subtle wooshing along with the buzzing. It too came from the sky.
By mid October, the sound dissipated, but the ambient noise was still going strong. People would walk past my house like there was no sound coming from the sky at all. On October 15, 2076, I stood on my front lawn, listening to the wooshing noise, and watching the trees cease to convince me they were normal. Then, the wooshing sounded localized to my lawn, and then it hit me.
None of this is real. My life never really happened. My friends never really existed. I'm about to come out of a dream...
Suddenly, I immediately alternated from standing to laying down on my lawn without having moved a muscle. I was staring up at the sky, which was getting brighter. I could feel my heart beating. I began to hyperventilate, as this was new to me. I couldn't remember my waking life at all.
Where the hell am I going?
I looked over at the unrealistic trees, then everything went blurry. Pain erupted in my chest, then I was lying on a stretcher. I wanted to move, but I was in shock.
What the... hell...? What's happening right now?
Then I remembered my life. My real life. Then the drive... The crash... I fished my phone out and looked at the date. May 23rd. I checked the calendar for the year. It was 2023. I was overcome with a heavy feeling of sadness. I thought I had spent 53 years being friends with two amazing people, but I was really just... unconscious for a short time?
I can't stop thinking about Emily and Ryan. The whole thing about the rusted man was crazy, but some things will never make sense. Last Thursday, I was sweeping my room, still feeling like I had lost real friends, when I turned around to sweep near the door and saw... the rusted man standing right outside my room. I went cold. It was really him... that rust coloured face... those eyes... I thought I was hallucinating at first. I knew I wasn't dreaming though, as you know when you're awake when you're dead awake. The rusted man lunged at me, and, before I could react, I was being tackled to the ground.
This isn't a hallucination at all... Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Dread overcame me as I struggled. Pain shot up through my back. At some point, I managed to get him off of me, then I sprinted into the living room and out the back door. I didn't have my phone with me, so I couldn't call the police. I looked back and saw the man's silhouette in the door frame. He lunged at me through the dark of the night. My heart sunk and I sprinted away, but tripped and fell face first onto the grass. Not a second later, I felt a painful thump.
I woke up in the hospital with that unexplainable liquid under my eyelids. The liquid I had in the same spot in the dream. My heart sank even further. Great... The doctors told me I'd be going in for testing, and asked me what happened. I told them, describing the man to them as well, but in a plausible way.
"He probably had face paint on or something. Something that made his face look like rusty metal."
Later that day, one of the doctors told me my tests have been scheduled for the 9th.
Just yestarday, I heard Emily's voice in a dream, but she was nowhere to be seen. I woke up with tears streaming down my face, wondering why the rusted man had to be real, but not the two people who were always there for me, or the other victims of the man himself.
My curtains have been shut for days now, I've informed my neighbors of the madman, and the police told me they're still on the lookout. All I want to know is who this man is, what he wants with my eyes, how much longer I'm going to live with him stalking me, and how dreaming truly works.
submitted by SouthParkiscool to nosleep [link] [comments]

2023.06.07 21:01 Trash_Tia Camp Redwood is running out of counselors! These children ARE NOT CHILDREN. Update: So, you're telling me it's NOT 2018?

Welcome to Camp Redwood!
Are you ready to fight to the death with age regressed forty year olds with the faces of adorable little kids?
How about coming to terms with your entire life, or at least five years of it, being one big fucking lie?
We are so excited to announce our 2018 group! Where you will undoubtedly FIND yourself here. Your true self.
The self you did not know existed.
SO, jump in that military bunker, grab that blunt object to fight against our little campers disembowelling our counselors, and get yourself down to CAMP REDWOOD. WHERE WE START EVERY DAY WITH A CAMP REDWOOD SMILE.
Apply now!
Application end date: 05/02/2018.
…
It’s been a tough few days.
So, I think I will be posting this update in two chunks so I can get everything down and clear my head. I am alone right now.
Yes. I am the last survivor of Camp Redwood 2023 (?). I’ve been unsure how to start this and end this because I really just want to get into the meat of what has been going on.
But… I must ask. I have to.
What year is it?
That doesn't matter right now. I'll continue where I left off.
Teddy did leave us alone in the end. But his screams were still haunting me hours after the thing with his voice had left. I don’t even think I could call it his voice.
It sounded like him but there were pieces of him missing. Like someone had reached into the boy’s mind and pulled out the skeleton of his consciousness, the bare bones of his being—and cruelly stuffed him into a metal shell.
That is what Teddy sounded like.
He sounded like a wounded animal, confused why he was alive. Terrified. I now know what he is the product of. Teddy is a victim of horrifying, unethical experiments our campers have been forcing on kidnapped counselors after taking over the camp. Have you ever heard of the sound of crying which isn’t human?
That is Teddy. He is the product of forcing life into the dead, and leaving it to suffer with its consciousness. Which, in my opinion, is a fate far worse than death.
You’re probably wondering where my two companions are.
Well, that is why I am writing this.
I want to tell you what happened so I can wrap my head around it myself, and choose between killing all of us and sending these psychopaths to hell, or coming to terms with our truth and fighting back. Well, it’s their truth. I wouldn’t say it’s mine. It took us three whole days to get the guts to risk leaving Allison’s secret bunker inside her cabin, and attempting to find a way out of this hell-hole. Harry and I were the ones to do it, leaving a still-not-completely-himself Rowan to guard our safehouse. I didn’t want to leave him alone for a multitude of reasons but due to Harry actually having a soul and a semblance of empathy, I was overruled.
Despite being heavily under the influence of age-regressing animal crackers which had mentally turned him into a toddler, Rowan was still himself to a degree. Which meant he was back to being our leader. I was sceptical at first, because no matter how many times he insisted he was in fact okay, I couldn’t seem to shake off the feeling that the childish parts of him, the warped parts of his mind which had turned him into a child, were still there.
Even if they were very subtle. I caught him doodling on his clipboard, and much later on, singing to himself with an odd smile on his face he had successfully gaslit Harry and I into believing it was just a coping mechanism. Say what you want about Rowan Atlas, he is damn good at swaying your opinion. Even when we were 100% sure Rowan was not his original self, the guy we had both met at the start of camp.
It was almost like him having two minds. The mind of a child, and the mind of a teenager.
For example, he still ordered us around and attempted to take back his role of leader— which had at least secured some normality back into our lives. But he also hated loud noises, and freaked out every time one of the littles tried to get in. There was also the incident we had agreed not to talk about, because talking about it meant facing the fact that our friend was no longer himself.
It was a hours after Teddy left us in peace. Harry was sleeping, and I was on the cusp of slumber, slipping through more files. Rowan had been oddly quiet. Which wasn’t a Rowan thing. Whether he was mentally a child or a teenager, he was still being loud and obnoxious. I sat up to find him cross-legged, playing with something.
I thought it was a worm at first, but no. It was exactly like what I found at the start of this, an eye attached to a nerve. But this time it was undoubtedly human, and now Rowan’s plaything. When I questioned him, he said he was “studying” it. Though there was definitely a difference between studying something and playing with it. The scary thing was, he saw no wrong in it, holding it in his hands and stripping off the metallic pieces cruelly attached to it.
In the end, I took it from him and stamped on it. Rowan didn’t have the reaction I was expecting. Because he was still hiding behind the façade that his mind hadn’t been warped by de-aging animal crackers.
If that wasn’t bad enough, Eleanor Summers had given me a 24 hour deadline to hand over the boys, and we were well over the limit so an ambush was likely imminent.
I still had so many questions. Why were Rowan, Harry and Carmel so important while the rest of us were seen as nothing but spare parts?
That is what the little bitch said. Now physically eleven years old with the mind of a deranged forty year old scientist, Eleanor told me I was nothing to them but spare parts. God, it’s so weird calling her what she is after looking after her kid self, her fake self, for weeks.
Little Eleanor with her golden pigtails and obsession with teddy bear picnics was in fact a complete fucking sociopath. That much of one in fact, that her and her equally psychotic colleagues who engaged in these experiments had been regressed into little kids inside a rehabilitation camp (Nicknamed: Project Spearhead) which was supposed to fix them and had failed spectacularly. Because they’ve taken over. And this time? We’re the fucking lab rats.
The counselors here at Redwood.
I had seen her adult self being interviewed by mysterious Agent Lemrac, a face behind Project Spearhead, the girl who was far too young to be an agent, and have that kind of authority. Also, someone with a soul—who had a clear biased opinion against the experiments.
Part of me wondered if Lemrac still existed. Maybe she was behind the odd phone calls we kept receiving on an old fashioned rotary phone. With Eleanor’s deadline in mind, the two of us made our journey quick. It wasn’t hard to leave the camp itself. There were guards in the form of Callen and Olive, brainwashed and turned into the kid’s muscle, but they were easy enough to get past as long as we distracted them with something shiny.
They were mentally six-years-old so literally anything grabbed their attention.
I quickly realized my mistake once we managed to escape the camp—Harry in front of me, with me lagging behind. We moved slowly, ducking behind trees and throwing ourselves into the dirt. Very cloak and dagger. It didn’t take us long to slip into the woods. Just past the lake were the exit gates to Redwood which led to a road.
Not exactly civilisation, but I would take it over having my body taken apart for “parts” in these so-called experiments.
When we got to the gate, however, I realized I had given the adults too much fucking credit.
Whoever was in charge of Spearhead clearly did not care about lingering survivors, as long as they were successfully cutting us out from the outside world. And that’s what the giant wall I found myself staring at was, an impossible foot monster towering over us and cementing my earlier thoughts. We were screwed. The woman on the phone had made it clear we were being abandoned, and yet some of me naively held onto them maybe still rescuing us.
“Fuck.” I didn’t know what to do, but kicking the damn thing felt like the right thing. I did, and then regretted it half a second later.
This thing was impenetrable. Impossible to climb unless we had a fucking death-wish.
Blinking at it through fraying sunlight blinding me, the thing almost resembled a mirage. It stood under the sun, a giant roadblock completely blocking us from any form of help.
The sun wasn’t helping, scorching through my shirt. I swiped at my sweaty forehead, unable to resist a frustrated scream I had to muffle-gag with my hand. I risked a look behind us. Thankfully, we were around ten minutes away from the main camp. The lake was nearby glittering under a late afternoon sun, and all I wanted to right then was to wade into the shallows and let the murky water swallow me up. The little shits couldn’t swim, maybe I’d be safe.
“Fuck!”
“This is bad.” Harry Carlisle broke the silence after my frustrated cry. With his eyes glued to the wall, he took off his hat and ran a hand through dark brown curls which were catching the light of the sun, setting strands alight across his forehead. None of us were in great shape after spending days hunkered down in a secret bunker. Harry was no exception.
His short sleeved camp Redwood shirt was still covered with vomit, discoloured with days’ worth of sweat stains and lack of showers.
He bent over, grasping hold of his knees. “What do we do?” I could tell by the tone of his voice he was freaking out, and I didn’t blame him. But Harry was still on my mind.
His signature was undoubtedly all over every Project Spearhead file, despite him repeatedly insisting he had nothing to do with it. At that moment, I could almost believe him. The boy looked exhausted and frustrated, pained.
He surprised me by slipping to his knees and burying his head in the dirt and screaming into rough soil. I was struck, then, by the sudden memory of flames. I had been sitting around campfires for weeks at Redwood, but this one didn’t feel like it took place at camp.
Instead, it felt more personal. I could almost see it, flickering orange sparking at the backs of my eyes and the sour taste of beer in my throat. Like the memory was trying to push itself to the surface. This moment felt nostalgic and yet close—as if it had happened yesterday. Like both the past and present had entangled in one.
If I concentrated I swore I could hear the murmur of voices, phantom laughter in my head and a cool night breeze grazing my cheeks.
“Earth to Josie?”
I snapped out of it quickly. “You’re asking me?” I kicked the dirt again. “I thought Rowan was our camp leader.”
Harry lifted his head after a moment, his eyes flicking to me. “You know he can’t make rash decisions right now.”
“Exactly.” I said. “We both know he’s not back to his normal self. He’s both right now. A little kid, and a teenager.” I shuddered. “I’m sorry, did I forget to mention our so-called head counsellor was playing with a human eye like a fucking cat?”
“Mm."
“Well, why aren’t you taking it seriously?”
Harry’s gaze skated the horizon, cotton candy colored clouds blurring into twilight. “Becauuuse the sun is going to your head.”
I could practically hear his eyes rolling. Harry took three strides towards the wall and pressed his face into rough brick. “So, this is it, right?” He muffled into rough cement. “We are really going to die at fucking summer camp.”
“I’m going to die,” I corrected him. “They want you two and Carmel because apparently you’re special.”
Harry made a scoffing noise into the wall. I was starting to think he was setting up camp there, planning to tell all of his grievances to the cement. “Oh yeah, because that’s a good thing? You’ve seen—no—heard what they’ve done to Teddy and the others, and you think them wanting us for something else is special?” his voice broke a little. “I’d rather have your fate.”
The boy’s words made me realize how little I was compared to the others. While they and Carmel were part of some grand, psychotic scheme, I was just needed for extra bulk. “Why don’t you talk to your friends?” I said, after letting the boy throw several punches into the soil. I wasn’t going to comment on his hits being surprisingly strong enough to shake the ground.
Harry didn’t look at me after calming down, resorting to tracing the earth with the toes of his shoe. “Who?”
"The CIA."
I was surprised by his retort, even if it was equally sarcastic. “Oh, you think I’m in the CIA?” He stepped closer to me, his breath in my face. “In case you haven’t noticed, this is bigger than the CIA. Whoever is in charge of this project is way higher up.”
“So, you’re admitting you’re a sleeper.”
“No, that’s not what I—”
“Then what?” I demanded, cutting him off. “Why are your fingerprints quite literally all over this?”
Harry folded his arms, his expression darkening. "You're still talking about this?" He groaned. “Josie.” He planted his hands on my shoulders. “I am not a spy, okay? Yes, my writing being on those documents was weird, but we’re also dealing with animal crackers which turn us into littles.” His lips curved into the slightest of smirks. “I’m pretty sure it would be easy for a group of scientists to use my writing as some kind of red herring. They’re trying to turn us against each other, obviously. And that’s not going to happen.” He squeezed my shoulders and I felt momentary comfort. I was so tired.
I hadn’t slept properly in days in fear of Eleanor coming to smoke us out—and the urge to just sink into the boy’s chest was suddenly overwhelming. Luckily, I had self-control. I took a step back, and he dropped his arms. “That's sobering, yes,” I said. “But I’m still going to try waking you up with those trigger phrases we found.”
When he tried to speak, I shook my head.
“Like it or not, you’re our only way out.”
I had made it clear several times to the two of them that I had no intention to use the trigger phrases we found taped to the back of the door in the bunker, when searching for more intel. But the more I was really thinking about it, if there were sleeper agents capable of taking down a group of forty-year-old tweens, I had no choice but to at least try. Because it was either that, or I gave the littles what they wanted. The boy’s. Whatever they needed, Rowan, Carmel, and Harry were the keys to their plan.
We needed a miracle, and those trigger phrases were our best shot.
Harry, of course, was against this idea.
He did that thing he always did when he scrunched up his nose and curled his lip. It reminded me of a toddler not getting their way. I saw it exclusively when the littles were taking advantage of his piggybacking service. “Josie, I’m not a fucking spy!”
"You could be." I said stiffly. "And until we figure out what is going on with you, I don't trust you. You said it yourself. Your writing was all over the kid's files, so at some point, regardless of you remembering or not, you have been part of this project.”
“So, why did you bring me out here?” He inclined his head. “You don’t trust me and yet you bring me on your little mission to find an exit.”
I shrugged. “I was partly hoping we would be attacked and your natural instincts would kick in.”
“So, I’m your lab-rat?”
“Partially.”
Harry did the scrunchy-nose thing again. “What the fuck, dude?!”
He looked like he was going to argue before deciding against it. Instead, he slipped on his raybans and gestured behind me with a sigh.
"We should probably get going before those little freaks come looking for us and realize we’ve left our safehouse.” I didn’t know how to explain and put into words that to survive we had to try everything—and if there was a slither of a chance that Harry really was some kind of sleeper agent, I was going to take advantage of that. I hadn’t forgotten about Carmel, Callan, and Olive. Rowan too, no matter how screwed up he was. I was counting on getting all of us out. I turned on my heel and started to head back to camp. I didn’t look at him because doing that would make me weak.
“Right. Let’s go.”
There was something going at the camp when we got back. I was startled by an intense blue light illuminating from the lunch cabin, and I had half a mind to turn and run. Then the screams started. Just like Teddy, they sounded both human and not, a horrifying mix of man and machine wailing for death. I found myself paralysed, crouched behind Cassie’s cabin, their phantom screams rattling my skull sending my thoughts into overdrive. “Josie.” I felt warm fingers wrap around my elbow and pull me back. Harry was thankfully there, dragging me away before I could expose us. It was enough to snap me out of it. Enough to drive me into fight or flight.
When we made it back to Allison’s cabin, Rowan was sleeping. He had conked out halfway through a pack of gummy worms. I spent the next few hours going through each trigger phrase written on the yellow sticky note we found taped to the door. I figured if we were going to try and wake Harry up, he would have to be restrained in case he was triggered to hurt us or even himself. “Is this really necessary?”
“Yes.” I said, squinting at the third trigger phrase. The two of us were sitting cross-legged in front of each other. Harry, breathing heavily, and me, trying to make myself calm. Harry pulled gingerly at the jump-rope restraints we had managed to loop around his wrists. I was expecting something out of him, but all I got were his wide eyes staring back at me.
The latest phrase was twisting my brain. It sounded like a kid’s book. I took a deep breath.
“Green Tigers Do Not Live Independently.”
Harry didn’t move, making a deal of blinking rapidly back at me. “No, I mean,” he gestured to his arms pinned behind his back. “Why did you have to make them so tight?"
“Because you’re a spy, dude.” Rowan had woken up, intrigued by my attempts to wake up a possible sleeper. He was pretending to go through the Eleanor Summers footage again, but the boy was clearly invested in what we were doing. Sitting slumped in the spinning chair, he leaned his fist on his chin. There were various things about Rowan I wanted to point out, but I was too scared to. The tips of his fingers were still stained red, and I had no idea if it was new or old. Rowan Atlas used to be the one guy at camp I used to think looked older than he was—and acted older than he was.
Instead of taking part in camp activities, he chose to sit on a branch and read pretentious classics. Yeah. He was one of THOSE guys. The slight stubble on his chin would definitely get him served alcohol, and his intelligence and quick-thinking would easily sway you if you were sceptical. Now he was the complete opposite. Maybe I was imagining things, but he had definitely gotten younger in the face, even if it was just a year or two.
I am not talking about his appearance, however. Rowan’s mentality was drastically different from the guy who held crisis meetings and ordered all of us around like we were his own children. This guy had a certain childish twinkle in his eye when I happened to catch it, a twitch in his lips which was constantly a wide smile like he was constantly seeing butterflies. Before being force-fed animal crackers, the guy had maintained his hair and hygiene no matter what happened. Now, he looked like he’d been dragged through a forest. Literally. There was still grass and leaves caught in his sandy hair, his camp Redwood shirt torn in odd places.
He yawned, curling up on the chair, apparently getting comfy. “No hard feelings, but we gotta keep you under investigation. Like Josie said, your name was all over those shady documents.”
Even his voice was different. I couldn’t call it a squeak, but it was close enough to one.
“I’m not a spy,” Harry grumbled, ducking his head. “I think I would know if I was—what, some kind of government agent?”
“That’s the whole point of them,” Rowan, still with lingering childish traits, winked at him. “They don’t know either.” He raised his hand and mimed the finger guns, protruding them into his temples and pretending to pull the trigger. Adapting a storytelling tone, he lowered his voice to a whisper. Like he was talking to the kids.
“They can live their whole lives without realizing.” I could tell from his tone he was getting excited with the idea of sleeper agents. Maybe it was a kid thing. Rowan sat up straight with wide eyes. “Cruelly brainwashed by a secret organisation at a young age and turned into super soldiers, these guys have no family. No friends.” His gaze flicked to Harry, his lips twitching into a teasing grin. “Only the insatiable urge to kill and follow orders. They don’t have brains to feel or emotions. And that?”
He did a dramatic spin on the chair. I could tell he was revelling in the look of horror on Harry’s face. “That is the most dangerous thing about them. The inability to have free will. Because what happens when they come face to face with people they used to love? People from their old life?”
With both of us enthralled in his speech, the boy smirked. “They kill them. Family members and friends. With one simple order? BAM.” Harry jumped, and I am ashamed to say I did too. Rowan blew his imaginary finger guns. “With one single and yet perfect headshot, it’s allll over. There’s blood EVERYWHERE. There’s brains!” He giggled. “Brains! And it’s like, sooo gross.”
With the way he kept adding to his story, getting progressively more excited and practically vibrating in the chair, the boy was reminding me more and more of my little sister. Which terrified me. Because if this was him back to himself, was this his new normal?
“Rowan, stop.” It took every ounce of my being not to yell at him. “You’re acting like a fucking child.” I was frowning at a sign on the wall warning us to ‘mind our head’. It wasn’t even a low ceiling, and yet that was the fourth time I had seen that sign.
Harry looked mildly horrified. Usually, he was the one who told the ghost stories. I could tell even he was questioning his own identity at that moment, and I paused interrogating him with phrases. “I’m sorry, but who out of us ate our weight in animal crackers?”
“Against my will.” Rowan yawned again, doing another spin on the chair. I had to turn around and shoot him a glare. “That’s the second time you’ve thrown me being turned into a kid in my face. Which is not fair. Did I ask to be stuffed full of poison?"
“Well, you didn’t exactly fight against Eleanor.”
“I was tied up, asshole—and I’m pretty you were in la-la land at that point.”
“I’m allergic to peanut butter, so no,” Harry rolled his eyes. “I snapped out of it when my body reminded me.”
“That sounds like a you problem, dude.”
Harry groaned, tipping his head back. “Holy shit, Rowan. You used to be cool and now you’re like an annoying little brother.”
“Touché.”
“Shut up. Both of you.” I found my voice, grabbing a pen and scribbling out the first line of trigger phrases which were a no-go.
“Rowan, annoyingly, is right.” I said, ignoring the guy’s noise of glee. If he kept spinning around on that chair, I was going to kill him.
The blur of movement at the corner of my eye was driving me mad. Focusing on Harry, I took a break from the trigger phrases for a moment, poking him in the cheek. It was supposed to be light-hearted, but the guy looked offended.
“For the third time, we can’t ignore that at some point you have signed off on all of those files, which means you were part of Spearhead.” I shrugged. “I’m not saying you are, but we have to be smart if we’re going to survive against a group of deranged scientists.”
Rowan chuckled. “What she saiiiiiid.”
"Why aren't we paying attention to the guy who clearly has allegiance to those freaks?” Harry stuck out his tongue at Rowan, which was surprising on multiple levels. Wasn’t he supposed to be the normal one? “Aren't you their favorite counselor?"
"I was literally mind controlled by preservatives, asshole," Rowan shot back. "And I'm not the only one. You and Carmel are on their radar too."
"Yeah, but we’re not the ones playing with eyes.”
"I'm too tired to argue with you." The boy responded in a yawn, cuddling into the chair armrest like a cat. “Also… you’re a noodlehead.”
“Ignore him.” I told Harry. “Just focus on me, alright? You have to look at me.”
“I am!”
“It’s time to make the donuts.” I articulated it perfectly.
Harry surprised me with a laugh. “That one can’t be real.”
“It is. Shush.” I cleared my throat. “The strawberry moon will rise in July.” When nothing happened, I frowned. “Maybe I’m not saying them right.” I peered at the next one, mentally speaking it and then muttering it to myself to get an idea of the tone.
“Or,” Harry shrugged, pulling at his restraints. “I’m just spit-balling here, but maybe I’m NOT a secret government sleeper agent after all?”
“Be mindful of the deep ravine.” This time I practically shouted it in his face, only to get his wide smile in return.
“Josie, this isn’t working.”
“It will.” I was growing increasingly more frustrated. “Just try and listen to them, okay? Don’t push them out.”
I tried one more time, leaning close and scrunching up the sticky note in my hand. Harry’s expression stayed stoic, though from the contortions in his forehead and the twitch in his lips he was trying so hard not to laugh. “It looks like it will rain tonight.”
I was surprised, then, when Rowan jolted in the chair suddenly. He lifted his head, his eyes wide. I was seeing him back to his usual self for the flicker of a second, his expression contorted with fright, lips curling into a scowl. “Do you guys smell that?”
“Smell what?” I sniffed the air, but there was nothing which was out of the ordinary. I had grown used to the combined stink of our body odour.
Rowan wrinkled his nose. He sat up straighter. “That.” He whispered. “It smells like… burning.”
I opened my mouth to ask what he meant before Harry went stiff suddenly. I sensed his entire body seem to brace itself. His eyes hardened. “Untie me.” He said in a croak.
When my shaking hands went to the boy’s restraints, his were balled into fists. I glimpsed muscles bulging through the back of his shirt and forearms. His demeanour reminded me of an animal growing territorial. “Something is… wrong,” he said in a sharp breath. Harry’s frightened eyes found mine. “Wrong.” He said again, blinking rapidly. “Something is...wr–wrong. ” When I pulled the last of the rope from his arms, Rowan shocked me with a piercing cry which sent him tumbling off of the chair, his trembling hands planted over his ears, lips carved into an O.
His eyes were wide with terror, with agony I couldn't understand. Childish terror. Which catapulted him back to his real age.
Before I could hesitate, I was crawling over to him, attempting to snap the boy out of it. But he was inconsolable, his eyes almost unseeing, his body contorting with every shriek. It took me a moment to realize Harry was the same. But instead of a piercing shriek of a scream, he was wailing into his knees, as if to escape something.
His body seemed to jolt left and right, like he was being electrocuted. When I saw glimpses of sharp red pooling between his fingers and down the back of his neck, something sickly crept up my throat. Rowan was somehow worse, his whole face contorting like it was it's own separate being, rivulets of intense red dripping from his nose and mouth, and staining his hands desperately pressed over his ears.
It was a synchronised cry, I realized, after concluding that no matter what I did, I couldn't save them.
It was a sound only they could hear, a high-pitched screech like a dog-whistle which was only affecting them. It was the kids, I thought. Surely. If they could disembowel counselors, I was sure they would have no problem engineering a sound which would only affect certain people.
Stumbling back, I had two choices. I could either try and help them, try and block out this phantom noise slowly killing them-- or I could leave them and find a safer place. With that choice in my mind, I barely noticed the phone begin to ring under Allison's desk.
That same old fashioned trilling rang in my head, and I managed to reach under and grab the receiver, my heart in my throat. "Please." I managed to squeak out, trying to ignore Harry, who was trying to rip out his hair, his eyes rolling into the back of his head. I saw the whites, blood vessels popping one by one.
When he crumpled to the ground, I thought he was dead. But his wails continued into the floor, and I wanted them to stop. I wanted him to die because I couldn’t stand hearing him screaming for help which wasn’t coming. I couldn't help them, and it was killing me. The kids were clearly trying to smoke us out, this time targeting the boy’s. Still though, I had my secret weapon. The Spearhead project.
"There are three of us left," I panted down the phone. "You have to help us. I am at Camp Redwood. You need to get us out of here. Do you hear me? You need to get us out–"
“Attempts to fix the current situation have been unsuccessful, Miss Greenfield," the woman with the British accent's voice came through in a rush of static, cutting me off. Her voice was monotone, and I wondered if she was in fact a programmed bot.
"All efforts for manual activation have failed from the disaster zone. The signal appears to have been sabotaged. I repeat. The E.485 frequency has been sabotaged. Designated models 0115, 0116, and 0118 are now officiated as being faulty and are no longer needed for protocol 9AXC5. Please stand by for standard protocol deactivation. Thank you for your service. Agent Salta. Agent Elsilrac. Agent Lemrac.”
My grip loosened on the phone, and I felt my legs started to give-way. "You're the one doing this to them?”
When Rowan dropped to his knees, blood dripping from his nose, my stomach jumped into my throat. There was no way. I figured it was an attack from the kids, but I was wrong. Instead, this sound, this frequency, was coming from the phone.
I thought back to the video footage. Agent Lemrac interviewing Eleanor Summers. Harry's signature on the paperwork. “Can you… say that again?” I heard myself say in a breath. But the dead ringing tone was already clanging in my skull, a robotic countdown laced within the static. I grabbed the pen I had been writing with, scribbling those names down, my hands shaking.
“Preparing emergency shutdown protocol. Thank you for your service, Agent Salta, Elsilrac, Lemrac.” The voice continued, which was just another stab in the gut. I heard Salta before. I heard Lemrac. But writing them down, I realized what they meant.
Salta.
Elsilrac.
Lemrac.
I was a fucking idiot. No wonder the littles wanted them and Carmel— why they were so important to their plan. Slowly, I could feel myself start to crumble. The phone slipped from my clammy hands, but I could still hear the woman beginning an emergency shut down.
I didn’t feel the impact when my knees hit the ground, but I did start to sense something twisted and sour tickling the back of my nose and throat. By the time I had noticed it, it was already choking the bunker. But somehow, I didn’t care about the stars in my eyes or my own blood being projected onto my hands with every wet sounding cough exploding from my lungs. I could still hear their names, and every time I said each of them, more and more of me shattered.
Atlas.
Carlisle.
Carmel.
“18…”
“17…”
“16…”
“15…”
Laying on my back while my head spun, I was partially aware the boy’s screaming had cut off.
Instead, they were just sitting there, eyes wide and unseeing, the blankest I had ever seen them. There was so much blood running down their faces, and I imagined something rooted inside of them tearing their minds apart from the inside. Letting out another strangled cough, which was definitely biological warfare courtesy of the kids (not enough to kill, but definitely a warning not to fuck with them) my gaze flicked across the bunker, taking everything in. The paperwork we had been going through. The chair Rowan had been spinning around on. The ropes Harry’s arms had been entangled in. I was frowning at the walls, and then the ceiling.
“Please mind your head when you step down the stairs.”
Drinking in the words slowly, my cotton candy thoughts imploding into one blurry mess.
But then I was a little more awake, this time turning my gaze to the wall where the same sign had been taped to the wall. Please mind your head when you step down the stairs. And… there it was again, taped to the desk, and underneath the laptop. Hidden in plain sight. It had been there all along, and yet I only realised when I wasn't thinking about it, when my mind was being suffocated. Something seemed to snap inside of me, and I sat up, driven by pure adrenaline. With one hand pressed over my mouth and nose, I forced myself into a sitting position and dragged myself to Harry, whose head was lolled at an unnatural angle, his eyes closed.
Part of me wanted to smash up the phone, knowing what these bastards had done to their sleeper agents now they were no longer usable. The boy almost resembled a doll. Was this the so-called sleeper which had been planted inside Redwood? Empty eyes, empty everything. He was like a shell with a human face. No better than Eleanor's experiments.
When I grabbed hold of his arms, I had to hold him steady, his body cut from these puppet strings which had held him. “Harry.” I could barely speak, my voice more of a croak. I knew he was awake and aware, but a singeing, almost burning smell was coming from directly inside his head as blood ran from his nostrils in shades of red and pink. Now I knew what the burning was when I pressed my face against his and sucked in a lungful of poisoned air. It was him. He was a defect being set alight from the inside. “You need to look at me, okay?”
When he didn’t, instead crumbling in my arms, I struggled to hold him upright. Twisting my head to Rowan, he seemed in a better state—kind of. At least he was still sitting straight.
My last words were barely audible. “Please mind your head when you step down the—” no sooner had the words left my mouth before the sounds of footsteps coming from above, the unmistakable murmur of giggling getting closer and closer. Harry dropped to the ground like he had been severed from his puppet strings.
I wasn’t aware when I slipped to the floor, whatever had filled my lungs finally taking its toll. Through flickering eyes, I could see our barricade being blown through, the ground rumbling beneath me, throwing me into something warm.
Rowan.
His body was curled up against the wall, haemorrhaging from the ears.
It was only when I was truly taking in the stink curling in the back of my nose and throat as Eleanor Summer’s mechanical grin popped out of nowhere, when I realized I had smelled it before. I had choked on it before. The circle of kids looming above me let out a shrill squeak of, “Found you!” while I found the dark, and beyond that, a memory I thought was a dream.
Firelight flickered in the backs of my eyelids. The blur of orange and shadowy smoke was mesmerising. I stared real hard at the fire like I was told to, at smouldering shades of yellow and orange colliding, thick black smoke billowing into the air while our faces illuminated the circle. I tightened my grip on my beer, swallowing another mouthful. It was cheap shit, but had just enough burn to get me tipsy. I felt good at that moment. Relaxed.
My head was starting to spin, but it was the good spinning, like I was going round and around on a carousel. I wasn't sure why I felt apprehension at the moment.
It was just a game, right? So, why did I want to jump up and go home? Why did I want to squeeze my eyes shut? Milo's words rattled in my skull as I squinted into the fire. "Come forth, those who are no longer with us." Ghosts weren't real, I thought dizzily. They couldn't be.
Not when science and logic existed. However, when the flames began to grow increasingly more erratic, I couldn't resist leaning forward, and... there. Something warm crept its way up my throat.
There was a shadow twisted in the smoke, a very human-like thing stepping directly from the trees, from the hollowed darkness I had been too scared to fully take in-- finding solace in flickering and illuminated sparks spitting from the fire. The others started to murmur to each other as the thing took a step out of the trees. Clea shuffled back with a cry, and Milo and JJ turned twin shades of sickly pale. It was a guy.
Older, by maybe a year. Shaggy reddish hair tied into a loose ponytail. His clothes were a simple leather jacket and jeans, but looking at his face, he was bruised, every part of him exhausted and battered. His eyes, when I caught them, were nothing but twin pools of oblivion glaring back at us.
"Holy fuck." Milo hissed out. “I didn't think that would actually work!" Downing his beer, he whooped. "Alright! Name, age, occupation, and..."
His lips quirked into a grin. "How you died, man!”
The guy inclined his head, his mouth curling into the start of an amused smile. "I'm not a ghost, Jackass."
His British accent was jarring.
"And?" Milo leaned back, crossing his legs. "Play along, bro. Or I call the cops and tell 'em a grown ass man is fucking with some minors."
"But he looks our age," Clea hummed. "And he's kinda cute."
"I don't give a fuck," Milo's eyes were hard. "State your truth, or I get my dad on the line."
The guy rolled his eyes, raising both arms like he was surrendering. "Samuel Joseph Wilder," he surprised me by responding. Now that I looked at him, this guy definitely was not dead. Unless dead people carried a gun latched to their belt, and a cheap iPhone sticking from their jeans pocket. "Nineteen years old." He shrugged. "I guess you could say I'm an ex-student."
He paused, and I caught emotion flicker across his face, his hands balling into fists. "I was killed– no, murdered, by my town."
Milo leaned back, cracking open another beer and taking a sip. Clea leaned closer to him, her eyes wide. “Playing along, huh? I like it. State your truth."
The guy nodded, lowering his arms. His dark eyes flicked to each of us, drinking all of us in. “I just escaped from a secret government facility doubling as a summer camp which has converted half of my town’s kids into mindless super soldiers.”
There was a pause, before Clea burst into nervous giggles. Milo cocked his head. “I said state your truth, not plagiarise The Hunger Games.”
Ignoring Milo, the guy turned his eyes to me. "Josie Greenfield?" He took a step forward before seemingly deciding against it. I didn't move or speak, my heart in my throat. I didn't have to reply. This strange boy continued, his lips curling. "You're going to die tonight, Josie."
At that moment, I realized why I had been feeling nauseous all night. Why my mind had been anticipating something all day, and why, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't brush off his words. Maybe part of me was expecting this.
The stranger's tone was too cold to ignore, the state of him too real to brush off as a joke.
Suddenly, it was just me, him, and fate itself glaring down on us, my life as I knew it exploding into nothing in the charred remains of the dying fire.
His voice echoed in my head, collapsing into white noise, when I noticed how truly inhuman he looked. I fully took him in, illuminated in firelight. "If you don't get the fuck out of this town, you are going to have the same fate as me."
…
I’m going to go out on a whim and say it’s… not 2018 and I’ve been at Camp Redwood for way longer than I realized?
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2023.06.07 16:49 KatlandSafaris256 Gorilla Trekking from Kampala

Gorilla Trekking from Kampala
How to trek mountain Gorillas from Uganda’s Capital Kampala – Kampala City excursion.
Kampala walking tours – Gorilla Trekking in Uganda.
It’s almost impossible to start planning for a gorilla trekking safari through Uganda without putting Kampala as part of the gorilla trekking adventure.
Combining a one-day Kampala city tour with Gorilla trekking gives you a blend of mixed cultures with an excellent wildlife encounter thus offering you the best African gorilla trekking safari of a lifetime.
Kampala is the pulsating heart of Uganda’s economic, social, cultural, and intellectual life. It is also the country’s largest urban center, with a population of 3.1 million (Microtrends 2020). And is the capital city of Uganda. Like Rome, Uganda’s capital was initially built across seven hills, but today, it sits on about two dozen hills.
Kampala derives its name from the local Luganda language saying ‘Akosozi k’empala,‘ meaning ‘Hill of Antelope.’ This a reference to the domestic impala (impala) antelope, which grazed the lawns of Mengo during Buganda’s King Mutesa’s reign in the 1880s.
Historically, Kampala Hill and the surrounding hills had lain at the Buganda Kingdom’s political center for several decades before the arrival of the first Europeans. Capt Fredrick Lugard arrived in 1890 and set up camp on Kampala Hill, so he is generally considered the founder.
You can choose to Visit Kampala either before or after your gorilla trekking adventure.
Some of the Iconic places and areas you can’t miss while planning for your Gorilla trekking from Kampala include the following.
Kampala City Center
Kampala’s most obvious reference point is the modern mufti-storied city center on Nakasero Hill. It is surrounded by more discreet but no less identifiable landmarks on neighboring summits.
Old Kampala Hill
Old Kampala Hill towers just a few hundred meters southwest of the city center, enclosed within the oval Old Kampala Road. Fine colonial buildings of Asian design mushroom the hill, generally somewhat rundown or strikingly renovated.
Old Kampala is historically known as Capt Lugard’s 1899 encampment site. It’s most notable today as the focal point for Kampala’s Islamic community and the sight of an imposing Uganda National Mosque.
Lubiri
Due south of Old Kampala, Kabaka’s Twekobe Palace stands on the broad, low hill of Lubiri. The ill-fated Kabaka Edward Mutesa was driven from this palace in 1966 by Idi Amin on Obote’s orders. The army subsequently occupied the site until 1993, gaining a reputation for terror. Amin and Obote’s agents took hundreds through its gates, never to be seen again.
Namirembe and Rubaga hills
Lubiri is neighboring Namirembe (Mengo) and Rubaga hills in the southwest, elevated by Anglican and Catholic cathedrals. The imposing dome identifies St Paul’s on Namirembe Hill and Rubaga Cathedral by two bell towers.
Mengo and Rubaga are Kampala’s oldest suburbs affluent in history and historic architecture, including the Royal Palace.
Bulange Building
Less than 500m past the turn-off to Namirembe, the Bulange Building — the traditional seat of the Buganda Parliament — stands on the south side of Albert Cook Road, directly opposite the junction with Sentema Road. It is one of the most impressive colonial-era buildings in Uganda.
Makerere Hill
Northeast of Namirembe is Makerere Hill, commonly known for housing the country’s oldest University. A white bell tower of Makerere University used to be visible on the green ridge of Makerere Hill until accidental fires gutted it in September 2020
Gorilla trekking In Uganda
Gorilla Trekking Information – Mountain Gorillas In Uganda
Most of these mountain gorillas do reside in South Western Uganda in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park. This Park consists of almost half of the number of Mountain Gorillas that are believed to be remaining in the whole world.
It’s also believed that the remaining Chimps in the entire world Co-exist in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park. For any interested person willing to visit Ugandan gorillas, you must pay for a gorilla trekking permit that goes for USD 700.00 per trek per person.
Mgahinga National Park; this park is found in the Virunga ranges shared between Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Rwanda. This Park is also another place that is known for being a home of Ugandan gorillas.
Gorilla trekking experience:
For a person to have a wonderful, memorable, and unforgettable adventure you will have to endure all the efforts needed to reach Bwindi and trek through this wonderful natural forest. There are thirteen habituated gorilla groups for tourists to trek. And all these groups are found in different sectors such as Buhoma, Nkuringo, and others are habituated in the Ruhija and Rushaga regions of Bwindi Impenetrable National Park
A proposed itinerary for Gorilla trekking from Kampala.
These four days gorilla trekking safari is going to allow you to watch two of the many Gorilla groups in this impenetrable forest. Therefore, allowing you two good hours of interaction with these primates and maybe a community walk to see the Batwa people and see how they live their daily lives.
Tour Highlights
Day 1: Kampala City Tour.
Day 2: Transfer to Bwindi Impenetrable National Game Park.
Day 3: Gorilla trekking in Bwindi Impenetrable.
Day 4: Transfer to Kampala
Detailed Itinerary
Day one
Kampala city tour
Early morning after breakfast, you will be picked up from your hotel of residence, for a tour of Kampala. We will visit the key sites that make Kampala a unique tourist destination and these will include the King’s Palace, the kingdom parliament, Namirembe and Rubaga Cathedral, the old Kampala Mosque, and nakasero Hill. Owino market, the Kabakas lake, and end with the Visit to ndere center for an evening of cultural performances.
We will return to the Lodge for a relaxing dinner and overnight stay and preparations for the start of the gorilla trekking safari.
Day two
Transfer from Kampala to Bwindi Impenetrable National Park
Be early to hit the road in the morning since a long journey to the southwestern part of Uganda where the park is located. During your journey, you will have a brief stop in Mbarara town where you will have your lunch meal plus maybe mini shopping if you, please, and thereafter head on. While on the road you will then be in sight of Uganda’s other amazing beauties inclusive of which is the beautiful scenery of the city. On reaching the park you will check in at the accommodation. dinner and overnight.
Day three
Mountain Gorilla Tracking and Community Walk
The day that you’re going to be the insight of the gorgeous primates the gorillas. Wake up early to buy yourself time to have breakfast and pick your packed lunch plus drinking water since you ought to have long hours in the forest searching for these apes. You will be expected to be at the park headquarters on time for your briefing and their head to the forest to engage in your first track which may take you 2 to 6 hours depending on the animal’s movement. A Full hour is allowed you to visualize the animals as they move around and react differently to your visit, while here you will be able to know why these apes are called cousins to man since the semblance to human character is positive. Thereafter the trek head back to the park headquarters and then finally the lodging. Freshen up and take on a community walk to see the Batwa people and their ways of life you can enjoy their cultural dances and songs as they demonstrate it all for you. Then dinner and overnight at the accommodation slept at the previous night.
Day 4: Transfer to Kampala
Wake up early enough to have your fantastic breakfast meal, then head for the stunning boat ride on Lake Bunyonyi that will allow you a view of some of the islands on this lake as you observe the well-terraced hills surrounding the lake and many more scenic views. Then you will pack up and be on your way to Kampala with lunch en-route plus other stopovers that you would love to make as we come to the very beginning of the end of our double trekking safari. On reaching Kampala you will either be dropped at the airport for your flight or to a hotel in case your stay is still on.
End of Tour
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2023.06.07 16:35 resurrective Chapter 23 - Bunnies, hares, and rats

Chapter 23 - Bunnies, hares, and rats
The sunset – all days have a beginning and an end, no matter what happens, no matter what tragedies or celebration might befall those who’re on this earth, this phenomenon would never change, at least not for the millions of years that still lay ahead.
The refugees had stopped for a small rest. Some wanted to eat, to have something to drink, and some needed to relieve themselves. All of that was to be done behind a thick wall of conjured stone. But to even witness it, one would first have to spot the dome of magical darkness; Eve’s camouflage spell hid the reinforced camp from the rest of the world. She, Freia, and Ellen were put in charge of guarding it, while the others…
Keyaruga stood aside, witnessing the extravaganza of brutal wildness clashing against Setsuna, carrying the gilded egg on his back. She battled a monster, a weird and creepy horned freak with the body of a boar, a human-like head (which looked much more like a clay parody of one) and the front legs of a horse. The world’s ambient mana produced many such creatures, much of them were rather normal-looking, but this… Calamity, as it read in the view of the jade eye, looked like a hand-made chimera of some mad sorcerer.
“Ghh! Ha!” Setsuna yelled, mutilating the massive behemoth with her claws of ice. Each blow of hers shred through the monstrosity’s flesh, bleeding white bile out of the monster. She danced around, masterfully avoiding each and every blow the wrathful monster could send at her in an acrobatic flurry of dodges. Each flip she combined with a slash. Blessed by Caladrius, her frozen gauntlets easily pierced the thick skin of the pinkish hairless abomination. In a war of attrition, it stood no chance.
That’s when another of its abilities would be revealed – It could ‘blink’ over small distances, leaving nothing but bluish rifts in its wake. Once it’s activated, there’s nothing you can do – the monster just teleports inside your body, blasting it from the inside with its gargantuan mass.
“No, you don’t!” The hero snarled, shooting the abomination with a beam of light. He wasn’t just standing around, instead monitoring the fight through his new power. The Carved eye, how he called the purple cross, granted by the divine bird, allowed him to see two seconds into the future, and since nothing was set in stone, he could glance at a few variations at the same time. Well, this time everything ended in the same horrific manner for the ice-wolf girl, and so…
“GRROUMNGHUGO-O-O!!!” When the piercing light punched through this aberration of nature, it bellowed an enormously gruesome shriek of rage and pain. It lost focus, allowing Setsuna to get closer to its head. The she-wolf plunged toward the monstrosity and slashed its twisted neck. And she did so in style – it was finally mortally injured when copious amounts of blood spilled from the monster’s insides.
​
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“You’ve gotten faster, stronger.” The man admitted, looking at his companion, brutally finishing the poor beastie off by sticking her armored hand inside the flesh just to break its neck from the inside. It cracked, and everything was over. “I like what I see, Setsuna.”
“Uh-huh. It’s thanks to my new powers.” The huntress happily replied, getting ready to butcher the revolting carcass. The Hero of Healing just happened to have a spare cart standing not so far from them, in which he’d pull the meat toward the camp.
As for the ice warrior, she now had a level of fifty-nine, while Keyaruga enjoyed a mark of seventy now. An impressive result, seeing as the gray-haired girl could now stand toe-to-toe even with a hero. What was the most impressive, though…
“You’ve seen what happened to Ellen. It took her a whole day to even get used to walking around after the surge of strength Caladrius gave her. You, on the other hand… Let’s just say, I never expected such battle prowess from you, Setsuna.”
“Uh-uh, I’d be dead if not for you.” The wolf girl admitted, shaking her cute head with the ears pressed against it. It was interesting how this cutie preserved that gorgeousness of hers, even while doing something as gruesome as butchering a forest mutant.
“How could you tell?” The red-haired lad asked, placing carved chunks of meat (after a little blood draining and cleansing, of course) on the cart. The thing she killed weighed at least half a ton, so the food would be plentiful for the time being.
“Intuition.” Setsuna revealed, getting rid of the lungs and stinking stomach, just as morbidly twisted, as the rest of the chimera. The huntress masterfully cut the meat from the bones with nothing more than her claws, sharp enough to act like an excellent knife.
“Not really surprising for a genius like you. Your senses and agility are just superb.” The man praised the girl, helping her with his keen reddish saber.
“Uh-huh…” The ice warrior mumbled in reply, focusing on the task at hand, rather than flustering at the compliment. Something wasn’t right. Keyaruga never saw Setsuna this depressed, and it saddened him as well. “Is there something on your mind?”
“Nothing, it’s alright.” She answered without even trying to hide her displeasure or, rather, the girl thought that maintaining her neutral expression would be just enough.
“Well, I don’t believe you.” The healer uttered, masterfully carving the last slices of flesh from the dead abomination. It didn’t look particularly appetizing, but at least its meat wasn’t that different from anything else. “You know, I’m worried about you, Setsuna, and I don’t want you to hide anything from me.”
“What’s the point? You’ve got everything you want now, even a child.” The she-wolf lamented, kneeling above the reddish skeleton of the monstrosity; at least three hundred kilograms of meat now rested in their cart, waiting to get delivered to the camp. And so, she had nothing to do anymore other than to dispel her claws, letting them melt along with the fat, blood, bile, and gruesome viscera.
“The point is…” The lad began, crouching right next to the she-wolf. First thing first, he washed her hands. Water pumped from his palms, which were shining with sorcerous sigils, but magic aside, he simply wanted to offer her a human touch. “…I really care for you. Ellen says it’s my weakness, and I could treat it as such. You know, I could get rid of my empathy, and that would be that. But I don’t want to. I want to feel and sympathize, so now I sense your distress.” Keyaruga deadpanned, still holding the girl’s arms, even if they were as clean and can be, even if there was no sorcery to see and feel anymore. “I want to help you, Nayuta, just like you’ve helped me.”
And as he spoke. The man remained right where he was; ready to stay there as long as he needed, he gently put his palm on the huntress’ shoulder. There was nobody to hear them, and so, he addressed the girl with her true name.
“Keyaruga… I…” It wasn’t easy for her, all those contradictory emotions, loyalty clashing against what her very soul wished for – it metaphorically speaking, tore Setsuna apart from the inside, making her chest severely ache. To do nothing would ensure the status-quo, nothing would change, and there would be nothing to worry about. Yet… “I’m feeling sad, and lonely.” To say these few words, Setsuna needed all of her bravery and might. It was literally harder than facing the dangerous monstrosity and defeating it in a battle.
“What… about Ellen?” The hero asked of the girl, trying to not be too persistent. Everyone had their highs and lows, and now it was the turn of the she-wolf.
“It’s… not the same. I want you. And you’re with Eve.” The huntress admitted what’s been bothering her all this time. The oppressive solitude she felt couldn’t just be healed by pairing her with someone else, and although spending time with the princess had its merits, the ice warrior craved someone different. And yet, she understood how much the black-winged lady needed him right now, but that didn’t make it any easier.
“Setsuna… Listen, you’re precious to me, no matter what. I won’t abandon you.” The healer promised softly. He wasn’t the type to loudly declare his love, but someone who’d support the ones he was close to, no matter what.
“Um…” Setsuna growled, rising back onto her bestial feet. When Keyaruga rose as well, she grabbed his shirt and pulled him for a kiss, a surprise to be sure, but a welcome one. “Then fuck me, right here.” She demanded with a blushing, yet aggressively seductive expression. There was only one thing to do now.
“Bend down.” The lad demanded, unfastening his belt to reveal his penis. It wasn’t erected enough to show its full glory, but a few strokes got the work done, all while Setsuna herself leaned on the nearest tree, wagging her tail and pulling down the white sheet that served her as an underwear. She was jealous of Eve, Ellen stole her exclusive morning duty, feeling abandoned; the huntress had suffered in silence, but not anymore. “We don’t have much time, so no foreplay this time.”
“Uh-huh…” The girl nodded, enticing the man with the majestic sway of her hips. “A-a-ah!” Setsuna gasped, as the lad thrust his manhood into her up to his balls with a single thrust. Keyaruga grasped her fit butt, the rippling muscles underneath the girl’s pale skin were just as enticing as the warm wetness of her narrow vagina – even without any preparation, the huntress could easily take the man’s cock. “Agh! A-ahh!!!” She yelled and moaned, swaying her hips and wagging that tail of hers.
“Ugh…” Keyaruga felt it – the suppressed lust, the passion, the fervor – they burned like raging fire, threatening to scourge everything and everyone. “A-a?!” The hero felt it first – Setsuna, unhappy with how slow he was, pushed him aside, stood up… and jumped onto the lad, bringing him to the ground, pressing against his chest with her hands, recklessly collapsing onto his penis.
“Keyaru…” First of all, the she-wolf was a predator, a dangerous and an aggressive type. Her humanity was always there too, but even that temporarily fell to the onslaught of her bestial urge to mate. “A-a-ah! Keyaru-u!” It wasn’t just a slip of tongue, the girl, jumping on his dick, called upon his true name with a vicious grin on her face.
“He-he-he-heh! I know, Nayuta!” The lad sneered, grabbing his companion’s butt with a juicy slap. “I’m here for you.”
Setsuna had the most loyalty among the man’s companions, and since none of them would betray him anyway, that spoke a lot for her conviction. But such devotion had its cost, and now, lying on the ground and pounding the wolf-girl hard and fast, with a maniacal grin on their faces, Keyaruga was paying this price.
…
Eight days – this was how long it took to reach the walls of Dantoma, and oh boy, was it a pretty ride. The entire day the man marched forward, while looking around to make sure nothing ambushes him, his girls, or their charges, babysitting those thirty-two (thirty-three, apparently, one women got pregnant) people, and four more – Keyaruga wanted nothing more than to end this already.
The heroes are often romanticized, their feats are turned into legends, and their personalities are washed away by the images they make for themselves. The healer got everything a historic figure like him would want: a clear goal, power, money, an entire arsenal of equipment, a harem… The latter was a little problematic, though.
Each morning, he was sucked off by Ellen and Setsuna, every afternoon the she-wolf would take him for a hunt, where they would have some crazy sex, just the two of them, over their fallen prey. It was still fine for the hero while they were dealing were monsters, but one time they butchered an enemy scout and made love while the body was still cooling, and another day they did it, surrounded by the corpses of murderous geese! Yes, these woods were just that dangerous!
After the daily outing, though, it was just more walking and keeping everyone safe. Not bad, not terrible, especially when it came to the evening encampment, when everywhere they stayed turned into a small citadel of enchanted stone. It didn’t save everyone from sleeping on blanketed ground, but at least Freia’s fortifications were safe and sturdy.
Mayala would always bother Keyaruga each time he was around, Ellen experimented with new and dangerous diseases, testing them mostly on herself, just to feed them later to her patron (oh, was she disappointed to find out her power didn’t agonize her, like it did to others), Freia would simply stick around the hero, annoying him just enough to get a rough retaliation each time it was her turn to kneel before him, and Eve… Well, ever since the tragedy at Visou, she mostly spent her time studying magic with the elder princess, and politics with the younger one. And how could all of them reinforce their bond other than with sex? Oh yeah, the five of them had sex, lots and lots of it.
It wasn’t too bad, in all honesty. Even with all the insects and parasites around, Keyaruga had a lot of fun just walking around and witnessing new things. It’s just that he hated being responsible for others, even caring for his girls left a toll on his paranoid mind, and leading an entire commune…
Get used to that, man. If you’re up for a usurpation, that’s what you’ll get soon enough, but ten times worse. Or better. Can’t care for every subject, when they’re millions of them.
“Turna, turna! (Daddy, daddy!) Nanue karu? (What’s that?)” Right as the man was about to sigh and get back to monitoring the vicinity with his jade eye, the girl, riding on his shoulders, cheerfully yelled while pointing across the massive ravine with a raging river on its bottom.
“Karu… (This…) Mayala pora arua musnak. (…is your new home, Mayala)” Keyaruga spoke, standing on the edge of a gully. There was a long bridge, and across it everyone could see a fortress. An impregnable-looking stronghold on the edge of gargantuan cliff that looked nothing like Keyaruga imagined it would. Simply the scale of the ‘settlement’ already betrayed its nature as a great city with at least fifty thousand or so in population, and its great ramparts clearly showed that Dantoma was not like some village amidst the fields, but a regional center of trade, art, craft, and governance.
“Pff, ‘settlement’ my ass! That’s the best bastion I’ve ever seen!” Ellen exclaimed, looking around. She could certainly spot a whole lot of eyes, looking at the black-winged vagabonds. To even approach the gates, they had to pass a massive bridge, full of traders, adventurers, prowlers, and even a circus troupe. All that time they’ve been avoiding major roads, and now they were finally back to civilization.
“They’re watching.” Setsuna pointed out, unmistakably recognizing a few highly-trained sentries among the bystanders. There were quite a few of these: panthers, goats, toads, horse-men, deer, but what’s drawn the huntress attention the most were… “Rabbits.”
“Rabbits, huh? I guess, we’re in the right place, then.” Freia uttered with a smile. While others marveled at the beauty of the stone walls and towers, she already picked a few spells to ruin them for the worst-case scenario.
“Don’t drop your guard.” The healer urged, placing Mayala next to him, so that her mother would take her away. The child complained a bit, but even a single look at the man’s troubled face was enough for her to understand how little he wanted to play with her now. “These aren’t rabbits, they’re hares.” He said cautiously, as if it was supposed to somehow scare the rest.
“Ehm, Keyaruga, what’s even the difference exactly?” Eve asked dumbfounded. The queen-to-be just walked in the front, she was sure that the only reason they were still safe, and nobody claimed a reward or two for a kokuyoku was because of the multiple patrols guarding the peace.
“Rabbits have short ears and rounder bodies, they’re pretty much domesticated, and you can keep them as cattle. Hares… Well, those are bigger, their ears are massive, and they eat everything, from grass and carrion to shit, and even their own kids. Ugh, awful creatures, especially when you try to raise crop, and they just come to munch it all.” The former farmer declared with clear signs of revulsion. It seemed, like only the language barrier spared him the trouble of being called out for his slurs, but knowing the truth about their leader didn’t really help Keyaruga with his bias. He could swear Ellen was giggling at him right now.
“Ushigma denue (who’re you all)? Nezah Dantoma shia kane (what’s your business in Dantoma)?” And it certainly didn’t get any better, when a tired-looking guardsman among the star… hares stopped their little column for a check.
“Shall I?” The hero offered help in handling this to his white-haired companion. Just one touch – and the guardsman would become their docile marionette.
“No. I’ll handle this.” And having said such, the Me-ua kahul stepped forward for negotiations. This would be the first true test of Eve’s charisma and her ability to persuade others. And she…
…
“Alright, I’ll admit, you nailed it.” …succeeded. Not only had she gotten a few houses for their little winged commune, but the whole party now was to meet with the man himself. Very soon they’d meet with Carol, so the hero had only one thing to say. “You’ve really handled it well.”
“I couldn’t have handled it without you, Keyaruga. I’ll never forget what you’ve done for me… for us all.” The lady in red paid tribute to the red-eyed man, placing a faint smile on his face. She sat next to him on the top of the citadel in the center of the city, waiting on a bench before the traitor would be ready to properly meet them, since he was such a busy hare, and all.
“Hey there! We’ve also helped!” The Apostle of Caladrius exclaimed like the small child she looked like. Seeing the all-knowing queen sulk like a maiden amused her so much, the younger princess could bully her for the whole of eternity.
“Don’t disturb their cuddling, Elly.” Fortunately, though, Freia was also there to suppress her sibling’s attitude. After all… “She’s just too precious to do that.” …the sorceress had her own ideas of how to fluster the kokuyoku princess.
“I hear you! Please, shut up!” The white-haired woman snarled at the sisters, but that only made their glee even worse. Better to ignore them completely, it seemed. “I bet you’ll miss Mayala.” So instead of putting up with the princesses, the tanned girl attempted to bother Keyaruga a little.
“Not really. But, I know I’ve known them for two weeks, if something happens to her or her mother here, I’ll raze this whole place to the ground.” The man promised, noticing a slight grin of mockery on the lips of a nearby guardswoman.
“Dantoma is big, and there are many ma-zok here.” Setsuna pointed out. It’s not like she had any doubts in the hero, but even he wouldn’t find it that easy.
“What else did you expect from the heart of the opposition?” Eve mused, addressing the she-wolf.
“To get crushed.” The ice warrior answered in her usual phlegmatic manner.
“Now that you shouldn’t worry about.” Suddenly, a door had opened, and a middle-aged hare-gentleman with a monocle emerged from it to greet the party. It was Carol himself, and he spoke near-perfect Phasian. Everyone got tense, finally meeting the betrayer. Everyone that is, besides Eve and Keyaruga. “Kokuyoku have received four homes, and we’ll build five more for them shortly. As for Hakuo, you can rest assured; his forces cannot breach these walls, however much they try. We’ve got enough troops and resources to drive his marauders out.” The man with an annoyingly-looking short mustache proudly declared, sitting behind his desk. Although his remark was meant to be soothing, it was filled with lies. Even if Dantoma was a powerful fortification, it stood no chance against a full-scale invasion from the sky. Ellen held a smug grin on her face, since there was too little this place could do to counterpose Flare, mounted on a gryphon’s back, and the current Me-ua had an entire tribe of dragon-mounted troops.
“Thank you for having us, Carol-murnaz (Lord Carol).” Eve stood up and said this graciously, yet her words were merely a ceremonial formality. Keyaruga rose as well. First things first, he offered his arm for a handshake, knowing all too well, how uncommon this gesture was here.
“I must thank you for stopping by.” Just as the healer predicted, the hare-man refused his hand, instead placing his palm on his chest while bowing to the two of them. Did he just dismiss the hero completely? Oh, that was good. “Come on, have a seat.” Carol invited the future queen to take the sofa before him, and so she did. “It’s been some time since we’ve last met. You have changed a lot since then, my fair princess.”
“You’re too kind, Carol-murnaz.” Eve responded with just as hypocritical of a smile as her host. This man leaked every bit of info he could to Kinacrith, and so, he couldn’t be trusted. Not this time, not like she did before. “We’ve come here to strike a deal with you.”
“Certainly, your people are already being given an accommodation here, as well as our guarantee of safety.” The long-eared warlord spoke, rhythmically tapping against the table. One-two, one-two, one-two-three. It clearly meant something, since one of the guards just went out.
“No words would be enough to express my gratitude for you and your people.” The queen-to-be said almost unemotionally. How could she show any amiability to a traitor?
“That was nothing. Our alliance with your people still holds on, and I would be ashamed to look at your late mother’s face if I were to reject you now.” Carol responded, making Keyaruga, unwilling to sit down, as he was playing the role of Eve’s knight, ready to strike down everyone who dares to endanger his suzerain.
His awareness came especially in handy when the guardswoman, who sneered at the lad’s ambitions, returned with a plate of two cups of tea. Oh, how the man hated those!
“Please, drink. This will restore your strength.” The hare-man offered, tinkering with his monocular. At first, Keyaruga took a cup, he smelled it – nothing, he tasted it – nothing. Whatever the iuei saraga put in it – it didn’t work on him. But he still had his jade eye – this little present of the star nymph allowed him to spot… the serum of truth. Which was actually just a relaxant, which would merely cloud one’s awareness. Either way, the man simply bit though his lip and drained one drop of his blood, making sure it’d neutralize any effects and restore Eve’s focus, instead of literally popping her head, for example.
“That… is kind of you.” The lady in red spoke, taking a cup from the hero’s hand. It was common for a lady of her scale to have a taster, who’d be the first to spot the venom, and so Carol could say nothing in opposition. He did seem rather troubled, though. “But we’re not here to hide.” And much more so, when the Me-ua kahul was finally read to speak about her goals.
“Please, don’t be so shy. We know about your power, and we know of what happened to the Gramgrim. Caladrius’ grace is with you, I see.” The elder of the ‘rabbits’ tribe (Tarenago had no distinction between those two sub-species) spoke, rather pleased to see he wasn’t called out for poisoning, as the lad just chugged the entire cup in a single gulp.
“W-what? No, how could I-?” Eve played an act of innocent ignorance, and that looked rather convincing coming from her in all honesty. All Keyaruga could do for her was to maintain his apathetic expression.
“You’re wise to keep silent about this power, but no kokuyoku can grow horns without his blessing.” The hare-man said, feeling rather proud of himself for this insight.
“Caladrius is a woman, and I’m carrying her egg.” The hero revealed, pointing at the treasure, strapped to his back.
“And… you are?” Only now Carol properly recognized the lad’s existence as something more than Eve’s henchman.
“Keyaruga. I’m Eve’s knight, and these girls are her courtiers.” The healer introduced himself, simply holding his left hand on top of his saber’s crude handle, really unassuming compared to its reddish blade. “I was the one to battle with Gramgrim. And I won.” The man admitted in a deliberately ambiguous manner. Could a hero defeat the entire brigade all on his own? Definitely, but to come to this conclusion, one must realize who he was dealing with, and judging from the traitor’s disregard, he didn’t.
“That is strange company to keep.” The first of the ‘rabbits’ mused, stretching his arms. A sign of carelessness? Or outright disdain? One could certainly win a one-on-one battle with a southern tribesman, but to slay hundreds? No… “Still, my data suggests otherwise. Caladrius is with you, and you’ve destroyed Gramgrim with her power, Eve-maran.” Carol admitted, unimpressed with Keyaruga’s boasting. He just knew of limitations of a human.
“Ha, alright-alright. I did. I really did.” The future queen played at frustration from being chased into a corner. She even took a sip of the cured tea to imitate distress. “Anyway, now we’re seeking vengeance.” Eve spat through her teeth, slamming the cup against the table. This blow wasn’t strong enough to fracture the porcelain, but clearly mighty enough to sprinkle the liquid around. Was it a farce? Or the true emotion of hers, concerning the tragedy of Visou and Carol’s treachery? One could only guess.
“That is… inspiring.” The hare-man uttered, silently urging a guardsman to bring a towel. He had only two warriors there, a man and a woman, and both were elites, hardly a match for any of the party, but still. “We’re always glad to have you on our side.”
“Thank you for agreeing to give refuge to the black wings. Your help won’t be forgotten.” The healer pronounced, trying to sound regal. Not like he had a lot of success, but that was fine. Carol had to think of him as a muscle-head, playing a knight.
“The pleasure is mine Keyaruga-ugal (Sir Keyaruga). My name is Carol, Carol of the star rabbits.” Only now did this bastard think it was appropriate to properly introduce himself, which the lad couldn’t fail to notice.
“You’re a hare, Carol. Not a rabbit.” The former farmer pointed out with a reserved smile on his face. That was for the scorn he gave him.
“Ha-ha-ha-ha-hah! A good joke, indeed.” The leader of iuel saraga chuckled, yet there was no true amusement in his faked laugh, just a formality.
“Carol-murnaz, how did you know about Caladrius?” Eve wondered, knowing all too well he upheld a double-sided connection to Kinacrith.
“That is easy to answer. Your graceful bird is a legendary god, and when the fiercest battalion of Kinacrith had vanished in Visou, while trying to attack it, I would guess there was only one answer as to how that happened.” The long-eared chieftain replied rather carelessly. For him, this tragedy was but a skirmish on the outskirts of his domain. But for Eve…
“They weren’t ‘trying to attack it’! They razed it, burned it, murdered my people, and even danced on their bones! How dare you tone down this tragedy, Carol?!” Saying this, the white-haired woman felt like she’d lost any semblance of control, that she was being pulled inside a vortex of terrible emotions, that’d lead her to saying something unreasonable for the current situation. “You!..” As she descended into this pit of traumatic reflexes, though, Keyaruga simply put his palm on her shoulder and gave his lover a potion of violet hue – this would calm her nerves. In the meantime…
“I’m sorry; my suzerain’s wounds are still too fresh.” The hero spoke, resisting the urge to pat the lady’s head, as she calmly drank his remedy. Something he and Ellen brewed together for the suffering black-wings. They even resolved the possible addiction issue by combining their expertise. Still, this wasn’t about wonders of alchemy. “Let’s cut the formalities a ‘hare’ short, Carol. Now that Eve’s past that trial, we want to kill Hakuo and raise the new Me-ua to the throne. The Reese dynasty will once again rule over Tenanulic.” The red-eyed man declared, dramatically clenching a fist on his chest. It should’ve been enough to dispel any worries within the long-eared governor, but it didn’t.
“That… seems quite possible indeed, with your current strength.” He still pretended to be involved with the overthrow plot, but small actions, like tapping against the table, or tinkering with his monocle betrayed Carol’s anxiety. “Yet, to so easily overpower the strongest of threats… I do not believe such might can be given out unchecked. There must be a price to pay for that, to be sure.” Oh, that was it! The very thing the man was placed here for. Certainly, his only function was to get any useful info about the true opposition and leak it to Hakuo. This wasn’t an exception.
“Yes, indeed. There are conditions to call upon Caladrius, Carol-murnaz.” Eve, pale and distressed, replied with a slightly gravelly voice. The betrayer never even bothered to apologize for the lack of empathy, and now he wished to know her weaknesses? Fine!
“I knew it. And what are they?” For a moment, the ‘rabbit’s’ excitement got better of him, and that was a serious mistake.
“Why’re you asking?” Keyaruga asked with all due seriousness. This man never even bothered to sooth his lady’s grudge, so he didn’t deserve a respectful tone.
“Oh, Keyaruga-ugal, to strike Kinacrith means to take it whole, or be taken by it. No other option, and when we do, I wish to be ready for what’s to come. Logistics, supply lines, troops – I cannot provide that without knowing the entire picture beforehand.” Although true, this reasoning really smelled more like a quickly made up excuse, rather than a serious argument. Much too ambitions for what’s still to come.
“The moon and stars – Caladrius drains her power from them. The only way to use it is to wait until the stars align properly. That… would be one month later.” The lady in red spoke an obvious lie. She simply needed time, and giving herself three weeks to hone her magic and gather true allies seemed like a good deal to her anyway.
“Norpaga (september)…” Carol mused, now tapping against his own temple. This gave him time, and a lot of uncertainty along with that. The state of ignorance was never what you’d call a power, and so, only one thing could be done about it. “Are there any weaknesses to contrast Caladrius’ strength?” The leader of the iuel saraga wondered assumingly. He seemed to believe that the serum worked, and that would be his downfall.
“Yeah! She’s a bitch!” Ellen exclaimed, raising her arm, like a prudent student, always ready to present an answer without even being asked. It made her look rather childish, but this remark was to be used to the fullest.
“She’s right. Caladrius is fickle, so if she doesn’t answer the call, it can’t be helped.” Eve said with a sad smile. That was truth, and it was worth revealing. In the end, this notion played in their favor anyway.
“And, as if that’s not bad enough, you can only eat one apple to protect yourself from her poison for an entire day.” And if the current deception wasn’t good enough, Keyaruga added one more piece of disinformation there. It was literally the first thing that came to the former holder of an orchard’s mind, and seeing Carol’s eyes widen just enough for his monocle to fall on the floor was worth more than anything to the lad. “Apples are fruits of life, so those who ate it were unharmed. It didn’t save them from me, though.” The hero added, shrugging his shoulders. Right now, he had to gather every last bit of his willpower to not laugh like a madman.
“That’s… fascinating.” The hare-man marveled at the new ‘discovery’. So much so, that he got ready to finish the audience. “Eve-maran, Keyaruga-ugal, it’s getting late, and you deserve some rest. Caryl!” The long-haired traitor yelled, summoning a boy from behind a door. This youngster looked awfully distressed, making the party wonder, just what kind of job this fellow was doing. “This is Caryl, he’ll accompany you to your new mansion.”
“A-ah… Youmela. (Nice to meet you.)” The kid spoke, getting all flustered standing next to four beautiful ladies. So much so, that Keyaruga had to drag him away toward the door, trying to figure out how could one blush so much just by being next to a woman.
“We’ll meet again. Your strength will greatly help us in overthrowing Hakuo.” It was those words, that Eve spoke exiting the office. Indeed, the traitor had a lot of uses, even if the most probable of them was to parade his head as a warning.
I saw it… This was the head that Panakea showed me.
“Rot.” The she-wolf quietly murmured. For that stench is what she smelled coming off of Carol.
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