I'm trying to verify if there's something wrong with my solar array. I have two Delta Solivia 5.2TL inverters connected to 36 solar panels. Normally I pull around 9.5 kW with spikes that can hit 10 kW but usually the average high is around 9.5 kW. I am currently producing about 8 kW in total (yesterday's high was 7.98) but there was considerable dust, dirt, pollen on the panels. I went up yesterday afternoon and washed all the panels with soap & water and rinsed all the panels so they are clean.
Watching the power generation today, I am not seeing any notable increase in production, in fact it looks identical to yesterday which seems odd considering the cleaning (I would assume I would gain at least a couple hundred watts if not more from clean vs. dirty panels). The weather is exactly the same as yesterday, clear blue skies, temperature in the 85-95*F range no wind or other factors that could be affecting the panels (not that wind would do anything, just reaffirming that conditions are as identical as they could be).
This has me now thinking maybe a couple panels are dead or a squirrel or some other critter chewed on some of the power cables under the panels. Is there a way I can check/test to see if all the panels are working correctly and producing normally? I've had the system for about 5 years and I do get there's some loss of generation over time but this is really drastic (i.e. 1-1.5 kW difference) from around the same time last year.

Cross post from buildapc because for some reason downvoted to oblivion.
Clueless about monitors nowadays. No idea where and what to look for and what to avoid...
Currently I have BenQ GW 2270h. And it pretty much fits my needs. But I need second panel. Since that one is no longer in production and hard to find. Instead of same panel I think about small upgrade. to 24" instead of 22".
Used mostly for gaming (non FPS games or action packed games etc. EVE Online, Russian Fishing 4, No man's Sky, Farming simulator etc.) and internet browsing. So 60Hz 1080p is enough.
Im from EU (I know there is quite a difference between monitor market in US and EU). Budget is 100-120 EUR max. Again I don't play FPS games, so not really bothered that much about all that "gaming", marketing fluff. Mostly focused on image and color quality. Matte to fit my other panel.
Thanks in advance for any help.
Ps. They gonna end up on mounts, so mount support required.

"Atta boy, Kim. I knew you were different from your coworkers. They are always cramping my style. You have the potential to be a Superstar."

Description

Elysium (O-01-216) is a humanoid abnormality that wears a green suede blazer, golden brown, flare-cut trousers, white satin shirt, and a necktie with a garish pattern. He sports a greasy, unkempt mullet and mutton chops. His nose is red and bulbous, and has a dimple on his chin. There are four beams of light coming out of his head, each having a different color - red, blue, purple and yellow.

Overview

Subject Classification: O-01-216
Name: Elysium
E-Box Output: 18
Damage Type: Pale (2-5)
Risk Level: HE
Qliphoth Counter: X

Mood Range:	E-Boxes:
Good	13-18
Normal	7-12
Bad	0-6

​

• This Abnormality is Capable of Employee Alteration
• This Abnormality can Benefit the Facility

Ability

Elysium's ability triggers when an employee finishes a work with him. At the end of the work, no matter the work result, the employee will get a buff from Elysium. Depending on what work order was done, the employee will receive one of four unique buffs from that category, at random. The categories are:

• Instinct:

1. Half Light - Increases the employee's Fortitude by 1 Level but decreases their Prudence by 1 Level. If the employee's Fortitude was Level 5, before getting this buff, they'll get a unique benefit - the employee will take 25% less Red Damage. If the employee's Prudence was Level 1, before getting this buff, they'll get a debuff - the employee's SP will decrease by 25%.
2. Pain Threshold - Increases Fortitude by 1 Level but decreases Temperance by 1 Level. If Fortitude was already Level 5 - increases HP by 25%. If Temperance was already Level 1 - decreases Success Speed and Work Speed by 15%.
3. Shivers - Increases Fortitude by 1 Level but decreases Justice by 1 Level. If Fortitude was already Level 5 - employee heals 10-15 HP every 10 seconds. If Justice was already Leve 1 - decreases Attack Speed and Movement Speed by 15%.
4. Physical Instrument - Increases Fortitude by 1 Level. If Fortitude was already Level 5 - employee deals 25% extra Red Damage.

• Insight:

1. Rhetoric - Increases Prudence by 1 Level but decreases Fortitude by 1 Level. If Prudence was already Level 5 - increases SP by 25%. If Fortitude was already Level 1 - decreases HP by 25%.
2. Logic - Increases Prudence by 1 Level but decreases Temperance by 1 Level. If Prudence was already Level 5 - employee will take 25% less White Damage. If Temperance was already Level 1 - decreases Success Speed and Work Speed by 15%.
3. Conceptualization - Increases Prudence by 1 Level but decreases Justice by 1 Level. If Prudence was already Level 5 - employee heals 10-15 SP every 10 seconds. If Justice was already Leve 1 - decreases Attack Speed and Movement Speed by 15%.
4. Encyclopedia - Increases Prudence by 1 Level. If Prudence was already Level 5 - employee deals 25% extra White Damage.

• Attachment:

1. Volition - Increases Temperance by 1 Level but decreases Fortitude by 1 Level. If Temperance was already Level 5 - increases Work Speed by 25%. If Fortitude was already Level 1 - decreases HP by 25%.
2. Empathy - Increases Temperance by 1 Level but decreases Prudence by 1 Level. If Temperance was already Level 5 - increases Success Speed by 25%. If Prudence was already Level 1 - decreases SP by 25%.
3. Authority - Increases Temperance by 1 Level but decreases Justice by 1 Level. If Temperance was already Level 5 - employee will take 25% less Black Damage. If Justice was already Level 1 - decreases Attack Speed and Movement Speed by 15%.
4. Inland Empire - Increases Temperance by 1. If Temperance was already Level 5 - employee deals 25% extra Black Damage.

• Repression:

1. Savoir Faire - Increases Justice by 1 Level but decreases Fortitude by 1 Level. If Justice was already Level 5 - increases Movement Speed by 25%. If Fortitude was already Level 1 - decreases HP by 25%.
2. Reaction Speed - Increases Justice by 1 Level but decreases Prudence by 1 Level. If Justice was already Level 5 - increases Attack Speed by 25%. If Prudence was already Level 1 - decreases SP by 25%.
3. Composure - Increases Justice by 1 Level but decreases Temperance by 1 Level. If Justice was already Level 5 - employee will take 25% less Pale Damage. If Temperance was already Level 1 - decreases Success Speed and Work Speed by 15%.
4. Hand/Eye Coordination - Increases Justice by 1 Level. If Justice was already Level 5 - employee deals 25% extra Pale Damage.

An employee can have multiple buffs from different categories but can't have duplicates. When an employee has all 4 buffs from a category, that work becomes 'Unavailable' to them (If an employee has all 4 Instinct buffs, that employee can't do Instinct work on Elysium, etc.). The buffs last until the end of the day.

Origin

The true origin of Elysium is currently unknown.
Where Elysium was found and how he arrived at the facility is still unknown.

Details

Forever Wandering Tourist responds to the four works equally, with the success being 'Common.'.
Like all Abnormalities, its energy output is determined by the number of PE Boxes (Positive Enkephalin boxes) at the end of the interaction.
Forever Wandering Tourist's emotional state is divided into 3 sections: Bad, Normal, and Good. Completing 0-6 E Boxes will cause it to feel Distressed, completing 7-12 will cause it to feel Normal, and 13-18 will make it's mood result Happy. Its usual waiting time after a task is around 15 seconds.

Unlockable Information/Upgrades

Basic Information (Costs: 16 PE-boxes)
Unlocks and shows the name of the Abnormality, subject classification, Risk Level (HE), portrait, Damage Type (Pale 2-5), the amount of E-boxes (18) and their emotional state.
Instinct/Insight/Attachment/Repression Work Favor (Cost: 4 PE Boxes)
Unlocks the percentage level list to the respective work.
Managerial Tips 1/2/3/4/5/6 (Cost: 4 PE-boxes):

• "Managerial Tip 1"
  • "When an employee finishes an Instinct work, they become more courages but become dumber, less social or less righteous."
• "Managerial Tip 2"
  • "When an employee finishes an Insight work, they become smarter but become cowardly, less social or less righteous."
• "Managerial Tip 3"
  • "When an employee finishes an Attachment work, they become more social but become cowardly, dumber or less righteous."
• "Managerial Tip 4"
  • "When an employee finishes a Repression work, they become more righteous but become cowardly, dumber or less social."
• "Managerial Tip 5"
  • "When our most experienced employees received a buff, they got an extra benefit."
• "Managerial Tip 6"
  • "When our least experienced employees received a buff, they got an extra debuff."

Escape Information (Cost: 16 PE-boxes):
Information if the Abnormality can escape or not. "Non Escaped Object"

Work:	Level 1 Chance:	Level 2 Chance:	Level 3 Chance:	Level 4 Chance:	Level 5 Chance:
Instinct	Common	Common	Common	Common	Common
Insight	Common	Common	Common	Common	Common
Attachment	Common	Common	Common	Common	Common
Repression	Common	Common	Common	Common	Common

Observation Levels

Level 1 (1 Section unlocked): Speed Rate +4
Level 2 (2 Sections unlocked): Success Rate +4%
Level 3 (3 Sections unlocked): Speed Rate +4
Unlocks the E.G.O. Gift 'Disco'.
Level 4 (All details unlocked): Success Rate +4%
Unlocks the E.G.O. Weapon and Suit 'Disco'.

E.G.O. Equipment

E.G.O. Gift: Disco (Hand 1)
Description: A yellow plastic bag.
Effects: After every work, produces 1 extra Energy.
Drop Chance: 4%
E.G.O. Weapon: Disco
Description: A three-shot revolving barrel pepperbox revolver.
Details: "Wielded by the most awesome detective in the world.....and a crazy old lady, that's obsessed with cops."
Special Ability: Depending on which Elysium buffs the wielder has, the weapon will deal that type of damage.

• Instinct buff - the weapon will deal 8-10 Red Damage.
• Insight buff - the weapon will deal 6-9 White Damage.
• Attachment buff - the weapon will deal 6-8 Black Damage.
• Repression buff - the weapon will deal 2-3 Pale Damage.

If the wielder has multiple Elysium buffs from different categories, the weapon will also deal that type of damage (If the employee has an Instinct and Insight buff - the weapon will deal both Red and White Damage, etc.). If the wielder has multiple Elysium buffs from the same category, it'll increase the weapon's damage by 25% for each buff from the same category (Instinct buffs increase the Red Damage, Insight buffs increase the White Damage and etc.).
If the wielder doesn't have any of Elysium's buffs, the weapon won't deal any damage.
Requirements: Agent Level 3, Fortitude Level 3, Prudence Level 3, Temperance Level 3, Justice Level 3

Grade:	Cost:	Max Amount:	Damage:	Attack Speed:	Range:
ALEPH	237	1	???	Medium	Long

E.G.O. Suit: Disco
Description: A green suede blazer, golden brown, flare-cut trousers and white satin shirt.
Details: "Looks like someone skinned this blazer off some long extinct disco-animal."
Special Ability: For each Elysium buff that the wearer has, it'll increase the respective Damage Resistance by 0.4 (Instinct buffs increase Red Resistance, Insight buffs increase White Resistance and etc.).
Requirements: Agent Level 3, Fortitude Level 3, Prudence Level 3, Temperance Level 3, Justice Level 3

Grade:	Cost:	Max Amount:
ALEPH	150	1

Resistances:
Red: Vulnerable (2.0) - White: Vulnerable (2.0) - Black: Vulnerable (2.0) - Pale: Vulnerable (2.0)

Story

Employee Kim: So, you're saying that you are a "Detective God"?
O-01-216: The one and only.
Employee Kim: You're also a Superstar Cop, an Apocalypse Cop, a Sorry Cop, a Boring Cop, a Honour Cop, an Art Cop and a Hobocop.
O-01-216: Also a great singer and dancer.
Employee Kim: And humble, I see.
O-01-216: One one my best qualities. But enough about me, tell me more about yourself Kimball.
Employee Kim: What would you like to know?
O-01-216: Your backstory. How'd end up here?
Employee Kim: Nothing out of the ordinary. Lived in the backstreets with my parents, they got killed, I worked as a fixer for a while until I got an offer to work here.
O-01-216: Nice, Kimothy. Now that we are on friendly terms, could you do me a favour?
Employee Kim: It depends.
O-01-216: Could you get me some of that Enke-
Empoyee Kim: No.
O-01-216: Oh come on, Kimmo! At least get me some beer. I'm dying of thirst over here!
Employee Kim: Hmmm.....if you keep this between us, I could sneak a few cans in.
O-01-216: Atta boy, Kim. I knew you were different from your coworkers. They are always cramping my style. You have the potential to be a Superstar.
Employee Kim: If you say so.
O-01-216: Now, before you leave, let me tell you about "THE UNSOLVABLE CASE".

Flavour Text

• "Elysium's breath reeks of alcohol."
• "A few cans of beer could be seen scattered around."
• "Elysium is retelling one of his stories to ."
• "Elysium is wobbling around."
• "Elysium was deep in his thoughts, that he didn't notice enter his containment unit."

When an employee receives Half Light:

• "Let the body take control. Threaten people."

When an employee receives Pain Threshold:

• "Shrug off the pain. They’ll have to hurt you more."

When an employee receives Shivers:

• "Raise the hair on your neck. Tune in to the city."

When an employee receives Physical Instrument:

• "Flex powerful muscles. Enjoy healthy organs."

When an employee receives Rhetoric:

• "Practice the art of persuasion. Enjoy rigorous intellectual discourse."

When an employee receives Logic:

• "Wield raw intellectual power. Deduce the world."

When an employee receives Conceptualization:

• "Understand creativity. See Art in the world."

When an employee receives Encyclopedia:

• "Call upon all your knowledge. Produce fascinating trivia."

When an employee receives Volition:

• "Hold yourself together. Keep your Morale up."

When an employee receives Empathy:

• "Understand others. Work your mirror neurons."

When an employee receives Authority:

• "Intimidate the public. Assert yourself."

When an employee receives Inland Empire:

• "Hunches and gut feelings. Dreams in waking life."

When an employee receives Savoir Faire:

• "Sneak under their noses. Stun with immense panache."

When an employee receives Reaction Speed:

• "The quickest to react. An untouchable man."

When an employee receives Composure:

• "Straighten your back. Keep your poker face."

When an employee receives Hand/Eye Coordination:

• "Ready? Aim and fire."

Trivia

• Employees that are named Harry, Kim or Lena will get Physical Instrument, Encyclopedia, Inland Empire and Hand/Eye Coordination as their first Elysium buff from each category.
• Employees that are named Dora, Jean or Raul will only get the negative parts of Elysium's buffs, won't get Physical Instrument, Encyclopedia, Inland Empire and Hand/Eye Coordination, and won't get Elysium's E.G.O. Gift. After getting all of the "buffs" from each category, Elysium's works will be 'Unavailable' to them, even though they don't have Physical Instrument, Encyclopedia, Inland Empire and Hand/Eye Coordination.
• When an employee that has an Elysium Attachment buff works on Crumbling Armor, at the end of the work, Crumbling Armor will decapitate them.
• When an employee receives an Elysium buff, his containment unit will flash in a different color depending of the buff - red for Instinct, blue for Insight, purple for Attachment and yellow for Repression.
• The player can see which Elysium buff an employee has by opening their E.G.O. Gift menu.

Table of Contents

I love a good Marksman as an SL. I’d replace a lmg for a marksman any day. Except for marine marksman that shit is useless, just pick the LMGs it’s so much better
Marksman Jobs:
Flank
• ⁠Flanking 90degrees from where the main enemy squad element is to provide ACCURATE Fire suppression. Make them scared of peaking your squad while they move up. (If you start shooting and missing all your shots pick different kit)
Scout
• ⁠Scout out the next obj while the squad builds HAB, and mortars, communicate what you see and the easiest point of access. The chink in the armor of the defense
Long range support
• ⁠If you are unlucky and have to stick hand in hand with your squad mates which is probably the worst thing to do on the list, make the best of it and use the scope so your SL doesn’t have to pull out his Bino every 20 seconds or ask to overwatch with the MG. Reasoning behind this being the worst thing to do as a marksman. The squad main element is going to get suppressed by the enemy and if you with the big scope can’t peak which takes longer for you to peak and figure out what you are looking at because of the zoom, you are useless. Always look for the flank or a separate angle.
Spotter
• ⁠Run MG and Sniper together, you spot and he shoots, especially with kits without scopes it’s very helpful
Camping
• ⁠Camping a SLs body no matter how long it takes him to give up will guarantee multiple kills and a useless squad. Without the leader the squad is dazed and confused.
This only applies to squad members who know what they are doing and communicate. Without both those factors just select rifle man because if you’re a monkey with a gun might as well provide ammo for the assets of the team. Some people say that a marksman is just a crutch for a bigger scope but it all depends on the map because I know I’m not killing someone 400m away with my acog and the other team won’t be able to either or it’ll be very hard to do that if you’re shooting them.
I understand SLs with the no marksman rules but it all depends on the person who’s playing the marksman if they have enough game experience and game sense they will help you win fights. If experienced players are asking to play a role let them it normally works in favor of the squad, forcing them into something they don’t want to do just ruins the fun, and people who don’t have fun in this game do so much worse than people who do.

My wife was born in the UK to a Nigerian father and a French mother. We've been together almost 22 years, married for 20 and have 7 kids (6 bio). We are both 40. In all that time, she has refused to talk about her mother at length and all that I know is that her mother is alive but left her, her father and her 3 sisters in the UK when my wife was about 12 (sisters were 9, 9 and 7). and returned to France. Remarried and had four additional kids that my wife attempted to reach out to last year, but was met with an unfavorable response from the eldest of her 4 half-siblings. It was like her mother had attempted to start over. Wife said her father always speculated that she left them due to pressure from her family for not marrying well enough and marrying a black foreigner from a third country. My wife and her mother have had minimal contact over the years except where they've had to, such as the death of one of my wife's sisters in 2019. One of the twins. That was the first time our children met my wife's mother. We all flew to London and stayed in her father's home to attend the funeral. We spoke briefly with her at the church, and that was that. Her mother opted out of the burial and the repass at their family home. Reactions from my wife and surviving sisters in law ranged from annoyance to total ire that she showed up.
I'm Italian American out of New York. I'm from a pretty big, happy and uncomplicated family. I'm the youngest of 8. Admittedly, my perception is probably skewed by this. My wife's father and her sisters are visiting with us. He was having a little bit of a reckoning over a glass of wine and apologized to his daughters for the grief that their mother caused them in their lives. My wife says to him in French, "That is what you get for sticking your dick in crazy." Her father immediately looked taken aback and her sisters chided her. I thought it was a wild thing to say in general because what he "got" for his relationship with their mother was 4 incredible daughters. I asked her, in Italian (so no one there would understand, our kids were upstairs), if she realized how difficult it must've been to leave his home country to give himself and his future family a better life, come to a strange country alone, deal with all the crap he had to deal with when he came to the UK, raise 4 successful young women on his own, keep them all in the private schools, raise them to be good people while being absolutely heartbroken and then bury one of his children a week after her 33rd birthday. How difficult it must be for that man to admit to his children that they deserved a better mother and that he couldn't give that to them but that based on what I've heard and know of him, they could not have asked for a better father. She responded to me in Italian, told me to stay out of it and the night just went on normally.
I spoke with her father on our back porch and he asked me what I said to her. I told him, and he said that he appreciated that. He told me more about his life in Nigeria, his family back home, deciding to come to the UK for college, how he met their mother and his experience with her family. After we went inside, wife goes "Is that your new best friend now? Are you on his side?" It's not a side issue, it's that this man is trying to make it right and I think you should hear him out. She didn't want to talk about it anymore. Even the kids are picking up on it. Everyone is headed back to the UK on Sunday. We're cooking a big dinner tomorrow and will watch movies at home. It doesn't seem like she wants to revisit it with her father.

1. The tournament is on, right now, and I have nowhere to watch. No where.
2. Once the tournament is on 80% of the broadcast is listening to old men talk about the tournament and leaderboards being displayed. The tournament is on. I don't care if they're ranked 130 in the world. Put them on. They just do their featured groups and fill time. It's garbo.
3. No one needs to see the zoomed in white ball against a blue sky. Even worse it lands on the green zoomed in and you don't even know where it landed on the green! The only thing it's doing is filling the camera man's ego. It's a great skill, but it gives me no information. Pro tracers are great. Blimp shots are great. Give me layout! Give me trajectory! Give me information!

Hate to say it, but LIV does a way better job at these issues.

So I live with my "former" best friends. I've know them since middle school, and they've been together since freshman year of highschool. Things have completely fallen apart. They have two toddlers, one has autism. These mf's fight every Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday night. I sit back in my room and from 6 to 8 they're arguing and yelling. Because he does absolutely nothing. Because he thinks he's the bread winner. When he's not, she gives him her entire 900$ SSI check. That he's supposed to spend on rent or bills, but spends it in dabs that he "needs". But they are constantly short on rent somehow. Cut back on 200$ a week on weed and they'd be good. But whatever, he apparently needs that shit lol. But after they're done fighting each other, she rages at the babies from 8-1am or later, she's back and forth from the living room to the kids room, screaming and whooping there ass. So for 7 or 8 hours its her screaming and the kids screaming from getting their ass whooped. And they're toddlers, so it's not right at all. All while she's breaking down, he stays in the room like he doesn't hear his woman having a mental break down, and his babies being beaten. So over the years it became a joke between the friend group at work, and outside of work that I turned into their unofficial third in their relationship. Because I had to step up and help her. I started changing diapers, cooking for her and the kids, getting up in the middle of the night so she didn't have to. Cleaning the kids room and doing their laundry so she could rest, taking my time off at work to take her and the kids to appointments, or shopping. This guy literally does nothing, then has the nerve to belittle and treat my friend like garbage. He's hit her multiple times and gone to jail recently. Her stupid ass save him from 10 years in prison. Everyone we know calls him her a single mother of two toddlers and a 32 year old man. He's so pathetic and I hate that I called him my best friend. Hes had her locked in the house their entire relationship, he didn't want her working, she hasn't had a job, and she's never driven a car before. She kind of ruined her life for an abusive deadbeat. I hate it, and I want to leave. But I don't want to leave her and the kids. I also hate that I've basically entered a relationship with someone, but I get no benefits of a relationship. Everyone thinks we're the ones in a relationship. Me and her do everything together. Things her man should be doing, things his family should be enjoying with him. I never wanted kids. But I stepped into this wanting to help. Now I hate that I need to leave. This has been the most stressful 5 years of my life.
I was told that being roommates with friends will end the friendship. I guess it's true.

An old Foe
Astarte observed the assassin, who matched the description Alice had given her of Rachel’s attacker to a T. That, and their brief clash told Astarte that she was heavily augmented with cybernetics. So heavily that it left the question of whether there was any human left in her.
Astarte wasn’t one to shy away from artificial augmentations. A good forty percent of her body mass had been replaced or enhanced with the fruits of the Toy man’s research. But ripping off entire limbs just to replace them with reinforced metal prosthetics didn’t sit right with her. It was why she had settled for the Toy mans unique brand of augmentation.
There was also the assassin’s supposed connection to Astarte’s past to consider. She had called her Daisey, and that above everything else unsettled her.
She had few friends who had known her as Daisey, and none of them still called her that. Kar had only known Daisey for a few months before she had become Astarte, so he adapted easily to the new name. Lucile, her biological mother, had just shrugged and said ‘Daisey’ was a dumb name anyway. Which had stung a bit, even if she agreed.
Her real mother, Saint Mary, the woman who had actually raised her had just smiled sadly and asked if she could call her Aster for short. Astarte had agreed, not knowing that Asteraceae was another word for Daisey. It was her mom’s subtle way of saying she would always be the same little Daisey to her.
Then there was Alwen, who had teased the name out of her and then promptly ignored it. She…she wasn’t sure how she felt about that.
It was a short list of friends who knew her by her original name, and the list of enemies was even shorter. Most, if not all, having died during the battle of Greyland when Astarte led her ship into battle against her old crew.
The assassin could be using info she had dug up second hand, but something about the way she said the name suggested otherwise. That, and the fact that Daisey had never had a birth certificate or any other official documents with her name on them.
Which left with absolutely no idea who this assassin was.
“Sorry you’ve got the wrong person, no Daisey’s here” Astarte said blandly, like the assassin had dialed the wrong number. Then turned her back on the assassin and began to stride away, like someone hadn’t just tried to take her head off.
Astarte got a good ten or twenty meters before the assassin got over the shock at being so blatantly ignored. The sound of rushing, heavy, footsteps soon grew uncomfortably close. Astarte had spotted a reflective bit of glass and had been waiting for the moment the assassin struck a second time. Going for her head once again, and once again completely overextending.
Astarte could have taken this chance to take the assassins arm and break it at the elbow. But something told Astarte that it wouldn’t be as effective as it would normally be. And besides, she also liked going for peoples heads. In one smooth motion she ducked below the assassin’s stab, sidestepped the slash from her other arm, and swung up with Tenken. She misjudged the assassin’s position from the reflection and was aiming a little higher than she had wanted, but a bisecting face slash was just as good as any decapitating chop.
Or, it should have been.
Her sword had a clear shot through the assassin’s guard and was pushed forward with all her not inconsiderable strength. Tenken’s edge cut straight into the assassin’s green bug mask and should have bit in the soft tissue of their flesh with ease. Instead the blade’s edge was stopped, and the assassin was thrown back with the brute kinetic force of the attack.
Astarte stared at the still breathing assassin with shock before glancing down at her blade. There, along the edge that had connected with her attacker, was a noticeable blunted section. Her eyes widened at the sight.
The literal edge of the blade folded back along its thinnest section. Astarte felt her blood boil and glowered at the assassin rising to her feet. “You thick headed bitch, do you know how many hours this will take to fix?” she spat with all the bile she could summon.
She took care of her blade. She had commissioned the most technologically superior blade money could buy and had taken its maintenance very seriously. Hours of sharpening and polishing set aside from her busy schedule. Sweaty sparing sessions in the ship’s gym to keep her skills sharp and worthy of such a fine blade. She even kept a cloth on her at all times to wipe the blood off, even though the metal used in its smithing literally couldn’t rust!
And this bitch just blunted a whole five inches of its blade.
Well better blunted than chipped.
No, wait, there was a chip!
The assassin had the gall to laugh. “I’m here to kill you, and your worried about your stupid sword? You’ve spent too much time with Mizuno.” The assassin spat.
Now that was an old name.
Mizuno-sensei had been a high-ranking member of Greyson’s crew aboard the Black Saint, Astarte’s first ship. He had taken pity on the hafu whore’s daughter from New Mombasa who knew nothing about her cultural heritage and had decided to mentor her. He had been one of the few people aboard the Black Saint who was kind and caring. He had taught her what he could of Japanese culture and had started training her in the ways of the sword and Bushido, though admittedly the lessons in bushido never fully took hold.
He had seen potential in her and had nurtured it.
And in return, when he refused to leave his ‘lord’ Greyson, she killed him.
The only thing that soothed that particular wound in her psyche was that she had the luxury of facing her mentor in one-on-one combat. It was what he had wanted.
The fact that this assassin knew that name meant she had ties with Astarte’s days with the Terran pirates. But that still left a huge question mark over who she was.
“Still don’t remember me?” the assassin growled. “I thought you might be pretending, but you really don’t recognize me.” The assassin said in disbelief.
“How could I recognize anyone behind a mask? The whole point of a mask is to hide your identity.” Astarte snarked. Whoever this woman was, she was prone to angry outbursts and reckless attacks. Better to keep her pissed off and reckless than calm and collected.
The assassin huffed a laugh and lifted a hand to the mask with a huge gash in it. she pulled it off her face and it came off with a hiss. Underneath Astarte saw the dark skin and slim rounded features of a shaved African women. And as someone born and raised in New Mombasa she easily saw the ethnic similarities between this woman and her own Kenyan mother.
But there were discrepancies in her face that triggered something primal in Astarte’s mind. Something that said her face was wrong. Human-like, but not fully human. Like a creepy too real android, or some oddly rendered 3d rendering of a human.
Skin that was just a little too shiny, and not expressive enough. Eyes just a little too wide with a higher reflective quality. And the dark brown coloring of her eye was too uniform. Like a single band of brown instead of the typical variations found in human eyes.
All that, along with the huge dent in her cheek from where her blade had impacted, told Astarte that nothing about this woman’s face was flesh and blood.
She allowed her one surprised blink before Astarte shifted her weight into a more relaxed stance. “So are you a cyborg or an android?”
Body modding was something that had emerged on Earth after first contact. Most however didn’t go full cyborg. Most people were very attached to their flesh and blood limbs, and didn’t want to get amputated for some cold metal replacement. Most people with metal prosthetics were victims of industrial accidents, or like her own men had lost them in combat. Some adapted well to the prosthetic, others couldn’t cope with the loss of the limbs and spent years saving up for a new limb to be cloned.
Only a few chose to go full cyborg. Those like the Toy man who had suffered greatly and then fell in love with their cold replacements.
The assassins eyes squinted in confusion, moving just a little to fast to be natural. Her features just shifting into new expressions with little in between. Which sent a chill down Aster’s spin from the creepiness of it.
“You still don’t recognize me? Really?” the assassin asked in disbelief. As if Astarte was failing to follow some sort of script she had planned for this meeting.
Aster shrugged “Nope, you sure they made your new face look like your old one?”
The assassin glowered, “you steal the love of my life, leave me a shredded bloody mess to rot in a Union prison, and you don’t even remember me? You ruined my life and you can’t be bothered to remember me?”
Again Aster shrugged “I ruin a lot of lives, you’ll have to be more specific.”
The assassin let out a frustrated growl, one that did trigger an old memory.
Aster frowned as she tried to recall where she had heard that growl before. She remembered a faint whiff of spoiled beer and piss, dim lights, and a stab to the back. The scar on her shoulder tingled at the memory. She had been young, sixteen in fact. She had been with Greyson for over a year and had finally started to prove herself in raids. She wasn’t considered cannon fodder anymore and had earned the right to claim some of the bounty to start buying better gear. It was the new Kevlar vest under the Haori from Mizuno-sensei that had saved her life that day.
Greyson had started to take an interest in her rise, and his second in command had taken offense at that.
They had called her the butcher because when she fought she left behind scenes from a slaughterhouse. She reveled in tearing apart weak xenos, literally. She made a game out of it, slowly ripping them like they were tissue paper. Limb by limb.
Seeing it had changed a lot of Astarte’s brash and more xenophobic opinions she had developed as a dipshit street kid.
The butcher would doll out discipline to the crew with cold hard brutality. She had once gotten pissed at one of the cannon fodder kids Greyson hired and began beating them until his face was unrecognizable and he was permanently incapable of walking without severe medical intervention. Daisey had then been ordered to dump the bloody mess of a boy on a station and leave him for the xeno rats. She had instead taken him to a hospital, paid for his treatment, and earned her own beating for not just dumping him in a gutter. Daisey had only been spared the worst because she kept trying to fight back and Mizuno had respected that.
He said it was brave to stand up and fight against hopeless odds. Daisey had just been trying to spite the women by actually fighting back.
That woman always got away with her violent behavior because she was warming Greyson’s bed, and was by all accounts madly in love with him. Emphasis on madly. Woman worshiped him like a god and was insanely jealous and insecure. It wasn’t Byron’s fault that he slept around, it was all the conniving harlots trying to steal him away from her. Or something like that.
And when the brat who had disobeyed her orders, fought back instead of cower, and had been training diligently under Mizuno-sensei’s, drew Grayson’s wandering eye. Well, it seemed only right to kill the girl. Only for Daisey to be the better fighter.
That butcher had never fought someone as strong as she was. She only knew how to bully the weak. And Daisey had learned from the best swordsman in the whole Terran pirate faction. That butcher had growled in frustration as Daisey showed her up and out maneuvered her. Side stepping all her reckless strikes. Just like this assassin who had slaughtered an entire office and tried to attack Astarte in the same sort of sneak attack.
“Zera?” Astarte asked out loud.
The woman, Zera, scowled. “That’s right, finally remembered me.”
“Vaguely. Truth be told I haven’t thought of you in years. How’d you even survive, I left you in a puddle of your own blood missing an arm? I’d be impressed if you weren’t such a crazy bitch.”
She drew in a sharp breath and let it out through her teeth.
She looked like she was about to say something, but Astarte cut her off and waved her hand. “Actually, I don’t care. I killed you once, and I’ll do it again.”
Zera the butcher laughed. “I’m not the same woman I was before.” She stood up straighter and let the big cloak fall off her shoulders. Revealing a body with no visible flesh whatsoever. She didn’t even wear anything under that cloak since there was nothing to hide or be ashamed of. Just the shiny chrome-like surface of a body that was all machine. The only part of her body still recognizably human was her face, and that ended at her neck. “I’ve stepped beyond human limitations, and into a realm you can’t match.”
Astarte snorted. “No, you replaced the malleable limits of deathworlder anatomy for the stagnant hard barrier of titanium.”
“The flesh is weak.” Zera snarled.
“No,” Aster shot back. “Just your convictions. Besides, you’re not the only one to indulge in transhumanism. And I’ll admit I’m a little curious to see whose is superior.”
She settled into a guarded combat stance and the vision in her eye flicked into infrared and then into ultraviolet, scanning her opponent for any weak points. But just as her appearance suggested there was no flesh left in her. The rest was solid metal, wires, and artificial blood.
Astarte looked into full cybernetic augmentation before, but found the mechanical limitations… limiting. She had instead decided to lean into the superiority of Deathworld biology and work with what she had. Much to the Toy man’s delight.
Her bones were reinforced with a crystalline lattice that took advantage of the already sturdy nature of collogen bones and enhanced their structural abilities to allow for stronger muscles. The crystalline lattice acting like the steel I-beams in skyscrapers, taking and redistributing the force of an impact or pressure. It wasn’t perfect, nor as strong as outright metal bones would have been, but by working within the natural healing process of the human body her bones were mostly capable of healing back stronger than before. So long as there weren’t too many fractures.
With the reinforced skeleton the Toy man had been capable of working wonders with the human musculature to better exert force. Most people only ever used a fraction of their strength to begin with, only fully utilizing their muscles in extreme circumstances and often breaking their own bones and ligaments in the process. Simply unlocking the full strength of human muscles would been a miracle in its own right. But such petty accomplishments were beneath the Toy mans considerable skill. He had instead crafted advanced biomechanical ligaments so advanced it wasn’t hard to imagine them arising naturally on a more intense world than Earth.
Those two things, along a hundred other smaller alterations to improve the flow of oxygen and nutrients within her blood gave a her significant boost to the speed, strength, and endurance that made her a menace in a melee. But that was when facing ordinary people and unenhanced deathworlders. She had never had the chance to test herself against a full on cyborg assassin. She wondered how well the Toy mans more biologically focused enhancements compared to hydraulics and titanium.
They stood there staring at each other for a long moment, each sizing the other up. Zera’s glass eyes had flicked to Astarte’s red eye and a brief look of confusion flashed across her expression. Then her eyes flicked across Astarte’s armor, looking for good gaps in its coverage to strike at. Astarte in turn tried to judge whether any of Zera’s limbs could slide open to reveal a nasty surprise. She saw a few places to be concerned of.
Time stretched on, and soon it was just a silent battle of wills to see who would strike first. Each scanning the other for an opening, while also on guard for any fake openings. Astarte had to give some credit to Zera, her patience to stand there and look for openings already hinted at the fact that she had received some much needed combat training and discipline. Something she was utterly lacking in their last fight.
But time was on Aster’s side, and Zera knew this.
A slight lurch forward turned into a powerful standing leap that ate up the meters in between her and Astarte. Astarte heard a hard crack as some sort of mechanism in Zera’s legs sent launched her forward. Maybe some sort of tension spring that was let loose, or maybe something else. She didn’t have a spare moment to glance at the cyborg assassin’s legs as the woman was in her face and cutting down towards her head.
The battle had begun. And the struggle between enhanced flesh and metal cybernetics was fought.
Previous/Patreon/Next

I cannot absorb energy with the primary fire of the octopus gun versus these bosses no matter how close I am. I cannot tell if it is a bug or if the weapon is just meant to have extremely short range, similar to the fire dragon weapon which has trouble reaching these bosses too.

Hey All,
I'm new here (this sub was suggested to me by someone over at scifiwriting) and pretty new to Reddit in general, so apologies if I'm doing this wrong, and thanks for your patience. I've written a sci-fi novel and have been shopping it around with pretty limited luck — I just can't seem to get past the query stage. Those that have actually read the manuscript all seem to really enjoy it, so I think maybe I'm hosing up the query itself. Hence, why I'm here.
This is actually the 3rd or 4th version of the query (I did a workshop at a writer's conference not too long ago), but I haven't shared it with anyone yet, so y'all are my test audience (and I appreciate it very much). FWIW, I'm a published author but only short stories in a couple of mags and I have no representation of which to speak.
----
Dear [READER],
Foxhound, a steadfast mercenary transporting a prisoner from the edge of the solar system back to Earth, is compelled to answer an SOS from a cultist colony ship orbiting a remote mining asteroid. She’s informed that eviscerated bodies, the very marrow ripped from their bones, have been found aboard the city-sized vessel and that the cultists already have the suspected serial killer in custody. But when she boards the colossal ship, she discovers that the suspect in question is actually a young orphan girl—one that Foxhound finds disturbingly familiar.
But before she can piece together who the girl is, how their lives intertwine, and what—or likelier who—orchestrated their implausible rendezvous, a group of violent prisoners aboard Foxhound’s own starship breaks free. And the once-peaceful cultists have taken up arms in response. Amid the chaos, Foxhound must team up with her mechanized AI assistant and two of the cult’s wayward members to stop the barbaric escapees, elude the grasp of the cult’s enigmatic, radicalized leader, and protect and extract the mysterious, potentially dangerous girl.
THE MARROWER (70,000 words) is a character-driven science-fiction action-thriller intended to be inclusive, accessible, and diverse, meeting the requirements of both the Bechdel and Mako Mori tests. The book will appeal to lovers of sci-fi in the tradition of James S.A. Corey (The Expanse), Pierce Brown (Red Rising), Battlestar Galactica, Bungie’s Destiny video game series, and Star Wars (especially The Mandalorian).
[REDACTED BIO, 80 WORDS]
I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you for your time and attention.
----
FIRST ~300 WORDS
Prologue
Location: Unknown
Survive.
Move.
Survive.
Observe. Examine. Analyze. Extrapolate.
React. Retreat.
Survive.
Dodge. Guard. Protect.
Faster.
Advance. Attack. Annihilate.
Survive.
Slash. Maim. Rip. Crack. Devour.
Digest.
Satisfy. Nourish. Sustain.
Evacuate. Escape.
Survive.
♁
“Where the hell is everybody?” Corporal Vasquez, a senior officer of Deadwood Mining Corporation Security, said out loud to no one in particular.
In his four years working for DMC-Sec’s boots-on-the-ground District Management Team, he had never seen a security substation so empty. Even for Deadwood—one of the smallest backwater mining asteroids, floating around the Kuiper Belt so far beyond the reach of the sun’s rays—it seemed unusual, concerning even. There wasn’t even an officer stationed at the reception desk.
“How should I know?” replied his captive, a gaunt, worse-for-wear man known around the station only as “Fink.”
“Wasn’t talking to you.” Vasquez shoved Fink, sending the bald, slender man shoulder-first into one of the security substation walls.
“Hey, watch it, man,” the prisoner whined, righting himself. He shook his wrists, jingling the cumbersome cuffs that kept his arms secured behind his back. “Kind of at a disadvantage here.”
In the short time they had been together, Vasquez had already begun to understand why some of his fellow officers chose to use violence as a means of keeping the rabble around the station in check. It wasn’t his style. In fact, it was a point of pride to Vasquez that he never bent the rules when it came to enforcing what limited laws there were on Deadwood, but Fink had pushed him to his limits through sheer annoyance and indignation.
Vasquez had picked up Fink while undercover on a human trafficking sting. The skeletal man hadn’t been the target, and the corporal had blown his cover by bringing him in, but Vasquez simply couldn’t ignore the flagrance with which Fink had approached him. Worse, Fink was offering up children for sale. The conversation between them had lasted mere minutes before Fink was in cuffs and Vasquez was marching him back to the security substation for processing.

This mini series of sort is inspired by a few sources, most notably the "Alien invasion" things made by a few Pivot Animators as well as Warhammer 40K in some way that will become apparent later.

Date: April 6, 2408 POV: Ambassador Ra-Kakon of the 6th Cigadreth Dynasty [Description of the Cigadreth: Reptilian, 3.11 ft tall average, 20~ kg average, bright yellow to dark red colored scales, 2 side facing eyes, bipedal with long tail for movement support and balance] Location: Andromeda Galaxy

10 years ago, we have started to recieve some weird transmissions and signals from the Western fringe of the galaxy. A Kolshif colony, which was the closest to the origin of the signals was ordered to keep listening to them and report on their findings. The signals was so garbled that it was almost as if it was written by a Cigadreth hatchling. [Description of the Kolshif: Insectoid, 4.10 ft average, 40~kg average, yellow to red head carapace, purple to velvet thorax and mid carapace, 4 eyes(2 side facing, 2 front facing), quadrupedal(4 legs and 4 arms)]
We brought this up with the Graddath Council, a galactic organization that consists of 20 space faring species, and after much deliberation and squabbling, we ordered the colony to keep on listening but it took us a few weeks to realize that, 'maybe a sub-par reciever of a colony world is not the best equipment to use in this endeavor.' and so we decided to start construction of a listening post. The station itself was not that big, only being about 100 x 200 x 100 meters big but it will do the job once it was finished which took about 3 years due to unexpected delays and random budget cuts by sector officials.
When the station was done and activated, the first signal we recieved shocked us.

"???: Andromeda Expeditionary Force, status update.
"AEF: Doing good Sol, colony reached 1 billion inhabitants a few weeks ago. Grandbattlefleet Acasta is detecting more signs of extraterrestrial life that isn't just plants, wildlife and flat-out hostile.
"Sol: Avoid initiating First Contact, let them come to us first. Last time we did that it plunged the Milky Way into war.
"AEF: We observed them making a listening post because of us flinging transmissions to God knows where. We'll report on any activity from these natives.
"Sol: Acknowledged. Make hell if they fire first. End conversation."

They knew! They knew all along! Its a good thing that the whole galaxy was listening in on the situation, its hard to cover up the sudden construction of a station near a colony world of 14 billion, let alone the random signals they were flinging into the void. Now we can't just stand there and do nothing.
An emergency meeting was called into session with all representatives of the council.
"Due to sudden events and findings from LP-4," High-Speaker Kohdrin of the Sal'reth Empire began "What is our course of action? Should we send them a greetings or should we leave them be?" [Description of the Sal'reth: Avian, 3.9 ft tall average, 30~ kg average, bright blue to dark green colored feathers(royal purple for nobles), 2 side facing eyes, long beak with colors ranging from charcoal black to metallic gold, bipedal]
There was a long silence with only a few murmurs between allies and the occasional exchange of looks between representatives. Even the Kolshif guards themselves look angsty by their nervous swaying and movements.
"What shall we do fellow representatives?" Kohdrin said suddenly, quickly stopping the murmuring in the chamber "Shall we send a signal of greetings?"
"I say we shall, High-Speaker." Ambassador Nihje of the Shai Republic "After all, they already know that we exist and it seems like they have been waiting for some time now." [Description of the Shai: Mammalian-Feline, 3.8 ft tall average, 50~ kg average, yellow to red orange short fur with with black or red rings, 2 front facing eyes, quadrupedal/bipedal, long tail for balance]
"Any objections?"
The chamber was silent.
"No words from the Fal'riths? Not looking for a squabble Suler?"
"I uh... N-no High-Speaker." Fal'rith Representative Suler replied "For all we know, the aliens are probably listening in on us right now. No need for a petty squabble that will lead to nowhere!" [Description of the Fal'rith: Aquatic based species, 6 tentacles, colors vary from family to family, though nobles are always a tint of yellow, 4 eyes(positioning doesnt matter because the author is one tired bastard)]
This kind of surprised me. You see, Suler was always that kind of petty bastard who likes himself a good screaming match. Almost everything brought up in the chamber is somehwat influenced by him. I leaned my head onto my right arm as I look at my pad to see if there were any updates to the station, but like the old days in school, the High-Speaker took notice like my history teacher.
"Anything you want to say Ra?"
"No Kohdrin, just seeing if there were any updates on LP-4."
Almost as if on cue, all of our pads lit up in unison. It was a message from LP-4.
"Khodrin, may I read it aloud?" asked Ambassador Kal'Re of the 2nd Rakatoth Republic. [Description of the Rakatoth: Rodent, 2.10 ft tall average, 60~ kg average, dark brown to orange fur, 2 front positioned eyes, short snout, quadrupedal]
"Go on," replied the High-Speaker "Read it louder for the others at the back."
"Very well," he replied. He stood up on his two hind legs and read the message for all of us to hear.
"Dear representatives of the council, we apologize for interrupting your meeting for there is some urgent news. The aliens have been detected slowly moving towards us, almost as if like they are getting ready to do a warp directly into the capitol system.
"We beg of you for the lords on high for speedy decision making in order to defuse the situation and seek for a more peacful route in this quagmire of a galaxy. Also its a contingent of 2 humongous ships and they look like they are itching to pull the trigger."
When the last word was said, Kal'Re was still standing to see the reactions of everyone present, there was a few seconds of silence as we are digesting the information fed to us.
The short few seconds felt like an eternity and once that was over, everyone in the chamber started talking erratically.
"What do they mean by 'humongous'?" Nihje said confused at the situation.
Normally, the High-Speaker would bang on the gavel for silence in the chamber, but the situation was so surreal that she watched in stunned silence seemingly forgetting her position in the council. After a while and the talking starting to get louder, Khodrin remembered where she was and squawked "Silence!"
"My fellow Ambassadors!" I spoke aloud, "Make your decision for this situation is starting to go sideways!"
"Ra is right!" said Ambassador Lilia of Curtel Prime from inside her shell, "Leaving them alone is soon going to be an impossibility because they are slowly moving towards us!" [Description of the Curtels: Mollusk, 1 ft tall average, 30~kg average, dark green to light yellow shell, 2 side facing "eyes" on a small "head" from within the shell)
"Its better now than later!" Nihje chimed in "Later is looking sketchy!"
"All in favor of sending a message of peace?" Suler said, surprisingly.
The whole room errupted in confirmation and with a few button presses from Khodrin the message was sent.
I hope it makes it to them before it they make it to us. I thought to myself, Hopefully we continue the 100 cycles of no needless bloodshed.
We recieved a message from the Cigadreth colony world Za-Kai 2 about how "2 oddly shaped large cargo haulers failed to respond to the hails". We recieved a follow up message that the 2 ships stopped beyond the orbit of the Gas Giant designated 'Ra-998b'. Scans to reveal more about the ships were unsuccessful due to some "weird electronic interferences".
Everyone let out one shaky sigh of relief, though the ships stopped, they were still in council territory. We recieved another message from the colony stating:

"Forwarded from one SVS-Living Litany:
"Dear representatives of the Graddath Council, we are humanity. This is Rear-Admiral Johnathan Beckett. We would formally like to invite all of you aboard the SVS-Sol's Might for a diplomatic meeting and proper introduction of all the species in your care.
"Terra Lives On."

The High-Speaker opened her beak once more to speak but before anything came out a violent shaking rocked the station. This kind of shake was no meteor strike or some ambassador's transport bumping into the station, this was like-
"A SHIP HAS WARPED IN CLOSE PROXIMITY WITH THE STATION!" Shouted a Kolshif guard on the PA system.
Rude.
I helped Nihje get up on her feet and as I was dusting her off, a few of the council started murmuring profanities at the event that happened. We heard a scream from a Rakatoth staff member down the hall, we saw her running by the doorway and before a brave Kolshif can investigate, 5 aliens came into view.
They looked like they were bipeds, clad in grey armor with grey helmets and blue visors as well as pouldrons varying from white with blue trim to purple with blue trim. Their chest piece displays a blue and green marble(which I assume is their cradle world) surrounded by a blue ring and a golden laurel. Each step they take into the council chamber is taken with pride and confidence.
One of them stands out from the others. It has a purple pouldron and its main armor is like that of the ontourage but it wears a sache colored with blue, red and white with a roundel leading to the shoulder. It does not carry any visible weapon. The ontourage carry weapons of unknown class.
The Kolshifs were aiming their weapons at them yet the aliens look like they don't care at all. The High-Speaker ordered them to stand down but they never took their hands off their pulse rifles.
The aliens stood in front of doorway. The one with the sache turned its head slowly from one end of the chamber to the other, and once it was done it spoke. We heard its real voice, loud, almost like a roar though muffled by its helmet. Then the translator cracked to life.
"My name is Ambassador Wilhelm of the Terran United Federation. 11 years ago, we sent a colony fleet to this galaxy for better pastures for our own galaxy is growing smaller for our explorers and more hostile to its inhabitants. We only ever encountered another extraterrestrial race though when we approached them first, it sent our galaxy spiraling into a hundred year long war that saw said race be wiped from the universe." It spoke in Graddath Standard.
Right, don't tick them off. I thought to myself.
"They used to call themselves Ostrens, and when we first saw them we were happy and relieved to know that we were not alone in this universe. That joy and excitement was quickly snuffed out when they attacked one of our colonies. We are once again happy to know that there are more intelligent life in the nearest galaxy over, but due to lingering xenophobia, we never made the first move until one Rear-Admiral Beckett decided to push his luck by moving both of his large ships closer."
Ah, that's nice. Big boys with big toys. Better make sure this Beckett doesnt touch our things.
"We would like to apologize for the inconvenience that those ships may impose on that colony, but we would also like to know if all of you would join us aboard the TIES-Endurance."
We all looked at each other to see who would make the first move. It was then I felt the Kolshif Ambassador, Indrex, slowly push me towards the aliens. I cursed under my breath and as I slowly walked towards them, it felt like it was warmer. When I closed the gap, Ambassador Wilhelm suddenly extended his hand towards me, realizing what he did, he quickly put it back to his side.
"Sorry," he spoke softly, almost like a whisper "force of habit, never met another culture that didn't take the gesture as a sign of peace and greeting."
Damn, I should've took his hand, now I kind of feel bad.
One by one the other ambassadors took up the invitation, a Rakatoth had to carry Lilia because of the fact she had no limbs for movement. Wilhelm almost seemed happy and relieved when the last of us finally joined in.
"Very well then," Wilhelm said startling a few of us "follow Sargeant Macaraig over there. Macaraig, show us the way."
Macaraig nodded and lead the way, the station guards were trying to stop them but seeing as we were willingly following them they decided to stay. We all shared nervous glances with one another, its not everyday we get to encounter intelligent life, let alone an advanced one at that. The silence in the hall where we walked was almost deafening, only broken by the clanking of the alien soldiers' armor and sabatons.
It was then we saw their ship on the window. It was huge, probabaly bigger than the station itself. Its guns were bristling with energy and they made no attempt to hide the cannons. A wierd bulb was mounted at its bottom, it didnt look like it served a purpose. An alien saw my confusion and shook its head.
What? Why? It doesnt look like a weapon. I thought to myself, Better ask questions later.
We arrived to a docking airlock which was seemingly blasted open. Wilhelm saw what we were looking at and assured us that "some idiot got lazy and used an explosive instead of opening it manually." I gulped nervously, Nihje was suspicious at their intentions judging by her nervous tail swaying, Khodrin was a little worried with a few of the feathers on her back seemingly ruffled, and Suler was growing anxious.
When we took a look inside the airlock, we saw an alien with a black mask next to a weird trapezoid shaped object with a blue light flickering on top of it. The alien seemed to be doing something judging by the fact that both its hands are sticking into an opening. This alien was not wearing any armor and instead some thick, heavy fabric covered in oils of some sort. Wilhelm coughed which made the oily alien flinch.
"Is it done lieutenant?" Wilhelm said calmly.
"Just a few more minutes," the alien replied "some bits of shrapnel are jammed in the inner workings. Nanites are helping me so it should work as it is intended to."
Nanites? How advanced is this race we are facing?
The lieutenant closed the opening on the trapezoid object. He took a look at all of us. I'll admit, it was a little uncomfortable. He then took a look at the object and let out a groan. He kicked said object and the light on it turned green.
Almost in an instant, I saw the alien guards dissappear with a green flash, and then Wilhelm, then us. I was the last to go but before then I tried to run, with my instincts taking over.
I felt myself slamming on a cold metal floor.
LP-4: Listening Post - 4 SVS: Sol's Venerable Ship TIES: Terra's Indefatigable Escort Ship [Note from the Author: First time poster here, some gaps may have formed whilst writing this, so ask in the comments for clarification. Will probably attach an illustration to each story of this mini series when I see it fit and the situation calls for it or when I feel like it lol.]

PSVR2 launch day was only 100 days ago today! There seems to be a fair amount of anxiety on this sub about the future of the platform, but I think it’s off to a pretty strong start. Here are some reasons I’m feeling good about PSVR2:

• The hardware is an awesome step up from VR1. The tracking and ease of set up alone make PSVR2 so much more comfortable and inviting to use than VR1. On top of that, there’s the improved resolution and FOV and the fact that the platform is designed to make full use of the PS5’s power.
  
• The library is solid. Gran Turismo 7 and Resident Evil Village are undisputed AAA gems that were available at launch with PSVR2. And for those of us who already had the flat versions, they were free. Opinions on No Man’s Sky and Horizon: Call of the Mountain seem more mixed, but personally I adore NMS and Horizon has its champions as well. Beyond the AAA titles, VR2 launched with a ton of fun games that were previously available on other platforms but arguably shine brightest on PSVR2, like Synth Riders, Pistol Whip, Moss 1&2, Pavlov, The Light Brigade, Ragnarock, Tetris Effect, Thumper, and Rez! On top of that, the following weeks brought Saints & Sinners, Walkabout Golf, Red Matter 2, and Nock, which each had their day in the sun as favorites on this sub.
  
• More games to come! Last week’s showcase brought confirmation that we are getting the full campaign for early GOTY contender Resident Evil 4 Remake. We also got another peek at Synapse, which looks promising. And this week we learned that we’ll be getting the VR version of Bulletstorm, which is gonna be really cool! We all want to see more heavy-hitters announced like Astro-Bot (which I think we’ll get) or Half-Life Alyx (less likely), and I certainly hope we get some more, but in my experience the world of VR is filled with cool surprises. You never know which game is going to become your new favorite, and there are a lot of titles announced for PSVR2.
  
• It’s selling. Sony recently confirmed that PSVR2 had exceeded PSVR’s sales in the months after each headset’s launch. This is especially impressive given that the PS4 had a bigger install base at the time of the PSVR launch and also considering that PSVR came out much closer to the holidays. And to top it off, VR2 exceeded VR1’s numbers without a retail launch in the biggest market (the US). Judging by the activity on this sub, sales got another boost once VR2 got a retail release in the US on May 12. Before that, all sales in the US were through PS Direct!
  
• The high-end VR market is expanding. With Quest 3 announced and Apple VR coming, it’s an exciting time for VR. Hopefully the new headsets will bring more sophisticated games that will make good use of PSVR2’s capabilities when they’re brought to the platform.
  

Anyway, those are my thoughts on how things stand 100 days after launch. I have every expectation that VR2 will continue to grow and bring us cool new experiences. I’ll be really interested to see what happens during the holidays if Sony announces one or two must-haves, we get a Black Friday deal, and there’s a burst of new interest in VR with Apple’s headset arriving.
How’s everyone else feeling?

my cursor appears in mode select, but not in game. I have tried - restarting game - new save - full reinstall of no mans sky - waiting for the next update (todays mac update). NONE of these have done anything, the strange part is that the cursor appears in virtual reality. no, this is not an issue with my mouse or any other external source. this is a no mans sky only problem. if you have ANY hypothesis as to a fix or even why this happened please tell me.

I got a job as a Project Engineer for a project management company. Long story short got laid off as a Tile guy (union) had this opportunity pop up and took it instead of going to another shop.
I start getting trained under another project engineer learning what they do and seems easy enough.
Now I get my own job to work on and I'm out here by myself no superintendent, that responsibility fell on me. The PM has been almost entirely hands off. Other than making calls and sending emails when people aren't responding to me and giving me some guidance when I'm completely lost on something.
This is all making me think back to my interview now. They mentioned how I'm in the perfect age range because the company is missing people in my age group to take over as the older people retire, they said they love that I have a background in the trades because they have issues getting project engineers to stay because they don't want to work in the field, let alone the office (lots of wfh requests), Then they very specifically pointed out as a Project Engineer I also can move up to superintendent not just project manager.
So now I feel like I got tossed into sink or swim situation to test what I'm capable of. I think they are thinking way further ahead than me, I just wanted to focus on being a good project engineer first.
Thankfully I have a 6 month review that will happen shortly after this job and this company has been very generous in raises for Project engineers and PM's. So guess just have to fake it till I make it hope the job goes smooth and get a decent raise for it.
Also, the VP of Buildings construction had me handle the entire bidding process for subs on another project. He just gave me a list of contacts, unfinished drawings and said to get bids.
Makes me want to go back to mindlessly grouting walls and floors sometimes lol.

For the sake of this post and anonymity, I won’t be naming him nor myself. I, F(20) am thinking of leaving my boyfriend M (26).
To cut a long story short— today is our 2 year anniversary. The night before we had made plans to go out and enjoy our time together (nothing in particular and nothing special) and we had agreed that I would drive to pick him up at 8am. Well…this morning I woke up, got dressed, put makeup on for the first time in forever, and drove all the way to his house. On the ride there I had a feeling that he was still asleep. There I started calling his phone. I managed to call him 19 times and his father to attempt to wake him up. After reaching his dad i politely asked him to wake up my boyfriend. Now i’m agitated. Why would you tell me to get you at 8am if you’re no even considering waking up? Regardless that’s not the point, he comes into my car and I ask where we’re going today to celebrate. He immediately tells me that he has no money. This was what ruined my entire mood. BEFORE YOU JUDGE ME KEEP READING.
Since last year, he has been having countless financial troubles. Over that time I have let him borrow more than $2,000 that I was promised to be paid back. I told him not to worry and just get it to me soon (fast forward i never got that back). Additionally, on any occasion, birthday, or just because, I would gift him. It could be something small like a couple of t-shirts that he likes or food, and numerous expensive gifts such as yeezys and beats headphones just because, etc, etc…
Do you see where i’m going with this?
For the past year, any activity we did, any restaurant we went to, anything that required money, I paid for. Now i’m not wealthy, matter of fact, when he works he makes double my paycheck. But seriously, every time we do anything, I have to pay? He’s never even willing to split something 50/50, he always pulls the “i have no money” card.
Well, for our 2 year anniversary, I hinted that I wanted to go to build-a-bear. I said that for once I want a day that’s all about me where I don’t have to pay for anything and can just enjoy my time and be spoiled. Well, that didn’t work. He told me he has no money, and that soiled our plans completely.
Mind you, he definitely had $30 to spare for build-a-bear if he’s able to constantly buy weed and vapes.
I told him to go back home and that i would pick him up later, but on the drive home I realized that maybe i’ve been wasting my time. He knows how much anniversary’s mean to me yet made no effort to make me feel special at all.
I went to the beach myself, I bought myself flowers, and I enjoyed peace.
The question is, do I leave him? Or how long do I continue to make excuses for his behavior. Am I not worth a simple date?
EDIT: You guys are commenting extremely negatively and partially that is my fault as I didn’t give all the details. We don’t have fights, we don’t argue, we really do love each other and can enjoy life for the simple things just like that. We don’t always need money and can be happy in each other’s presence. I just want advice on what to do. I don’t want to leave him in all honesty, he’s a great man he’s just lazy and doesn’t apply himself like he should. He’s capable of making money he just doesn’t. I just feel like i’m wringing myself out and giving him every cent i have for his future and to help him without getting anything in return. That’s what’s so hurtful.

Bonus chapter celebration continues. Part 3 at the same time tomorrow.
Previous Chapter - Read 10 weeks ahead on Patreon - Read the story so far on Royal Road
*
Chapter Twelve - The Blacksmith's Boy (Part Two)
‘Grrrn.’
Cal stumbled in the stones, sliding a few paces down the slope. The rocks bit at his boots, and he began to topple forward, but his shoulder thumped into a tree trunk, jarring him to a stop. He hugged it to his chest, panting hard, and stood there for a few moments, surrounded by the silence of the forest. His brow ached from frowning, and his eyes stung with salty tears. But he never slipped. Not ever.
He pulled himself upright on the trunk, shivering. It was cold without his cloak, he noticed now. Cold with winter. There was an ominous dark to the evening sky, clouded with thick banks of shadow, and a distant rumble hummed against the mountainside. A storm was coming, and it would be dark before he made it back to the forge. He cursed under his breath, and set off again through the trees, feet skipping over the stones. The Blacksmith would be…
Hang the Blacksmith. He had stopped him from going to the Old Man. Stopped him from warning him. The cave was still smoking. There had been time. He could have stopped it. Instead, the cave was empty, full of ash, and the Old Man was in the ground. What was left of him. His half-riddled words. His ancient stories. His knowing. Of that, there was nothing. Whispers in the wind. Perhaps it had been nothing, all along.
Cal exhaled. His word was hard as stone, now. The ache of waiting was gone. Only the word was left.
He gritted his teeth, shaking his head. The Blacksmith was only protecting him. What could he have done, that a Greycloak couldn’t? The man was old, but he knew these hills almost better than Cal did. There wouldn’t have been anything he could have done. He’d have burned with him.
Thunder cracked, closer this time, and Cal was scowling. He could have warned him. Before. There had been time. He could have fled. The clouds overhead had taken on a faint purplish hue, drinking the last light of the day. The darkness was deepening, and he was still far from home. But the anger was hot in his chest, and his tears were spent.
Asking after that Greycloak fellow.
The Blacksmith had stopped him, but he didn’t light the fire. He had not killed him. The Innkeep’s words echoed in his ears, vibrating like a distant bell. Strangers had come asking. Strangers from the lowlands. And the cave had burned.
His breath was thick and hot in his breast. Cold air raw against his spent throat. The salt of his tears cracked on his cheeks, and his empty belly was a lead ball in his gut. The narrow pines rushed past him like blades, blurring into a patchwork of slashed shadows, and his feet beat against the silence, crunching in the shale and loam. There’d be time for thinking, later. Time for figuring out what to do next. Once he was warm beside a fire, and the storm was spent.
He blinked. He squinted into the gathering dark. Something was moving. Moving in the shifting trees. Off across the slope to the north. Nothing much, mind, but any moving up this far from the village was unusual. The hunters said that wolves roamed this high in the hills, sometimes. The hungry kind, the kind that find no food on the lower slopes, that come wild-eyed and desperate to the rock and shale. Not that Cal had ever seen one, but he slowed his pace all the same, suddenly very aware of the sound of his footsteps. His breath. He stared off along the slope, tracing the swaying trees. Nothing else stirred. Nothing but him. His mind was playing tricks. He took another step…
… and stopped dead again. There it was. Away to his right. North. He couldn’tt have imagined it, this time. Something darker than the trees. He turned slowly, blinking at the creeping gloom. The silence clawed at his ears, and his breath rattled in his raw lungs. Nothing but the rumble of the clouds. Nothing but…
Footsteps. And not his own. There were shadows moving through the trees, coming closer. Shadows in black. His breath caught in his throat, and a shiver ran up his spine. One. Two. He tried to count them all, and failed. Not wolves. Something else. Something that didn’t belong.
He was already running again, all thoughts of the Blacksmith and the Old Man’s grave gone in a flash. He knew the way. It didn’t matter who the shadows were. What they were. No one could catch him in the hills. Not even shadows. His boots skimmed over the stones, cold forgotten. The wind rushed past his face, and the clouds cracked and beat against the blackened sky. The storm was almost on him. He could feel the shadows moving, closer, hear the footsteps thudding in the heavy quiet of the air. They were on both sides of him now, darting between the trees, silently clawing at his heels. They. Who were they? He wasn’t going to wait to find out.
He looked ahead. The telltale line of his path arched north and west across the slope, a soft string of pale stones in the dark. His eyes flicked towards the shadows, spilling like clouds through the trees behind him. A stone's throw, two, maybe less. But close, now. Close enough to see them. Black shapes, swarming over the stones. Clawing at the dark. His head ached, and his eyes blurred. He couldn’t see their faces, but it didn’t matter. They meant no good. There was something cold in his empty gut, dragging it into his heels. Time to move.
He looked back to the path. There, he knew his way, but they were too close. Instead, he turned west, looking straight down the slope. The village would not be far, that way. He fancied he could see the lights blinking through the trees. But it was too steep. Far too steep.
He looked back over his shoulder again. The shadows were coming closer, footsteps pounding like drums, faceless and dark. Whoever they were, they’d followed him. They had been there. Must have been watching the old man’s cave. Waiting for someone to come looking for him. Waiting to finish the job. Cal cursed silently. Careless.
The thunder cracked, overhead now, and lightning forked across the roiling sky with a flash. Faceless figures leered back at him in the dark, frozen like ice, and tore his eyes away, heart pounding in his chest. Don’t think. No time. He looked back down the slope. It was too steep. But there was no other way.
So he took one last deep breath, and started forward, plunging headlong down the bank. The dark rushed past him in blurring streaks, purple light bleeding through the clouds. He could barely see the way, staggering, stumbling, sliding, half-blind and weary to the bone, breath clawing at his throat. The shadows were at his back, surging over the rocks like a black tide. His heart beat to the rhythm of their footsteps, pounding in his chest. He forced himself not to look back. Lightning flashed. A tree loomed suddenly out of the searing white before him, and he fell clumsily around it, catching his shoulder with a jolt as he staggered past. Wind screeched through the silence of the trees, and rain speared down out of the broken sky, filling the air with sound. But he could still hear the footsteps. Close now. Almost at his heels, snatching at him. The slope was slick with water, and the wind bit at his frigid skin. Still they came on. Closer. His head ached, and his lungs were hot as forge-fire.
Then the air cracked, split, boomed, and the hillside shook as lightning slashed white fire across the sky. One of the trees beside him exploded in a hail of sparks, and he whirled away, skidding madly across the loam. The shadows fell away for a moment, and he stumbled on, weary and numb, frenzied heart driving him onward. Downward. Faster, faster. He blinked rain from his eyes, squinting. They were there, just ahead of him. The lights of the village, blinking back at him through the thinning trees. Just a few more steps…
Something hard caught his boot, and he tipped forward, suddenly off balance. A moment froze on his lips, and the trees were still, full of motionless shadows.
Then he was falling, tumbling head over heel, down, up, down, up, wild as wind. His world spun, and stones bit at his arms, his legs. His face. The shadows were almost on him. Faceless shapes spun past him as he fell, black as night, frozen and sightless. His head was bursting. His skin was on fire. Thunder crashed above the trees, and his world turned white. He closed his eyes, throwing out his arms to stop himself.
And took nothing but air. The scratching claws of the trees vanished. A moment, suspended, floating. The storm was far away. There was light in his eyes. Flickering…
His world lurched to a sudden, angry halt. The soaked earth crunched, and he went limp, shoulders crashing into his chest. Pain erupted down his spine, and a gargled breath caught in his wretched throat, choking the air from his lungs. The sound of thunder filled his ears again, and the wind slashed at him like a whip. He groaned, trying to untangle his legs, blinking at the water in his eyes, stinging, blurring. The lights of the village winked back at him, lanterns swinging wildly in the wind. He had made it. But the trees behind him were thrashing in the gale, and there were shadows moving through the boughs. Closer. They were coming. Coming for him.
He rolled onto his front, spasming like a beached fish. Lines of pain scored every inch of his arms and legs, and his shirt was ragged as willow leaves. He gritted his teeth, somehow getting his hands beneath him. He had to move. He heaved, almost screamed as his chest left the dirt. Spit turned sour, eyes blurred.
But then he was up. He was up, and he was moving, shambling grotesquely across the open ground. Towards the lights. They would help him. Footsteps. He could hear them. Footsteps on the stones. The storm roared overhead, thundering, stabbing, flashing fire across the sky. He stumbled, lurching like a cripple, back a rod of fire. The lights swayed, the wind howled, and the footsteps beat like drums at his back. He was working the latch, fingers scrabbling at the wood, breath ragged, heart pounding…
Then the door fell away, and he spilled helplessly into the light beyond. He slumped to his knees, staring wildly into the blinding gleam, and the villagers stared back at him dumbly, slack-jawed, mugs slipping from their fingers.
‘Makers be good.’ Someone murmured.
The floor rose up to meet him, and his eyes went slack.

Bonus chapter celebration continues. Part 3 at the same time tomorrow. Series Page - Read 10 weeks ahead on Patreon - Read the story so far on Royal Road * Chapter Twelve - The Blacksmith's Boy (Part Two)
‘Grrrn.’ Cal stumbled in the stones, sliding a few paces down the slope. The rocks bit at his boots, and he began to topple forward, but his shoulder thumped into a tree trunk, jarring him to a stop. He hugged it to his chest, panting hard, and stood there for a few moments, sur-rounded by the silence of the forest. His brow ached from frowning, and his eyes stung with salty tears. But he never slipped. Not ever. He pulled himself upright on the trunk, shivering. It was cold without his cloak, he noticed now. Cold with winter. There was an ominous dark to the evening sky, clouded with thick banks of shad-ow, and a distant rumble hummed against the mountainside. A storm was coming, and it would be dark before he made it back to the forge. He cursed under his breath, and set off again through the trees, feet skipping over the stones. The Blacksmith would be… Hang the Blacksmith. He had stopped him from going to the Old Man. Stopped him from warning him. The cave was still smoking. There had been time. He could have stopped it. Instead, the cave was empty, full of ash, and the Old Man was in the ground. What was left of him. His half-riddled words. His ancient stories. His knowing. Of that, there was nothing. Whispers in the wind. Perhaps it had been nothing, all along. Cal exhaled. His word was hard as stone, now. The ache of wait-ing was gone. Only the word was left. He gritted his teeth, shaking his head. The Blacksmith was only protecting him. What could he have done, that a Greycloak couldn’t? The man was old, but he knew these hills almost better than Cal did. There wouldn’t have been anything he could have done. He’d have burned with him. Thunder cracked, closer this time, and Cal was scowling. He could have warned him. Before. There had been time. He could have fled. The clouds overhead had taken on a faint purplish hue, drink-ing the last light of the day. The darkness was deepening, and he was still far from home. But the anger was hot in his chest, and his tears were spent. Asking after that Greycloak fellow. The Blacksmith had stopped him, but he didn’t light the fire. He had not killed him. The Innkeep’s words echoed in his ears, vibrat-ing like a distant bell. Strangers had come asking. Strangers from the lowlands. And the cave had burned. His breath was thick and hot in his breast. Cold air raw against his spent throat. The salt of his tears cracked on his cheeks, and his empty belly was a lead ball in his gut. The narrow pines rushed past him like blades, blurring into a patchwork of slashed shadows, and his feet beat against the silence, crunching in the shale and loam. There’d be time for thinking, later. Time for figuring out what to do next. Once he was warm beside a fire, and the storm was spent. He blinked. He squinted into the gathering dark. Something was moving. Moving in the shifting trees. Off across the slope to the north. Nothing much, mind, but any moving up this far from the vil-lage was unusual. The hunters said that wolves roamed this high in the hills, sometimes. The hungry kind, the kind that find no food on the lower slopes, that come wild-eyed and desperate to the rock and shale. Not that Cal had ever seen one, but he slowed his pace all the same, suddenly very aware of the sound of his footsteps. His breath. He stared off along the slope, tracing the swaying trees. Nothing else stirred. Nothing but him. His mind was playing tricks. He took an-other step… … and stopped dead again. There it was. Away to his right. North. He couldn’tt have imagined it, this time. Something darker than the trees. He turned slowly, blinking at the creeping gloom. The silence clawed at his ears, and his breath rattled in his raw lungs. Nothing but the rumble of the clouds. Nothing but… Footsteps. And not his own. There were shadows moving through the trees, coming closer. Shadows in black. His breath caught in his throat, and a shiver ran up his spine. One. Two. He tried to count them all, and failed. Not wolves. Something else. Something that didn’t belong. He was already running again, all thoughts of the Blacksmith and the Old Man’s grave gone in a flash. He knew the way. It didn’t matter who the shadows were. What they were. No one could catch him in the hills. Not even shadows. His boots skimmed over the stones, cold forgotten. The wind rushed past his face, and the clouds cracked and beat against the blackened sky. The storm was almost on him. He could feel the shadows moving, closer, hear the foot-steps thudding in the heavy quiet of the air. They were on both sides of him now, darting between the trees, silently clawing at his heels. They. Who were they? He wasn’t going to wait to find out. He looked ahead. The telltale line of his path arched north and west across the slope, a soft string of pale stones in the dark. His eyes flicked towards the shadows, spilling like clouds through the trees behind him. A stone's throw, two, maybe less. But close, now. Close enough to see them. Black shapes, swarming over the stones. Clawing at the dark. His head ached, and his eyes blurred. He couldn’t see their faces, but it didn’t matter. They meant no good. There was something cold in his empty gut, dragging it into his heels. Time to move. He looked back to the path. There, he knew his way, but they were too close. Instead, he turned west, looking straight down the slope. The village would not be far, that way. He fancied he could see the lights blinking through the trees. But it was too steep. Far too steep. He looked back over his shoulder again. The shadows were com-ing closer, footsteps pounding like drums, faceless and dark. Who-ever they were, they’d followed him. They had been there. Must have been watching the old man’s cave. Waiting for someone to come looking for him. Waiting to finish the job. Cal cursed silently. Careless. The thunder cracked, overhead now, and lightning forked across the roiling sky with a flash. Faceless figures leered back at him in the dark, frozen like ice, and tore his eyes away, heart pounding in his chest. Don’t think. No time. He looked back down the slope. It was too steep. But there was no other way. So he took one last deep breath, and started forward, plunging headlong down the bank. The dark rushed past him in blurring streaks, purple light bleeding through the clouds. He could barely see the way, staggering, stumbling, sliding, half-blind and weary to the bone, breath clawing at his throat. The shadows were at his back, surging over the rocks like a black tide. His heart beat to the rhythm of their footsteps, pounding in his chest. He forced himself not to look back. Lightning flashed. A tree loomed suddenly out of the searing white before him, and he fell clumsily around it, catching his shoulder with a jolt as he staggered past. Wind screeched through the silence of the trees, and rain speared down out of the broken sky, filling the air with sound. But he could still hear the footsteps. Close now. Almost at his heels, snatching at him. The slope was slick with water, and the wind bit at his frigid skin. Still they came on. Closer. His head ached, and his lungs were hot as forge-fire. Then the air cracked, split, boomed, and the hillside shook as lightning slashed white fire across the sky. One of the trees beside him exploded in a hail of sparks, and he whirled away, skidding madly across the loam. The shadows fell away for a moment, and he stumbled on, weary and numb, frenzied heart driving him onward. Downward. Faster, faster. He blinked rain from his eyes, squinting. They were there, just ahead of him. The lights of the village, blink-ing back at him through the thinning trees. Just a few more steps… Something hard caught his boot, and he tipped forward, suddenly off balance. A moment froze on his lips, and the trees were still, full of motionless shadows. Then he was falling, tumbling head over heel, down, up, down, up, wild as wind. His world spun, and stones bit at his arms, his legs. His face. The shadows were almost on him. Faceless shapes spun past him as he fell, black as night, frozen and sightless. His head was bursting. His skin was on fire. Thunder crashed above the trees, and his world turned white. He closed his eyes, throwing out his arms to stop himself. And took nothing but air. The scratching claws of the trees van-ished. A moment, suspended, floating. The storm was far away. There was light in his eyes. Flickering… His world lurched to a sudden, angry halt. The soaked earth crunched, and he went limp, shoulders crashing into his chest. Pain erupted down his spine, and a gargled breath caught in his wretched throat, choking the air from his lungs. The sound of thunder filled his ears again, and the wind slashed at him like a whip. He groaned, trying to untangle his legs, blinking at the water in his eyes, stinging, blurring. The lights of the village winked back at him, lanterns swinging wildly in the wind. He had made it. But the trees behind him were thrashing in the gale, and there were shadows moving through the boughs. Closer. They were coming. Coming for him. He rolled onto his front, spasming like a beached fish. Lines of pain scored every inch of his arms and legs, and his shirt was ragged as willow leaves. He gritted his teeth, somehow getting his hands beneath him. He had to move. He heaved, almost screamed as his chest left the dirt. Spit turned sour, eyes blurred. But then he was up. He was up, and he was moving, shambling grotesquely across the open ground. Towards the lights. They would help him. Footsteps. He could hear them. Footsteps on the stones. The storm roared overhead, thundering, stabbing, flashing fire across the sky. He stumbled, lurching like a cripple, back a rod of fire. The lights swayed, the wind howled, and the footsteps beat like drums at his back. He was working the latch, fingers scrabbling at the wood, breath ragged, heart pounding… Then the door fell away, and he spilled helplessly into the light beyond. He slumped to his knees, staring wildly into the blinding gleam, and the villagers stared back at him dumbly, slack-jawed, mugs slipping from their fingers. ‘Makers be good.’ Someone murmured. The floor rose up to meet him, and his eyes went slack.

This was just copy/pasted from google docs so apologies in advance for any formatting issues.
​
​
19°28’N 37°14’E
Near Port Sudan, Sudan, Africa.
Another helicopter thundered past in the distance, following the line of the oil pipeline back towards the port facilities.
"That's three in the past hour," Cody observed. "Still think nothing's going on?" "I think if you want to bother Adams again it's gonna be your ass." Keith replied.
"Come on, don't be like that." Cody said.
"Nope."
"Come on, don't be a bitch."
"Nope."
"Bitch says what."
"Nope."
"Got fifty bucks says you won't do it."
"Nope."
"Will both of you shut the fuck up," Eduardo groaned from the back seat of the vehicle. "We're almost done here and you can go harass Adams in person when we get back to base."
"Yeah but I'm curious now." Cody said.
"Well, tell Miles to turn this vic around and we can go."
"What do you say, Miles? You know Adams doesn't check the log timestamps too closely."
"The final marker is literally thirty meters away," Miles said patiently. "I will turn the vic around there and we will drive back to base and you can badger Adams into a stroke on your own time. Until then, watch your sector."
"Uh well, my sector's full of sand, can I have a different one?"
"There's some rocks in mine."
"Like the face of the fucking moon out here, man." Cody moaned.
"Maybe you shouldn't have signed up for a job in the fucking Sudan, genius." Eduardo said.
"Man, I'm just here for the money." Cody replied.
"Well, I'm not here for the weather." Martin said, cranking the wheel around in a practiced motion. The battered white SUV slewed around, wheels spraying dust and pebbles. Cody keyed the radio on his vest. "Base, this is Cody checking in. We're at the outer marker for the southern patrol path, heading back, over."
There was the faint buzz of static.
"Copy that, Cody. Any contacts?"
"No contacts, base. All quiet here. Out."
Martin patted Cody on the shoulder. "Proud of you, buddy. That took real strength."
Cody flipped him off.
The radio crackled again. "Cody, this is base, where did you say you were?"
"Base, this is Cody, we are at the outer marker for our patrol route, heading back your way, over."
"Uh, copy Cody, hang on one second."
“Cody, this is Adams,” a new voice said over the radio. “I need your team to swing west and investigate unauthorized activity near the pipeline in, uh grid square A54-41."
"The fuck this is Cody's team." Keith muttered from the back.
"Copy that, Adams, we'll move to investigate immediately," Cody said crisply. "Any intel on the intruders?"
The radio crackled again. "The uh, number of intruders is unknown at this time."
Miles keyed his own radio. "Adams, who called this report in?"
"The report was forwarded to us by local security forces."
A chorus of groans rose from the interior of the SUV.
"Fuckin' locals." Eduardo said.
"And why isn't local security handling this?"
"Miles, I don't need to remind you that Vericom has been contracted to guard the terminal facilities and pipeline-"
"Yeah yeah, spare me the geopolitics, Adams, I'm just a dumb trigger puller, remember? I'm not asking you why I'm here, I'm asking why the very much armed local security isn't apprehending the trespassers."
"The local security called it in," Adams replied in a tight, angry voice. "And under the terms of our contract we are responsible for apprehending any trespassers in our zone. Is that satisfactory, Mr. Martin?"
"Copy, moving to apprehend. Out."
"Fuckin' locals." Eduardo muttered again as the SUV turned towards the new destination.
"Coming up on the location now." Cody was tapping at the topographical map displayed on his ruggedized tablet.
"Copy that," Miles said absently, maneuvering the SUV around a scattering of larger boulders. Behind him Keith rolled down his window and propped the muzzle of his M4 carbine on the opening.
"Relax," Eduardo said. "Just some lost people."
"Maybe." Keith said, squinting out over the dusty, rolling terrain.
The SUV bounced over the crest of another low ridge, the long dust plume trailing behind it in the harsh midday sun. Miles slowed to a stop. In the far distance there was a glint of light off a moving vehicle traversing the coastal highway. There was no other sign of life in sight.
"Yeah, there's nothing out here." Cody said after a few moments.
Keith had extracted a pair of binoculars from his chest rig and was scanning the surroundings.
"Nothing on this side, boss." Eduardo said.
"Keith?" Miles said.
"Nothing moving but heat haze."
"Cody, call in negative contact. Let's head back to base." Miles said as the SUV rolled forward.
"Copy copy." Cody keyed his radio. "Base, this is Cody, we're at grid A54-41, negative on contact with intruders, over."
"Copy that Cody, we haven't gotten any other reports in your zone, go ahead and head in."
"Thanks very much, base, will do. Cody out."
The SUV bumped and bounced its way back onto the “paved” road. While the main coastal highway was in decent shape, the smaller roads were mostly potholes and washouts held together by cracked concrete and gravel. Although flatter than the surrounding landscape, it was a bold or desperate driver that would risk driving on it at normal highway speeds. This fact most likely saved four lives as Miles had plenty of time to spot the dusty tan plate lying in the road as the vehicle slowly bounced towards it.
“Guys, is that a land mine I’m seeing in the road ahead?” Miles said, pointing. “Directly ahead, maybe twenty yards, just past the two bushes.”
Cody sat up, peering through the dusty windshield. “Slow up, slow up. Shit, I think you’re right.”
“Call it in,” Miles said. “We use this road all the time, what was the last team through here?"
"Dallas' team had outer perimeter patrol this morning." Keith volunteered.
"Base, this is Cody, we've got what looks like a landmine on Route 33, maybe two or three klicks from the coastal highway, please advise, over."
There was a brief hiss of static. No reply.
"Base, do you read, over?"
Static.
“Base, this is a fucking great time for a coffee break!”
No answer.
“Guys, I think this is a no shit situation,” Miles said, putting the SUV in reverse. “Let’s get off the X and back to base.”
Cody slid his AR up into the ready position. Keith and Eduardo already had their rifles out and ready.
Miles executed a hasty three point turn and gunned the SUV back the way they had come.
“How concerned should we be right now?” Keith shouted over the engine noise. “Not the
first time we’ve lost comms with base out here.”
“Could be nothing,” Miles shouted back. “But out here it could be a strike on the port or oil terminal. Not that hard to jam comms and drop a few mines on the roads.”
“Hell, I’m here for it.” Keith shouted.
“I’ll keep trying to raise base or one of the other teams.” Cody shouted.
The SUV bounced and lurched its way back over the route it had taken and finally reached the coastal highway where Miles jammed the pedal down. Cody still couldn’t make contact with base but was able to reach another patrolling team who confirmed that base was incommunicado. As they roared up the coastal highway Cody pointed towards a rising plume of dense black smoke ahead of them. “Looks like shit’s gone down, boys.”
“Fuck,” Keith swore, peering around Cody’ headrest to look ahead. “So much for site security.”
“Guys, we’ve got a roadblock ahead.” Cody said, pointing. A dilapidated cargo truck had stopped and was attempting to turn around. A pair of pickup trucks were just visible beyond it, blocking off the road in a shallow V. Men in mismatched fatigues and headscarves stood atop them holding rifles.
“Are those our guys?” Miles asked, slowing the SUV.
“Fuck if I can tell from here.” Cody said.
“Well I’m not fucking moving up.” Miles said.
“Go around,” Eduardo said, peering out his window. “No ditch here.”
“Go now while the truck is between us and them.” Keith added.
“Hang on.” Miles gunned the SUV down the shallow embankment parallel to the roadblock.
Keith twisted around in his seat. “They’re tracking us”.
Miles glanced in the rearview mirror. The guards were pointing and waving their arms at the SUV. One of them with a pistol in one hand and a radio in the other seemed to be giving orders
“Are we still under the ROE?” Cody asked. “I’d really like to shoot back if they try to kill us.”
“I’m not dying over fucked comms and a misunderstanding.” Keith said.
The checkpoint guards were scrambling into their trucks. One of them ripped off a burst that went wide.
“Fuck it, that’s good enough for me,” Miles said, slamming on the brakes. “Dismount and engage hostiles.”
The men threw themselves out of the vehicle. Eduardo and Cody went prone in the dirt and began firing. On the other side Keith propped his rifle on the vehicle’s bumper and squeezed off several careful shots.
The checkpoint guards had been caught by surprise by the sudden attack. One of the trucks had just roared into motion when the bullets began punching through the windshield. The other was still parked, its crew climbing into the cab when the shooting started. Multiple rounds smashed the windshield into a starred, opaque mess. The driver leaped from the seat and ran for cover behind the truck wheels. Miles shot him in the back and he dropped.
The other truck rolled forward down the shallow incline with a dead driver at the wheel. The guards in the back continued firing over the roof. The back window of the SUV shattered and bullets banged off the steel frame, showering Keith and Eduardo with shards of safety glass. Miles fired at a guard crouched in the truck bed and the man disappeared, then popped back up again when Miles shifted targets. Miles shifted back and fired again, his gun clicking empty on the third shot. He dropped the empty magazine and yanked a new one from his vest. The new mag clicked into place and Miles resumed shooting. A corner of his mind was pleasantly surprised at how easily it was done under fire.
One of the guards on the far truck bailed off the back and fled across the road, disappearing into the ditch on the far side. Suddenly no one was firing back at them.
Miles cautiously rose to his feet. With Keith and Cody covering him, he and Eduardo circled wide around the checkpoint, scanning for any sign of life. Nothing moved but wisps of steam from under the hood of one of the trucks. He waved the others in. They swept the checkpoint carefully. There were six dead guards and a blood trail leading out into the brush.
“Fuck.” Keith said emphatically.
“Fuck me,” Cody said, slotting in a fresh mag. “You guys good?
“I’m good.” Keith said.
“Good here.” Eduardo said, patting himself down.
“I’m ok.” Martin said.
“Fuck,” Keith said again. “Fuckers just opened up on us. These weren’t local security, right?”
“Check the bodies for intel,” Miles said, already rifling through the pockets of one of the shooters. “I don’t know who the fuck these guys were but we’re gonna get grilled about this.”
The three of them methodically searched the bodies while Eduardo held overwatch. None of the bodies had any documents on them. The weapons were gathered and stacked in the back of one of the trucks while the bodies were laid out next to it. Martin retrieved their SUV which proved to have suffered no worse damage than shot out windows and the four of them piled in.
Cody finally got a response on the radio as they neared the base. A rattled Adams responded to their calls by ordering them in to assist with base security. “Radio shack got hit and we’ve been dealing with jamming. We still have two patrols out in the field who haven’t reported in, we need you to assist in maintaining a defensive perimeter.”
“Copy that, boss. Tell base we’re coming in so don’t fucking shoot at us. Already dealt with that once today.”
They dismounted in the central courtyard. The comms building had taken a direct hit from an RPG and was still smoking. Two sheet covered bodies lay beside it. Several of the other buildings had bullet holes and other signs of battle damage.
As directed, the team took up defensive positions on the roof of one of the perimeter buildings. Dallas’ team was on a nearby building overlooking the main entrance. Miles got on the radio and contacted them.
“Glad to see y’all made it,” Dallas said by way of greeting. “Been a real shitshow here.” He pointed towards the billowing black smoke belching out of the wreckage of the oil pipeline terminal. “Probably not getting our contract renewed for this site.”
“So what the fuck happened?” Miles asked.
“Don’t know. We were in the bunkhouse when we heard the radio shack get hit. Whoever it was lit the place up and then peeled out. We had barely gotten outside when the oil terminal went up. Someone said they saw Sea Ports Corporation logos on the trucks but I don’t know if that’s true. All I saw was dust.”
“Shit, you think that’s true? Locals were behind this?”
“Someone with more brains than your average fanatic is. They knew exactly what to hit and exactly how to jam our comms.”
“They mined the roads along our patrol routes too, so either they’ve been watching us or they paid off someone on the inside.”
“Smart.” Dallas said.
“I saw the two bodies by the radio shack. Any of your team get hit?”
“Negative. They were in and out. I think someone in the admin building caught a stray round but that was all.”
“I know Shedge was on shift in comms,” Miles said. “Who was the other?”
“Morris.” Dallas said.
They fell silent for a while.
The two missing patrol teams drove in thirty minutes later in a single shot up SUV. They had come under long range fire from hidden enemies and had evaded out into the desert. One of the vehicles had been disabled, but the team managed to dismount and take cover while the other vehicle moved to pick them up. One team member had been grazed on the leg and another had taken a hit to the chest plate. The uninjured team members joined them on the perimeter defense. No attack materialized.
A convoy of Sudanese military vehicles rolled in late that evening to take charge of the terminal. The PMC personnel were ordered to collect their personal items and evacuate the site. The Sudanese wanted them out, so while the company lawyers argued with the Sudanese administration, all personnel on the ground were transported out to Port Sudan International Airport for flights back to the United States.
Miles, Keith, Cody, and Eduardo caught up with each other outside the terminal. Keith was chatting with two of the airport ground crew in passable Arabic as the others walked up.
“Hey, you guys aren’t going to believe this but apparently there’s been a bunch of foreign fighter types coming through here in the past several weeks.” Keith said by way of greeting.
“Go fucking figure.” Miles said.
“I don’t even give a shit,” Cody said, unwrapping a pack of cigarettes. “In a couple of hours I’ll be on my way back home with a fat early contract termination check in my pocket.”
Eduardo nodded. “We all survived, importantly.”
“Amen to that.” Cody said.
The ground crew members bid Keith farewell and sauntered off towards the terminal.
There was silence for a minute while Cody methodically extracted and lit up a cigarette.
“That was pretty fucking badass though,” Miles said. “Shot our way out of an ambush and drove home.”
“Pretty wild.” Keith agreed.
“Never saw the people I killed before,” Eduardo said. “Returning fire yes, but not securing the bodies. Always gone afterwards.”
“I definitely had that out-of-body feeling you get sometimes under fire,” Cody said. “Like you’re just watching your own body go through the motions while you sit and watch.”
“I never got that,” Miles said. “I was inside my own head but I always knew somehow what to do next. Like even when we swept the roadblock I knew exactly where to turn and where the bodies were going to be. It sounds crazy but I wasn’t really scared of getting shot, I was scared of moving wrong or stepping in the wrong place and I’d break the focus and suddenly I’d have to think through every motion again.”
Eduardo nodded. “I know how that feels.”
Another silence. Cody took a deep drag on the cigarette.
“You don’t think we’ll get fired over this, do you?” Keith asked. “Because I still have bills to pay back home and I don’t need this on my record.”
“I doubt it,” Cody said. “I mean, its completely out of our hands so who the fuck knows really. But its not something you get fired over. You see how fast they’re pulling us out of here, like no operation debrief or anything? Company’s got bigger problems to worry about right now.”
“Like the oil pipeline that got blown up, not about a possible bad shoot in the desert.” Keith said.
“Oil terminal.” Miles corrected quietly.
“You watch,” Cody continued. “In about three days some Vericom executive is going to strap on his golden parachute and take a dive off the top floor because the company stock dipped by sixty cents. Then we’ll all get an email with a big fat non-disclosure agreement attached showing up in our inboxes.”
“You would work for them again?” Eduardo sounded surprised.
“Fuck it, why not?” Cody said. “The pay’s good, and what are the odds that a fuck up like this happens to me twice?”
“Seems like higher odds than before.” Miles said.
“Everybody’s running a little hot these days,” Keith said. “You’ve got the Syrian and Yemen civil wars, the military coup in Turkey, the bombings in Europe, the riots in India, the drug wars in Mexico and southeast Asia, plus that bombing at the Olympics.”
“I still think that one was a false flag.” Cody said.
“Bullshit, that was the work of ISIS scum.” Eduardo replied angrily.
“He’s got a point, Cody,” Miles said. “They grabbed one of the bombers before he could clack off his vest after all.”
“Maybe,” Cody said. “Now the shooting at the Clinton rally, that was a false flag, no question. The FBI practically admitted it. They’re terrified she’ll lose and they need a few martyrs.”
“Don’t know why you pay so much attention to that,” Miles said. “Not like the other guy is any better. Just a pair of narcissistic old fucks getting their rocks off on the American people’s dime.”
“I like to know which side is going to be screaming about a rigged election for the next four years while their savings and civil liberties go up in smoke.” Cody lit another cigarette from the butt of the first.
“You know I hate it when you chain smoke and turn into Alex Jones.” Miles said.
“Brother, you should see me on meth.” Cody grinned.
“I didn’t know you smoked at all.” Eduardo said.
“Only on the way home,” Cody said. “Otherwise I don’t.”
The four of them stood around on the airport tarmac until the encroaching evening chill drove them inside with the rest of the Vericom personnel. Miles’ last glimpse of Sudan was the stark black outline of the western hills as the sun sank behind them. Then night fell and the only light was the harsh white arc lights of the airport illuminating the red and white airliner being fueled to carry them home.
$$$$
News Headlines of the day:
FBI: Philadelphia shooter had ‘strong ties’ to right wing ultranationalist groups.
US economy signals uncertainty as Far East trade war heats up.
British lawmaker shot dead, EU referendum campaigns suspended
Prominent Mexican politician, family among the dead following Sinaloa cartel gun battle.
‘Terrorism is not welcome here’: Sudanese President issues warning following oil pipeline bombing.

The city of Caligo, capital of the magical kingdom Luminis Obscurum, sat nestled at the heart of a labyrinthine mountain range. Its ominous silhouette sprawled in every direction, its myriad structures draped in dark violet hues, gleaming under the eerie light of a moon perpetually shrouded by a veil of foreboding crimson clouds. The city was surrounded by an intricate lacework of floating islands, shrouded in perpetual twilight, held aloft by a blend of mystical forces and practical alchemy. Like a thousand demon eyes, the lights of Caligo blinked and twinkled in the perpetual night.
At the center of the city rose the Coliseum Arcanum, a gargantuan amphitheater that dominated the skyline. Its impossibly tall spires pierced the heavens, each adorned with statues and banners that howled in the ceaseless wind. Built from dark obsidian stone that seemed to drink in the light, the coliseum was the heart of the city, pulsating with the rhythm of the wild and brutal contests it hosted.
The air was thick with anticipation as the annual Grand Arcana Tournament was about to begin. Warriors from every corner of the kingdom and beyond had gathered to partake in a ruthless test of strength, endurance, and arcane mastery. The stakes were high, for the winner would be granted one wish — any request within the realm of possibility, as promised by the arcane potentates who ruled Luminis Obscurum.
And so, five extraordinary individuals found themselves on the cusp of the city, overlooking the sprawling urban expanse. The depth of their bond was reflected in the aura of resilience they radiated, a testament to the hardships they had weathered together.
Askari, the warrior monk, was the group's spiritual compass, guiding them through their trials with an unwavering determination reminiscent of his celestial forebear, Sun Wukong. His build was sinewy, every muscle carved from a lifetime of discipline and dedication. He carried the Ruyi Jingu Bang, an unyielding staff as flexible in combat as the very air, a symbol of his birthright and testament to his strength.
Skyblitz, an Aarakocra of intimidating stature, stood beside him. His feathers were as sharp as razors, their metallic sheen reflecting the enigmatic moonlight. He was a master of the turbulent winds, manipulating the very air around him into deadly weapons or sturdy shields. His eyes held a hint of wisdom that belied his avian wildness.
Next stood Redroot, the Goliath, towering over his companions. His skin bore the weathered marks of the mountain he hailed from, and the deep, unyielding roots that had fostered him. His magic was as much a part of him as the very rock he could command — sturdy, unwavering, and titanic in its ferocity.
Joneson, the Oathbreaker, was a stark contrast to the rest. A former Paladin who had turned his back on his sacred vows, he was a mystery, even to his closest friends. The void he mastered was as perplexing and enigmatic as the man himself. His aura was dark, pulsating with an energy that sent shivers down the spines of even the bravest.
Lastly, there was IraTater, the Poison Dragonborn, a creature of mischief and mayhem. His scales shimmered an iridescent green under the glow of the distant city, a signal of the deadly toxin that coursed through his veins. His crooked grin revealed rows of sharp teeth, a sign of his nonchalant attitude towards the world and its troubles.
Their gazes were collectively locked on the imposing structure at the heart of the city, an ominous sense of destiny pervading their silence.
"Y'all ready for this?" IraTater broke the silence, a playful grin spreading across his face.
Skyblitz responded with a solemn nod, his avian eyes reflecting a hardened resolve. "It's why we're here, isn't it?" His voice was calm, a lull in the storm.
Redroot's massive hand came to rest on the Aarakocra's shoulder, his deep voice rumbling like a landslide. "We face this together. As always."
Askari turned towards Joneson, his eyes searching the Paladin's shrouded countenance. "What of you, Joneson? Are you prepared to stand with us once again?"
The Oathbreaker turned his gaze away from the city, looking into the eyes of his comrades. His eyes held a profound sadness, but beneath it lay a flicker of defiance. "The void in my past may never be filled. But today, I fight for you, my brothers. For us."
A shared grin spread among them, and they extended their hands into a joint fist bump, their pact reaffirmed. They had faced challenges before, but the battles that lay ahead were unlike any they had experienced. The stakes were high, the odds were daunting, but the strength of their bond held firm.
As the first rays of false dawn cast their ethereal light on the city of Caligo, the friends stepped onto the path leading into the heart of Luminis Obscurum, their hearts aflame with determination and camaraderie. The Grand Arcana Tournament awaited, and the fate of five friends was about to intertwine with the destiny of an entire kingdom.
Having traversed the twisted maze of Caligo's cobblestone streets, the friends found themselves at the foot of the Coliseum Arcanum. Up close, its enormity was almost incomprehensible, the structure dwarfing everything around it.
The surrounding area was a riotous carnival, alive with an intoxicating mix of excitement and dread. Vibrant market stalls, whimsical parades, and arcane showcases adorned the streets, a tumultuous celebration of the upcoming bloodshed. Over the cacophony of jubilations, the friends could hear the roar of the crowd within the coliseum, their excitement a palpable force in the air.
As they entered the coliseum, a servile goblin ushered them to a preparation chamber. The room was dimly lit, the air saturated with the metallic tang of past battles and the musk of warriors preparing for combat.
"The matches will be one on one," the goblin's voice crackled, his eyes filled with a strange blend of fear and respect. "You'll be facing the Revenant Reapers. They're a brutal team—"
"No need to worry, friend," IraTater interrupted, flashing the goblin a toothy grin. "We can handle a bit of brutality."
The goblin nodded nervously, taking a few steps back before scurrying away.
"The Revenant Reapers, huh?" Skyblitz murmured, the name rolling off his tongue like a curse. "I've heard rumors. They're supposed to be ruthless."
"Most competitors here are," Redroot rumbled, his massive hands balling into fists. "But so are we."
Askari nodded, the warrior monk's eyes reflecting a deep-seated determination. "We will face this challenge as we have faced all others - together."
The air in the chamber vibrated with their shared resolve. The friends began to prepare for the upcoming fight, the sounds of their armor and weapons echoing in the chamber.
---
Meanwhile, in a similar chamber on the opposite side of the coliseum, a team of formidable warriors prepared for combat. The Revenant Reapers, a team as ruthless as their moniker suggested, were eager to engage in the deadly dance of the tournament.
There was Grimmhilt, a necromancer dwarf whose powers had brought him an unsettling semblance of immortality. Aridorn, an Elven sorcerer with the essence of elemental fire at his fingertips. Shifty Snigg, a halfling rogue with a penchant for bloodshed. Zul'Kur, an Orc shaman capable of summoning the wrath of the ancients. And finally, Galros, a tiefling warlock whose pact with a powerful demon endowed him with a frightening array of dark magic.
"Got our match-ups for the first round," Grimmhilt's gravelly voice resonated in the chamber, his hands holding a piece of parchment. "I've got Askari, the warrior monk. Aridorn, you're up against Skyblitz, the bird-man. Snigg, you'll take the Goliath, Redroot. Zul'Kur, you have the Oathbreaker, Joneson. And Galros, you get to play with the poison Dragonborn, IraTater."
A chorus of anticipatory laughter echoed through the chamber. These were fighters who lived for the thrill of the fight, the rush of blood, and the sweet taste of victory.
---
The time for the first match approached, and an electric tension filled the air. As the friends exited their preparation chamber, they stepped into the staggering expanse of the Coliseum Arcanum.
High above them, in a throne overlooking the entirety of the Coliseum, sat the announcer, an eccentric gnome by the name of Razzle Fizzlebop. With a voice amplified by magical means, he welcomed the crowd to the grand spectacle about to unfold.
"Welcome, one and all, to the Grand Arcana Tournament!" His voice boomed across the Coliseum, echoing off the obsidian walls. "In this corner, a team like no other, bonded by courage, a quintet of outstanding warriors: Askari, Skyblitz, Redroot, Joneson, and IraTater! And in the other corner, a ruthless band of hardened fighters, known for their merciless tactics: the Revenant Reapers!"
A deafening cheer erupted from the spectators as the two teams stepped into the arena, each fighter sizing up their respective opponent.
"May the best team prevail!" Razzle Fizzlebop's voice rang out, a signal of the brutal spectacle to come. "Let the Grand Arcana Tournament commence!"
The friends shared a final look of camaraderie, each promising the other that no matter what happened, they would face it together.
As the echoes of the crowd's cheers filled the air, the friends braced themselves. The stage was set. The dance of death was about to begin.
With the commencement of the tournament, the atmosphere within the Coliseum Arcanum transformed. The anticipation reached fever pitch, the audience holding their collective breath as the first combatants took center stage.
"IraTater of the Brotherhood!" Razzle Fizzlebop's voice resonated through the coliseum, his enthusiastic tone whipping the crowd into a frenzy. "Versus Galros of the Revenant Reapers! A venomous dance with the flames of the inferno!"
IraTater walked into the spotlight, his scales shimmering like deadly emeralds. He offered the crowd a cheeky wave, his usual levity on full display despite the high stakes.
Across the battlefield, Galros stood, a menacing figure swathed in a cloak of shadowy flames. His eyes glowed with a fiery intensity, a visual testament to the infernal pact that fueled his magic.
"As per the rules of the Grand Arcana Tournament," Razzle continued, "The fight will go on until one fighter yields, is incapacitated, or… worse."
IraTater couldn't help but roll his eyes at the gnome's dramatic flair. "Alright, big guy," he called to Galros, "Let's give 'em a show."
The tiefling merely smirked, his hands beginning to dance in the intricate patterns of arcane sigils, summoning the deadly magic of his infernal pact.
The match began in earnest, Galros opening with a volley of "Hellfire Bolts", flaming projectiles that exploded upon impact. IraTater nimbly evaded, his agile form a blur on the battlefield.
With a growl, IraTater retaliated with a "Venomous Torrent," a wave of toxic energy that radiated from his outstretched claws. Galros, however, was quick to erect an "Infernal Barrier," absorbing the brunt of the toxic assault.
The two continued to exchange blows, Galros utilizing destructive pyromancy, while IraTater countered with his unique blend of agility and venomous magic. Despite his playful demeanor, IraTater's prowess was undeniable, his movements punctuated by fluidity and precision.
However, as the battle progressed, it became apparent to IraTater that he was gradually being outmatched. Galros' infernal magic was relentless, and while IraTater's agility and venom-based attacks were formidable, they were not enough to keep up with Galros' fiery onslaught.
Spotting his opportunity, Galros decided to play dirty, casting a "Shadow Bind," an underhanded spell designed to immobilize his opponent by exploiting a moment of weakness. The crowd gasped as dark tendrils snaked from Galros' fingers, aiming to entrap IraTater.
But the Dragonborn was not so easily subdued. A deep, guttural growl escaped him as he looked into Galros' smirking face. "You want to play dirty?" He hissed, his scales standing on end as a surge of poisonous energy coursed through his veins.
Embracing his raw power, IraTater unleashed his "Basilisk Strike." His form became a blur, moving with such speed that it seemed to split into multiple images. In the blink of an eye, he closed the gap between him and Galros, his claw striking true. A potent burst of venomous energy erupted from his fingertips, the impact rocking the entire arena.
Galros' smirk was wiped clean off his face as he was thrown backward, crashing into the arena's boundary with an impact that left a crater in the obsidian. The tiefling's body was immobile, his defeat unmistakable.
"And the first round goes to IraTater!" Razzle Fizzlebop's voice echoed throughout the Coliseum Arcanum, the crowd erupting into cheers.
In the shadows of the entrance to the arena, Askari watched with a stormy expression. His fists clenched at his sides, his gaze fixed on the incapacitated form of Galros. He had always believed in the sanctity of honorable combat, and Galros' underhanded tactic had struck a nerve.
As Razzle Fizzlebop announced the next match - Askari versus Grimmhilt - the warrior monk stepped onto the battlefield, his gaze determined and unwavering. He had always held himself to a code of honor, and this fight would be no different. He would win for his friends, and he would do it with dignity.
And so, as the crowd's cheers echoed through the grand Coliseum, the stage was set for the next deadly dance in the Grand Arcana Tournament.
A tense hush fell over the spectators as the next combatants were announced. "Ladies and gentlemen, the next duel in the Grand Arcana Tournament," Razzle Fizzlebop's voice rang out, clear and resonant. "Askari of the Brotherhood versus Grimmhilt of the Revenant Reapers!"
Askari moved to center stage, his warrior monk training evident in his fluid grace. The crowd watched in anticipation as an ethereal golden aura shimmered around him, an echo of his inherent power. Even from a distance, the intensity of his aura was palpable, a testament to his descent from the legendary Sun Wukong.
Opposite him stood Grimmhilt, a dwarf necromancer shrouded in an aura of decay and death. His eyes glowed with an unnatural light as he prepared his formidable defenses.
"Hey, Grimmhilt," Askari called out, his voice carrying over the silence of the coliseum. "I hope you're prepared. Because I plan to end this quickly."
A sinister grin spread across Grimmhilt's face, his voice raspy with cruel amusement. "We'll see about that, monkey boy."
With a resounding gong, the duel began. As expected, Grimmhilt wasted no time in erecting his "Undead Bastion," a towering barrier of necrotic energy intended to shield him from Askari's attacks.
However, Askari was not deterred. With a deep breath, he centered himself, focusing his energy as he had been taught in the monasteries of his homeland. His aura shimmered and intensified, the spiritual energy forming a colossal image of a multi-armed deity, an embodiment of Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Infinite Compassion.
Grimmhilt's grin faltered as he beheld the spectacle. But before he could react, Askari launched his attack.
"Avalokiteshvara Strike!" Askari roared, the ethereal deity mimicking his movements as they launched a barrage of attacks. Each strike was a concentrated blast of his aura, a devastating assault that battered Grimmhilt's barrier.
The "Undead Bastion," despite its formidable defenses, crumbled under the onslaught. Grimmhilt, robbed of his protective shield, was at the mercy of Askari's barrage. The warrior monk's assault was relentless and in an instant, it was over.
Grimmhilt was left sprawled on the ground, his defenses shattered, his energy depleted. The crowd erupted into cheers as Razzle Fizzlebop announced Askari's victory. "Askari of the Brotherhood is the winner!"
As Askari made his way back to his friends, he was met with high fives and words of praise. The victory, however, brought him no joy. His face remained stern, his mind already on the upcoming battles.
As Skyblitz stepped forward to take the stage, Askari extended his fist to his oldest friend. Skyblitz bumped it with his own, a silent promise of the fight to come. Askari could only hope that the rest of their battles would be fought with honor, for the sake of their brotherhood and the sacred principles they upheld.
"Prepare yourselves, for the gust of competition is about to take flight!" Razzle Fizzlebop's enthusiastic proclamation echoed throughout the coliseum, whipping the spectators into a whirlwind of anticipation. "Skyblitz of the Brotherhood versus Aridorn of the Revenant Reapers!"
Skyblitz emerged onto the battlefield, the embodiment of avian majesty and power. His feathered form shimmered as a warm gust swirled around him, a tangible display of his command over wind magic.
His opponent, Aridorn, carried an imposing aura of his own. His silver hair seemed to flow like mercury, capturing the ominous sheen of his cold eyes. As an Elf warrior, he drew upon the arcane forces at his command, his body language exuding icy determination.
As the starting signal echoed across the coliseum, the tension morphed into a dazzling spectacle of magical prowess. Aridorn was swift, initiating the duel with a "Frost Edge" attack that transformed his longsword into a chilling blade of freezing energy.
Skyblitz, ever the master of the wind, reacted with perfect timing. His "Wind Blade" took form, a blade of compressed air that met Aridorn's icy onslaught head-on. The crowd erupted into cheers, the sheer display of magical mastery a feast for their eyes.
The battle raged on, morphing into an intense back-and-forth between the two combatants. Aridorn kept on the offensive, wielding his chilling magic to launch a series of potent attacks. His "Glacial Wall" forced Skyblitz to keep his distance, while his "Frost Spears" kept the Aarakocra on his talons.
Skyblitz was not to be outdone. His mastery over wind magic was a spectacle in itself. His agile movements, augmented by "Gale Dash," allowed him to evade Aridorn's icy attacks with an effortless grace that seemed almost choreographed. His "Tempest Cyclone" countered Aridorn's defenses, the swirling vortex of wind magic breaking through the icy wall Aridorn had erected.
This thrilling exchange of magic and martial prowess continued, each warrior holding his ground. The crowd watched, breathless, as the two powerhouses collided, each new clash raising the stakes.
Eventually, however, Skyblitz decided it was time to end the match. Channeling his wind magic, he executed his final move, an attack he had perfected over years of rigorous training. "Twister Throw!" he bellowed, the powerful shout resonating across the coliseum.
In a swift, fluid motion, Skyblitz seized Aridorn, his powerful wings carrying them high above the arena. The crowd watched in stunned silence as he summoned a powerful tornado around them, his wind magic swirling with an intensity that left everyone breathless.
The force of the wind spun them around, accelerating until Aridorn was a mere blur in the eye of the storm. With a final, powerful shout, Skyblitz threw Aridorn, propelling him with the force of the swirling wind.
Aridorn plummeted to the ground, his descent marked by a tailwind of force. The impact echoed throughout the coliseum, the ground quaking beneath the force. Dust and debris filled the air, obscuring the view as the crowd held its breath.
When the dust finally settled, Aridorn was revealed, unconscious and defeated, cradled in the heart of a massive crater. Skyblitz landed elegantly on the battlefield, his victory secured.
"Victory to Skyblitz of the Brotherhood!" Razzle Fizzlebop's voice echoed around the arena. The crowd erupted into cheers, their exhilaration shaking the coliseum.
Skyblitz, despite his victory, did not celebrate. His expression was serious, his gaze focused. His mind was already on the battles to come. The Grand Arcana Tournament was far from over, and the Brotherhood was ready to face whatever came next.
As the dust from the previous battle cleared, the Brotherhood gathered in a huddle. Their attention was fixated on Redroot, the Goliath, whose presence was as sturdy and intimidating as a fortress of stone.
"Redroot," Askari began, looking up at his towering friend. "We've seen you hold back, always opting to shield rather than strike. This time, let them witness your true power. Be the landslide, not just the mountain."
Skyblitz joined in, a spark of anticipation illuminating his avian eyes. "You've got this, Red. Make the ground tremble beneath your might."
Redroot nodded solemnly, acknowledging the encouraging words of his companions. "The earth shall quake in my honor."
The crowd's excited chatter fell silent as Razzle Fizzlebop made the next announcement. "Step forward, Redroot of the Brotherhood and Snigg of the Revenant Reapers!"
Snigg, a small yet wiry goblin, walked onto the battlefield, an air of dark magic surrounding him. Redroot followed, his imposing figure causing a wave of silence to sweep across the spectators. The air around him rippled with earth magic, projecting an image that was equal parts awe-inspiring and terrifying.
With a mighty roar, Redroot charged at Snigg, his fist colliding with Snigg's in a thunderous impact that sent shockwaves pulsing through the coliseum. It was a clash of raw strength against potent magic, and the crowd watched in awe as the battle unfolded.
Snigg was swift and cunning, employing his dark magic with a surprising finesse. His "Shadow Warp" allowed him to dodge Redroot's massive strikes and retaliate with "Abyssal Shards." However, Redroot was no easy target. His earth magic countered Snigg's attacks, his "Stone Fist" shattering Snigg's dark energy projectiles while his "Earth Shield" offered unyielding defense.
Despite Snigg's agility and cunning, Redroot stood firm, countering with powerful attacks of his own. He used his "Granite Grasp" to trap Snigg, while his "Boulder Bash" sent the goblin sprawling across the battlefield.
The back-and-forth continued, each fighter displaying their unique set of skills to the fullest. Snigg continued to exploit his nimbleness and dark magic, but Redroot remained a formidable opponent, his resolve as unshakeable as the earth he commanded.
As the battle reached a fever pitch, Redroot decided to end the duel. Gathering his earth magic, he channeled it into a final, devastating attack. With a roar that echoed throughout the coliseum, Redroot slammed his fists into the ground, calling out, "Tectonic Rupture!"
The ground beneath them trembled and shook, a wave of stone and earth erupting beneath Snigg. The goblin had no time to react as the force of the attack knocked him off his feet, sending him crashing onto the battlefield.
When the dust finally settled, Snigg lay unconscious, the aftermath of Redroot's attack evident in the crater surrounding him. Razzle Fizzlebop's announcement of Redroot's victory echoed across the coliseum, met with a deafening roar of approval from the crowd.
The Brotherhood cheered for their friend, their voices drowned out by the thunderous applause. Despite his victory, Redroot remained humble, a gentle smile playing on his lips. His victory wasn't for himself; it was for his friends and the bond they shared. For the Brotherhood, this was just the beginning, and they were ready for the challenges that lay ahead.
As the dust from Redroot's battle settled, the Brotherhood gathered once more. This time, their focus was on Joneson, the Paladin oathbreaker, a man whose past was filled with guilt and redemption, and whose power stemmed from the void itself.
His fellow warriors gave him a solid, reassuring clap on the shoulder. "You've got this, Joneson. You're a Paladin, through and through. Oathbreaker or not, you uphold honor and justice like no other," Skyblitz said, his avian eyes flicking with a hint of admiration.
The others nodded in agreement. Redroot’s gravelly voice echoed Skyblitz's sentiment. "You're not just a warrior, Joneson. You’re a protector. That's your strength."
The air filled with anticipation as Razzle Fizzlebop's voice once again echoed across the coliseum. "Ladies and gentlemen, the final bout of this round. Step forward, Joneson of the Brotherhood and Zul'Kur of the Revenant Reapers!"
Zul'Kur was a towering figure, adorned with intricate tribal tattoos glowing with an arcane energy. He was an orc shaman, known for his potent spirit magic. A formidable opponent, one who had won his previous battles with a ruthless and savage efficiency.
Joneson walked onto the battlefield, his aura of void energy cloaking him like a shadow. Despite the cheering crowd, a sense of stillness enveloped him. His expression was calm, his gaze steady, the air around him seeming to warp slightly as his void magic reacted to his focused state of mind.
The fight began with a massive clash of magic, Joneson's void energy colliding with Zul'Kur's spirit magic. The crowd gasped as the arena filled with a blinding light, both fighters' powers creating an awe-inspiring spectacle.
Joneson was adept with his void magic, utilizing "Void Shield" to block Zul'Kur's spirit attacks, retaliating with his own "Shadow Strike." Zul'Kur was equally skilled, his spirit magic taking the form of ancestral warriors through his "Spirit Summon," each one engaging Joneson with ruthless ferocity.
Back and forth they went, each clash more intense than the last. Zul'Kur’s spirit magic was relentless, but Joneson’s void manipulation allowed him to absorb and deflect the attacks with increasing ease.
However, as the battle wore on, Joneson's void energy started to dominate the field. His "Abyssal Chains" attack ensnared Zul'Kur's spirit warriors, dissolving them into nothingness. His "Black Hole Strike" pulled Zul'Kur off balance, allowing Joneson to land a decisive "Void Punch."
Just as it seemed that Joneson was gaining the upper hand, a commotion stirred from the sidelines. The previously defeated members of The Revenant Reapers rushed into the arena, their expressions desperate and wild.
The crowd gasped as Galros, Grimmhilt, Aridorn, and Snigg stood beside Zul'Kur, their powers radiating menacingly. The odds had abruptly shifted. Joneson, though strong, was now standing against the full force of The Revenant Reapers.
The anticipation was thick as the crowd watched in shocked silence. The Brotherhood stood at the sidelines, their expressions a mix of concern and determination. The stage was set for a showdown like no other, the true test of the Brotherhood's unity and strength yet to come.
The Revenant Reapers' aggressive entrance onto the stage was met with mixed reactions from the crowd, the Brotherhood, and most interestingly, from Joneson himself. The Reapers exuded a sinister, dark energy as they joined Zul'Kur in facing Joneson.
In the Brotherhood's corner, Skyblitz was already halfway into his takeoff, his wings ruffling in anticipation, ready to swoop down and help Joneson. Redroot had tightened his grip on his massive boulder hammer, his eyes reflecting a fierce determination.
But, it was Askari who raised his hand, signaling them to halt. His eyes were locked onto the scene unfolding before them, a calm yet intense look etched onto his face.
"This is his fight," Askari's voice cut through the rising tension. The words were met with immediate confusion and even protest.
"But they're outnumbering him, Askari," IraTater argued, his draconic eyes glaring towards the spectacle in the arena.
Askari, however, was resolute. "Joneson has a strength we've not yet seen. He's been holding back, for reasons only he knows," he continued, his gaze never leaving the center of the coliseum.
There was a pause before Askari recounted a tale, one of a Paladin who had broken his oath to protect those he loved. It was a tale of guilt and redemption, of strength and love. The tale of Joneson, their comrade, their brother in arms. The Brotherhood listened in silence, their eyes now understanding the depth of Joneson's power that lay dormant.
Back in the arena, Joneson stood steady, his gaze meeting Askari's. There was a silent communication, a nod of acknowledgement, and an understanding. It was time.
Without breaking his gaze from the Reapers, Joneson muttered an incantation under his breath. As the words left his lips, the air around him started to warp, and a cold chill swept across the coliseum. His eyes began to gleam with an ethereal light as the Oathbreaker's Seal began to break.
"Void Infinity," he whispered. The two words carried a weight, a promise, and a threat. The darkness swallowed the arena, blotting out the light and encasing the battleground in an impenetrable shroud. The Reapers, about to attack, found themselves in a sea of uncertainty.
Out of the engulfing void emerged figures, formless yet formidable, each a living embodiment of void energy. With every word of Joneson's continued incantation, they grew stronger, their presence more intimidating.
The Reapers tried to retaliate, but their attacks were swallowed by the void. The shadowy figures closed in, a relentless storm of dark energy that crushed their resistance and drowned their cries. The sheer force of the onslaught sent shockwaves through the arena, causing the crowd to gasp in awe.
When the darkness finally receded, the scene that emerged was one of utter devastation. The Reapers lay strewn across the battleground, their energies depleted, their pride shattered.
The crowd erupted into cheers, the echo of "Joneson" resonating throughout the arena. As the Brotherhood rushed to join their victorious comrade in the center, their smiles were as wide as they were proud.
With his friends surrounding him, Joneson looked at each one of them, his eyes softening. The void magic around him faded, replaced by a warm aura. This was more than just a victory. It was a testament of their friendship, their trust, and their unyielding brotherhood. They had emerged triumphant, and for the time being, they could bask in their victory.
It was a powerful conclusion to a stunning display of magic and camaraderie. The Grand Arcana Tournament was far from over, but the Brotherhood had made their mark, and they were ready for whatever came next.