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Best Interior Designer, Owner and Contractor Relationship
2023.03.22 07:44 heightsinstitute Best Interior Designer, Owner and Contractor Relationship
 | https://preview.redd.it/kl79fn5il8pa1.jpg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9241ed7ddb1234757c677898792520db0de41eb3 submitted by heightsinstitute to u/heightsinstitute [link] [comments] The relationship between the parties involved in a construction project can be complex, and it is important to understand the roles and responsibilities of each party. Generally, the Designer, Contractor, and Owner are the primary parties involved in the construction process. The Designer is responsible for designing the work, preparing detailed drawings, coordinating and supervising the work at the site. During the design phase, the Designer serves as an objective professional, endeavoring to carry out the Owner's wishes. In the construction phase, the Designer acts in a dual capacity, serving as the Owner's professional advisor and agent, and an impartial interpreter of the Contract Documents upon written request of the Owner or Contractor. It is important to note that the Interior Designer signs a Contract with the Owner, the Owner-Interior Designer Agreement. The Contractor signs a Contract with the Owner, the Owner-Contractor Agreement. There is no contractual obligation between the Designer and Contractor. However, the Designer is responsible for administering the Contract between the Owner and Contractor as a result of their contractual agreement with the Owner. The Designer's responsibilities include interpreting and enforcing the provisions of the Contract Documents upon the written request of either the Owner or Contractor. They are responsible for determining if the Contractor's work is in accordance with the Contract Documents and rejecting defective work. However, the Designer's authority does not extend to directing construction techniques, the time in which the work is done, safety procedures, or sequences of construction. They are not responsible for construction means, methods, techniques, or safety precautions for the project. Nor are they responsible for the acts or omissions of the Contractor. The Contractor is responsible for construction means, methods, and techniques unless the Contract Documents give other instructions concerning these matters. In addition to their responsibilities as outlined in the Owner-Interior Designer Agreement, the Designer is also the Owner's professional adviser throughout the project. The Owner furnishes the relevant information concerning program requirements and the site, pays for the cost of professional services, and pays for the cost of the work associated with the development of the project. Heights Jaipur offers comprehensive interior design courses in Jaipur for students who want to pursue a career in this exciting field. Our courses provide students with the knowledge and skills required to create aesthetically pleasing and functional spaces. With experienced faculty, industry-relevant curriculum, and state-of-the-art facilities, we provide our students with the best possible education and training. Join us today to unleash your creativity and become a successful interior designer. https://preview.redd.it/bfgas37jl8pa1.jpg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=beb5c341aec8399ad4859958d006a78db2c5300f Changes In The Work The construction process involves several parties, including the Designer, Contractor, and Owner. The Designer is responsible for designing the work, preparing detailed drawings, and supervising the work at the site. The Contractor executes the project in accordance with the drawings, and the Owner provides relevant information about the program requirements and site. Throughout the project, the Interior Designer serves as the Owner's professional adviser, helping to carry out the Owner's wishes during the design phase and administering the Contract between the Owner and Contractor during the construction phase. It is important to note that the Interior Designer signs a Contract with the Owner, outlining their duties, including the administration of the Contract between the Owner and Contractor. The Designer has the responsibility to interpret and enforce the provisions of the Contract Documents and determine if the Contractor's work is in accordance with the Contract Documents. However, the Designer is not responsible for directing construction techniques, safety procedures, or sequences of construction. Change orders may occur during the project, which are written instructions to the Contractor authorizing a change in the scope of the work, Contract sum or Contract time. These orders are based upon agreement among the Owner, Interior Designer, and Contractor. The Designer must obtain prior permission from the Client before issuing Construction Change authorization to the Contractor and must not make changes without consulting the Client. Heights Jaipur is one of the best interior design colleges in Jaipur that offers a wide range of courses for students interested in pursuing a career in interior design. With experienced faculty, industry-relevant curriculum, and modern facilities, we provide our students with the best possible education and training. Fire safety Fire safety is a critical concern in interior design, and designers must take appropriate measures to prevent fires. Overloading electrical wiring and lavish furnishings are common causes of fires. Lack of maintenance of electrical wiring, blocked fire exits, and defunct fire extinguishers also contribute to unsafe building interiors. Interior Designers should educate their clients on the necessity of automatic fire detection alarm systems. During a fire, heat produces expansion and contraction of the affected material, leading to serious damage to the structure. Therefore, Interior Designers must pay close attention to door frames and shutters to ensure they meet fire safety standards. Fire-resistant doors must automatically close by floor spring or overhead door closer, and door frames should be secured to the wall by holdfast and not by screws, which can give way during a fire. A fire escape staircase door should not have any locking device from inside or outside to enable easy escape during a fire. False ceilings False ceilings are a common feature in buildings and can be made from a variety of materials. However, wood framing and wood panelling should be avoided as they can pose a fire hazard. Instead, aluminium sections are preferred, particularly in public buildings. AC ducts To prevent the spread of fire in AC ducts, fire dampers should be installed. These prevent the spread of fire by closing off the ducts. Water sprinkler systems Water sprinkler systems are another effective way to control fires. Pipes connected to water mains in the ceiling are provided with melting bulbs at the junctions. If a fire breaks out, the bulbs will melt, and the automatic sprinkler system will activate to control the fire. Automatic smoke detectors Automatic smoke detectors are essential in detecting fires. As soon as the temperature rises, the detector will sound an alarm. In some buildings, detectors are set up to notify the fire department automatically. Fire Alarm System A fire alarm system is a common method of alerting people in the event of a fire. The alarm is usually set up to sound on a specific floor or throughout the entire building. Emergency lighting Emergency lighting is another important safety feature in the event of a fire. It is connected to a separate generator and smoke detection system, ensuring that it will still work even if the power goes out. Fire Detection System A fire detection system is a network of thermostats or other approved sensors that can detect the presence of fire and automatically signal an alarm. Smoke Detector Smoke detectors are electronic fire alarms that are activated by the presence of smoke. Fire Extinguisher Fire extinguishers are portable devices used to put out small fires by ejecting pressurized water or special chemicals. They are classified based on the type of fire they can extinguish. Sprinkler System Sprinkler systems are apparatuses that can automatically extinguish fires in a building. They consist of a network of pipes installed in or below the ceiling, connected to a suitable water supply, and supplied with valves or sprinkler heads that open automatically at a certain temperature. Wet-Pipe System Wet-pipe systems are sprinkler systems containing water at sufficient pressure to provide an immediate, continuous discharge through sprinkler heads that open automatically in the event of fire. Wet-Pipe System Dry-pipe systems are sprinkler systems containing pressurized air that is released when a sprinkler head opens in the event of fire, allowing water to flow through the piping and out the opened nozzle. Firepump Fire pumps provide the required water pressure in a standing pipe or sprinkler system when pressure in the system drops below a pre-selected value. Hydrant Finally, hydrants are upright pipes with one or more nozzles or spouts for drawing water from a main, especially for fighting fires. It is important to consider all these fire safety features when designing building interiors to ensure the safety of occupants in the event of a fire. Heights Jaipur is a leading fashion design institute in Jaipur that offers comprehensive courses for students interested in pursuing a career in the fashion industry. Join us today to turn your creative passion into a successful profession. Class 'A' Fire A Class 'A' fire involves ordinary combustible materials such as wood, paper, and cloth. In these fires, the cooling effect of water is crucial for extinguishing the flames. Class 'B' Fire A Class 'B' fire involves flammable liquids such as gasoline, oil, and grease. These fires require the exclusion of air and inhibition of the release of combustible vapors to be extinguished. Class 'C' Fire A Class 'C' fire involves live electrical equipment, which requires a non-conducting extinguishing medium to be used. Class 'D' Fire A Class 'D' fire involves certain combustible metals such as magnesium or sodium. To extinguish these fires, a non-reactive, heat-absorbing extinguishing medium is required. Fire Separation Fire separation refers to any floor, wall, or roof-ceiling construction that has the required fire-resistance rating to confine the spread of fire. Fire Wall A fire wall is a wall that has the fire resistance rating to prevent the spread of fire from one part of a building to another. It extends from the foundation to a parapet above the roof and has all openings restricted to a certain percentage of the wall length. The wall is also protected by a self-closing or automatic-closing fire assembly. Fire Door A fire door assembly includes all required hardware, anchorage, frames, and sills, and has the required fire-resistance rating for its location and use. Fire Damper A fire damper automatically closes an air duct in the event of a fire to restrict the passage of fire and smoke. It is required where a duct penetrates a fire wall, fire-rated shaft, or other fire separation. Conclusion:- Heights Jaipur is a leading interior design institute in Jaipur that offers comprehensive courses for students interested in pursuing a career in interior design. With experienced faculty, industry-relevant curriculum, and modern facilities, we provide our students with the best possible education and training. Join us today to unleash your creativity and become a successful interior designer. Heights Jaipur offers comprehensive fashion design courses in Jaipur to help aspiring designers turn their creative ideas into reality. Our courses provide students with the knowledge and skills needed to succeed in the fashion industry. Join us today to unleash your creativity and pursue a fulfilling career in fashion design. |
2023.03.22 07:30 kunalkathuria2021 DOT 406 compliant Tank Trailers - Buying Guide
DOT 406 tank trailers are typically used for hauling and transporting gasoline and other highly flammable liquids. These tank trailers are usually composed of aluminum and have a heavily constructed top that is excavated to hold small spills. These tanks are generally separated into three to four compartments, with one hatch per compartment in the tank, and they feature one or more domes or hatches and dome coverings. DOT 406 tank trailers are elliptical when looking from the rear and have an oval shape with flat and nearly flat ends and have a maximum hauling capacity of 9000 gallons. Read more
submitted by kunalkathuria2021 to u/kunalkathuria2021 [link] [comments]
2023.03.22 07:30 TheSajuukKhar Ten Forward Weekly 3/21/2023
- Next event, after Voth event ends, is First Contact Day
- Ship from SNW soon(tm), though probably not one we were expecting
- Zen store ships coming up. Kael believes one of the Zen store ships is technically a Lower Decks ship
- Kael hasn't heard anything regarding a bundle for DSC ending
- Unlikely Cryptic will make new starting experiences
- Kael believes theres some new item set coming soon
- When STO was launched on consoles there were 15 countries that it didn't get launched on the Playstation store for, for w/e reason, and Cryptic is working on getting that fixed
- "End of game" for STO isn't happening any time soon
- The tech is there to make costume items for vanity pets, Kael isn't sure it will happen any time soon
- Kael will pass on beards for Romulans
- When asked about making older, non full spec, Zen store/lockbox ships upgraded to full spec to make them more relevant/on par with current ships Kael said that the T6x upgrades were made to help with that, and that theres more stuff coming in that area
- To get the Voth battlezone to work with the event Jesse had to do some "under the hood" magic because the game editor couldn't do it directly. The data was able to be handled by the engine, just not in a way that was directly available to them. Had to get a new icon made for the battlezone from the UI artist Joe. "Most difficult" part was opening up the battlezone and editing all the events to capture areas to give credit for completion of the event which involved.... one whole line of data!
- Jesse says it was about time they added the Battlezones to events. STO has been running events using TFOs/mini-games like Omega molecules for awhile now, why not integrate the battlezones? They have obvious break points in capturing sections that can be used for event credit. This new option seems to resonate with players, so they might do it again.
- When asked about small craft content Kael/Jesse talk about the "Mario Kart" gameplay they tested for small craft in the past. They spent weeks and weeks making it, and even got to actual testing of it, but found that the amount of work needed to make it feel good in the game was more than the payoff they would get out of it(there was a semi-long conversation about camera, movement, weight of objects, etc, between games that makes each game work/feel as it needs to be, and how STO's ship system just wasn't built for cart racing so it doesn't feel good)
- Issue with bringing the DPS test map on Tribble over to live involves both fixing rewards, and that it was made by a developer who no longer works for Cryptic so someone like Jesse would have to find the map in the code, see it how works, bring it over to live, find ways to it could be exploited and fix them, etc.(Cryptic has also previously mentioned the map isn't very optimized and bringing it over to live server would lag the game)
- Issue with the old Maco/Omega/Honor Guard unlocks is that they were awarded in ways that they don't structure the data anymore. So a designer like Jesse has to go find where in the data did they award this thing. Then it has to be passed to a programmer who has to figure out how this is actually unlocking the costume. Then it has to be sent to a costume artist who has to decide if this is something they want to give out, or does it need to be fixed up for clipping/species lists. Its not as easy as just "flip switch costume unlocked". Kael says he will ask Jarod about see if it can be added as rewards for like a Borg event or something
- Spock's volcano suit was brought up as a possible reward for this years First contact Day, but a more fun reward was thought up/decided instead. Cryptic is still aware people want it, but right now its just a costume with no stats and someone in systems would have to build the actual EV suit
- Ground vehicles, like the Argo, would require a larger overhaul to get working. The Voth mech suit works because its basically just "big group person". While Champions has vehicles theres some hard limits on what they can do. Compares it to the shuttle issues. What does it feel like to drive a car in STO? What maps can you use it on? Is it actually going to fit in all the places we want it to on a map? What happens when you crash? When you run into another car? When you drive over a critter? How is throttle handled? Do you have to shift gears? Is it automatic? Can other people ride in the car and/or possibly shoot a gun while in the car?
- Kael will ask Jarod about making older party poppers available
- Turning hoverboards on in maps like New Romulus is possible, but would require some fiddling since hoverboards work by defining a "volume" on the map where hoverboards are allowed. You have to be careful about things like ground clearance. If you notice you can just too high and accidentally have the hoverboard power turn off because the volume for allowing hoverboards only really covers the area directly above the water
- Cryptic is having ongoing discussions about how to make the V-Rex less campable
- V-Rex not counting for daily event progress it intended because of the camping issue
- Porting things between STO/Champions/Neverwitner is really difficult. Champion is locked to its own code branch meaning its more stable, but doesn't have many of the features STO/Neverwinter do. STO and Neverwinter are easier to port between because they're developed in tandem, but differences in how the game's play mean you can just port enemies between games without having to do things like rebuilding the animation rig.
- Champions isn't on console because it just didn't work out that way. It was originally going to be on Xbox 360, but that didn't work out for w/e reason.
- Reason why special BOFFs, like those based on actors, aren't editable is due to costume clipping/performance reasons. Some costume pieces don't look good on X species, other don't match well with other costume part, some things like capes/loose cloth is very performance heavy, etc. Geordi and EMH BOFFs were editable because of being very generic human shape without too many issues.
- The reason why Defense of Starbase One was bottable was because it was originally designed to require you to clean up each wave of Klingons before it would move onto the next wave. However, around the time they made it, there was a big engine bug where all instances of that "clean up the remaining enemy" would never complete. This was due to a fake entity being on the map/being used for code purposes that the game would count as an enemy even though it wasn't. In order to get around the bug the TFO was changed to just have automatic wave progression, which made it AFKable. That issue was solved, so they changed it back/adjusted what the game looks for in regards to people AFKing to make it not AFKable.
- Oddest bug Christian ever worked on was a bug that caused two people PVPing to revert to level 0 after the PVP match was over
- John said he would think about changing the Terran Valkyrie pets to use agony phasers, and that it was an interesting idea, but no confirmation of if/when it will happen.
- Updating the old uniforms is unlikely since the character artists are working on new things hinted at the end of recent missions(likely talking about the Borg arc tease)
- To revamp something like DSEs would require
- The environment team looking at the map and deciding if it looks good enough, or if its janky/needs some fixes. Spend several weeks doing that.
- Content would have to track down all associated bugs like critters warping in, fading out, then warping back in again. That's a big question mark since Cryptic doesn't know what causes it, and thus, how long it will take to fix.
- In regards to refreshing the content itself would require things like. Bringing in a voiced characteactor to be a liaison for the DSEs. Have the writer write up different text for each type of DSE. Couple days for writing, a couple days for recording, a couple days for the audio team to set audio levels and hook it all up. Character reaction has to sculpt their likeness, even if its a mini contact box and not a full dialogue screen. That's weeks of work. If its an STO original character thats still days of work. Content would then have to do things like make higher level DSEs. This would involve copying the DSEs and changing the encounter levels on them, set it all up, and make a new version of the map for all of this stuff. That's a couple days of work due to the number of DSEs. Adding new gameplay features like closing portals, rescuing ships etc, would take a few days to a week. Then it needs to be copied to all the other DSEs and edited for each kind of enemy to make sure it works. Then it goes to QA who has to test all of them, all variations, how it works with teams of people, if things like fighting one type of enemy breaks the new gameplay feature. This is a few weeks for QA to go through everything/send back to programmers to fix issues. Would also include adding DSEs to quadrants without them, critter groups not currently covered by DSEs, new accolades, trying them into the endeavor system, etc. Jesse says he would schedule around 1.5-2 months worth of time to bring DSEs up to 2023 levels of gameplay.
- Don't assume devs know about a bug just because its old, and if you've posted about it on the forums before, but it hasn't been fixed, don't be afraid to bump the thread up to get more visibility on it.
- fleet logo being available on ships/not is up to Thomas wanting it to be there or not
- Christian is always scanning the forums/Reddit for new bugs. But do include details/steps for recreating said bug. Just saying "x is broken" isn't helpful for the devs.
- Jesse would like to redo Khitomer in Stasis but it would require a lot of work.
- Texas class not having the NA registry is a bug and is getting fixed either this week, or soon
- Bug regarding ISA right transformer not spawning with a shield has been reproduced by QA, and put on content, so it should be fixed soon
- Bug about Texas class console/experimental weapon misfiring was noted
- Female french twist hairstyle making your character invisible was reported, confirmed by QA, and has been sent to the team to fix
- Kael asked Christian to note the Beverly hair not being available for females
- Cryptic is looking into the block? on PS4
- Christian fixed the bug on the Valkyrie hanger pet visuals, and the Jem'Hadar Zen store ships having wrong descriptions.
- The teams disbanding at the end of a TFO bug is a bug that Cryptic has dealt with for years, and it keeps coming back every time they think they've squashed it.
- Jesse fixed the bug in "Stranded in Space" regarding the science career optional
- Screen flicker in Khitomer in Stasis TFO, and other older maps, was reported
- Starfleet 32C non admiral pants clipping through the jacket also noted
- Trauma response being buggy is a known issue
- Christian wrote down feedback about the synth ship getting a skin without the Federation logo on it.
- Lobi outfits not being able to be worn by BOFFs on at least the Xbox version was noted
2023.03.22 07:29 xobunnizwurld can i do repairs myself? (WV)
Me and my roommate moved into our first place (a 2 bedroom 1 bath apartment) a little under 6 months ago. The place is quite shit but the bills are cheap, its in a good place in town, and its quite spacious, so we're planning on staying for a while and want to invest into the space. When we moved in plenty of things were left unfinished and dirty. The "cleaning lady" even left her nice swifer mop which we kept. I wanna fix some cosmetic things and some actual issues.
Me and my roommate have decided to no longer include management unless there is a big issue (like how we got our leaking pipes fixed and moldy carpet pulled) But we're tired of not getting any efficient help. They only come if repairs are dire to health and safety. And even then theyre flaky and will take a long time to respond. And when they do come we have to block out our entire days, as maintenance will come hours late and stay for hours even on quick repairs. We also cant be alone with him as he is creepy and inappropriate and this makes it even harder to schedule. We suspect maintenance gets paid hrly and thats why he overstays his welcome and constantly talks abt wanting to do big, days-long, and unneeded upgrades while avoiding actual repairs.
We have already fixed smaller stuff (like putting on switch/outlet covers) but the two cosmetic ones are drawers and doors. Our doors are similar to those in a trailer home where theyre thin. They had a bunch of holes that were patched but now we're left with the infamous door vaginas. Its from where they drew in wood grain with marker and never stained over. God forbid I just want to stain them so bad. The second is a kitchen drawer, or more the lack there of. When we moved in the maintenance man said he was getting one custom made bc of its odd-small size. He offered to cover the hole with a piece of wood, but we declined bc he said the drawer would be done in a couple of weeks. We still dont have a drawer, just a hole. Can I go ahead and cover it? The only other thing is the bathroom vent, it doesn't work. Maintenance brought it up when we first moved in but hasn't since. I would probably have my dad do it bc he is skilled, unlike maintenance who took 4 hours to install a dishwasher (1hr max job) and didn't even put the dust panel on.
Management is lenient (ex: no pets allowed but every tenant has a pet). The landlord has never came, only maintenance. Maintenance man is pretty dumb. It took him two visits to notice our rabbit enclosure that is next to the entrance and half of our living room. So we think he wouldnt even notice or care if we changed things. He also has a huge man crush on my dad and always asks abt him and whenever my father is over he'll ask him for help/advice. I think if I just say my dad did it then he wouldnt even bat an eye. I feel like I've heard in some places if tenants do repairs theyre required some form of compensation, but I dont even care abt that I just want my place to feel like a home without getting into trouble.
submitted by xobunnizwurld to Renters [link] [comments]
Me and my roommate have decided to no longer include management unless there is a big issue (like how we got our leaking pipes fixed and moldy carpet pulled) But we're tired of not getting any efficient help. They only come if repairs are dire to health and safety. And even then theyre flaky and will take a long time to respond. And when they do come we have to block out our entire days, as maintenance will come hours late and stay for hours even on quick repairs. We also cant be alone with him as he is creepy and inappropriate and this makes it even harder to schedule. We suspect maintenance gets paid hrly and thats why he overstays his welcome and constantly talks abt wanting to do big, days-long, and unneeded upgrades while avoiding actual repairs.
We have already fixed smaller stuff (like putting on switch/outlet covers) but the two cosmetic ones are drawers and doors. Our doors are similar to those in a trailer home where theyre thin. They had a bunch of holes that were patched but now we're left with the infamous door vaginas. Its from where they drew in wood grain with marker and never stained over. God forbid I just want to stain them so bad. The second is a kitchen drawer, or more the lack there of. When we moved in the maintenance man said he was getting one custom made bc of its odd-small size. He offered to cover the hole with a piece of wood, but we declined bc he said the drawer would be done in a couple of weeks. We still dont have a drawer, just a hole. Can I go ahead and cover it? The only other thing is the bathroom vent, it doesn't work. Maintenance brought it up when we first moved in but hasn't since. I would probably have my dad do it bc he is skilled, unlike maintenance who took 4 hours to install a dishwasher (1hr max job) and didn't even put the dust panel on.
Management is lenient (ex: no pets allowed but every tenant has a pet). The landlord has never came, only maintenance. Maintenance man is pretty dumb. It took him two visits to notice our rabbit enclosure that is next to the entrance and half of our living room. So we think he wouldnt even notice or care if we changed things. He also has a huge man crush on my dad and always asks abt him and whenever my father is over he'll ask him for help/advice. I think if I just say my dad did it then he wouldnt even bat an eye. I feel like I've heard in some places if tenants do repairs theyre required some form of compensation, but I dont even care abt that I just want my place to feel like a home without getting into trouble.
2023.03.22 04:45 Big-Act-9425 Do You Need a Water Filter?
Tap water is one of our most important basic necessities. However, the tap water provided by the municipality is worrying because it contains a lot of substances harmful to the human body. You need a water filter that will allow you to drink safe and pure water and stay away from the threat of water pollution.
The Tap Water Guidelines specify that water "should contain no harmful concentrations of chemicals or pathogenic micro-organisms, and ideally it should be aesthetically pleasing in regard to appearance, taste and odour".
Water authorities use settling, coagulation, filtering and disinfecting to ensure the safety of our drinking water, using sufficient disinfectant to stop the re-growth of microorganisms as the water travels through the pipe system to your home.
The downside of ensuring safe drinking water is the lingering taste and smell of disinfectant. If you fill up a jug with tap water and leave it to sit for a couple of hours, the disinfectant smell and taste will gradually dissipate, but many people opt for a water filter system.
When you turn on your tap, you should see clear, uncloudy water. If not, or it tastes strange, then there are ways to find out why.
Water Filter Profiles
The basic pros and cons of each type of filtering system are included below, as well as a rough estimate of initial costs. Ongoing costs can be determined by checking the volume or time it claims to filter before requiring replacement.
Be sure to factor in the cost of replacement water filter cartridges and always replace as instructed, as spent cartridges can themselves harbour micro-organisms. What each cartridge can filter varies even within the different types of dispensers.
Jug Filter(Water Pitcher Filter)
Pros: Convenient, small, and easy to use and replace filters.
Cons: Some are slow, prone to clogging and have short filter lives, meaning higher ongoing costs.
Water Pitcher Filter is one of the commonly used household water filters. It is easy to use and you can place it directly on the table.
Tap Water Filter
Pros: Most convenient at tap filter, small, and easy to use and replace filters. Easily swap between filtered and non-filtered water.
Cons: Slows the flow of water and cannot be used on all taps.
The faucet filter can be mounted on the faucet for easy installation; however, you will need to change the water filter cartridge frequently to ensure that pure water is available for long periods of time.
Counter-top
Pros: Filters large amounts of water without plumbing modification. Less likely to clog than jug or tap-mounted filters.
Cons: Clutters countertops and cannot be used on all taps.
Under-sink
Pros: Filters large amounts of water without cluttering up countertop, or attaching to existing tap. Less likely to clog than jug or tap-mounted filters.
Cons: Takes up under-sink space and requires plumbing modification. Most expensive option.
The RO System is a common Under-sink water filter that filters almost all contaminants in the water. You can drink it directly from the filtered water.
Other Water Filter Options
You can also buy shower water filters or ones built into fridge ice and water systems. These are generally carbon filters.
There is also an option to fit out the entire house, but they're expensive and generally only justified in quite specific situations (for example, if you have a poor-quality water supply).
Water Filter Mediums
All the filter systems above can have different types or combinations of filter mediums. Your choice depends on what you want to filter out.
Filtration/Adsorption: Water Filter involves using a substance, typically carbon, to make contaminants adhere to the many pores (like pumice) within the carbon source, also called adsorption. The source of carbon can be coconut, charcoal, ceramic, etc. This helps remove odour, taste and particles in the water.
Softeners: If you have a hard water source, you will notice a build up in kettles, bathtubs and sinks. These are normally a result of large amounts of minerals in your water. A softener water filter medium will reduce the amount of minerals.
UV Treatment: This uses ultraviolet light to disinfect water. However, it only works on relatively clear water, otherwise the light doesn't penetrate sufficiently.
Reverse-Osmosis: This passes water under high pressure through a thin membrane. Most contaminants are physically blocked and washed away. It uses a lot of energy and water; up to 85 percent of the water can be wasted in the process. However, it does remove a wide range of contaminants.
Distillation: This is also energy intensive. It boils the water, collecting the condensing water to remove many contaminants, though not all.
Does Water Filter Work?
How can you be sure these water filters do what they say, without proof? One thing to look for is certification. The NSF International provides a range of certifications for products that involve initial and periodic testing:
NSF 42 covers aesthetic effects such as chlorine, taste, odour and particles.
NSF 53 covers health effects such as cysts (giardia, cryptosporidium), a range of organic chemicals (such as THM and pesticides) and heavy metals.
The Australian standard AS/NZS4348 covers a wide range of contaminants, such as taste, odour and microbiological and chemical impurities. There are also standards for water softeners (cation exchangers: (NSF 44), reverse-osmosis (NSF 58) and distillation (NSF 62) systems.
submitted by Big-Act-9425 to u/Big-Act-9425 [link] [comments]
The Tap Water Guidelines specify that water "should contain no harmful concentrations of chemicals or pathogenic micro-organisms, and ideally it should be aesthetically pleasing in regard to appearance, taste and odour".
Water authorities use settling, coagulation, filtering and disinfecting to ensure the safety of our drinking water, using sufficient disinfectant to stop the re-growth of microorganisms as the water travels through the pipe system to your home.
The downside of ensuring safe drinking water is the lingering taste and smell of disinfectant. If you fill up a jug with tap water and leave it to sit for a couple of hours, the disinfectant smell and taste will gradually dissipate, but many people opt for a water filter system.
When you turn on your tap, you should see clear, uncloudy water. If not, or it tastes strange, then there are ways to find out why.
Water Filter Profiles
The basic pros and cons of each type of filtering system are included below, as well as a rough estimate of initial costs. Ongoing costs can be determined by checking the volume or time it claims to filter before requiring replacement.
Be sure to factor in the cost of replacement water filter cartridges and always replace as instructed, as spent cartridges can themselves harbour micro-organisms. What each cartridge can filter varies even within the different types of dispensers.
Jug Filter(Water Pitcher Filter)
Pros: Convenient, small, and easy to use and replace filters.
Cons: Some are slow, prone to clogging and have short filter lives, meaning higher ongoing costs.
Water Pitcher Filter is one of the commonly used household water filters. It is easy to use and you can place it directly on the table.
Tap Water Filter
Pros: Most convenient at tap filter, small, and easy to use and replace filters. Easily swap between filtered and non-filtered water.
Cons: Slows the flow of water and cannot be used on all taps.
The faucet filter can be mounted on the faucet for easy installation; however, you will need to change the water filter cartridge frequently to ensure that pure water is available for long periods of time.
Counter-top
Pros: Filters large amounts of water without plumbing modification. Less likely to clog than jug or tap-mounted filters.
Cons: Clutters countertops and cannot be used on all taps.
Under-sink
Pros: Filters large amounts of water without cluttering up countertop, or attaching to existing tap. Less likely to clog than jug or tap-mounted filters.
Cons: Takes up under-sink space and requires plumbing modification. Most expensive option.
The RO System is a common Under-sink water filter that filters almost all contaminants in the water. You can drink it directly from the filtered water.
Other Water Filter Options
You can also buy shower water filters or ones built into fridge ice and water systems. These are generally carbon filters.
There is also an option to fit out the entire house, but they're expensive and generally only justified in quite specific situations (for example, if you have a poor-quality water supply).
Water Filter Mediums
All the filter systems above can have different types or combinations of filter mediums. Your choice depends on what you want to filter out.
Filtration/Adsorption: Water Filter involves using a substance, typically carbon, to make contaminants adhere to the many pores (like pumice) within the carbon source, also called adsorption. The source of carbon can be coconut, charcoal, ceramic, etc. This helps remove odour, taste and particles in the water.
Softeners: If you have a hard water source, you will notice a build up in kettles, bathtubs and sinks. These are normally a result of large amounts of minerals in your water. A softener water filter medium will reduce the amount of minerals.
UV Treatment: This uses ultraviolet light to disinfect water. However, it only works on relatively clear water, otherwise the light doesn't penetrate sufficiently.
Reverse-Osmosis: This passes water under high pressure through a thin membrane. Most contaminants are physically blocked and washed away. It uses a lot of energy and water; up to 85 percent of the water can be wasted in the process. However, it does remove a wide range of contaminants.
Distillation: This is also energy intensive. It boils the water, collecting the condensing water to remove many contaminants, though not all.
Does Water Filter Work?
How can you be sure these water filters do what they say, without proof? One thing to look for is certification. The NSF International provides a range of certifications for products that involve initial and periodic testing:
NSF 42 covers aesthetic effects such as chlorine, taste, odour and particles.
NSF 53 covers health effects such as cysts (giardia, cryptosporidium), a range of organic chemicals (such as THM and pesticides) and heavy metals.
The Australian standard AS/NZS4348 covers a wide range of contaminants, such as taste, odour and microbiological and chemical impurities. There are also standards for water softeners (cation exchangers: (NSF 44), reverse-osmosis (NSF 58) and distillation (NSF 62) systems.
2023.03.22 04:42 pillowmite Help me install my air intake on my TC 103
 | I went and bought an air cleaner kit for cheap that I want to put on my harley. It's made by precision billet, and the normal price for these things is like $400. (They're on eBay for cheap). I'll tell you that's the biggest ripoff on the internet, but the price I paid is about the cost of the air cleaner filter itself. Comes brand new just like they do when you buy from them direct. submitted by pillowmite to Harley [link] [comments] Upon unpacking, I see it has no instructions, o-rings, or gaskets! Comes with just three screws, two breather bolts with aluminum spacers, a backing plate, an internal plate that covers the oil channels from the breather bolts, acts as the base for the air cleaner element, and the fancy bolt-down cover. This is the 3H version that is supposed to be compatible with the 2016 Fatboy TBW. I watched some videos on youtube and it makes sense what normally is done, but all the air cleaners in the videos have o-rings that sit in special grooves, and so on. In the precision billet kit, the spacers are flat ended, the breather bolts have washers that roughly fit in a the pocket as shown in the video. I want to move my breathers outside, too. So how does this happen? Do I buy a backing gasket (3-hole), some round gaskets or o-rings for the standoff and breather bolts, what about the bolts that hold on the backing plate - do they need o-rings? I assume those two black pieces are for behind the air cleaner for the breather bolts, and I guess I'll have to let the crankcase crap leak back into the throttle ... ? Seems like so many corners are cut by these guys ... I could conceivably modify this thing, fill-in and block those channels going to the air hole, cut off those mickey-mouse tabs, and put on some breather bolts with filters on them? They'd have to fit in those sockets the mouse ear tabs cover. What do you guys think? See the next post for a picture of the kit. Does anyone have any help to offer? Thanks, Video of Parts |
2023.03.22 04:27 AkumaDark613 [New Dawn] - Chapter 29 - The Painful Reunited - Mini Arc 1: The Clash Of Two Brothers - Dark Fantasy, Morden Age, Gore
On the way to the location of the traitor Alex Mercury, Langress and Will were stuck in traffic because there was a big public protest on the main road in Brooklyn. This was a big public protest for a lot of issues like women's rights, black protection, Lgbtq, environment day, poultry protection, stop war and many other issues. Everyone was standing in the street causing a traffic jam and Langress and Will were stuck on the right side. Langress started complaining:
"Ahhh, what the fuck? What the hell are they doing?!"
Will replied:
"Oh, uh. This is a protest, Langress. They are demanding a lot of rights for them by protesting and asking the government to change some laws."
Langress said:
"Arghh, why don't they start a war already and then do whatever they want after they win? This is so annoying, Will, where do we go next?"
Will checked the map on his phone and replied:
"Uhhh, oh yeah, go straight for a bit and then turn left and we'll come to Joralemon Street, that's the location of the guy we're looking for."
Langress said:
"Hah, fine. Hold on to my waist Will, I'll drive very fast!"
Will screamed in panic:
"Oh wait. No!"
Langress drove up a bit, then had to stop again, he said angrily:
"What the fuck?! Can't they make way for me?"
Will replied:
"We can walk, you know."
Langress thought for a moment and then said:
"Nah, I'd rather ride my motorcycle. There must be something that can help me..."
Langress accidentally pressed the horn then he saw everyone suddenly cover their ears and move away. Then he smiled evilly and while Will's face turned panic, he said:
"Oh no."
Langress shouted:
"Here we go!"
Langress honked the horn repeatedly and kept driving, the protesters were deafened by the horn and had to make way for Langress and Will. Suddenly a guy stopped their motorcycle and said:
"Hey! Are you planning to disturb this protest? This is a very important public demonstration by everyone,
We will fight for the rights of the homeless and the rights of animals, you know that?"
Langress replied:
"Yeah, yeah, whatever the fuck you say. I give no shit about that."
Langress kept driving but was still stopped by the guy, he continued:
"Get off the motorcycle and talk to me right away like a man, I can't accept such rude behavior."
Langress taunted him:
"Men deal with fists, we don't negotiate."
The guy also took off his jacket to show off his muscles and said angrily:
"Come and see it! Come and see it! The punk like you will never have it."
Langress drove over and easily slapped him on the right cheek, which was very painful. The guy yelled like a child and said:
"Oh my God! It hurts. He hit me, everyone."
Langress slapped his left cheek again and replied:
"Never say God's name for crap."
People started talking around Langress and Will, they raised their phones and started filming them. A girl was filming while pointing at Langress and said through the camera:
"See everyone. Our society still has toxic and homophobic guys like him. Where will society go with guys like him? Please don't become such bad guys."
Langress was photographed and filmed by more than a dozen phones and posted on the Internet as a villain, he felt too tired and annoying so he immediately activated the left mechanical gauntlet and punched the air so hard that the phone around exploded. The crowd was like turning into monkeys and confused when there was no phone and Langress and Will simply left. On the way, Langress said wearily:
"Arghh, I've never had such a headache and trouble in my life. And why are those two guys hugging and wearing pink shirts?"
Will could only laugh dry letting it all go while he knew what Langress was talking about. A few minutes later, they were at the high-class apartment of the traitor Alex. Langress parked near a park then picked up a guitar case and said:
"Alright, let's go."
Langress and Will then entered the building to go upstairs. And their first challenge was waiting in the elevator to go up. In the meantime, Will asked Langress:
"So what will you do when you see him again? Your old teammate."
Langress replied coldly:
"Of course I'll torture him brutally so he can tell me everything about Lancerlord and the Predator's position. Then I'll kill him."
Will trembled and continued:
"Then what are you going to do next?"
Langress replied:
"Obviously, I'll kill the Lancerlord, that copycat guy and eventually the Predator faction."
Will said:
"What about after that?"
Langress slowed down a bit, he had to make up a random reason:
"I'll keep hunting vampires, or werewolves if I want to."
Will went on to say:
"Then after that?"
Langress was running out of ideas, he had to reply:
"Fine, I don't know. My only purpose in this life is to fight and kill, I can never have a peaceful life anymore."
Will said with positivity:
"There are so many good things in this world that I'm sure you'll want to enjoy."
Langress smirked slightly and replied:
"This world doesn't need me anymore. The Hybrids have been fighting to protect them for hundreds of years and now they're doing bullshit and meaningless things for themselves."
Will said with sympathy for Langress:
"I'm sorry for your situation. Life is hard for you."
Langress replied to cheer Will up:
"So Will, please enjoy those good things for me. I may die but I want no one around me to die anymore. You, Josh and Jonathan, no one will have to sacrifice anymore. ."
Will nodded to Langress and they were on the top floor of the building just in time. Langress and Will nodded and stepped outside to begin the quest. Will held up the phone and led them to an apartment at the end of the hallway. Langress looked around to make sure no one was there, then he pulled out the dagger from his right thigh and knocked on the door. One opened the door and said:
"Who is that?"
Langress immediately rushed in and covered his mouth and then pushed him back quickly and Will quickly closed the door behind him. That guy was truly Alex Mercury, the former traitor of the New Hope faction. Langress pushed him into an armchair, then pressed a dagger to his left cheek and said cruelly:
"Oh what a memory scar. You're surprised right, remember me right. Yeah and now your time to live starts counting down now!"
Langress stabbed the dagger down Alex's left hand and made him scream in pain. Langress said angrily:
"Tell me where is he?! Where's Lancerlord?!"
Alex in pain pointed his hand towards his bedroom, Langress quickly turned around to see Lancerlord waiting for him. Lancerlord said calmly:
"Welcome. Langress."
Langress replied with anger in his voice:
"Lancerlord."
Lancerlord's vampire soldiers stopped invisible and quickly surrounded Langress and Will. One guy immediately broke Alex's neck, in his rage, Langress quickly pulled his dagger out of Alex's hand and slashed at the guy's neck just now. He was so badly injured that he died on the spot. Langress wiped the blood off the dagger by the guy's shirt and put it back in the holster then he said with mockery:
"What a suck joke. You know they're nothing to me. One slash is enough to deal with them all."
Lancerlord replied:
"Yeah, I know, and so does your little friend."
They looked over at Will and scared him, but Langress slammed down the guitar case and said loudly:
"Stop talking shit! This is a private matter between us, he has nothing to do with it. If you don't want to die, don't touch him."
Will hid behind Langress and became alarmed and the vampires laughed, Lancerlord smirked and said:
"You are wrong to bring a weakling like him. But out of respect for you, he has three minutes to get out of here quickly or he will die."
Langress replied:
"Good."
Lancerlord said:
"Let's start the countdown, one..."
Langress said to Will:
"Will, go now. Leave the building immediately and call for help if you need it."
Will replied in panic:
"But what about you? Lancerlord is stronger than you."
Langress said:
"I need not be afraid, for I am The World's Strongest Hybrid. And I have this."
Langress crushed the guitar case and pulled out the Devil's Blood Tachi, he said:
"My new legendary weapon will kill you."
Lancerlord smirked confidently and replied arrogantly:
"Oh, you got a new girl? Then Alpha God will be really sad. Ah wait, she's mine now hahaha."
Will hastily took out Langress's power control cuff remote and said:
"I'll turn off your cuff, so you'll have a better chance..."
But Will accidentally caused a guy behind to throw a knife and destroy the remote, he laughed and said mockingly:
"Then you will die sooner and faster. Hahaha!"
But Lancerlord immediately threw a knife in the face and killed the guy, he said:
"You all are cowards and pathetic, you can't even give me a good fight."
Langress replied:
"I may be restrained from my powers, but I still have more than enough to defeat you. Will, go now!"
Will said:
"No Langress."
Langress said fiercely:
"Go now! Run or Die! Only one of two!"
Will became startled and ran out of the room. The vampires locked the door and blocked the way for Langress to leave. Lancerlord said arrogantly:
"So the rat has run away. Now break your cuff. Show me if you still have power."
Langress growled like a wolf and replied:
"You should regret saying that."
Then the fantasy song "Weightless" by Twelve Titans Music played, the song's sad, tragic and epic melody went with every wound Langress suffered when he broke the cuff and the hatred and rage but regret inside him. Langress took off his left sleeve jacket and showed Lancerlord his cuff. Then Langress grabbed the cuff and began to break it. Each of his fingers tightened and broke harder was all Langress's hatred. The stronger his hatred, the more powerful he was. Langress was grazed and bleeding and made the vampires laugh, but Lancerlord still did not smile and looked seriously at Langress. Langress continued to break the cuff with all his might, he wanted to fight Lancerlord when they were both at their best. Langress and Lancerlord's gaze never ceased to escape each other, their eyes of hatred, anger and sadness were all that remained of the two who were once brothers. Langress growled harder and slowly broke the cuff, the vampires were taken aback while Lancerlord smiled proudly. Langress snapped even harder, there was a crack and his arm was completely broken but his eyes were still filled with determination as he pulled away from the cuff. Lancerlord shouted as a cheer for Langress:
"Do it! You are The World's Strongest Hybrid right?!"
Langress used all his strength and shouted strongly:
"I AM LANGRESS MCLOUCHT!"
Langress held back the pain and yanked the cuff out of his arm, instantly, all of his power returning to him. The broken arm quickly recovered in an instant like it had never been broken. Langress put on his coat and threw away the annoying cuff and said:
"Now, answer me. Why did you kill them all? Our teammates, our friends, our brothers, Why?!"
Lancerlord replied calmly:
"Because they are all weak, they are weak to protect humanity. We can overthrow all things, vampires, werewolves and humans to create an empire of our own but they still insisting on that stupid right thing. We've been betrayed by humanity since the beginning, Langress. We are only pawns and slaves of fate to protect them like squishy soldiers protect the stupid king. I simply killed all the weak, like this Alex, because he was a coward to run away from The Eternal Blood War."
Langress replied angrily:
'I won't let you say that!"
Langress immediately lunged at Lancerlord and punched him, but he quickly kicked him back causing Langress to slide down and break the table behind. Lancerlord said arrogantly:
"You see! You've always been the most stubborn and reckless. You let your emotions take over and let your fists decide everything. You're weak too."
Langress replied:
"You're even more cowardly by betraying them all. No wonder they call you The Betrayer."
Lancerlord got a little angry and said:
"Have you forgotten yourself? You're always the one who abandons your comrades to fight for yourself. You're just a selfish asshole!"
Lancerlord walked over to Langress and he also stood up to approach him. The two punched each other and when their fist collided cracked the floor and ceiling, their eyes filled with anger. Lancerlord said:
"You think I wouldn't suffer to have to do that? Watching them die, one by one. I just wanted to free them from this stupid fate."
Langress replied:
"You were a fool, you were controlled by lust to side with the Predator."
Lancerlord said:
"I never sided with them and I joined them myself as my will. They were right about the humans, that they are not worthy to be protected or to be masters of the world!"
Langress and Lancerlord kicked each other hard in the stomach and pushed them away. Langress said:
"You're right, humans are just a bunch of arrogant, stupid, unfilial and obstinate bunch. But they have nothing to do with this war."
Lancerlord replied:
"No, they've known it all since The Eternal Blood War began. It was they who pushed us all to our deaths!"
Langress said angrily:
"That's just a stupid excuse to ignore your disgusting actions!"
Lancerlord replied angrily:
"You have no idea how much I sacrificed to protect the Hybrids!"
Langress said:
"By making them worse than they are today? What a foolish and futile sacrifice."
Lancerlord replied angrily:
"Then show me what you can do to change it all! The World's Strongest Hybrid!"
Langress said even more angry:
"Your death will change everything."
The tension between Langress and Lancerlord grew hotter and more terrible, the conflict between the two of them was unstoppable. Going back to Will a bit, when he ran away, he rushed down the emergency stairs but suddenly he stopped. Will was only a human, he was very scared and weak and he always ran away like his primitive instincts whenever he was in danger. It was not that he was cowardly, but Will's fear dominated his bravery. But this time was different, he didn't want to run away anymore, Langress and Josh had always been the ones to stay and fight for him and they didn't need any retribution. That didn't make Will feel safe, but he felt small and self-deprecating because of his own weakness. Will suddenly burst into tears and yelled:
"Oh please, I want to run. Langress already said that, I have to run, that's right, I have to run to get help. But..."
Will looked back at the room and knew Lancerlord would easily defeat Langress. Will kicked the floor repeatedly to push himself to keep running, but this time his heart wouldn't let him. Will must fight, he said:
"God, forgive me for having to bleed. But this time I'm doing it for the right thing."
Will rang the fire alarm to promptly evacuate everyone from the building. Many people heard the bell so they quickly evacuated from the building and left an empty battlefield for Langress and Lancerlord. Will then cut his hand to bleed, he said as bravely as the first time he had such a great moment:
"I will fight with you, Langress."
The inside of the room became surprised by the fire alarm, the vampires opened the door to check outside to find Will standing at the end of the hallway with his bleeding hand. They could not hold back the smell of blood, so they immediately rushed to Will, they shouted:
"It's mine!"
Suddenly Will raised Boss Luca's Eagle Eyes Beta Pistol and took aim at them. Without fear or anxiety, Will sighed and no longer hesitated to pull the trigger. Seven smart bullets were fired and flew rapidly at them. The vampires immediately crawled to the wall to dodge but the smart bullets still flew at them and killed all of Lancerlord's men to their surprise and panic. Will became shocked at the power of the bullets but he still followed Boss Luca's instructions. Opened the magazine to let the bullets fly back inside and then reloaded and racked the slide to get ready for the next shot. Will was so shocked that it took a moment to realize he was still bleeding. Will hastily bandaged it and said:
"I believe in you, Langress, and thank you very much."
Will then left the building for Langress and Lancerlord to have a big battle and he also called Arenyx to evacuate the civilians. Back to Langress and Lancerlord, they stood strong and defiant. The water from the fire sprinklers fell on them like it was washing away what they still considered each other as brothers. Langress and Lancerlord rushed forward and grabbed the other's left shoulder shirt. They stared at each other, filled with hatred and indignation. They gripped tighter and suddenly a flurry of flashbacks loomed between the two of them about their most glorious days. Their powers collided, destroying the floor further and shattering the windows. From this moment on, they were no longer brothers. The fateful battle between the two brothers began.
submitted by AkumaDark613 to redditserials [link] [comments]
"Ahhh, what the fuck? What the hell are they doing?!"
Will replied:
"Oh, uh. This is a protest, Langress. They are demanding a lot of rights for them by protesting and asking the government to change some laws."
Langress said:
"Arghh, why don't they start a war already and then do whatever they want after they win? This is so annoying, Will, where do we go next?"
Will checked the map on his phone and replied:
"Uhhh, oh yeah, go straight for a bit and then turn left and we'll come to Joralemon Street, that's the location of the guy we're looking for."
Langress said:
"Hah, fine. Hold on to my waist Will, I'll drive very fast!"
Will screamed in panic:
"Oh wait. No!"
Langress drove up a bit, then had to stop again, he said angrily:
"What the fuck?! Can't they make way for me?"
Will replied:
"We can walk, you know."
Langress thought for a moment and then said:
"Nah, I'd rather ride my motorcycle. There must be something that can help me..."
Langress accidentally pressed the horn then he saw everyone suddenly cover their ears and move away. Then he smiled evilly and while Will's face turned panic, he said:
"Oh no."
Langress shouted:
"Here we go!"
Langress honked the horn repeatedly and kept driving, the protesters were deafened by the horn and had to make way for Langress and Will. Suddenly a guy stopped their motorcycle and said:
"Hey! Are you planning to disturb this protest? This is a very important public demonstration by everyone,
We will fight for the rights of the homeless and the rights of animals, you know that?"
Langress replied:
"Yeah, yeah, whatever the fuck you say. I give no shit about that."
Langress kept driving but was still stopped by the guy, he continued:
"Get off the motorcycle and talk to me right away like a man, I can't accept such rude behavior."
Langress taunted him:
"Men deal with fists, we don't negotiate."
The guy also took off his jacket to show off his muscles and said angrily:
"Come and see it! Come and see it! The punk like you will never have it."
Langress drove over and easily slapped him on the right cheek, which was very painful. The guy yelled like a child and said:
"Oh my God! It hurts. He hit me, everyone."
Langress slapped his left cheek again and replied:
"Never say God's name for crap."
People started talking around Langress and Will, they raised their phones and started filming them. A girl was filming while pointing at Langress and said through the camera:
"See everyone. Our society still has toxic and homophobic guys like him. Where will society go with guys like him? Please don't become such bad guys."
Langress was photographed and filmed by more than a dozen phones and posted on the Internet as a villain, he felt too tired and annoying so he immediately activated the left mechanical gauntlet and punched the air so hard that the phone around exploded. The crowd was like turning into monkeys and confused when there was no phone and Langress and Will simply left. On the way, Langress said wearily:
"Arghh, I've never had such a headache and trouble in my life. And why are those two guys hugging and wearing pink shirts?"
Will could only laugh dry letting it all go while he knew what Langress was talking about. A few minutes later, they were at the high-class apartment of the traitor Alex. Langress parked near a park then picked up a guitar case and said:
"Alright, let's go."
Langress and Will then entered the building to go upstairs. And their first challenge was waiting in the elevator to go up. In the meantime, Will asked Langress:
"So what will you do when you see him again? Your old teammate."
Langress replied coldly:
"Of course I'll torture him brutally so he can tell me everything about Lancerlord and the Predator's position. Then I'll kill him."
Will trembled and continued:
"Then what are you going to do next?"
Langress replied:
"Obviously, I'll kill the Lancerlord, that copycat guy and eventually the Predator faction."
Will said:
"What about after that?"
Langress slowed down a bit, he had to make up a random reason:
"I'll keep hunting vampires, or werewolves if I want to."
Will went on to say:
"Then after that?"
Langress was running out of ideas, he had to reply:
"Fine, I don't know. My only purpose in this life is to fight and kill, I can never have a peaceful life anymore."
Will said with positivity:
"There are so many good things in this world that I'm sure you'll want to enjoy."
Langress smirked slightly and replied:
"This world doesn't need me anymore. The Hybrids have been fighting to protect them for hundreds of years and now they're doing bullshit and meaningless things for themselves."
Will said with sympathy for Langress:
"I'm sorry for your situation. Life is hard for you."
Langress replied to cheer Will up:
"So Will, please enjoy those good things for me. I may die but I want no one around me to die anymore. You, Josh and Jonathan, no one will have to sacrifice anymore. ."
Will nodded to Langress and they were on the top floor of the building just in time. Langress and Will nodded and stepped outside to begin the quest. Will held up the phone and led them to an apartment at the end of the hallway. Langress looked around to make sure no one was there, then he pulled out the dagger from his right thigh and knocked on the door. One opened the door and said:
"Who is that?"
Langress immediately rushed in and covered his mouth and then pushed him back quickly and Will quickly closed the door behind him. That guy was truly Alex Mercury, the former traitor of the New Hope faction. Langress pushed him into an armchair, then pressed a dagger to his left cheek and said cruelly:
"Oh what a memory scar. You're surprised right, remember me right. Yeah and now your time to live starts counting down now!"
Langress stabbed the dagger down Alex's left hand and made him scream in pain. Langress said angrily:
"Tell me where is he?! Where's Lancerlord?!"
Alex in pain pointed his hand towards his bedroom, Langress quickly turned around to see Lancerlord waiting for him. Lancerlord said calmly:
"Welcome. Langress."
Langress replied with anger in his voice:
"Lancerlord."
Lancerlord's vampire soldiers stopped invisible and quickly surrounded Langress and Will. One guy immediately broke Alex's neck, in his rage, Langress quickly pulled his dagger out of Alex's hand and slashed at the guy's neck just now. He was so badly injured that he died on the spot. Langress wiped the blood off the dagger by the guy's shirt and put it back in the holster then he said with mockery:
"What a suck joke. You know they're nothing to me. One slash is enough to deal with them all."
Lancerlord replied:
"Yeah, I know, and so does your little friend."
They looked over at Will and scared him, but Langress slammed down the guitar case and said loudly:
"Stop talking shit! This is a private matter between us, he has nothing to do with it. If you don't want to die, don't touch him."
Will hid behind Langress and became alarmed and the vampires laughed, Lancerlord smirked and said:
"You are wrong to bring a weakling like him. But out of respect for you, he has three minutes to get out of here quickly or he will die."
Langress replied:
"Good."
Lancerlord said:
"Let's start the countdown, one..."
Langress said to Will:
"Will, go now. Leave the building immediately and call for help if you need it."
Will replied in panic:
"But what about you? Lancerlord is stronger than you."
Langress said:
"I need not be afraid, for I am The World's Strongest Hybrid. And I have this."
Langress crushed the guitar case and pulled out the Devil's Blood Tachi, he said:
"My new legendary weapon will kill you."
Lancerlord smirked confidently and replied arrogantly:
"Oh, you got a new girl? Then Alpha God will be really sad. Ah wait, she's mine now hahaha."
Will hastily took out Langress's power control cuff remote and said:
"I'll turn off your cuff, so you'll have a better chance..."
But Will accidentally caused a guy behind to throw a knife and destroy the remote, he laughed and said mockingly:
"Then you will die sooner and faster. Hahaha!"
But Lancerlord immediately threw a knife in the face and killed the guy, he said:
"You all are cowards and pathetic, you can't even give me a good fight."
Langress replied:
"I may be restrained from my powers, but I still have more than enough to defeat you. Will, go now!"
Will said:
"No Langress."
Langress said fiercely:
"Go now! Run or Die! Only one of two!"
Will became startled and ran out of the room. The vampires locked the door and blocked the way for Langress to leave. Lancerlord said arrogantly:
"So the rat has run away. Now break your cuff. Show me if you still have power."
Langress growled like a wolf and replied:
"You should regret saying that."
Then the fantasy song "Weightless" by Twelve Titans Music played, the song's sad, tragic and epic melody went with every wound Langress suffered when he broke the cuff and the hatred and rage but regret inside him. Langress took off his left sleeve jacket and showed Lancerlord his cuff. Then Langress grabbed the cuff and began to break it. Each of his fingers tightened and broke harder was all Langress's hatred. The stronger his hatred, the more powerful he was. Langress was grazed and bleeding and made the vampires laugh, but Lancerlord still did not smile and looked seriously at Langress. Langress continued to break the cuff with all his might, he wanted to fight Lancerlord when they were both at their best. Langress and Lancerlord's gaze never ceased to escape each other, their eyes of hatred, anger and sadness were all that remained of the two who were once brothers. Langress growled harder and slowly broke the cuff, the vampires were taken aback while Lancerlord smiled proudly. Langress snapped even harder, there was a crack and his arm was completely broken but his eyes were still filled with determination as he pulled away from the cuff. Lancerlord shouted as a cheer for Langress:
"Do it! You are The World's Strongest Hybrid right?!"
Langress used all his strength and shouted strongly:
"I AM LANGRESS MCLOUCHT!"
Langress held back the pain and yanked the cuff out of his arm, instantly, all of his power returning to him. The broken arm quickly recovered in an instant like it had never been broken. Langress put on his coat and threw away the annoying cuff and said:
"Now, answer me. Why did you kill them all? Our teammates, our friends, our brothers, Why?!"
Lancerlord replied calmly:
"Because they are all weak, they are weak to protect humanity. We can overthrow all things, vampires, werewolves and humans to create an empire of our own but they still insisting on that stupid right thing. We've been betrayed by humanity since the beginning, Langress. We are only pawns and slaves of fate to protect them like squishy soldiers protect the stupid king. I simply killed all the weak, like this Alex, because he was a coward to run away from The Eternal Blood War."
Langress replied angrily:
'I won't let you say that!"
Langress immediately lunged at Lancerlord and punched him, but he quickly kicked him back causing Langress to slide down and break the table behind. Lancerlord said arrogantly:
"You see! You've always been the most stubborn and reckless. You let your emotions take over and let your fists decide everything. You're weak too."
Langress replied:
"You're even more cowardly by betraying them all. No wonder they call you The Betrayer."
Lancerlord got a little angry and said:
"Have you forgotten yourself? You're always the one who abandons your comrades to fight for yourself. You're just a selfish asshole!"
Lancerlord walked over to Langress and he also stood up to approach him. The two punched each other and when their fist collided cracked the floor and ceiling, their eyes filled with anger. Lancerlord said:
"You think I wouldn't suffer to have to do that? Watching them die, one by one. I just wanted to free them from this stupid fate."
Langress replied:
"You were a fool, you were controlled by lust to side with the Predator."
Lancerlord said:
"I never sided with them and I joined them myself as my will. They were right about the humans, that they are not worthy to be protected or to be masters of the world!"
Langress and Lancerlord kicked each other hard in the stomach and pushed them away. Langress said:
"You're right, humans are just a bunch of arrogant, stupid, unfilial and obstinate bunch. But they have nothing to do with this war."
Lancerlord replied:
"No, they've known it all since The Eternal Blood War began. It was they who pushed us all to our deaths!"
Langress said angrily:
"That's just a stupid excuse to ignore your disgusting actions!"
Lancerlord replied angrily:
"You have no idea how much I sacrificed to protect the Hybrids!"
Langress said:
"By making them worse than they are today? What a foolish and futile sacrifice."
Lancerlord replied angrily:
"Then show me what you can do to change it all! The World's Strongest Hybrid!"
Langress said even more angry:
"Your death will change everything."
The tension between Langress and Lancerlord grew hotter and more terrible, the conflict between the two of them was unstoppable. Going back to Will a bit, when he ran away, he rushed down the emergency stairs but suddenly he stopped. Will was only a human, he was very scared and weak and he always ran away like his primitive instincts whenever he was in danger. It was not that he was cowardly, but Will's fear dominated his bravery. But this time was different, he didn't want to run away anymore, Langress and Josh had always been the ones to stay and fight for him and they didn't need any retribution. That didn't make Will feel safe, but he felt small and self-deprecating because of his own weakness. Will suddenly burst into tears and yelled:
"Oh please, I want to run. Langress already said that, I have to run, that's right, I have to run to get help. But..."
Will looked back at the room and knew Lancerlord would easily defeat Langress. Will kicked the floor repeatedly to push himself to keep running, but this time his heart wouldn't let him. Will must fight, he said:
"God, forgive me for having to bleed. But this time I'm doing it for the right thing."
Will rang the fire alarm to promptly evacuate everyone from the building. Many people heard the bell so they quickly evacuated from the building and left an empty battlefield for Langress and Lancerlord. Will then cut his hand to bleed, he said as bravely as the first time he had such a great moment:
"I will fight with you, Langress."
The inside of the room became surprised by the fire alarm, the vampires opened the door to check outside to find Will standing at the end of the hallway with his bleeding hand. They could not hold back the smell of blood, so they immediately rushed to Will, they shouted:
"It's mine!"
Suddenly Will raised Boss Luca's Eagle Eyes Beta Pistol and took aim at them. Without fear or anxiety, Will sighed and no longer hesitated to pull the trigger. Seven smart bullets were fired and flew rapidly at them. The vampires immediately crawled to the wall to dodge but the smart bullets still flew at them and killed all of Lancerlord's men to their surprise and panic. Will became shocked at the power of the bullets but he still followed Boss Luca's instructions. Opened the magazine to let the bullets fly back inside and then reloaded and racked the slide to get ready for the next shot. Will was so shocked that it took a moment to realize he was still bleeding. Will hastily bandaged it and said:
"I believe in you, Langress, and thank you very much."
Will then left the building for Langress and Lancerlord to have a big battle and he also called Arenyx to evacuate the civilians. Back to Langress and Lancerlord, they stood strong and defiant. The water from the fire sprinklers fell on them like it was washing away what they still considered each other as brothers. Langress and Lancerlord rushed forward and grabbed the other's left shoulder shirt. They stared at each other, filled with hatred and indignation. They gripped tighter and suddenly a flurry of flashbacks loomed between the two of them about their most glorious days. Their powers collided, destroying the floor further and shattering the windows. From this moment on, they were no longer brothers. The fateful battle between the two brothers began.
2023.03.22 04:08 washabePlus [Complete] D100 Fantasy Moons
(Original Post)
Inspired by this worldbuilding post, let's make some fucked up moons. This obviously isn't the sort of list that would have a lot of reusability (unless you're in a campaign with a lot of traveling between planets or mortal planes), but it's something that was on my mind long ago and I figured now's as good a time as any. Many of these could be the basis of an entire setting, and I really really wanna do it :(
Also, as you read these, consider how the moon appears in Earth's symbols and designs. A world with funky moons will have them show up differently in heraldry, flags, etc. than in our world. Not to mention the religious significance many of these would have.
1 - The moon has a massive bite out of it.
2 - The moon is heavily damaged, with debris floating all around. Some legends say it was a giant egg that hatched the sun god (of the first dragon, or the tarasque, or the creator god). Other legends say it was destroyed in a war or by a god.
3 - The moon emits very bright light, while the sun projects darkness.
4 - The moon projects darkness.
5 - Many many lights are visible on the moon, as if it is covered in cities.
6 - The moon has a thick atmosphere of some color, with swirling clouds that are looked to by some cultures for omens.
7 - The moon is a planet; the world we live on is its moon.
8 - The moon is extremely close to the ground. Its gravity creates colossal waves, leaving most coastal regions too difficult to inhabit. Airships have managed to reach the moon at midnight, and it is explored instead of the sea.
9 - The moon is quite close to the planet and has a giant space elevator dangling off and into our atmosphere. People have reached it from the highest mountains.
10 - The moon is said to be an egg.
11 - The moon has a kind face.
12 - The moon has a terrifying face.
13 - Just as the sun blinds those who look at it too long, the moon drives them mad.
14 - The moon was completely destroyed long ago and now forms a ring. Meteorites from it have fallen ever since.
15 - There are a large number of moons arranged in a circle.
16 - The moon blinks as if it were an eye, causing brief moments of total darkness throughout the night like a reverse lightning strike.
17 - The moon is a world like ours, with oceans and continents full of life. The life there may be fundamentally different or very similar.
18 - The moon is the homeworld of some race on our world, but it met a catastrophe long ago, leading to them becoming refugees.
19 - The moon is a ringworld.
20 - The moon is a second sun that was extinguished long ago. The world was once much hotter and covered in desert and jungle. They say that one day the other sun will be extinguished too, beginning the final era of existence.
21 - The moon has an additional phase beyond full, new, crescent, gibbous, and half. When the moon is awoken, the dead rise for the night(s)
22 - When the moon falls, it lands in the ocean a very long distance away, then emerges from the ocean on the opposite side of the world. Many explorers have sought to find the land known as Moonrise to harvest the treasures that are said to be found on the moon before it reaches Moonfall.
23 - The moon has a hole through the center of it, with an exposed burning orange core.
24 - The moon is permanently eclipsing a second sun, which is associated with destruction and evil.
25 - The moon is a gigantic, shriveled creature curled up in a fetal position.
26 - The moon is a gigantic skull.
27 - The moons hates us. With every beam of light that bounces off its regolith it sends us nothing but malice. Its gravity well directs meteorites towards us more than should be expected.
28 - There are dozens upon dozens of small moons.
29 - There are a few moons connected together by some superstructure.
30 - The moon was deconstructed into thousands of huge glowing space habitats in orbit around the planet.
31 - The moon projects a massive aura.
32 - The moon is creeping towards us, ever do slowly.
33 - The moon's motion is controlled by a powerful individual or organization in our world.
34 - The moon is a superweapon aimed directly at us.
35 - The moon is shaped like Arrokoth or another contact binary.
36 - The moon is one of the others on this list, but is connected to our world by an ancient portal network. The moon is probably one of the options that are colonized or have life, but if not, it could be that activating this network to drain away the world's oxygen is a goal of some villain, and ancient dungeons could have been built to protect the moongates in their depths.
37 - The moon is a giant spaceborne creature that is entirely alive and active, unlike #35. It blinks at us and feasts on void-krill/dreams/souls/sin.
38 - The moon used to be a colossal tree on our world, a tree of life so big that it became uprooted and drifted into orbit. If it isn't fossilized, then when the moontree peaks out from over the horizon during the day its leaves get scorched, and when out only at night it is frozen.
39 - The moon is a palace where a god or the greatest god-emperor to ever live dwells.
40 - The moon is made out of trillions of bones.
41 - The moon is entirely colonized and utilized by modrons. The whole surface is visibly divided into a perfectly ordered grid, and each square serves a different purpose. Some are being deconstructed to build constructs in Mechanus.
42 - The moon shoots out lightning during "moonstorms".
43 - The moon is a different geometrical shape. A cube, a pyramid, a dodecahedron, etc. Possibly several moons, one for each shape of die used in D&D.
44 - A legendary figure carved a grand symbol into the moon. Or a smiley face, one of those.
45 - The moon is branded with a magical sigil, causing it to cast a zone of truth over everything touched by the moonlight.
46 - The moon is branded with a magical sigil, causing it to turn everything touched by the moonlight into a wild magic zone.
47 - The moon is branded with a magical sigil, putting everything in the moonlight inside an antimagic field.
48 - The moon is a colossal coin. Rather than full or new moon, the phases are heads or tails, and it's random every night.
49 - The moon is a vampire. Blood slowly flows upwards to it at night time, causing beacons of glistening red at night in places where things have been killed during the day. Battlefields become crimson waterfalls at night. Some blood stays in the air as sanguine clouds - they say those spirits haven't moved on to the afterlife, and during the blood-rain they haunt the world.
50 - The moon pulsates in many different colors, the patterns being used by diviners to tell the future.
51 - The moon makes the night nearly as bright as day, but less hot.
52 - The moon flashes like a strobe light, making seeing at night even harder.
53 - The moon is a magical illusion, and because this is common knowledge it appears transparent.
54 - The moon shoots concentrated beans of moonlight down at any humanoids it sees outside during night-time. Most likely live underground, in massive structures, or under forest canopies.
55 - The moon speaks to everyone at night through telepathy. It is nearly all-knowing because of this, but great at keeping secrets. This may be how the Common language spread.
56 - The moon is the slumbering form of Atropus, the World Born Dead. (next bunch is from u/quantumturnip)
57 - The moon is a dead eldritch abomination that periodically hijacks people for unknown long-term goals.
58 - The moon houses a portal to another dimension, used as a methods of escape by the gods during some long-forgotten war.
59 - Long ago, a wizard got tired of worldly politics and left for the moon. He is now a lich and has his own magical research facility on the moon, populated by sentient undead.
60 - Multiple rival countries have established their own bases on the moon. None of them are aware that their rivals also have moonbases. Or maybe they are, it's your setting - go wild.
61 - Literally just a giant ball of cheese in space. (also, u/World-of-Ideas thought of this too, but I'm keeping it as just the one entry)
62 - The moon has its' own moons orbiting it
63 - The moon is chained to the surface of the planet
64 - The moon changes color each month, and a year is measured by the color cycle.
65 - There is a giant fingerprint on the moon.
66 - That’s no moon. It’s a space station. (u/infinitum3d)
67 - The moon is the eye (artificial, real) of some giant planet sized being, that lost its eye. (u/World-of-Ideas for the next bunch)
68 - The moon is a giant space station built by some ancient race.
69 - The moon is actually a giant colony ship. It delivered the original colonist to this world so long ago, that no one remembers.
70 - The moon is the shed carapace of some giant space creature.
71 - The moon is a planetary shield generator. It is meant to keep something imprisoned on the planet.
72 - The moon is a planetary shield generator. It is meant to (block the frequent meteor storms, keep outsider out, reduce solar radiation because the planet is too close to the sun).
73 - The moon is a hole in this reality. If one travels through it they would end up in a solar system in another dimension.
74 - The moon is an illusion. For some reason only the natives of this world can see the moon and the light that is reflects. Travelers from other worlds can't see it.
75 - The moon can only be seen by those who will die tonight. (u/mil_a1)
76 - The moon disappears for months at a time. (u/mil_a1)
77 - The moon is hollow and strange things live on the inside. (u/mil_a1)
78 - The moon is suspended above the world by chains that affix to the sky. Many of the chains are rusted through, and broken chains hang down from the moon. The longest of these broken chains drag thick gashes into the planet below. (u/Paydirt49)
79 - The equator of the moon is inscribed with a sentence though only half can be seen from the ground. (u/CommonlyQuixotic)
80 - The moon is a prison, housing a dangerous entity. (u/Daloowee)
81 - The moon is actually a highly sophisticated satellite designed to monitor the biggest threats contained on the planet. Manned by 2 chill guys Mike and Dave and their gazer pet, Goober. They are able to project themselves down to the planet and project the gazer as a beholder. (u/DrBeefsome)
82 - One of the most powerful spellcasters to ever live cast a spell that put a permanent sigil on the moon. If you copy the sigil onto a piece of paper and then step onto it, your viewpoint changes to be from the moon. (u/AlephBaker)
83 - The moon is replaced with a rift in time and space. (u/UmbramonOrSomething)
84 - The moon is rigged with explosives in case a threat erupts on the planet. (u/UmbramonOrSomething)
85 - The moon is made of thousands of different types of crystals smashed together into a ball. (u/UmbramonOrSomething)
86 - The moon is a giant, floating, white pig. (u/UmbramonOrSomething)
87 - The moon is actually an interstellar beast (think space whales) (u/UmbramonOrSomething)
88 - The moon is an eyeball and its different phases are just how much its eyelid has blinked. (u/Aspiring-Mutant) + The eye-moon tells you if your enemies are aware of your presence/how aware they are. The greatest thieves and assassins and that one kid who hid so well in Hide-And-Seek you had to file a police report are said to be able to black out the moon entirely just by crouching… (u/BuddyWhoOnceToldYou)
89 - The moon is anti-predictable. If you try and predict where or when it appears that is the one time/place it cannot be. (u/Metal-Teacher)
90 - The moon's phases control the moral compass of the planet's residents. (u/Metal-Teacher)
91 - The moon is in a highly eccentric orbit, causing massively different tides and gravitational effects. (u/Metal-Teacher)
92 - The moon, when it appears at noon and reflects light into a room, can cause a boon to goons. The boon is a familiar cat in a hat. (u/Metal-Teacher)
93 - The moons are in chaotic orbits, one day they might crash into one another. (u/Metal-Teacher)
94 - The moon is always opposite the sun, like it's hiding from it. For this reason, it is always red. (u/MitigatedRisk)
95 - The moon changes in size rather than waxing and waning (u/MitigatedRisk)
96 - If you look at the moon through a telescope, you're actually seeing the world at some point in the future (u/MitigatedRisk)
97 - The moon used to be a planet before someone sent it rocketing around the solar system. Warforged, Constructs, and similar beings still wander its long dead surface. (u/Kingsdaughter613)
98 - The moon is known as Vagabond (vague-a-bond). The moon is a mirror ball of astronomical size that makes the material plane accessible to all other planes of existence simultaneously. Thinning the metamorphic veil, meaning that you can take a walk into another plane of existence by accident (u/Emotional_Guillotine)
99 - The 72 Demon Sigils as moons (together known as Hell's Courtroom) (u/Emotional_Guillotine)
100 - The 7 archangels as moons (together known as the Radiant Citadel) (u/Emotional_Guillotine)
101 - The 12 zodiac and or astrology moons (u/Emotional_Guillotine)
102 - One moon per school of magic or plane of existence (u/Emotional_Guillotine)
103 - The 22 Alchemy Symbols as moons (u/Emotional_Guillotine)
104 - The 78 cards of a tarot deck as moons (u/Emotional_Guillotine)
105 - The 22 major arcana as moons (u/WashabePlus)
submitted by washabePlus to d100 [link] [comments]
Inspired by this worldbuilding post, let's make some fucked up moons. This obviously isn't the sort of list that would have a lot of reusability (unless you're in a campaign with a lot of traveling between planets or mortal planes), but it's something that was on my mind long ago and I figured now's as good a time as any. Many of these could be the basis of an entire setting, and I really really wanna do it :(
Also, as you read these, consider how the moon appears in Earth's symbols and designs. A world with funky moons will have them show up differently in heraldry, flags, etc. than in our world. Not to mention the religious significance many of these would have.
1 - The moon has a massive bite out of it.
2 - The moon is heavily damaged, with debris floating all around. Some legends say it was a giant egg that hatched the sun god (of the first dragon, or the tarasque, or the creator god). Other legends say it was destroyed in a war or by a god.
3 - The moon emits very bright light, while the sun projects darkness.
4 - The moon projects darkness.
5 - Many many lights are visible on the moon, as if it is covered in cities.
6 - The moon has a thick atmosphere of some color, with swirling clouds that are looked to by some cultures for omens.
7 - The moon is a planet; the world we live on is its moon.
8 - The moon is extremely close to the ground. Its gravity creates colossal waves, leaving most coastal regions too difficult to inhabit. Airships have managed to reach the moon at midnight, and it is explored instead of the sea.
9 - The moon is quite close to the planet and has a giant space elevator dangling off and into our atmosphere. People have reached it from the highest mountains.
10 - The moon is said to be an egg.
11 - The moon has a kind face.
12 - The moon has a terrifying face.
13 - Just as the sun blinds those who look at it too long, the moon drives them mad.
14 - The moon was completely destroyed long ago and now forms a ring. Meteorites from it have fallen ever since.
15 - There are a large number of moons arranged in a circle.
16 - The moon blinks as if it were an eye, causing brief moments of total darkness throughout the night like a reverse lightning strike.
17 - The moon is a world like ours, with oceans and continents full of life. The life there may be fundamentally different or very similar.
18 - The moon is the homeworld of some race on our world, but it met a catastrophe long ago, leading to them becoming refugees.
19 - The moon is a ringworld.
20 - The moon is a second sun that was extinguished long ago. The world was once much hotter and covered in desert and jungle. They say that one day the other sun will be extinguished too, beginning the final era of existence.
21 - The moon has an additional phase beyond full, new, crescent, gibbous, and half. When the moon is awoken, the dead rise for the night(s)
22 - When the moon falls, it lands in the ocean a very long distance away, then emerges from the ocean on the opposite side of the world. Many explorers have sought to find the land known as Moonrise to harvest the treasures that are said to be found on the moon before it reaches Moonfall.
23 - The moon has a hole through the center of it, with an exposed burning orange core.
24 - The moon is permanently eclipsing a second sun, which is associated with destruction and evil.
25 - The moon is a gigantic, shriveled creature curled up in a fetal position.
26 - The moon is a gigantic skull.
27 - The moons hates us. With every beam of light that bounces off its regolith it sends us nothing but malice. Its gravity well directs meteorites towards us more than should be expected.
28 - There are dozens upon dozens of small moons.
29 - There are a few moons connected together by some superstructure.
30 - The moon was deconstructed into thousands of huge glowing space habitats in orbit around the planet.
31 - The moon projects a massive aura.
32 - The moon is creeping towards us, ever do slowly.
33 - The moon's motion is controlled by a powerful individual or organization in our world.
34 - The moon is a superweapon aimed directly at us.
35 - The moon is shaped like Arrokoth or another contact binary.
36 - The moon is one of the others on this list, but is connected to our world by an ancient portal network. The moon is probably one of the options that are colonized or have life, but if not, it could be that activating this network to drain away the world's oxygen is a goal of some villain, and ancient dungeons could have been built to protect the moongates in their depths.
37 - The moon is a giant spaceborne creature that is entirely alive and active, unlike #35. It blinks at us and feasts on void-krill/dreams/souls/sin.
38 - The moon used to be a colossal tree on our world, a tree of life so big that it became uprooted and drifted into orbit. If it isn't fossilized, then when the moontree peaks out from over the horizon during the day its leaves get scorched, and when out only at night it is frozen.
39 - The moon is a palace where a god or the greatest god-emperor to ever live dwells.
40 - The moon is made out of trillions of bones.
41 - The moon is entirely colonized and utilized by modrons. The whole surface is visibly divided into a perfectly ordered grid, and each square serves a different purpose. Some are being deconstructed to build constructs in Mechanus.
42 - The moon shoots out lightning during "moonstorms".
43 - The moon is a different geometrical shape. A cube, a pyramid, a dodecahedron, etc. Possibly several moons, one for each shape of die used in D&D.
44 - A legendary figure carved a grand symbol into the moon. Or a smiley face, one of those.
45 - The moon is branded with a magical sigil, causing it to cast a zone of truth over everything touched by the moonlight.
46 - The moon is branded with a magical sigil, causing it to turn everything touched by the moonlight into a wild magic zone.
47 - The moon is branded with a magical sigil, putting everything in the moonlight inside an antimagic field.
48 - The moon is a colossal coin. Rather than full or new moon, the phases are heads or tails, and it's random every night.
49 - The moon is a vampire. Blood slowly flows upwards to it at night time, causing beacons of glistening red at night in places where things have been killed during the day. Battlefields become crimson waterfalls at night. Some blood stays in the air as sanguine clouds - they say those spirits haven't moved on to the afterlife, and during the blood-rain they haunt the world.
50 - The moon pulsates in many different colors, the patterns being used by diviners to tell the future.
51 - The moon makes the night nearly as bright as day, but less hot.
52 - The moon flashes like a strobe light, making seeing at night even harder.
53 - The moon is a magical illusion, and because this is common knowledge it appears transparent.
54 - The moon shoots concentrated beans of moonlight down at any humanoids it sees outside during night-time. Most likely live underground, in massive structures, or under forest canopies.
55 - The moon speaks to everyone at night through telepathy. It is nearly all-knowing because of this, but great at keeping secrets. This may be how the Common language spread.
56 - The moon is the slumbering form of Atropus, the World Born Dead. (next bunch is from u/quantumturnip)
57 - The moon is a dead eldritch abomination that periodically hijacks people for unknown long-term goals.
58 - The moon houses a portal to another dimension, used as a methods of escape by the gods during some long-forgotten war.
59 - Long ago, a wizard got tired of worldly politics and left for the moon. He is now a lich and has his own magical research facility on the moon, populated by sentient undead.
60 - Multiple rival countries have established their own bases on the moon. None of them are aware that their rivals also have moonbases. Or maybe they are, it's your setting - go wild.
61 - Literally just a giant ball of cheese in space. (also, u/World-of-Ideas thought of this too, but I'm keeping it as just the one entry)
62 - The moon has its' own moons orbiting it
63 - The moon is chained to the surface of the planet
64 - The moon changes color each month, and a year is measured by the color cycle.
65 - There is a giant fingerprint on the moon.
66 - That’s no moon. It’s a space station. (u/infinitum3d)
67 - The moon is the eye (artificial, real) of some giant planet sized being, that lost its eye. (u/World-of-Ideas for the next bunch)
68 - The moon is a giant space station built by some ancient race.
69 - The moon is actually a giant colony ship. It delivered the original colonist to this world so long ago, that no one remembers.
70 - The moon is the shed carapace of some giant space creature.
71 - The moon is a planetary shield generator. It is meant to keep something imprisoned on the planet.
72 - The moon is a planetary shield generator. It is meant to (block the frequent meteor storms, keep outsider out, reduce solar radiation because the planet is too close to the sun).
73 - The moon is a hole in this reality. If one travels through it they would end up in a solar system in another dimension.
74 - The moon is an illusion. For some reason only the natives of this world can see the moon and the light that is reflects. Travelers from other worlds can't see it.
75 - The moon can only be seen by those who will die tonight. (u/mil_a1)
76 - The moon disappears for months at a time. (u/mil_a1)
77 - The moon is hollow and strange things live on the inside. (u/mil_a1)
78 - The moon is suspended above the world by chains that affix to the sky. Many of the chains are rusted through, and broken chains hang down from the moon. The longest of these broken chains drag thick gashes into the planet below. (u/Paydirt49)
79 - The equator of the moon is inscribed with a sentence though only half can be seen from the ground. (u/CommonlyQuixotic)
80 - The moon is a prison, housing a dangerous entity. (u/Daloowee)
81 - The moon is actually a highly sophisticated satellite designed to monitor the biggest threats contained on the planet. Manned by 2 chill guys Mike and Dave and their gazer pet, Goober. They are able to project themselves down to the planet and project the gazer as a beholder. (u/DrBeefsome)
82 - One of the most powerful spellcasters to ever live cast a spell that put a permanent sigil on the moon. If you copy the sigil onto a piece of paper and then step onto it, your viewpoint changes to be from the moon. (u/AlephBaker)
83 - The moon is replaced with a rift in time and space. (u/UmbramonOrSomething)
84 - The moon is rigged with explosives in case a threat erupts on the planet. (u/UmbramonOrSomething)
85 - The moon is made of thousands of different types of crystals smashed together into a ball. (u/UmbramonOrSomething)
86 - The moon is a giant, floating, white pig. (u/UmbramonOrSomething)
87 - The moon is actually an interstellar beast (think space whales) (u/UmbramonOrSomething)
88 - The moon is an eyeball and its different phases are just how much its eyelid has blinked. (u/Aspiring-Mutant) + The eye-moon tells you if your enemies are aware of your presence/how aware they are. The greatest thieves and assassins and that one kid who hid so well in Hide-And-Seek you had to file a police report are said to be able to black out the moon entirely just by crouching… (u/BuddyWhoOnceToldYou)
89 - The moon is anti-predictable. If you try and predict where or when it appears that is the one time/place it cannot be. (u/Metal-Teacher)
90 - The moon's phases control the moral compass of the planet's residents. (u/Metal-Teacher)
91 - The moon is in a highly eccentric orbit, causing massively different tides and gravitational effects. (u/Metal-Teacher)
92 - The moon, when it appears at noon and reflects light into a room, can cause a boon to goons. The boon is a familiar cat in a hat. (u/Metal-Teacher)
93 - The moons are in chaotic orbits, one day they might crash into one another. (u/Metal-Teacher)
94 - The moon is always opposite the sun, like it's hiding from it. For this reason, it is always red. (u/MitigatedRisk)
95 - The moon changes in size rather than waxing and waning (u/MitigatedRisk)
96 - If you look at the moon through a telescope, you're actually seeing the world at some point in the future (u/MitigatedRisk)
97 - The moon used to be a planet before someone sent it rocketing around the solar system. Warforged, Constructs, and similar beings still wander its long dead surface. (u/Kingsdaughter613)
98 - The moon is known as Vagabond (vague-a-bond). The moon is a mirror ball of astronomical size that makes the material plane accessible to all other planes of existence simultaneously. Thinning the metamorphic veil, meaning that you can take a walk into another plane of existence by accident (u/Emotional_Guillotine)
99 - The 72 Demon Sigils as moons (together known as Hell's Courtroom) (u/Emotional_Guillotine)
100 - The 7 archangels as moons (together known as the Radiant Citadel) (u/Emotional_Guillotine)
101 - The 12 zodiac and or astrology moons (u/Emotional_Guillotine)
102 - One moon per school of magic or plane of existence (u/Emotional_Guillotine)
103 - The 22 Alchemy Symbols as moons (u/Emotional_Guillotine)
104 - The 78 cards of a tarot deck as moons (u/Emotional_Guillotine)
105 - The 22 major arcana as moons (u/WashabePlus)
2023.03.22 03:09 chenhli [WTS][MI] GHK AK105 GBB Rifle, EMG BLU GBB Pistol w/ Steel Upgrades and Streamlight TLR1-HL, DyTac JagerWerks F9 Glock Slide
Hello all,
I have a few airsoft guns and part to sell (no time stamps since now I have enough flairs).
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Airsoft Guns (all GBB)
1. GHK AK105 GBB with Upgrades
Building this gun was such a fun project, and from the list of included items I'm sure one can appreciate the effort and time I spent to find and install all the parts. I'm selling this gun now because I'm getting more into firearm training nowadays and I've decided to only keep a few airsoft guns for plinking in the basement. I love this gun and I enjoy shooting it very much (even just cocking the gun is very satisfying because of all the steel parts), but I'm just not using it enough nowadays to keep it.
The bolt and the fire control group are all steel upgrades from Hephaestus or W&S and they operate very smoothly together. The gun shoots and cycles smoothly with full-auto rate of fire at roughly 600 RPM using green gas or higher using CO2. I don't really need to say much about the quality of the SLR gas tube and M-LOK handguard given that they are made for real firearm, and in my personal opinion they are one of the best-looking AK gas tube/handguard in the market. The LCT stock is very nicely made and it provides very good cheek weld for optics at different heights installed on either the gas tube, on a dust cover mount (not included), or on a side optic mount.
Feel free to PM me for videos of the gun operating/shooting. Please only PM me if you are serious about buying.
Please also note that I'm not looking for trading and I will not be parting out.
A couple things to note:
I will also provide you with many spare parts such as loading nozzle, springs, valves, gas route, mag base plates, etc.
The TLR1-HL is a genuine Streamlight product, not a reproduction. The condition is pretty much new. All keys for installing on different rail system are included. Please note that batteries are NOT included.
Parts
1. DyTac JagerWerks F9 Slide Set for Elite Force/VFC Glock 17 Gen4
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please feel free to message me for more pictures of the items.
No parting/splitting for each of the items listed above. No trading.
I only accept PayPal Goods & Services for payment. Also, I will ship within continental US only (lower 48), and I will not ship to places where Airsoft guns are not allowed. Please note that by purchasing those items from me, you verify that you are at least 18 years of age and you have confirmed that airsoft guns and parts are permitted by your state and local laws.
Thanks!
submitted by chenhli to airsoftmarket [link] [comments]
I have a few airsoft guns and part to sell (no time stamps since now I have enough flairs).
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Airsoft Guns (all GBB)
1. GHK AK105 GBB with Upgrades
- $1350 shipped
- Included items:
- GHK AK105 (2022 version)
- GMAG mag*2 (both green gas)
- AK74 mag*2 (one green gas one CO2)
- AKM mage*1 (CO2)
- SLR ION 9.45" Lite M-LOK-A handguard**
- SLR full length railed gas tube**
- Magpul MOE AK grip**
- LCT PT-1 type stock
- NorthEast V3QD mount
- W&S full-travel steel bolt
- W&S full-travel recoil rod and spring + rapid fire kit
- PowerCustom AK recoil buffer** (you can replace the W&S rapid fire kit with this part)
- W&S steel hammer
- Hephaestus steel sear
- Hephaestus steel firing pin
- Hephaestus steel auto lever
- Hephaestus ALG type steel trigger
- Hephaestus tactical fire selector
- TNT APS-X hop-up unit and inner barrel set 320 mm
- Bow Master enhanced hop-up chamber base
- Stock parts and spare parts:
- GKM-04*1 (fire selector part)
- GKM-06*2 (bolt buffer)
- GKM-07*1 (nozzle stop)
- GKM-08-1*1 (recoil spring)
- GKM-08-2*1 (bolt)
- GKM-08*2 (loading nozzle set)
- GKM-09*2 (hop-up chamber)
- GKM-10*2 (hop-up chamber base)
- GKM-12-1-1*1 (trigger hammer latch)
- GKM-12-1-2*1 (trigger)
- GKM-12-1-3*1 (sear)
- GKM-12-3*1 (auto lever)
- GKM-12-4*1 (empty mag lever and spring)
- GKM-12-5*1 (hammer and spring)
- GKM-12-6*1 (firing pin)
- GKM-12-7*1 (fire control pin set)
- GKM-13*1 (grip screw bolt)
- GKM-11-1*1 (magazine spring and follower)
- GHK AK105 gas tube, handguard, stock, and grip
Building this gun was such a fun project, and from the list of included items I'm sure one can appreciate the effort and time I spent to find and install all the parts. I'm selling this gun now because I'm getting more into firearm training nowadays and I've decided to only keep a few airsoft guns for plinking in the basement. I love this gun and I enjoy shooting it very much (even just cocking the gun is very satisfying because of all the steel parts), but I'm just not using it enough nowadays to keep it.
The bolt and the fire control group are all steel upgrades from Hephaestus or W&S and they operate very smoothly together. The gun shoots and cycles smoothly with full-auto rate of fire at roughly 600 RPM using green gas or higher using CO2. I don't really need to say much about the quality of the SLR gas tube and M-LOK handguard given that they are made for real firearm, and in my personal opinion they are one of the best-looking AK gas tube/handguard in the market. The LCT stock is very nicely made and it provides very good cheek weld for optics at different heights installed on either the gas tube, on a dust cover mount (not included), or on a side optic mount.
Feel free to PM me for videos of the gun operating/shooting. Please only PM me if you are serious about buying.
Please also note that I'm not looking for trading and I will not be parting out.
A couple things to note:
- In order for the SLR gas tube to be installed properly and for the W&S full travel bolt to cycle smoothly, I modified part of the front sight block, front end of the SLR gas tube, and the front end of the bolt carrier. This allows the SLR gas tube to sit evenly on the barrel and the bolt to cycle properly.
- Due to some tolerances, I slightly filed the TNT hop-up housing in order to install it properly. The hop-up unit sits tightly in the chamber and it may be difficult for some to adjust it with finger. I'd recommend using a small tool such as a hex key or a flat screw driver to adjust the hop-up. On the flip side, you won't need to worry about the hop-up adjustment moving due to recoil.
- One of the AK74 mags needs a new feed lip (it was not broken from shooting. I made a stupid decision to file it like the GHK AR mag thinking it would prevent it from cracking, but it turned out that this mod is not needed for the AK mag). It will cause the gun to jam if it's not replaced.
- I put a small piece of rubber pad between the stock and the receiver to eliminate a small wobble. The stock is rock solid now.
- $300 shipped
- Included items:
- AW/ EMG SAI BLU GBB pistol
- RA-Tech steel BLU slide and barrel set
- Guarder steel Glock 17 outer barrel (modified to use on AW GBB pistol)
- Guarder steel recoil rod
- AMG steel recoil rod (with AW spring)
- Poseidon Striker hop-up unit
- Maple Leaf Autobot hop-up bucking 60°
- Maple Leaf crazy Jet inner barrel 97mm
- Guarder aluminum BBU housing
- EMG SAI Tier 1 trigger for Glock
- Guarder extended slide stop
- Guarder extended slide take down lock
- RA-Teach black mag release and back strap
- RA-Teach brass mag release and back strap
- Guarder steel hammer chassis with slight modification
- Guarder steel sear, steel knocker lock
- RA-Tech steel roller bearing
- Creation Airsoft steel slide frame
- Guns Modify steel pin set
- 2 mags (1 green gas, 1 CO2)
- Streamlight TLR1-HL weapon light
I will also provide you with many spare parts such as loading nozzle, springs, valves, gas route, mag base plates, etc.
The TLR1-HL is a genuine Streamlight product, not a reproduction. The condition is pretty much new. All keys for installing on different rail system are included. Please note that batteries are NOT included.
Parts
1. DyTac JagerWerks F9 Slide Set for Elite Force/VFC Glock 17 Gen4
- $100 shipped
- Included items:
- DyTac JagerWerks F9 slide set with threaded barrel
- PTS ZEV Combat Sight steel front and rear sight
- Guarder steel Glock 17 outer barrel (in total two outer barrels)
- Steel recoil rod
- Poseidon Striker hop-up unit for VFC
- Maple Leaf Decepticons hop-up bucking 60° + Maple Leaf Crazy Jet inner barrel 97mm
- VFC new gen BBU and slide cover
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please feel free to message me for more pictures of the items.
No parting/splitting for each of the items listed above. No trading.
I only accept PayPal Goods & Services for payment. Also, I will ship within continental US only (lower 48), and I will not ship to places where Airsoft guns are not allowed. Please note that by purchasing those items from me, you verify that you are at least 18 years of age and you have confirmed that airsoft guns and parts are permitted by your state and local laws.
Thanks!
2023.03.22 02:25 BottomlessText69 [WTS][MA] Liquidating collection Gun Edition (lpegs, cyma m4, akm, ares Striker and a few more.)
Hello, and welcome to my post. It's time to move a lot of goods due to life, I just don't play airsoft as much as I used to sadly, and I need to get some things on track financially to make future moves.
I'm located in Fall River, Massachusetts. I'd much prefer pickup/meetup, cash in hand, but will accept paypal, cashapp in person. I frequent Advanced Action Sports in Warwick (Used to work there) So we can meet there. I can ship, on your dime. Tracking provided thought usps. What you see is what you get, unless stated otherwise in post below. Guns can be chrono'd upon request. Please don't hesitate to ask. Everything is best offer, worst I can say in no.
Pictures with time stamp: https://imgur.com/a/jUjqiMQ?fbclid=IwAR2LiriuDEVGNjOaqznCpNH- JZEz5Iq8Xiuln23xzvCAxD447FkkSFAlcjI
The gun is old, so its got some looseness to it. A little bit of love and some glue here and there and it will be solid again. Wired to deans, comes with the 7 mags pictured (High caps, because have fun.) I want this gun to go to a good home, It deserves it. I can include the rest of the Classic army Krebs parts if you desire.
If you've made it this far, Thank you for hanging in there. I hope to make some deals and hopefully find good homes for all of this stuff. Be on the lookout in a week or 2 for the mega boneyard sale.
submitted by BottomlessText69 to airsoftmarket [link] [comments]
I'm located in Fall River, Massachusetts. I'd much prefer pickup/meetup, cash in hand, but will accept paypal, cashapp in person. I frequent Advanced Action Sports in Warwick (Used to work there) So we can meet there. I can ship, on your dime. Tracking provided thought usps. What you see is what you get, unless stated otherwise in post below. Guns can be chrono'd upon request. Please don't hesitate to ask. Everything is best offer, worst I can say in no.
Pictures with time stamp: https://imgur.com/a/jUjqiMQ?fbclid=IwAR2LiriuDEVGNjOaqznCpNH- JZEz5Iq8Xiuln23xzvCAxD447FkkSFAlcjI
Lpeg P90 - $20
200fps w/ .2g battery included. Not much to say, perfect for your kid to shoot tin can terrorists in the back yard.Tactical Force M4 CQB - $100
Basically new in box, fielded once by previous owner judging by the zip tie on the rear sling plate. Comes with 1 Mag and the foregrip in the box.Sig Sauer Patrol Kit - $60
Brand new in packaging, Received as a gift but... kinda don't need it. Literally still in the factory Shrink wrap.Ares AS-02 Sniper Rifle BONEYARD - $75
This one is an easy fix, but I just don't care enough to fix it for my own use. Hop up BB catch need to be filed down to slide up in the hop up to prevent BB from falling back into the bolt causing jamming. New after market Twist style outer barrel. Gun has a M170 in it and hits at around 450 fps w/ .25s. Hits like a truck when it feeds. Toss me a few bucks more and I can give it some love and get it running. Comes with 2 mags. Extra few bucks I can toss a scope in with it (not pictured.).Cyma M4 Keymod Full Metal - $150
I received this gun as a bag of parts. OG owner thought he knew what he was doing, bought the gun brand new and took it completely apart and failed to put it back together. Well as you've can see in the pictures it's alive. Pretty nice piece if I must say so. Gearbox is virgin, I had no reason to open it, it sounds great for a Cyma. Hits 290 on my chrono with .3s. Comes With a metal Mid cap.Sharps Bros Licensed "Jack9" Metal Receiver - $200
One of them fancy Ares M45 Pistol carbines. Received in trade, I've used it once for plinking. Barrel breaks away from the receiver for easy storage, Mircoswitch trigger, Metal DFE Receiever. comes with 1 mag. Perfect for dad's who own Harleys.CYMA AMK CM.040 "SH*TBOX" - $150
Alright, This one's a little painful. I love this gun, It been a reliable beat stick for years and it just keeps going. As you can see, its got character. I walks talk and carries a big stick. Classic Army Krebs lower rail w/ BCM Gunfighter grip, 5ku Leaf sight rail. Needs Loctite but I think its cool. Patina dust cover and a 74 stock with a tasteful sticker to tie it up. Gearbox is stock with a "destruction of God" High Torque motor. Eats anything you'll throw at it.The gun is old, so its got some looseness to it. A little bit of love and some glue here and there and it will be solid again. Wired to deans, comes with the 7 mags pictured (High caps, because have fun.) I want this gun to go to a good home, It deserves it. I can include the rest of the Classic army Krebs parts if you desire.
VFC Avalon Block II SOPMOD - $400
My main Squeeze, Completely stock besides a new spring in october. It's well used and ready for more. Comes with everything Pictured and I'll toss in some BAMF mags to go with it. Evike T1 on a 1in raiser, Acetech Flaming Pig Tracer, PTS Short grip, Knock off Surefire scout with dual pressure switch (other wire on switch broke off, so no peq box for you. The only real flaw with this rifle is the outer barrel. Pervious owner didn't take the grub screw out of the Flash hider and damn near stripped all of the threading. There's just enough for the tracer to sit on. Other than that, She rips, and ready to play. Shoots 350fps w/ .25gs. I can sell the whole gun without anything for $300. This guns are 500 bucks brand new and sell out frequently, so this is a pretty good friggen deal.Misc stuff that might be interesting...
Acog 4x - $80
Working Trinitium, Chevon. Missing side adjustment cap. Homemade Killflash with Lexan cover.3x Prism - $40
Received in trade, Illuminatesm, clear picture.VALKEN 1X35mm Multi reticule Sight - $50
Nice optic for the money. Red green and 4 choices of reticules to choose from.VISM Reflex sight - $40
Just like the Valken sight, just smolClassic Army HK33 Receiver set. - $???
You made it this far, so here's something cool. Old school classic army HK33 project. I just built a CA G3 so I'm gonna pass this on to someone aspiring to build something cool with this. I'm not sure what to price this at but I'm sure we can make some agreements here and there.Lastly, the boneyard - $99999
I've been active in my community for almost 20 years, been teching and fixing guns for more then half of that. When you've been doing it that long, you tend to horde parts. The last few pictures are just a small tidbit of parts I've amassed over those years. I just wanna throw it out there before I make a mega boneyard post. If you need anything small parts wise, I may have it. Just DM me. Most of the parts are indeed M4 parts, but I do have some AK, G36, G3 Parts kicking around. Most are stock, some are upgrades. Just holla and I'll take a gander though the junk.If you've made it this far, Thank you for hanging in there. I hope to make some deals and hopefully find good homes for all of this stuff. Be on the lookout in a week or 2 for the mega boneyard sale.
2023.03.22 01:59 Tremelune 302...Crate or rebuild junker?
I'm building a lightweight kit car with a small block Ford that will spend most of its life on windy mountain roads and will never see a drag race. 250-300hp is plenty. I want to go as cheap as I can for a reliable engine to get the car on the road, and decide if it needs more engine in the future.
I want a lump I can trust, and a nice to have would be an EFI engine with torque peak around 4500-5000rpm and a redline of maybe 6500rpm (this car will live in the upper half of the rev range).
My baseline is a Blueprint long block, which is like $5k for an engine that has been dyno'd. I figure it's another $1-2k for intake, ignition, carb, water pump. Figure another $1-2k for EFI. Likely ~$7-9k, all told.
I can find a complete '96 ExploreMountaineer or '87+ Mustang engine for $1-2k. If I disassemble and keep the iron heads, I think I'm looking at $2-3k for machine work in SoCal. Maybe another $1k for revvier cams/springs and odds and ends, and another $1k for Megasquirt if I can't tune the Ford EEC, throw on another $1k for my ignorance...That leaves me around $5-8k for an engine that is fuel injected, but 50 pounds heavier, and only comes in at this price if everything on the engine is usable (block not cracked, rods, crank, pistons intact, fuel injectors good).
I can't use mid-'97+ ExploreMountaineer stuff, because the GT-40P heads won't work with the headers in my kit, and if I buy a set of aluminum heads, the cost advantage seems to disappear.
Is there anything big I'm missing? What route would you take? If I build it myself and use a good machine shop, I assume I'll come out with a better engine than a cheap crate, but I'm also struggling to find an engine to rebuild in the first place, and I have zero relationships with machine shops in my area.
Just for shiggles, it also seems like for a mere 50-100% more, I could buy parts from scratch, avoid all machine work, and come away with a light lump that'll make power to 7k rpm and survive there all day...which is really the engine I want. Dart block $3k + forged rotating assembly $3k + aluminum heads $2k + (EZ multiport EFI $4k or Edelbrock TBI EFI $2k) + crank trigger and coils $1k + rollers, pushrods, rockers, custom cam $1k + Air cleaner, odds and ends $1k = $13-15k
I like the last option until I see the final number.
submitted by Tremelune to EngineBuilding [link] [comments]
I want a lump I can trust, and a nice to have would be an EFI engine with torque peak around 4500-5000rpm and a redline of maybe 6500rpm (this car will live in the upper half of the rev range).
My baseline is a Blueprint long block, which is like $5k for an engine that has been dyno'd. I figure it's another $1-2k for intake, ignition, carb, water pump. Figure another $1-2k for EFI. Likely ~$7-9k, all told.
I can find a complete '96 ExploreMountaineer or '87+ Mustang engine for $1-2k. If I disassemble and keep the iron heads, I think I'm looking at $2-3k for machine work in SoCal. Maybe another $1k for revvier cams/springs and odds and ends, and another $1k for Megasquirt if I can't tune the Ford EEC, throw on another $1k for my ignorance...That leaves me around $5-8k for an engine that is fuel injected, but 50 pounds heavier, and only comes in at this price if everything on the engine is usable (block not cracked, rods, crank, pistons intact, fuel injectors good).
I can't use mid-'97+ ExploreMountaineer stuff, because the GT-40P heads won't work with the headers in my kit, and if I buy a set of aluminum heads, the cost advantage seems to disappear.
Is there anything big I'm missing? What route would you take? If I build it myself and use a good machine shop, I assume I'll come out with a better engine than a cheap crate, but I'm also struggling to find an engine to rebuild in the first place, and I have zero relationships with machine shops in my area.
Just for shiggles, it also seems like for a mere 50-100% more, I could buy parts from scratch, avoid all machine work, and come away with a light lump that'll make power to 7k rpm and survive there all day...which is really the engine I want. Dart block $3k + forged rotating assembly $3k + aluminum heads $2k + (EZ multiport EFI $4k or Edelbrock TBI EFI $2k) + crank trigger and coils $1k + rollers, pushrods, rockers, custom cam $1k + Air cleaner, odds and ends $1k = $13-15k
I like the last option until I see the final number.
2023.03.22 01:56 LambentEnigma Respect Asajj Ventress (Star Wars Canon)
Spoilers to follow.
Asajj Ventress is a Force user from the planet Dathomir. Born into the clan of the Nightsisters, she was taken as a slave before being rescued by the Jedi Knight Ky Narec, who made her his apprentice. Following Narec’s death, Ventress was recruited by Count Dooku as his assassin. She fought against the Jedi in the Clone Wars until she was betrayed by Dooku, after which she briefly rejoined the Nightsisters and later became a bounty hunter. She fights with a pair of red lightsabers that can join together, but later uses a single yellow saber after losing them.
Source Key
Hover over a link to see its source.
Cutting Power
Combat
Precision
Defense
Melee
Utility
Punching
Kicking
Non-Lightsaber Skill
Hand-to-Hand
Miscellaneous Weapons
Durability
Blunt Force
Speed and Agility
Movement/Combat Speed
Pushing
Mind Tricks and Telepathy
Force Senses
People
Precognition
Intelligence and Creativity
Social Skills and Deception
Vehicular and Mechanical Skill
Equipment
Accomplishments and Accolades
Miscellaneous
submitted by LambentEnigma to respectthreads [link] [comments]
Asajj Ventress
“What kind of life will that be, Quinlan? The kind where we're slaves to our hatred? Our rage? That's what the dark side made me.”Asajj Ventress is a Force user from the planet Dathomir. Born into the clan of the Nightsisters, she was taken as a slave before being rescued by the Jedi Knight Ky Narec, who made her his apprentice. Following Narec’s death, Ventress was recruited by Count Dooku as his assassin. She fought against the Jedi in the Clone Wars until she was betrayed by Dooku, after which she briefly rejoined the Nightsisters and later became a bounty hunter. She fights with a pair of red lightsabers that can join together, but later uses a single yellow saber after losing them.
Hover over a link to see its source.
- DJL = Dooku: Jedi Lost
- Brotherhood = Brotherhood
- CWM = Star Wars: The Clone Wars (movie)
- CW = Star Wars: The Clone Wars (TV series)
- SoLaD = The Clone Wars: Stories of Light and Dark
- SoJaS = Stories of Jedi and Sith
- CYD = Choose Your Destiny: A Clone Trooper Mission
- Adv17 = Star Wars Adventures (2017)
- Adv20 = Star Wars Adventures (2020)
- KS = Kindred Spirits
- DD = Dark Disciple
- RtVC = Star Wars Adventures: Return to Vader’s Castle
- HL = Halcyon Legacy
- SotS = Secrets of the Sith
- CWCE = Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Character Encyclopedia - Join the Battle!
- LC = The Lightsaber Collection
Lightsabers
General- Her two red lightsabers can join into a double-bladed saber (though she rarely does this)
- Later uses a single yellow lightsaber
- Decapitates a clone trooper
- Easily cuts through large metal pipes while jumping
- Cuts a hole in a metal ceiling
- Cuts through a thick door with two lightsabers, though it takes about a minute
- Cuts through the swords of three Kage Warriors
- Cuts off three droid heads with one slice
- Collapses a section of a floor
- [Story] Shatters a ship’s window
- [Story] Cuts apart a large container using two sabers
- [Story] Makes a hole in a thick wall by swinging two sabers
- Destroys some B1 and B2 battle droids
- Destroys some commando droids
- Fights several surrounding Kage Warriors
- Duels Aayla Secura
- Fights Padawan Ahsoka and Master Luminara at the same time
- Fights Anakin on a falling platform
- Fights Anakin and Obi-Wan on shifting ground, though she is disarmed of first one lightsaber and then the other
- Uses her two sabers to disarm Obi-Wan
- Duels General Grievous, cutting off one of his arms and forcing him to call for backup
- Briefly duels Count Dooku one-on-one before her allies step in
- Forces Dooku back during a duel
- Defeats Jedi Master Tholme
- [Story] Cuts a blaster a person is holding
- Cuts open a case without harming its contents
- Cuts apart some rifles while avoiding cutting the people
- With her hands bound, fake-fights an ally, singeing her hair
Melee
- Parries Maul’s attacks
- With difficulty, blocks blows from Quinlan Vos while he’s empowered by the dark side
- Deflects clone troopers’ blasters while running toward them
- Deflects fire from a horde of battle droids while running toward them, bouncing a couple of the bolts back at the shooters
- Blocks Rex’s blaster
- Reflects blasterfire from Senate Commandos back at them
- Bounces a blaster bolt back at a battle droid while using someone else’s lightsaber
- [Limitation] Gets hit while being fired upon from multiple sides
Physical Abilities
StrengthPunching
Kicking
- Kicks Obi-Wan, briefly stunning him
- Jump-kicks Luminara off a catwalk
- Despite being wounded, staggers Grievous with a kick
- KOs two armored guards with kicks
- Kicks two pirates at once, KOing or killing them
- Kicks two droids at once, disabling them
- Defeats some Nightbrothers with kicks and a throw
- Kicks a Nightbrother, sending him flying
- Cracks a Kage warrior’s rib with her knee
- Pushes Quinlan Vos across a room
- Knocks Ahsoka off her feet with a swipe of her saber
- Uses a staff to break apart two droids
- Cracks a humanoid’s skull (though this could be telekinesis)
- Throws a Kage Warrior with her legs
- Throws a clone over her shoulder
- Throws a pirate over her head, then hits him in the jaw before he lands
- [Story] Swings around a baby sarlacc and tosses it through a window
- Briefly matches Grievous’s strength while pressing her two lightsabers against his four
- She and Dooku briefly hold each other back, though he overpowers her
- Barely manages to hold back Savage’s lightsaber with her own
- Casually snaps the arm of a Falleen guard
- Breaks chains around her arms
- Rips off a droid’s head
- Crushes a transmitter in her hand
- Chokes a Nightbrother with one hand
- Briefly hangs by on hand while holding a man in the other
- Grabs onto a cliffside to stop her fall
Hand-to-Hand
- Easily fights armed Nightbrothers with her bare hands
- Beats up some disarmed clone troopers
- Defeats some Kage Warriors
- Fights Savage Opress before his transformation, blocking his blows
- Rolls onto her back and kicks Anakin behind her
- Kicks Anakin multiple times while dueling him
Miscellaneous Weapons
- Briefly fights Anakin using improvised weapons, and scores a hit on him
- Uses a staff to disarm and destroy a droid
- Accurately throws a bomb near Ahsoka
- Hits a man with a thrown spear
- Throws two kamas accurately
Blunt Force
- Is fine after being hit by a giant insect’s wing
- Lands gracefully after taking a flying kick from Obi-Wan
- Recovers from being kicked by Grievous
- Gets up after being thrown into some crates by Savage
- Withstands being slammed to the floor and then punched by Savage
- Gets Force pushed into a wall by Anakin hard enough to crack it
- Starts to get up after Dooku pushes her into a pillar, but is briefly knocked out after he throws her a second time, then falls down a ledge and gets thrown down another one by Grievous, and can still fight
- Gets hit by a metal barrel and then takes a metal pipe to the head, and is badly hurt but conscious
- Is hit by a stone column while jumping, then falls onto a series of balconies before landing on a pile of vines, and has part of the column fall onto her legs after it hits the ground, leaving her with one broken leg and a probable concussion
- Is badly injured when the tower she’s in collapses, but gets up after a while
- Gets Force choked and then slammed onto a stone floor by Quinlan Vos
- Jumps down from an airship without harm
- [Story] Jumps out of a ship and lands on the ground far below without harm
- Survives her ship crashing roughly onto a crystalline ground
- Withstands Dooku’s lightning and being thrown through a window
- Ignores the pain of lightsaber burns on her wrists
- Survives a blaster bolt to the shoulder, though she’s badly hurt
- [Story] Gets shot by a blaster in the back and blacks out, but gets up after what seems like a short amount of time
- [Story] Survives briefly being in the vacuum of space unprotected
Movement/Combat Speed
- Maul says she is faster than him
- Runs faster than a speeder going in reverse
- Outruns Quinlan Vos
- Runs so fast that Anakin can’t get a sense of her footsteps in the dark, and seems to run on the ceiling of a circular tunnel
- [Story] Quickly cuts a baby sarlacc’s tentacles into pieces
- Leaps past Vos and takes him by surprise with a back attack
- [Story] Moves as a blur to get behind Anakin
- Moves as a blur and kills someone with her lightsaber so fast that Quinlan Vos barely had time to register it
- Punches and kicks as a blur
- Gains the upper hand in a duel so quickly that Vos can’t see what happened in a holographic recording
- Chases Obi-Wan through a dense jungle while jumping over and cutting through obstacles
- Dodges a sword slash from behind
- Dodges Anakin’s saber by jumping while blocking Obi-Wan
- Reacts to Anakin’s jumping attack, parries his saber, and bends backward to avoid a slash, though he eventually lands a kick on her
- Dodges Obi-Wan’s lightsaber
- Jumps over a swipe of Aayla Secura’s saber
- Rolls out of the way of Vos’s leaping attack
- Catches a thrown spear
- Moves a droid in front of her to block Rex’s blaster, then draws and activates her lightsaber after he fires to block it
- Takes cover from blasterfire
- Jumps up onto a platform
- Jumps up onto a catwalk
- Jumps off a wall to get to the ceiling
- Jumps onto a small ship as it passes by
- Jumps through trees with other Nightsisters while invisible
- Hops across the heads of battle droids
- While carrying a child on her back, jumps off a balcony, then jumps between boulders and flips up onto a saddle
- Fights while jumping between falling platforms
- Twists in mid-jump after being grabbed to deliver a kick
- Does a backflip while kicking off high-heeled shoes
- Jumps high, then swings on a pole to kick Anakin
- Swings on a power line before jump-kicking Ahsoka
- Somersaults over a charging man and pivots to cut his legs
- Flips three times during a jump
- Jumps far, then takes out some battle droids before they can react
- Ducks from Dooku’s saber and jumps off some slanted walls
- Acrobatically avoids a droid’s line of sight
- Jumps onto a droid ship as it passes below her
- [Story] Jumps around a room while fighting Anakin
- Runs up a wall, takes a staff from a droid, and briefly balances on it
- Jumps up onto a support beam and balances delicately
- Quickly climbs up the outside of a ship with the help of her lightsabers
Force Abilities
TelekinesisPushing
- KOs two Toydarians with a push
- KOs two clone troopers with a push
- Pushes a Nightbrother far
- Knocks over several clones
- Pushes away her surrounding opponents
- [Story] Pushes aside several animals
- Makes a gap in a pile of rubble
- Presses a cyborg into the ground, making his bones and prostheses pop
- Tears out a section of a pipe
- [Story] Pulls her two lightsabers to her hands from opposite directions
- Pulls apart an astromech in a telekinetic tug-of-war with Aayla Secura
- Matches Anakin’s telekinesis while pulling on a child
- Makes Dooku’s lightsaber miss her
- Deflects droid parts launched at her by Quinlan Vos
- Redirects blaster bolts aimed at her
- Lifts a Jedi and slams him into the ground
- Smashes a droid into the floor
- Is confident that she could break most of a clone trooper’s bones by throwing him into a wall
- Throws a Falleen into a throne, toppling it
- Stops two falling women
- Launches pieces of rubble from behind her
- Throws a table at Obi-Wan
- Throws a stack of barrels at a person
- Lifts and throws a massive stone pillar
- Casually uproots a tree
- Throws her joined sabers, cutting through a pipe
- [Story] Throws a lightsaber, breaking a spaceship’s window
- Moves a droid in front of her to block Rex’s blaster with its neck
- Levitates herself back onto a moving speeder
- Chokes a snake to death
- Lifts and chokes a clone, then pulls him onto her lightsaber
- While particularly enraged, lifts and chokes Anakin and Obi-Wan, though she loses her grip when the floor shakes
- Lifts and chokes a Falleen
- Lifts and chokes four pirates, then collapses them in a heap
- Attempts to mind trick Rex into luring Anakin to her, but Rex seems to at least partially resist and warn Anakin
- Prevents a woman from calling security, and sends her on a long errand
- Gets a guard to let her pass without checking her for weapons
- Lets an animal know that she’s not a threat
- Telepathically threatens a lava flea she’s riding
- Exudes calmness while talking to someone
- Calls a snake to her and makes it violent
- [Limitation] Her mind tricks don’t work on those trained against it
People
- Senses a person nearby despite her sense being weakened by an injury
- Senses Count Dooku’s location in his palace
- Senses that Grievous is leading the enemy force
- Senses Anakin’s presence in the dark before she knows him well
- Senses Anakin stalking her
- Seems to sense an attack coming from behind
- [Limitation] Fails to sense an individual in a crowd
- [Story][Limitation] Doesn’t sense someone pointing a blaster at her back
- Senses tension in a group of people
- Senses concern from a Jedi
- Senses that a person is eager to please someone important
- Senses that Mill Alibeth is questioning the Jedi lifestyle
- Feels two people’s emotions despite not being able to see them
- Senses the general emotions of a crowd, and identifies a different emotion in a particular group
- Can tell that Quinlan Vos is telling the truth when he says he loves her
- Senses her lightsaber being thrown to her
- With her senses weakened, is able to sense traps in a temple made of a Force-attuned stone
- Pilots a ship precisely with her eyes closed
- Can tell that Vos is still consumed by the dark side when Obi-Wan can’t
- Senses through a hologram that Sidious is steeped in the dark side
- Predicts where a person she’s chasing will go
- Predicts and partly avoids blows from a four-armed man
- Predicts the moves of Ziton Moj, an expert in fighting unpredictably
- Experiences a vision of every possible outcome of a decision she’s about to make (although this is the only time she experiences the Force this way)
Other
Stealth- Avoids a droid’s line of sight
- Two Nightbrothers lose track of her in a place with no cover
- In the darkness, runs up to a group of Nightbrothers without them noticing, killing two of them on separate passes
- Drops down behind a Nightbrother without him noticing
- Infiltrates a ship without Maul, Savage, or Obi-Wan noticing her
- Along with Obi-Wan and Anakin, sneaks through a ship she’s familiar with
- In the Nightsister temple, hides from Quinlan Vos and takes him by surprise
- Makes herself blend into the shadows
- Cuts a steam vent near Luminara’s face
- Directs two groups of droid starfighters, creating an opening so she can damage an enemy ship
- Recognizes the smell of a particular kind of fuel
- Competently treats a blaster wound
- Appeals to Grievous’s ego to get him to fight her alone
- Pretends to fall for a man’s trap to make him lower his guard, and can tell that he is faking falling for her mind trick
- Gains a person’s trust by listening to and encouraging his grievances, and gets him to consider planting a bomb for her and eventually to plant multiple bombs
- Convinces the same person that Obi-Wan is influencing his partner’s mind
- Tells Quinlan Vos that Dooku, rather than herself, killed Vos’s master
- Misrepresents evidence in order to convince the Cato Neimoidian government of Obi-Wan’s guilt
- Flies a ship erratically to confound droid ships
- Scores a hit on Obi-Wan’s starfighter, then does it again
- Escapes from an exploding hangar in a badly damaged ship
- Uses her Force senses to precisely position a ship
- Can operate a Separatist tank
- Installs modifications on her ship
- Rigs a blaster to explode
- A starfighter that she uses while working for Dooku
- [Story] A belt buckle that controls her ship
- The Banshee, a fast and well-armed ship that she uses during her time as a bounty hunter
- A skirt that she can remove and throw
- A bow that fires a plasma cable that she can slide down
- A telescope that can zoom and display information
- Electrobinocular goggles
- An aquata breather
- Has fought her way through entire battalions (presumably of clone troopers)
- Darth Sidious says that she is perhaps the most impressive of Dooku’s apprentices (including Savage Opress and Quinlan Vos), and he worried that Dooku could use her power against him
- Is called an unquestioned master of the Jar’Kai lightsaber style
- Darth Sidious says that her mastery of the dual-bladed lightsaber style is unparelleled
- Took over the planet Rattatak and ruled as a warlord there
2023.03.22 01:32 freelance_fox Atreus, Terror of the Sky [AGI Carry]
Atreus, Terror of the Sky
Agility Melee
Carry Escape
Tags: MovementSpeed Evasion Mobility AttackSteroid Physical Magical Melee Passive AOE StunPlaystyle: Glass cannon melee carry with extreme movement speed and reliant on his evasion to avoid being locked down.
Lore
While the Skywrath Kingdom is known to outsiders as a monarchy ruled by a bloodline of ancient mages, this was not always the case. The expanse of the sky is too vast to be ruled by any one clan, and in the old days before Shendelzare's great grandmother united them another flock once proudly ruled from a roost called Cloudhaven. Loyal to the ways of Avilliva, the wingless Accip'auk clan ruled over the massive floating city's spires and bridges with the help of the Order of the Gryphon, their royal guard of Gryphon-riding knights. It was from this guard that Atreus, champion of the annual sky-jousting tournament, slayer of the Feathered Serpent and captain of Queen Shendelezar's personal guard, arose from mere ignominy to become the last of his fated bloodline. Because, you see, while the Skywrath Kingdom of the present has known peace for centuries, all lasting peace must be born of bloodshed. The conflict between winged Skywrath and their wingless forerunners is oft forgotten by the victors of the conflict, but to Atreus his clan's cursed fate cannot be forgotten: to fall, helplessly, from great heights as you watch your whole world crumble before you. As the white marble halls of Cloudhaven crashed to the ground, it was Atreus's Gryphon, Drachon, who stopped his fatal descent. Faced with an impossible battle against Scree'auk's winged zealots and the death of his Queen, Atreus made the decision to go into hiding, carrying with him the relics of Avilliva in the hopes that he could one day return his kind to their rightful place in the sky.Appearance
A wingless Skywrath (like Vengeful Spirit) riding an armored Gryphon and wielding a sacred spear. His mount walks on the ground normally, taking flight while his Q ability is active. His armor is dark green with a visor covering his face except for his jaw, and his feathers as well as those of his gryphon are silver.Design Goals
- Dota lacks a flying mounted melee hero, and the community have been clamoring for a new hard carry hero
- In addition to the inclusion of two underutilized mechanics, evasion and movement speed, also must include completely new mechanics (spell evasion and attacking while moving)
- Intended to not need Boots or BKB as core items, helping give the hero a unique identity through itemization
Overview
Take flight, gaining evasion and flying movement, as well as the ability to attack while moving.W: Tail Sweep
Leaps to the target point and sweeps enemies off their feet with Drachon's tail, stunning and damaging enemies in the area.E: Talon Dive
Attacks have a chance to deal bonus damage based on current movement speed and ignore the target enemy's armor.R: Sky Terror
Gain movement speed for a duration each time you attack. While moving at over 500 movement speed, sources of evasion also apply to enemy spell effects.Shard (new ability) D: Soar
Swiftly flies to a distant location. Cannot be used for 3 seconds after taking damage from an enemy hero or Roshan.Scepter: Sky Terror
Increases attack range and grants uncapped movement speed.
Attributes
Movement Speed: 330
Turn Rate: 0.8
Attack Range: 200 ( 300)
Projectile Speed: instant (melee)
Vision: 1800/800
Base Damage: 26-32 (46-52 total at level 1)
Base Armor: -3 (0.333 total at level 1)
BAT: 1.7
Attack Time: 0.38 + 0.5s
Talents
Level 15: +15 Strength OR +15 Agility
Level 20: +180 Tail Sweep Damage OR +1 Movement Speed per Agility
Level 25: +30% Evasion OR +100% Sky Terror Duration
Abilities
Take flight, gaining evasion and flying movement, as well as the ability to attack while moving.Cast Time: instant
Duration: 6s
Evasion: 30/35/40/45%
Flying Vision Radius: 0 ( 400)
Effect cannot be purged by enemies
9/8/7/6s 50/60/70/80
Notes:
- Does not give flying vision unless the flying vision talent is taken.
- Allows attacking without turning while active, so you can control your movement direction independently of your attack target. Automatically attacks an enemy in range while flying.
- Can be placed on auto-cast with Alt+Q, but can't cast while stunned, silenced or rooted. Also may not be manually cast while rooted.
Leaps to the target point and sweeps enemies off their feet with Drachon's tail, stunning and damaging enemies in the area.Cast Range: 800/900/1000/1100
Radius: 225/250/275/300
Stun Duration: 1/1.2/1.4/1.6s
Damage: 50/90/130/170 ( 230/270/310/350)
Stun and damage blocked by enemy spell immunity
12s 70/75/80/85
Notes:
- Cannot be cast while rooted.
Attacks have a chance to deal bonus damage based on current movement speed and ignore the target enemy's armor.Proc Chance: 9/12/15/18%
Move Speed as Damage: 20/30/40/50%
Enemy Armor Ignored: 100%
Disabled by break Not blocked by enemy spell immunity
Notes:
- Talon Dive procs also grant true strike.
- Talon Dive's bonus damage counts as a separate instance from attacks so does not factor into critical hit damage calculation, but does not count as a spell either (different from Spirit Breaker's Greater Bash). Both the main attack hit and Talon Dive's bonus damage from movespeed ignore armor.
- Effectively sets the enemy's armor to zero for damage calculations, with minus armor applied afterward, meaning minus armor still has a benefit.
- Visually, when Talon Dive procs an afterimage appears and dives at the target as if you moved so fast that you appear to have not moved.
Gain movement speed for a duration each time you attack. While moving at over 500 movement speed, sources of evasion also apply to enemy spell effects.Movement Speed per Attack: 3/4/5%
Bonus Movement Speed Duration: 12/16/20s ( 24/32/40s)
Bonus Attack Range: 0 ( 100)
Disabled by break Not blocked by enemy spell immunity
Aghanim's Scepter Upgrade: Increases attack range and grants uncapped movement speed.
Notes:
- Spell evasion works similarly to Faceless Void's old Backtrack (without the self-healing part), but can also trigger on any targeted or AOE spell that would hit you, avoiding the effect entirely. Spells that cause an effect over time roll for spell evasion for each tick, meaning you can evade the first tick of an effect but then be effected by a later tick of it.
- The spell evasion component only works while moving, meaning that if you stop moving or are otherwise prevented from moving at 500 movespeed or greater the effect is deactivated.
- Sources of accuracy that effect a spell, like for example Ember Spirit using Sleight of Fist with MKB, also gain accuracy towards spell evasion for those spells. There may be some exceptions, for example Faceless Void's Chronosphere or Enigma's Black Hole, which cannot be spell evaded.
- Your mount glows and gives off additional, bright cyan wind lines while moving at 500 speed or above to show that spell evasion is active.
( Unlocked with Aghanim's Shard)
Swiftly flies to a distant location. Cannot be used for 3 seconds after taking damage from an enemy hero or Roshan.Cast Range: 3000
Travel Speed: 2000
Damage Cooldown: 3s
30s 100
Notes:
- You cannot attack or take other actions while soaring, but also cannot be targeted by enemies or hit by ground/AOE effects. Soar may not be stopped early.
- Cannot be cast while rooted.
Discussion
The concept started from the idea of a flying mounted carry hero, and I immediately decided on melee to avoid similarities to Batrider. The next objective was to come up with some existing mechanics that are underutilized for carry heroes, which led to Evasion and Movement Speed being the hero's main mechanics. Separately from this process I had already designed the W as the hero's primary "do shit" active ability, however its tuning was crucial to make playing the hero as a non-carry difficult.
I wanted to avoid similarities to other heroes (both official and some of my old concepts) so at this point I reached a critical decision: I knew the hero would have a proc effect, but what? I wanted the hero to have a different playstyle than other movement speed-based heroes like Spirit Breaker, Bloodseeker, Weaver, Phantom Lancer, etc, but realistically looking at how to make a carry that benefits from moving fast I decided that Spirit Breaker's Bash scaling probably needs to go anyway. I think Talon Dive's similarities to Spirit Breaker's Bash are small enough that they can co-exist, but realistically no one builds Spirit Breaker to deal damage via moving fast, and that niche ought to be reclaimed so we can have a hero who does.
At this point the hero didn't feel very unique, and I was still waiting to check the box for "has a new mechanic". Some of you may remember an old hero concept of mine, Antares, which featured the ability to attack while moving as a ranged carry—with this hero I decided Antares finally needs a full rework to make that niche available. There are too many reasons to list for why Antares needed a change, but it's safe to say that attacking while moving is a potentially very overpowered effect and giving it to a ranged hero is dubious, not to mention the reworked Antares will be much less of a carry and more of a terrain-manipulating Agility 3-pos or 4-pos-type hero.
With the hero's Q going from bland to its current form I just needed to top the hero off with an appropriate ultimate, but simply giving movement speed per attack didn't feel exciting enough. At this point I was wracking my brain for ways to give an active effect to the ult, but that was when the idea of a conditional for moving over a certain speed popped into my head. Spell Evasion as a concept is so inherently broken that I almost dismissed the idea out of hand, but it certainly checked all the boxes: both giving the hero a unique mechanic and a reason to avoid traditional carry items like BKB.
I've explored several potential caveats for the Q and R interaction, such as removing the Q's evasion when taking damage, putting a cap on spell evasion % or making certain types of spells (like slows) always pierce spell evasion, but ultimately the current balance is my attempt to let the hero be overpowered in order to find their natural counters. I would like the hero to be hard-countered by certain slows, like for example Warlock's Upheaval or Venomancer's Venomous Gale which could drop him out of Spell Evasion by putting him under 500 speed. I also think it would be nice to have another hero besides Phantom Assassin who forces the enemy to build MKB, in this case to allow attacks to pierce your evasion and then Bash or Slow you down below 500 speed.
For the hero's Aghanim's upgrades, the goal was to further enhance the hero's strengths to give him a more obvious niche: Soar gives incredible farming mobility to help you avoid the need for Boots of Travel, Blink or using W to farm, while the Scepter upgrade is meant to make up for the hero's inability to use Dragon Lance and encourages you to stack movement speed. Originally the level 20 +1 Movement Speed per Agility talent was part of the Scepter and the Scepter's uncapped movement speed effect was a level 25 talent, but this arrangement hopefully gives the hero a higher power ceiling pre-level-25 while still letting you skip Boots if you don't absolutely need them.
Whatever your view of the new mechanics I'm exploring here, I'd love to hear your take on ways to make a flying mounted Agility melee carry. I'm always trying to come up with new characters that fit in the Dota world, and this one, inspired by Pegasus Knights from the Fire Emblem series and the most recent World of Warcraft expansion, Dragonflight, hopefully gives you some ideas of your own!
Thanks for reading!
2023.03.22 01:16 SK_Writes Headgames PART 2
Part 1 https://www.reddit.com/DrCreepensVault/comments/11y06d4/headgames/
Opening his eye’s, it was dark and Michael sensed he was sitting up rather than laying down as one expected to be when sleeping. His neck was sore and when he tried to move his head to relieve the tension, he found it impossible. He wondered if maybe he were still dreaming and tried to will himself to wake up, but nothing changed. He thought maybe if he pinched himself that would work, but he could not feel his hands, or the rest of his body for that matter.
At the back of his neck a dull pain throbbed as if tension had built up and he needed to pop his neck. It wasn’t sharp pain but rather irritating, and he thought he would go mad if he didn’t find a way to relieve it. Finding himself immobile with no way to relieve the tension, Michael changed his thoughts to take his mind off of it.
Remembering the visit from the prison warden, Michael recalled the man saying that certain precautionary medical measures were taken to prevent aggression and wondered just what had been done to him. He thought about what he knew of that could be done to prevent aggression and other than his earlier thoughts of reduced testosterone levels or increased levels of estrogen, he could think of nothing which would require immobilization.
‘Unless they castrated me!’ he thought suddenly and wished he could reach down to feel if his parts were still intact. But he wasn’t a sexual offender, so that didn’t really make sense. This thought calmed him and he continued to search his mind for answers.
Michael’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of footsteps coming closer. He couldn’t see anything, but he felt someone had come into the room with him. The lights came on, hurting his eyes and Michael squinted to shield them. He could hear the other person moving around but had no idea where they were or what they were doing.
Finally he could open his eyes fully and saw immediately that he was in a white room not unlike the one where he had received the shot. The wall in front of him was bare except for the mortar joints of the cinder block it was constructed of and a small stainless steel rolling cart parked directly in front of him.
“So, are we awake yet?” a man’s voice asked.
Michael tried to talk but couldn’t.
A face popped up in front of him, grinning at him in a weird way with eyes bulging. This guy was way too happy.
“How you doing, Michael?” he asked with his rather high, effeminate voice. “Did you sleep okay?”
Michael tried once again to answer but no sound came forth. In fact, he could not even feel his breath moving through his mouth.
“It’s okay, Mikey boy. I know you can’t talk, but what you can do is blink your eyes. So when I ask you a question, just blink once for yes and twice for no. Okay?”
Michael blinked once.
“Very good, Mike!” he said in a patronizing tone. “Now the first thing we need to do is make sure you are okay. So I’m going to pull up a seat and we’ll go over a few things.”
He stepped away from Michael’s view for a moment and returned carrying a clipboard and pushing a stool. He sat on the stool with a flourish, reaching down to adjust himself at the crotch and Michael found himself wishing he could do the same thing.
“Alrighty then, let’s continue shall we?” he said with a broad grin, cocking his head to one side. “Remember, blink once for yes and twice for no.”
Michael blinked once to acknowledge he understood.
“Awesome! Now, let’s see,” he said flipping up a page on the clip board. “Are you in any pain?”
Michael thought for a moment of how to answer. He wasn’t in pain, but he was very uncomfortable with a dull throbbing in the back of his neck. He blinked three times.
“Well, okay Mike. I see we have some work to do.” he sat up straight and laid a finger to the side of his mouth. “You blinked three times which is neither yes nor no, so it means something else, right?”
Michael blinked once.
“Okay, I asked if you were in pain and you didn’t say yes, but you also didn’t say no, so you’re not in pain but you don’t feel good.” He looked to Michael quizzically.
Michael blinked once.
“Oh good, we’re making progress!” He clapped his hands together and smiled broadly. “Is it a headache?”
Michael blinked twice.
“Alright, does your neck hurt?”
Michael blinked once, paused and blinked twice.
“Oh I see, yes and no,” He maintained the silly grin. “Your neck is uncomfortable?”
Michael blinked once.
“Let me see if I can help,” he reached around behind Michael’s head and began to massage the back of his neck.
Michael felt the warmth of the man’s smooth hand as he massaged and soon the knot began to relax. Looking at his new friend, Michael wondered what had brought someone of such a personality to work in a place like this. His blonde hair was shoulder length and stringy but time had not been nice as he was mostly balding on top. He had a very large rather pointed nose that sloped steeply back to his eyes. Up close he could see the eyes were somewhat sunken in and there were large dark circles around them, indicating the man did not sleep well. But what really got him was the smile. A goofy grin with his large but well maintained teeth.
“How’s that?” he asked, removing his hand.
Michael blinked once.
“Good. Now let’s get on with the other questions so we can start to get you settled in.” He looked to the clipboard. “Do you have any other pains?”
Michael blinked twice.
“That’s great. A lot of times, guys come out of surgery like you did and they have headaches or other pains and there’s not much I can do but give them a painkiller.” He noted something on his chart. “Now, your neck doesn’t hurt now but it may start to as the healing progresses so I want you to let me know if it does and we’ll take care of it.”
Michael blinked once.
“Oh by the way,” he looked serious at Michael for a moment. “My name is Peter and I’ll be the one who takes care of you from now on. There is another attendant by the name of Marco who comes in late at night, but he doesn’t do much other than make sure the equipment is running right. Marco is, how should we say, a little strange. And then there‘s Natalie. You already met her. The nurse who got the room ready when you first got here.”
Michael thought about the nurse he had seen. He didn’t really see her well, but figured it didn’t matter as there would be plenty of time for that. What he did remember though was she had a great body and it was something to look forward to seeing again.
“Anyway, Michael, we run in three shifts here. Natalie works seven am to three pm, I work three pm to eleven pm and Marco works eleven pm to seven am. So there is always someone here to see that you boys are taken care of. Okay, do you have any questions?”
Michael blinked twice.
Peter reached around to one side of Michael’s head and pulled a very thin computer monitor around for him to see, angling it off to one side so as to not block Michael’s view forward, but still easily seen. The screen was divided into several parts which looked to be medical monitors and a small box in the lower corner which reminded Michael of a chat box he and his friends used on the internet.
“This is your life support monitor and it also serves as a way for you to communicate with me.” He reached up to adjust a small object at the top of the screen. “I need for you to look directly at this point for a few minutes Mike so I can calibrate it.”
Michael looked at the point indicated where Peter’s hand rested. There was a small beam of light emitting from a very tiny hole and he could also see a picture of his eye coming to focus on one part of the screen. He realized it was a camera of some sort.
“This is an optical mouse,” Peter explained. “It follows the iris of your eye so that once calibrated, wherever you look on the screen, the mouse pointer will follow. And like a mouse, you can click on menu’s but instead of a finger, you simply blink twice rapidly to click the mouse.”
Michael watched as Peter continued to calibrate it and saw a mouse icon appear on the screen.
“There we go.” Peter sat back satisfied. “Now Michael, I need for you to look at the screen and look at what I tell you to so we can make sure the mouse is calibrated.”
Michael blinked once and turned his eyes to the screen. He watched the mouse rove the screen as it followed his eye movements.
“Look at the blue circle,” Peter instructed.
Michael searched the screen and looked directly at the blue circle in the corner as the mouse followed to rest there.
“Good, now find the red box.”
Michael looked across the screen, the mouse icon following his eye until he found the red box.
“Excellent. Now let’s do a little more. Find the word menu and click the mouse.”
Michael looked until he found the word menu above the small box which resembled a chat box. He waited for the icon to settle on the word and blinked twice. A small box slid down with menu choices and he read them, the icon following his eyes across each one.
“Okay Michael, this is your communication interface. From here you can type messages in the box below by opening the keyboard on the menu.” He reached over and pushed a button on the screen to make the keyboard appear on the screen above the chat box. “At first, your eyes are going to get very tired as you type messages, so don’t try to do a whole lot at first. As time passes your eyes will become accustomed and grow stronger.”
Michael looked at the interface and wondered just how long he was going to have to use this. The way Peter was talking this would be his only means of communication for a long time to come. Just what had they done to him to make it so he needed to be immobilized for such an extended period of time?
“Now, if you’ll look up here for a moment,” he pointed to an exploding star symbol at the top of the screen with a small black box under it. “Before you are finished healing, there are probably going to be times when you do have pain and since we won’t always be around you to know, you can simply click this icon and get a small dose of painkiller. After it is administered, the counter will appear in the box below the icon so you will know when the next dose is available.”
Michael blinked once.
“But I gotta warn you, Mike.” Peter got real close to Michael’s face and he could smell his aftershave. “The painkiller is a strong narcotic. The computer will only let you have a dose every two hours, but that is still enough to get you addicted. Once the doctor determines you are healed, the painkiller will be removed, so don’t get yourself hooked on it. I’ve seen a couple guys do this and believe me, the withdrawal is very painful and there’s nothing we can do but watch you suffer through it as you quit cold turkey.”
Michael blinked once.
He wasn’t interested in the painkiller. In fact, other than aspirin, he wouldn’t take any medications when he was free unless a doctor prescribed an antibiotic for infections.
“Okay, Michael, I’m about to get off shift so let me show you one more thing before we stop for today. On the menu, you will find the heading “games”. When you select it, you are given a choice of several different computer games which can be played with the optical mouse.” he looked at Michael and grinned proudly. “These were my idea and I programmed them in so you guys wouldn’t get too bored. I know it must really suck to be immobilized like that.”
Michael blinked once.
“So anyway, I would suggest trying one of the simple games like tic tac toe or hangman at first until your muscles get used to using the optical mouse. Also, the games will turn off for fifteen minutes of every hour in order to prevent eye strain and headaches that can result from these.” He stood up and moved the stool over against the wall. “I gotta go now, but I’ll be back in the morning. Get some sleep and play with the games if you like. Marco will come and check on you before too long.”
Michael watched him walk out of sight, listening to his footsteps fade in the distance. Suddenly he felt very sleepy and questions of his situation no longer seemed important. He looked at the computer screen for a moment and decided he would check it out further later on. Right now, he needed to rest. He closed his eyes and waited for sleep to come.
But sleep did not come as he could not make himself feel comfortable enough to sleep. The familiar pressure against the back or side of his head when he lay down was missing and he had the ever present feeling of sitting at attention. He opened his eyes and looked at the computer screen, considering if he should dose himself with the narcotic to induce sleep. He immediately decided against it as he remembered Peter’s warning about not becoming addicted. He would have to find some other way.
Wondering how he would deal with his inability to make himself sleep, Michael became aware of a squeaking sound. Very faint at first but it was slowly getting closer and louder. He wondered what it was and wished he could turn his head to see, as he could really only hear it out of his right ear. This meant the sound was originating in the hallway as that was the way Peter had gone when he left.
The noise came even closer and now Michael could hear footsteps walking in time to the squeaking as if the irritating noise was a marching cadence. As it shifted around his position, he watched as a gurney came into view being pushed by a very strange looking man. He assumed that this was Marco and knew the gurney was not for him as there was already someone laying on it, covered entirely by a white sheet and Michael found himself wondering why the person under the sheet seemed to have no head.
“Well, well, lookee here,” he said mockingly, as spittle gathered at the ring in the corner of his lower lip. “If it isn’t the big bad bank robber who killed all those people in cold blood. Not feeling so tough now, are you dude?”
Michael tried not to let the man’s words get to him. He had been taunted by guards and even other inmates before who didn’t believe he was innocent. This time, unlike those other times though, he had no choice but to keep silent.
“So you’re Michael Chaste. You don’t look so tough.” He leaned in very close. “In fact, you look like a bitch. That’s right, you heard me bitch!”
The man’s breath was horrible and Michael found himself wondering if this guy chewed on road kill at meal times. He had short greasy black hair, an eyebrow piercing, the lip ring piercing he had noticed at first and a tattoo on his neck of a flying bird which looked to Michael like a swallow. Oh the fun he could have with this guy if he had his voice and was not incapacitated.
“So, I guess Peter got you all hooked up on the monitor since it’s pulled around now. Enjoying them drugs, dude?” He looked at the screen. “Oh, you haven’t taken any yet, huh?”
He walked out of Michael’s site to the left and could be heard moving something around in a drawer. When he returned, he was carrying a small thin strip of something clear like tape.
“Okay Mike, here’s the deal. Since you can’t talk or even really communicate yet, let me give you the rundown.” He pulled the rolling bench over and sat in front of him as Peter had done.
“Open your mouth,” he held the strip close and laid it on Michael’s tongue.
The taste was very sweet and he realized it was also dissolving slowly. Whatever it was, he liked it.
“That my friend is a treat for you,” Marco said calmly. “I know I can come off all bad ass and all but really I feel for you cause it has to be one major bummer to be in your position. I don’t really care if you wasted a bunch of people. Hell, I’d waste people too if I could get away with it. Most of them are worthless as tits on a boar hog anyway.”
He spun around in the chair, as if making a point. “Fact is, I don’t think there’s any crime in the world so bad that you should have to be treated this way, but I don’t make the rules. I just exploit them.”
He got up from the stool and headed off around the room again. Michael could hear him running water in a sink and sloshing something around, but had no idea what was happening. Again he wished he could turn his head. After a few minutes, Marco came back and sat down. There were now dark blotches on his smock.
“So like I was saying, I exploit the rules to get what I want out of this crummy job. But I really can’t complain. I come to work about the time all my friends are passing out and I get off in time to sleep before it’s time to party again, so it’s cool.” Marco lit a cigarette. “Hope you don’t mind if I smoke. I’m not supposed to but there’s nobody here at night but me and you guys.”
He sat back and inhaled deeply from the cigarette and for once Michael could imagine what it was smokers got from smoking as he recalled his last smoke. The smell in the air was actually a pleasant change from the sanitary smell of cleaners, disinfectants and purified air. He watched Marco smoke and play with the cigarette. He was a strange one, but seemed to have a certain quality that Michael found he could like.
“So dude, I guess you met Peter.” Marco looked him straight in the eye. “Is that dude a flake or what? Man, the first time I saw him I was thinking to myself, dude, there’s a weird one if ever I saw one! And what’s with that hair? I mean, come on. If you’re bald on top you don’t let the sides and back grow. He looks like he tried to jump up too fast and his head pushed through the top of his scalp.”
He jumped up abruptly and did a little dance, ending up leaning back against the body on the gurney. He reached back and patted the stomach.
“Wow, that’s pretty muscular.” He pulled up his shirt to reveal a small paunch and rolls. “I wish I was that muscular. The chicks would really dig it.”
He walked to the far side of the gurney and lifted the sheet up between them.
“Holy shit!” he exclaimed, “Man, you were hung weren’t you buddy. Talk about a trouser snake. It’s like a damned boa constrictor.”
Michael could hear the sound of slapping and wondered just what Marco was doing to the body. He watched as he dropped the sheet and walked over to lean in close.
“Dude, you were really something, weren’t you?” He smiled and reached out to touch Michael’s nose gently. “I bet the ladies loved you.”
Michael was confused. What was he talking about?
Seeing his confusion, Marco walked over to the body and whipped back the sheet. Reaching down, he grabbed hold of the bodies penis and lifted it for Michael to see.
“Man, do you know what I could do if I was hung like that?” He smiled and seemed lost in his own perverse joy. “I could have any woman I wanted.”
Michael felt wrong. He couldn’t say watching Marco man handle the obviously dead body made him sick cause he felt nothing of the sort, but it did feel wrong.
“Oh, I get it now,” Marco said slowly. “You still don’t know what’s really going on yet, do you?”
Michael blinked twice.
“Oh yeah, Peter taught you the blinking thing. Good.” He walked out of sight, returning with something in his hand. “Okay, let me lay it out for you Mike. Part of my job is to take the bodies to the incinerator here and cremate them, which is what I was on my way to do when I stopped in here to see you. Being that you’re new and all, I thought what the hell, let’s take some time to get to know the new guy and maybe have a little fun. So here we are in this damned cold ass prison, just the two of us in a plain white room with a stiff, except the stiff isn’t just any stiff It’s you!”
Michael was completely confused now. What did he mean the stiff was him? He was right here looking at him and being talked to, so how could the dead body be him.
“Still confused, eh, Mike?”
Michael blinked once.
“Okay, maybe I should ease you into this and let you know what my job is really all about.” He sat on the stool and lit another smoke. “I come in here every night and, aside from cremating stiffs, I also maintain all the life support equipment that keeps you guys alive. I mean, there’s the blood oxygenation re-circulator which acts like a heart to keep blood flowing to the brain and the feeding solutions which are added to the blood to make sure you have the nutrients you need. That’s the easy stuff. Then there’s about ten other solutions that have to be added to the blood continuously since you don’t have the organs to make them. And of course, the blood is also then continuously cleaned so you don’t get infections or blood poisoning. I’m telling you, Mike, it’s like maintaining a whole laboratory for each one of you guys and I do it all myself.” He turned and looked at Michael seriously. “If it weren’t for me, I’d be cremating all of you!”
He got up, walked to the end of the gurney and began to push it toward the door opposite where he came in.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes, dude,” he called back.
Michael thought about everything Marco had just told him and tried to grasp the point that was alluded to, but never made. It was as if he was supposed to understand something that was beyond his comprehension and he couldn’t put it all together. He had said the body was him, but how could that be when he was still right here and the body was now on it’s way to be cremated?
“Okay dude. I’m back,” Marco said entering the room. He came back and sat on the stool once again. “So, did you figure it out yet?”
Michael blinked twice.
“Man, I don’t know whether you’re just not that smart or just in denial.” Marco sat back and moved something around in front of him. “Okay Mike. This is going to be painful, but you have to know before you can be moved into the ward with the rest of the inmates.”
He held up a small mirror so Michael could see himself.
Disbelief filled his eyes and Michael wondered how what he was seeing could be true. They had shaved all of his hair off, including his eyebrows and there were multiple patches with wires stuck all about his head which ran off to a bundle that wandered away from the base of his neck. Around his neck was what looked to be a black leather collar connected to some sort of rubber sheet which was in turn fastened to the tabletop his head protruded from. There were small silver bolts in the circumference of the leather collar and there was no doubt in his mind that they actually were attached to him in some manner.
He looked from the mirror to Marco and back again. Now Marco moved the mirror back a little to give him a broader view and Michael was horrified. He could see the edge of the tabletop under him now and below it, instead of his body, was a vat of clear liquid only a few inches deep. Now he understood what Marco was trying to tell him and he looked at the man as if he held some answer that would take the horror away.
“I’m sorry, Mike. Like I said, I do not think any crime deserves for this to happen to you.” He put the mirror down. “But that was your body I just took to the furnace.”
Marco got up and rolled the stool over by the wall. “I have to go and check on the others now, but I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”
He went out the door he had first entered and Michael listened as the sound of his footsteps faded away. His mind was numb and he couldn’t think. He wanted to scream and yell and rage at the world about how he had endured so much without ever once acting in any way to justify what was happening to him and now they had done this to him.
They had taken his body and mounted his head on a plate like a trophy. A living trophy. Michael looked over at the monitor and looked directly at the painkiller icon. He blinked twice, feeling immediately as the narcotic began to flow freely into his brain, numbing his thoughts and senses.
He looked again and saw the monitor was now counting down from two hours, but still tried to administer another dose. If he could somehow overdose, the nightmare would end. But the machine refused to respond and he was left to stare blankly at the counter as it worked it’s way down to his next dose.
Narrated by me on YouTube https://youtu.be/kPnf7LDXhUM
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Eternal Convictions / HeadGames Steven Knies (c) October 23, 2009
submitted by SK_Writes to DrCreepensVault [link] [comments]
Opening his eye’s, it was dark and Michael sensed he was sitting up rather than laying down as one expected to be when sleeping. His neck was sore and when he tried to move his head to relieve the tension, he found it impossible. He wondered if maybe he were still dreaming and tried to will himself to wake up, but nothing changed. He thought maybe if he pinched himself that would work, but he could not feel his hands, or the rest of his body for that matter.
At the back of his neck a dull pain throbbed as if tension had built up and he needed to pop his neck. It wasn’t sharp pain but rather irritating, and he thought he would go mad if he didn’t find a way to relieve it. Finding himself immobile with no way to relieve the tension, Michael changed his thoughts to take his mind off of it.
Remembering the visit from the prison warden, Michael recalled the man saying that certain precautionary medical measures were taken to prevent aggression and wondered just what had been done to him. He thought about what he knew of that could be done to prevent aggression and other than his earlier thoughts of reduced testosterone levels or increased levels of estrogen, he could think of nothing which would require immobilization.
‘Unless they castrated me!’ he thought suddenly and wished he could reach down to feel if his parts were still intact. But he wasn’t a sexual offender, so that didn’t really make sense. This thought calmed him and he continued to search his mind for answers.
Michael’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of footsteps coming closer. He couldn’t see anything, but he felt someone had come into the room with him. The lights came on, hurting his eyes and Michael squinted to shield them. He could hear the other person moving around but had no idea where they were or what they were doing.
Finally he could open his eyes fully and saw immediately that he was in a white room not unlike the one where he had received the shot. The wall in front of him was bare except for the mortar joints of the cinder block it was constructed of and a small stainless steel rolling cart parked directly in front of him.
“So, are we awake yet?” a man’s voice asked.
Michael tried to talk but couldn’t.
A face popped up in front of him, grinning at him in a weird way with eyes bulging. This guy was way too happy.
“How you doing, Michael?” he asked with his rather high, effeminate voice. “Did you sleep okay?”
Michael tried once again to answer but no sound came forth. In fact, he could not even feel his breath moving through his mouth.
“It’s okay, Mikey boy. I know you can’t talk, but what you can do is blink your eyes. So when I ask you a question, just blink once for yes and twice for no. Okay?”
Michael blinked once.
“Very good, Mike!” he said in a patronizing tone. “Now the first thing we need to do is make sure you are okay. So I’m going to pull up a seat and we’ll go over a few things.”
He stepped away from Michael’s view for a moment and returned carrying a clipboard and pushing a stool. He sat on the stool with a flourish, reaching down to adjust himself at the crotch and Michael found himself wishing he could do the same thing.
“Alrighty then, let’s continue shall we?” he said with a broad grin, cocking his head to one side. “Remember, blink once for yes and twice for no.”
Michael blinked once to acknowledge he understood.
“Awesome! Now, let’s see,” he said flipping up a page on the clip board. “Are you in any pain?”
Michael thought for a moment of how to answer. He wasn’t in pain, but he was very uncomfortable with a dull throbbing in the back of his neck. He blinked three times.
“Well, okay Mike. I see we have some work to do.” he sat up straight and laid a finger to the side of his mouth. “You blinked three times which is neither yes nor no, so it means something else, right?”
Michael blinked once.
“Okay, I asked if you were in pain and you didn’t say yes, but you also didn’t say no, so you’re not in pain but you don’t feel good.” He looked to Michael quizzically.
Michael blinked once.
“Oh good, we’re making progress!” He clapped his hands together and smiled broadly. “Is it a headache?”
Michael blinked twice.
“Alright, does your neck hurt?”
Michael blinked once, paused and blinked twice.
“Oh I see, yes and no,” He maintained the silly grin. “Your neck is uncomfortable?”
Michael blinked once.
“Let me see if I can help,” he reached around behind Michael’s head and began to massage the back of his neck.
Michael felt the warmth of the man’s smooth hand as he massaged and soon the knot began to relax. Looking at his new friend, Michael wondered what had brought someone of such a personality to work in a place like this. His blonde hair was shoulder length and stringy but time had not been nice as he was mostly balding on top. He had a very large rather pointed nose that sloped steeply back to his eyes. Up close he could see the eyes were somewhat sunken in and there were large dark circles around them, indicating the man did not sleep well. But what really got him was the smile. A goofy grin with his large but well maintained teeth.
“How’s that?” he asked, removing his hand.
Michael blinked once.
“Good. Now let’s get on with the other questions so we can start to get you settled in.” He looked to the clipboard. “Do you have any other pains?”
Michael blinked twice.
“That’s great. A lot of times, guys come out of surgery like you did and they have headaches or other pains and there’s not much I can do but give them a painkiller.” He noted something on his chart. “Now, your neck doesn’t hurt now but it may start to as the healing progresses so I want you to let me know if it does and we’ll take care of it.”
Michael blinked once.
“Oh by the way,” he looked serious at Michael for a moment. “My name is Peter and I’ll be the one who takes care of you from now on. There is another attendant by the name of Marco who comes in late at night, but he doesn’t do much other than make sure the equipment is running right. Marco is, how should we say, a little strange. And then there‘s Natalie. You already met her. The nurse who got the room ready when you first got here.”
Michael thought about the nurse he had seen. He didn’t really see her well, but figured it didn’t matter as there would be plenty of time for that. What he did remember though was she had a great body and it was something to look forward to seeing again.
“Anyway, Michael, we run in three shifts here. Natalie works seven am to three pm, I work three pm to eleven pm and Marco works eleven pm to seven am. So there is always someone here to see that you boys are taken care of. Okay, do you have any questions?”
Michael blinked twice.
Peter reached around to one side of Michael’s head and pulled a very thin computer monitor around for him to see, angling it off to one side so as to not block Michael’s view forward, but still easily seen. The screen was divided into several parts which looked to be medical monitors and a small box in the lower corner which reminded Michael of a chat box he and his friends used on the internet.
“This is your life support monitor and it also serves as a way for you to communicate with me.” He reached up to adjust a small object at the top of the screen. “I need for you to look directly at this point for a few minutes Mike so I can calibrate it.”
Michael looked at the point indicated where Peter’s hand rested. There was a small beam of light emitting from a very tiny hole and he could also see a picture of his eye coming to focus on one part of the screen. He realized it was a camera of some sort.
“This is an optical mouse,” Peter explained. “It follows the iris of your eye so that once calibrated, wherever you look on the screen, the mouse pointer will follow. And like a mouse, you can click on menu’s but instead of a finger, you simply blink twice rapidly to click the mouse.”
Michael watched as Peter continued to calibrate it and saw a mouse icon appear on the screen.
“There we go.” Peter sat back satisfied. “Now Michael, I need for you to look at the screen and look at what I tell you to so we can make sure the mouse is calibrated.”
Michael blinked once and turned his eyes to the screen. He watched the mouse rove the screen as it followed his eye movements.
“Look at the blue circle,” Peter instructed.
Michael searched the screen and looked directly at the blue circle in the corner as the mouse followed to rest there.
“Good, now find the red box.”
Michael looked across the screen, the mouse icon following his eye until he found the red box.
“Excellent. Now let’s do a little more. Find the word menu and click the mouse.”
Michael looked until he found the word menu above the small box which resembled a chat box. He waited for the icon to settle on the word and blinked twice. A small box slid down with menu choices and he read them, the icon following his eyes across each one.
“Okay Michael, this is your communication interface. From here you can type messages in the box below by opening the keyboard on the menu.” He reached over and pushed a button on the screen to make the keyboard appear on the screen above the chat box. “At first, your eyes are going to get very tired as you type messages, so don’t try to do a whole lot at first. As time passes your eyes will become accustomed and grow stronger.”
Michael looked at the interface and wondered just how long he was going to have to use this. The way Peter was talking this would be his only means of communication for a long time to come. Just what had they done to him to make it so he needed to be immobilized for such an extended period of time?
“Now, if you’ll look up here for a moment,” he pointed to an exploding star symbol at the top of the screen with a small black box under it. “Before you are finished healing, there are probably going to be times when you do have pain and since we won’t always be around you to know, you can simply click this icon and get a small dose of painkiller. After it is administered, the counter will appear in the box below the icon so you will know when the next dose is available.”
Michael blinked once.
“But I gotta warn you, Mike.” Peter got real close to Michael’s face and he could smell his aftershave. “The painkiller is a strong narcotic. The computer will only let you have a dose every two hours, but that is still enough to get you addicted. Once the doctor determines you are healed, the painkiller will be removed, so don’t get yourself hooked on it. I’ve seen a couple guys do this and believe me, the withdrawal is very painful and there’s nothing we can do but watch you suffer through it as you quit cold turkey.”
Michael blinked once.
He wasn’t interested in the painkiller. In fact, other than aspirin, he wouldn’t take any medications when he was free unless a doctor prescribed an antibiotic for infections.
“Okay, Michael, I’m about to get off shift so let me show you one more thing before we stop for today. On the menu, you will find the heading “games”. When you select it, you are given a choice of several different computer games which can be played with the optical mouse.” he looked at Michael and grinned proudly. “These were my idea and I programmed them in so you guys wouldn’t get too bored. I know it must really suck to be immobilized like that.”
Michael blinked once.
“So anyway, I would suggest trying one of the simple games like tic tac toe or hangman at first until your muscles get used to using the optical mouse. Also, the games will turn off for fifteen minutes of every hour in order to prevent eye strain and headaches that can result from these.” He stood up and moved the stool over against the wall. “I gotta go now, but I’ll be back in the morning. Get some sleep and play with the games if you like. Marco will come and check on you before too long.”
Michael watched him walk out of sight, listening to his footsteps fade in the distance. Suddenly he felt very sleepy and questions of his situation no longer seemed important. He looked at the computer screen for a moment and decided he would check it out further later on. Right now, he needed to rest. He closed his eyes and waited for sleep to come.
But sleep did not come as he could not make himself feel comfortable enough to sleep. The familiar pressure against the back or side of his head when he lay down was missing and he had the ever present feeling of sitting at attention. He opened his eyes and looked at the computer screen, considering if he should dose himself with the narcotic to induce sleep. He immediately decided against it as he remembered Peter’s warning about not becoming addicted. He would have to find some other way.
Wondering how he would deal with his inability to make himself sleep, Michael became aware of a squeaking sound. Very faint at first but it was slowly getting closer and louder. He wondered what it was and wished he could turn his head to see, as he could really only hear it out of his right ear. This meant the sound was originating in the hallway as that was the way Peter had gone when he left.
The noise came even closer and now Michael could hear footsteps walking in time to the squeaking as if the irritating noise was a marching cadence. As it shifted around his position, he watched as a gurney came into view being pushed by a very strange looking man. He assumed that this was Marco and knew the gurney was not for him as there was already someone laying on it, covered entirely by a white sheet and Michael found himself wondering why the person under the sheet seemed to have no head.
“Well, well, lookee here,” he said mockingly, as spittle gathered at the ring in the corner of his lower lip. “If it isn’t the big bad bank robber who killed all those people in cold blood. Not feeling so tough now, are you dude?”
Michael tried not to let the man’s words get to him. He had been taunted by guards and even other inmates before who didn’t believe he was innocent. This time, unlike those other times though, he had no choice but to keep silent.
“So you’re Michael Chaste. You don’t look so tough.” He leaned in very close. “In fact, you look like a bitch. That’s right, you heard me bitch!”
The man’s breath was horrible and Michael found himself wondering if this guy chewed on road kill at meal times. He had short greasy black hair, an eyebrow piercing, the lip ring piercing he had noticed at first and a tattoo on his neck of a flying bird which looked to Michael like a swallow. Oh the fun he could have with this guy if he had his voice and was not incapacitated.
“So, I guess Peter got you all hooked up on the monitor since it’s pulled around now. Enjoying them drugs, dude?” He looked at the screen. “Oh, you haven’t taken any yet, huh?”
He walked out of Michael’s site to the left and could be heard moving something around in a drawer. When he returned, he was carrying a small thin strip of something clear like tape.
“Okay Mike, here’s the deal. Since you can’t talk or even really communicate yet, let me give you the rundown.” He pulled the rolling bench over and sat in front of him as Peter had done.
“Open your mouth,” he held the strip close and laid it on Michael’s tongue.
The taste was very sweet and he realized it was also dissolving slowly. Whatever it was, he liked it.
“That my friend is a treat for you,” Marco said calmly. “I know I can come off all bad ass and all but really I feel for you cause it has to be one major bummer to be in your position. I don’t really care if you wasted a bunch of people. Hell, I’d waste people too if I could get away with it. Most of them are worthless as tits on a boar hog anyway.”
He spun around in the chair, as if making a point. “Fact is, I don’t think there’s any crime in the world so bad that you should have to be treated this way, but I don’t make the rules. I just exploit them.”
He got up from the stool and headed off around the room again. Michael could hear him running water in a sink and sloshing something around, but had no idea what was happening. Again he wished he could turn his head. After a few minutes, Marco came back and sat down. There were now dark blotches on his smock.
“So like I was saying, I exploit the rules to get what I want out of this crummy job. But I really can’t complain. I come to work about the time all my friends are passing out and I get off in time to sleep before it’s time to party again, so it’s cool.” Marco lit a cigarette. “Hope you don’t mind if I smoke. I’m not supposed to but there’s nobody here at night but me and you guys.”
He sat back and inhaled deeply from the cigarette and for once Michael could imagine what it was smokers got from smoking as he recalled his last smoke. The smell in the air was actually a pleasant change from the sanitary smell of cleaners, disinfectants and purified air. He watched Marco smoke and play with the cigarette. He was a strange one, but seemed to have a certain quality that Michael found he could like.
“So dude, I guess you met Peter.” Marco looked him straight in the eye. “Is that dude a flake or what? Man, the first time I saw him I was thinking to myself, dude, there’s a weird one if ever I saw one! And what’s with that hair? I mean, come on. If you’re bald on top you don’t let the sides and back grow. He looks like he tried to jump up too fast and his head pushed through the top of his scalp.”
He jumped up abruptly and did a little dance, ending up leaning back against the body on the gurney. He reached back and patted the stomach.
“Wow, that’s pretty muscular.” He pulled up his shirt to reveal a small paunch and rolls. “I wish I was that muscular. The chicks would really dig it.”
He walked to the far side of the gurney and lifted the sheet up between them.
“Holy shit!” he exclaimed, “Man, you were hung weren’t you buddy. Talk about a trouser snake. It’s like a damned boa constrictor.”
Michael could hear the sound of slapping and wondered just what Marco was doing to the body. He watched as he dropped the sheet and walked over to lean in close.
“Dude, you were really something, weren’t you?” He smiled and reached out to touch Michael’s nose gently. “I bet the ladies loved you.”
Michael was confused. What was he talking about?
Seeing his confusion, Marco walked over to the body and whipped back the sheet. Reaching down, he grabbed hold of the bodies penis and lifted it for Michael to see.
“Man, do you know what I could do if I was hung like that?” He smiled and seemed lost in his own perverse joy. “I could have any woman I wanted.”
Michael felt wrong. He couldn’t say watching Marco man handle the obviously dead body made him sick cause he felt nothing of the sort, but it did feel wrong.
“Oh, I get it now,” Marco said slowly. “You still don’t know what’s really going on yet, do you?”
Michael blinked twice.
“Oh yeah, Peter taught you the blinking thing. Good.” He walked out of sight, returning with something in his hand. “Okay, let me lay it out for you Mike. Part of my job is to take the bodies to the incinerator here and cremate them, which is what I was on my way to do when I stopped in here to see you. Being that you’re new and all, I thought what the hell, let’s take some time to get to know the new guy and maybe have a little fun. So here we are in this damned cold ass prison, just the two of us in a plain white room with a stiff, except the stiff isn’t just any stiff It’s you!”
Michael was completely confused now. What did he mean the stiff was him? He was right here looking at him and being talked to, so how could the dead body be him.
“Still confused, eh, Mike?”
Michael blinked once.
“Okay, maybe I should ease you into this and let you know what my job is really all about.” He sat on the stool and lit another smoke. “I come in here every night and, aside from cremating stiffs, I also maintain all the life support equipment that keeps you guys alive. I mean, there’s the blood oxygenation re-circulator which acts like a heart to keep blood flowing to the brain and the feeding solutions which are added to the blood to make sure you have the nutrients you need. That’s the easy stuff. Then there’s about ten other solutions that have to be added to the blood continuously since you don’t have the organs to make them. And of course, the blood is also then continuously cleaned so you don’t get infections or blood poisoning. I’m telling you, Mike, it’s like maintaining a whole laboratory for each one of you guys and I do it all myself.” He turned and looked at Michael seriously. “If it weren’t for me, I’d be cremating all of you!”
He got up, walked to the end of the gurney and began to push it toward the door opposite where he came in.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes, dude,” he called back.
Michael thought about everything Marco had just told him and tried to grasp the point that was alluded to, but never made. It was as if he was supposed to understand something that was beyond his comprehension and he couldn’t put it all together. He had said the body was him, but how could that be when he was still right here and the body was now on it’s way to be cremated?
“Okay dude. I’m back,” Marco said entering the room. He came back and sat on the stool once again. “So, did you figure it out yet?”
Michael blinked twice.
“Man, I don’t know whether you’re just not that smart or just in denial.” Marco sat back and moved something around in front of him. “Okay Mike. This is going to be painful, but you have to know before you can be moved into the ward with the rest of the inmates.”
He held up a small mirror so Michael could see himself.
Disbelief filled his eyes and Michael wondered how what he was seeing could be true. They had shaved all of his hair off, including his eyebrows and there were multiple patches with wires stuck all about his head which ran off to a bundle that wandered away from the base of his neck. Around his neck was what looked to be a black leather collar connected to some sort of rubber sheet which was in turn fastened to the tabletop his head protruded from. There were small silver bolts in the circumference of the leather collar and there was no doubt in his mind that they actually were attached to him in some manner.
He looked from the mirror to Marco and back again. Now Marco moved the mirror back a little to give him a broader view and Michael was horrified. He could see the edge of the tabletop under him now and below it, instead of his body, was a vat of clear liquid only a few inches deep. Now he understood what Marco was trying to tell him and he looked at the man as if he held some answer that would take the horror away.
“I’m sorry, Mike. Like I said, I do not think any crime deserves for this to happen to you.” He put the mirror down. “But that was your body I just took to the furnace.”
Marco got up and rolled the stool over by the wall. “I have to go and check on the others now, but I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”
He went out the door he had first entered and Michael listened as the sound of his footsteps faded away. His mind was numb and he couldn’t think. He wanted to scream and yell and rage at the world about how he had endured so much without ever once acting in any way to justify what was happening to him and now they had done this to him.
They had taken his body and mounted his head on a plate like a trophy. A living trophy. Michael looked over at the monitor and looked directly at the painkiller icon. He blinked twice, feeling immediately as the narcotic began to flow freely into his brain, numbing his thoughts and senses.
He looked again and saw the monitor was now counting down from two hours, but still tried to administer another dose. If he could somehow overdose, the nightmare would end. But the machine refused to respond and he was left to stare blankly at the counter as it worked it’s way down to his next dose.
Narrated by me on YouTube https://youtu.be/kPnf7LDXhUM
My YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwyAE1VdOplNBMyqEDeNOeA
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Eternal Convictions / HeadGames Steven Knies (c) October 23, 2009
2023.03.22 00:59 ineedabettertitle Have you ever received a phantom call?
Your phone begins to vibrate, indicating that someone is calling you. You look down from whatever you were doing, and pull your phone out of your pocket. You look at the screen...and.
Nothing.
The screen is blank, no emails needing to be read, and no missed calls. The call was a hoax, it seemed to not exist. Just the imagination of a busy mind.
You chuckle to yourself. I must really be addicted to my phone if I am imagining it ringing, you think. You chalk it up to the phone suddenly changing position in your pocket, and get on with the task at hand.
Blissfully unaware.
You see, at that moment, they wanted your attention elsewhere.
---------------
Journal Excerpt, Ivan Mikhailov 9th March 1982 [Translated]
"You can't be serious with this." Dimitri slowly said, carefully reading what I had given him.
"It works. All preliminary tests and calculations have been run flawlessly. There seems to be no current limitations."
"No...limitations." He looked up at me, narrowing his eyes. "You do realise what this means for the future of energy?"
Of course, I was well aware. I had created it for that purpose after all.
I nodded. "As amazing as this may seem, this is only the beginning, imagine the possibilities. Endless."
His gaze shifted off into the distance. "Infinite, you mean."
His statement was correct. I had devised a way to create infinite energy from a finite source. This was always theorised to be impossible, you would either have to make the source do infinite work in finite time or have it do finite work in zero time. Both of which were scientifically unfeasible.
Key word being were.
I had opted for the finite work in zero time route. I had hypothesised that, if I was somehow able to slow down time to a complete halt in a specific location, even as small as a pinprick, then by moving the location past the speed of light, I would technically be able to manufacture infinite energy.
After years of trial and error, I was able to hone my research. It wasn't unstable, nor volatile, it would operate consistently and expectedly. In other words it was perfect.
And I was ready to share my discoveries to the world.
Dimitri looked at me again, snapping out from whatever daydream he was in, "You do realise we have to keep this under wraps, right? The potential power of th-"
"Under wraps?!" I interjected. "One of the greatest discoveries of our time, and you want to sweep it under the rug?"
Dimitri placed his head into his palms, clearly worried. "The Americans, man! We don't have the resources to do this practically right now. And if we did, their spies would surely discover it, and beat us to the punch. Remember the moon race? We'd be giving our enemies essentially the keys to unlimited energy, bad enough, but especially in this time!"
I didn't say anything. He was right, of course. But something this big couldn't be contained. Not on my life.
"We do not do anything about this now, agreed?" Dimitri asked.
"Agreed." I said, and got up to shake his hand.
I will start tonight.
---------------
This morning, there was a journal in my mailbox.
Covered in 'happy birthday' wrapping paper and topped off with a red bowtie. The journal itself was a faint green, leather-bound, and peeling at the edges. The pages were dog-eared and filled with inky diagrams of thoughts and ideas, machines and contraptions. Things that were really beyond my knowledge.
And it was written completely in Russian.
Intrigued, I ran it through an online translator, and began to read the journal. Most of it was technical jargon that I couldn't understand. But, occasionally, the author would write about what they did that day. I have inserted one such instance above.
After the excerpt I have shown you, the journal goes on to detail how this scientist builds a machine harnessing the power of 'both refracted nanoparticles and a manufactured gravitational pull to create a momentary time dilation in an area of 1nm².'
Essentially, he stopped time.
As best as I can reckon, the formulas and measurements he used were not known in his time, and the way he stopped time has been proven to not be scientifically possible. So I chalked up the journal to the ramblings of a mad scientist, intent on making a name for himself.
As I neared the end of the journal, his writings and notes became even more jumbled and incoherent, in my opinion further solidifying my point. On the very last page of the journal, the scientist had wrote, in very large letters, in what I have come to understand as his final words:
EXPERIMENTATION TERMINATED DUE TO UNFORESEEN CIRCUMSTANCES
ALL IS NOT LOST. BE VIGILANT. THEY WANT YOUR ATTENTION ELSEWHERE.
Below the message was a haphazard drawing of a man looking at some sort of device, and above him, was some sort of creature. I say creature, because while it was human in shape, it definitely wasn't intended to be interpreted as such. The creature was drawn with jagged lines which criss-crossed over each other in an irregular pattern, similar to how a toddler would aimlessly colour in shapes.
Its back seemed to be hunched over, making it parallel with its legs. The head was triangular in shape, and its hands were outreached towards the man on the ground.
I shivered at the picture. It looked frightening, of course, but the person who drew this was obviously demented. Grasping at straws, trying to prove that they had created an 'infinite energy' source.
I was closely studying this page of the journal, when my phone began vibrating. After a few seconds, I began to take it out of my pocket, when out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a flash of blue cross my ceiling. I took my hand out of my pocket and stood up, scanning the room for what I just saw.
On inspection, there was nothing out of the ordinary, so I took my phone, which had not stopped vibrating, out to look for who was calling me. And...nothing. No missed calls. I unlocked my phone and searched through my apps, but the search was fruitless. Nothing was new.
But my phone had definitely vibrated.
I put my phone down, wondering what had just happened, when I saw a glimpse of another blue flash on my left side. The flash was so small and inconsequential, that I probably wouldn't have noticed it, had I not been thinking about it.
Remembering something, I began to look through Ivan's journal again. I quickly flipped through the pages before I reached what I was looking for. It seemed like he was going through something similar to me.
---------------
Journal Excerpt, Ivan Mikhailov 15th January 1983 [Translated]
The first of the speed experiments has been an undeniable success. After manufacturing a way to retain the time dilation for lengthy periods of time, my next goal was to make it move faster than the speed of light, yet have it remain stationary.
The answer to this admittedly complex problem was simple.
Vibrations.
Theoretically, if I could make the speed of vibration equal to the speed of light in a time dilated location, then my experiment would be a success.
So I put my theory to the test. And it worked. I was able to, using vibrations and time dilation, manufacture a source of infinite energy. In essence I was creating energy. Of course, since I had no way to contain this energy, it spilled out in all directions, which made some sort of hyper-blast. The resulting destruction has only set me back a couple of months.
My only goal now is to create some sort of energy containment unit to harness this unlimited energy source.
In other problems, which I believe are due to the hyper-blast, some technologies have been acting up. Vibrating and whirring as if they were on, although thorough investigation has proved that they most definitely were not hooked up to a power source. I am also occasionally seeing 'blue streaks' in the corner of my vision. I do not know the reason, and I am contemplating going to the doctor's for an examination.
This may be irrelevant, but the streaks seem to be more prevalent when I have abstained from using technology for a lengthy period of time.
I will look into this.
---------------
I closed the journal.
Blue streaks.
As if on cue, my phone began to vibrate again. A subtle reminder from deep within the recesses of my pockets that someone was trying to contact me. I ignored it.
If I wanted to learn more about these streaks, I had to apparently not use my phone.
So I sat in expectant silence. I didn’t know exactly what I was waiting for, or how long I had to wait for that matter. I ignored my still-vibrating phone and waited. After a while, my computer chassis started whirring and flashing its lights, as if it was in the process of turning on. I ignored that as well and moved my gaze away from the monitor.
A flash of blue.
Moving in and out of my peripheral vision in mere moments. I turned my head to see what had caused it but had no luck. I concentrated on where I had seen it last, and resolutely decided to spend all day here if I had to.
Another flash, purple and more prominent.
I again turned my gaze to fixate on it. Nothing. And so it went on for about an hour. I would catch a subtle glimpse of a colour and chase it around the room. Purples and pinks, blues and magenta, my vision was filled with dancing colours. Over time, the colours became more discernible, resolving themselves into blurry shapes of various sizes.
And then finally, it stopped.
The colours grouped together, in the far corner of my ceiling, swirling and muddling, but staying somewhat still. I could finally study what I was actually looking at. I got up to get a closer look, but still wary, I did not touch them.
They were fluttering around in a mini storm. Cascading and colliding, they seemed to emanate anger. Each colour seemed to have its own consciousness, moving and gliding where it pleased. The colours rippled against each other in a flurry of motion.
Then, as if a veil was lifted over my eyes, my vision refocused and I could make out what I was actually seeing. The originally shapeless colours reformed into a person standing on my ceiling, their back bent over, arms outstretched towards me.
Needless to say, I got the fuck out of there.
I ran out of my room and quickly shut the door behind me, chest heaving. Suddenly an arm appeared through my closed door, heaving and writhing like a pit of snakes. Another arm and a head soon followed suit. Once the creature’s eyes looked at me, it opened its mouth and began to shriek.
The resulting sound brought me to my knees, as I covered my ears in a failed attempt to stop the pain. The shriek was high-pitched and made a crackling sort of sound, similar to an intense television static. The sound pierced through my ears with aggressive force, echoing inside my skull.
The creature advanced on me, taking each step with what seemed to be great difficulty, before thrusting a large tendril towards my chest. The force pushed me backwards, and pinned me against the wall. It drew closer, preparing to strike me again.
Rendered immobile due to the noise, I had no choice but to accept my fate in silent fear. It thrust out at me again, forcing its arms through my chest, while apparently leaving no physical damage.
And yet it still hurt.
Each strike burned like a living fire, stretching throughout my veins and causing immeasurable pain. The creature showed no sign of slowing down, it was relentless in its assault against me.
Another strike.
I threw my head back and cried out in anguish, begging for even a moment of respite.
Another strike.
The force of the attack sent my head reeling, I could not comprehend anything else but the searing pain.
Another strike.
The creature picked me up and threw me again once more.
The momentum carried me backwards, and I heard several bones snap as the wall collapsed behind me. I hit my head on something hard and cylindrical, causing me to momentarily lose consciousness.
I woke up to another shriek, louder and more intense than ever before, and the sound of gas rushing out of the pipe I made contact with. Unable to get up, I slowly turned my head towards the creature, who was writhing and jerking, seeming to be in battle with itself.
The creature shrieked again, however this time sounded different. What used to be a vicious noise that was dripping with unbridled anger had turned into a hollow and reverberating echo.
The creature was in pain.
The several colours it was made up of began to drip off the main body, and pool at its feet. The creature staggered around drunkenly, as it began to slowly lose limbs and mobility. With whatever strength it had left, the creature made its way through my walls and away from me, leaving behind a trail of mismatched colours.
I looked back at the colours, which were bubbling and shaking, and noticed they were pooling together again, shaping and forming another creature, although somewhat laboured this time. They were swirling together, and stacking on top of each other like building blocks.
I screamed, for I could not move.
And then my phone vibrated. A soft buzz that I would have laughed at, if my ribs didn’t feel like they had been run over. I painfully repositioned myself, in a way that I would be able to take my phone out of my pocket.
I looked at it. Nothing.
With a blinding flash, the colours around me disappeared, leaving behind no indication that they were ever there, except for the hole in the wall. Breathing a sigh of relief for the first time in a while, I called emergency services.
I left the hospital in a stable condition, but broken bones still take time to heal. Every time my phone rings, I consider not looking at it.
But I can't.
For all I know, I won't make it out alive.
---------------
Journal Excerpt, Ivan Mikhailov 29th July 1983 [Translated]
I will write this quickly, as I have much to do and so little time.
I have decided to abandon the project. I was toying with things beyond my control, that perhaps even God himself didn’t want me to see. I will do my best to clear up my mess, but it is unlikely I will be successful. I have let too much escape from my grip.
I will leave whoever may stumble upon these words of mine with a final warning:
Resist all temptations.
It wants your attention elsewhere.
submitted by ineedabettertitle to nosleep [link] [comments]
Your phone begins to vibrate, indicating that someone is calling you. You look down from whatever you were doing, and pull your phone out of your pocket. You look at the screen...and.
Nothing.
The screen is blank, no emails needing to be read, and no missed calls. The call was a hoax, it seemed to not exist. Just the imagination of a busy mind.
You chuckle to yourself. I must really be addicted to my phone if I am imagining it ringing, you think. You chalk it up to the phone suddenly changing position in your pocket, and get on with the task at hand.
Blissfully unaware.
You see, at that moment, they wanted your attention elsewhere.
---------------
Journal Excerpt, Ivan Mikhailov 9th March 1982 [Translated]
"You can't be serious with this." Dimitri slowly said, carefully reading what I had given him.
"It works. All preliminary tests and calculations have been run flawlessly. There seems to be no current limitations."
"No...limitations." He looked up at me, narrowing his eyes. "You do realise what this means for the future of energy?"
Of course, I was well aware. I had created it for that purpose after all.
I nodded. "As amazing as this may seem, this is only the beginning, imagine the possibilities. Endless."
His gaze shifted off into the distance. "Infinite, you mean."
His statement was correct. I had devised a way to create infinite energy from a finite source. This was always theorised to be impossible, you would either have to make the source do infinite work in finite time or have it do finite work in zero time. Both of which were scientifically unfeasible.
Key word being were.
I had opted for the finite work in zero time route. I had hypothesised that, if I was somehow able to slow down time to a complete halt in a specific location, even as small as a pinprick, then by moving the location past the speed of light, I would technically be able to manufacture infinite energy.
After years of trial and error, I was able to hone my research. It wasn't unstable, nor volatile, it would operate consistently and expectedly. In other words it was perfect.
And I was ready to share my discoveries to the world.
Dimitri looked at me again, snapping out from whatever daydream he was in, "You do realise we have to keep this under wraps, right? The potential power of th-"
"Under wraps?!" I interjected. "One of the greatest discoveries of our time, and you want to sweep it under the rug?"
Dimitri placed his head into his palms, clearly worried. "The Americans, man! We don't have the resources to do this practically right now. And if we did, their spies would surely discover it, and beat us to the punch. Remember the moon race? We'd be giving our enemies essentially the keys to unlimited energy, bad enough, but especially in this time!"
I didn't say anything. He was right, of course. But something this big couldn't be contained. Not on my life.
"We do not do anything about this now, agreed?" Dimitri asked.
"Agreed." I said, and got up to shake his hand.
I will start tonight.
---------------
This morning, there was a journal in my mailbox.
Covered in 'happy birthday' wrapping paper and topped off with a red bowtie. The journal itself was a faint green, leather-bound, and peeling at the edges. The pages were dog-eared and filled with inky diagrams of thoughts and ideas, machines and contraptions. Things that were really beyond my knowledge.
And it was written completely in Russian.
Intrigued, I ran it through an online translator, and began to read the journal. Most of it was technical jargon that I couldn't understand. But, occasionally, the author would write about what they did that day. I have inserted one such instance above.
After the excerpt I have shown you, the journal goes on to detail how this scientist builds a machine harnessing the power of 'both refracted nanoparticles and a manufactured gravitational pull to create a momentary time dilation in an area of 1nm².'
Essentially, he stopped time.
As best as I can reckon, the formulas and measurements he used were not known in his time, and the way he stopped time has been proven to not be scientifically possible. So I chalked up the journal to the ramblings of a mad scientist, intent on making a name for himself.
As I neared the end of the journal, his writings and notes became even more jumbled and incoherent, in my opinion further solidifying my point. On the very last page of the journal, the scientist had wrote, in very large letters, in what I have come to understand as his final words:
EXPERIMENTATION TERMINATED DUE TO UNFORESEEN CIRCUMSTANCES
ALL IS NOT LOST. BE VIGILANT. THEY WANT YOUR ATTENTION ELSEWHERE.
Below the message was a haphazard drawing of a man looking at some sort of device, and above him, was some sort of creature. I say creature, because while it was human in shape, it definitely wasn't intended to be interpreted as such. The creature was drawn with jagged lines which criss-crossed over each other in an irregular pattern, similar to how a toddler would aimlessly colour in shapes.
Its back seemed to be hunched over, making it parallel with its legs. The head was triangular in shape, and its hands were outreached towards the man on the ground.
I shivered at the picture. It looked frightening, of course, but the person who drew this was obviously demented. Grasping at straws, trying to prove that they had created an 'infinite energy' source.
I was closely studying this page of the journal, when my phone began vibrating. After a few seconds, I began to take it out of my pocket, when out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a flash of blue cross my ceiling. I took my hand out of my pocket and stood up, scanning the room for what I just saw.
On inspection, there was nothing out of the ordinary, so I took my phone, which had not stopped vibrating, out to look for who was calling me. And...nothing. No missed calls. I unlocked my phone and searched through my apps, but the search was fruitless. Nothing was new.
But my phone had definitely vibrated.
I put my phone down, wondering what had just happened, when I saw a glimpse of another blue flash on my left side. The flash was so small and inconsequential, that I probably wouldn't have noticed it, had I not been thinking about it.
Remembering something, I began to look through Ivan's journal again. I quickly flipped through the pages before I reached what I was looking for. It seemed like he was going through something similar to me.
---------------
Journal Excerpt, Ivan Mikhailov 15th January 1983 [Translated]
The first of the speed experiments has been an undeniable success. After manufacturing a way to retain the time dilation for lengthy periods of time, my next goal was to make it move faster than the speed of light, yet have it remain stationary.
The answer to this admittedly complex problem was simple.
Vibrations.
Theoretically, if I could make the speed of vibration equal to the speed of light in a time dilated location, then my experiment would be a success.
So I put my theory to the test. And it worked. I was able to, using vibrations and time dilation, manufacture a source of infinite energy. In essence I was creating energy. Of course, since I had no way to contain this energy, it spilled out in all directions, which made some sort of hyper-blast. The resulting destruction has only set me back a couple of months.
My only goal now is to create some sort of energy containment unit to harness this unlimited energy source.
In other problems, which I believe are due to the hyper-blast, some technologies have been acting up. Vibrating and whirring as if they were on, although thorough investigation has proved that they most definitely were not hooked up to a power source. I am also occasionally seeing 'blue streaks' in the corner of my vision. I do not know the reason, and I am contemplating going to the doctor's for an examination.
This may be irrelevant, but the streaks seem to be more prevalent when I have abstained from using technology for a lengthy period of time.
I will look into this.
---------------
I closed the journal.
Blue streaks.
As if on cue, my phone began to vibrate again. A subtle reminder from deep within the recesses of my pockets that someone was trying to contact me. I ignored it.
If I wanted to learn more about these streaks, I had to apparently not use my phone.
So I sat in expectant silence. I didn’t know exactly what I was waiting for, or how long I had to wait for that matter. I ignored my still-vibrating phone and waited. After a while, my computer chassis started whirring and flashing its lights, as if it was in the process of turning on. I ignored that as well and moved my gaze away from the monitor.
A flash of blue.
Moving in and out of my peripheral vision in mere moments. I turned my head to see what had caused it but had no luck. I concentrated on where I had seen it last, and resolutely decided to spend all day here if I had to.
Another flash, purple and more prominent.
I again turned my gaze to fixate on it. Nothing. And so it went on for about an hour. I would catch a subtle glimpse of a colour and chase it around the room. Purples and pinks, blues and magenta, my vision was filled with dancing colours. Over time, the colours became more discernible, resolving themselves into blurry shapes of various sizes.
And then finally, it stopped.
The colours grouped together, in the far corner of my ceiling, swirling and muddling, but staying somewhat still. I could finally study what I was actually looking at. I got up to get a closer look, but still wary, I did not touch them.
They were fluttering around in a mini storm. Cascading and colliding, they seemed to emanate anger. Each colour seemed to have its own consciousness, moving and gliding where it pleased. The colours rippled against each other in a flurry of motion.
Then, as if a veil was lifted over my eyes, my vision refocused and I could make out what I was actually seeing. The originally shapeless colours reformed into a person standing on my ceiling, their back bent over, arms outstretched towards me.
Needless to say, I got the fuck out of there.
I ran out of my room and quickly shut the door behind me, chest heaving. Suddenly an arm appeared through my closed door, heaving and writhing like a pit of snakes. Another arm and a head soon followed suit. Once the creature’s eyes looked at me, it opened its mouth and began to shriek.
The resulting sound brought me to my knees, as I covered my ears in a failed attempt to stop the pain. The shriek was high-pitched and made a crackling sort of sound, similar to an intense television static. The sound pierced through my ears with aggressive force, echoing inside my skull.
The creature advanced on me, taking each step with what seemed to be great difficulty, before thrusting a large tendril towards my chest. The force pushed me backwards, and pinned me against the wall. It drew closer, preparing to strike me again.
Rendered immobile due to the noise, I had no choice but to accept my fate in silent fear. It thrust out at me again, forcing its arms through my chest, while apparently leaving no physical damage.
And yet it still hurt.
Each strike burned like a living fire, stretching throughout my veins and causing immeasurable pain. The creature showed no sign of slowing down, it was relentless in its assault against me.
Another strike.
I threw my head back and cried out in anguish, begging for even a moment of respite.
Another strike.
The force of the attack sent my head reeling, I could not comprehend anything else but the searing pain.
Another strike.
The creature picked me up and threw me again once more.
The momentum carried me backwards, and I heard several bones snap as the wall collapsed behind me. I hit my head on something hard and cylindrical, causing me to momentarily lose consciousness.
I woke up to another shriek, louder and more intense than ever before, and the sound of gas rushing out of the pipe I made contact with. Unable to get up, I slowly turned my head towards the creature, who was writhing and jerking, seeming to be in battle with itself.
The creature shrieked again, however this time sounded different. What used to be a vicious noise that was dripping with unbridled anger had turned into a hollow and reverberating echo.
The creature was in pain.
The several colours it was made up of began to drip off the main body, and pool at its feet. The creature staggered around drunkenly, as it began to slowly lose limbs and mobility. With whatever strength it had left, the creature made its way through my walls and away from me, leaving behind a trail of mismatched colours.
I looked back at the colours, which were bubbling and shaking, and noticed they were pooling together again, shaping and forming another creature, although somewhat laboured this time. They were swirling together, and stacking on top of each other like building blocks.
I screamed, for I could not move.
And then my phone vibrated. A soft buzz that I would have laughed at, if my ribs didn’t feel like they had been run over. I painfully repositioned myself, in a way that I would be able to take my phone out of my pocket.
I looked at it. Nothing.
With a blinding flash, the colours around me disappeared, leaving behind no indication that they were ever there, except for the hole in the wall. Breathing a sigh of relief for the first time in a while, I called emergency services.
I left the hospital in a stable condition, but broken bones still take time to heal. Every time my phone rings, I consider not looking at it.
But I can't.
For all I know, I won't make it out alive.
---------------
Journal Excerpt, Ivan Mikhailov 29th July 1983 [Translated]
I will write this quickly, as I have much to do and so little time.
I have decided to abandon the project. I was toying with things beyond my control, that perhaps even God himself didn’t want me to see. I will do my best to clear up my mess, but it is unlikely I will be successful. I have let too much escape from my grip.
I will leave whoever may stumble upon these words of mine with a final warning:
Resist all temptations.
It wants your attention elsewhere.
2023.03.22 00:07 BrotherBattleFist Home brew Warband Short Story “MAELSTROM'S FALL” C+C welcome!
***Thanks for the supportive comments and upvotes! I'm really happy some people enjoyed the first story! I have a lot of fun writing short narratives like the ones found in the codex! So anyway here's the second part of my homebrew warband's story, "Maelstrom's Fall"***
Where once there was cacophonous pain in Garius’s mind, now there was only silence. Peace. Purity.
The wailing of the Butcher Nails faded away as the chorus of wailing from the Imperial command personnel around him began to rise. Garius and nine of his brothers had appeared from nowhere. A lightning strike teleportation into the subterranean command center of the Aeronautica Imperialis airbase known as "Maelstrom". A fitting name for the base as it became a maelstrom of violence and slaughter.
A blue uniformed officer fired a plasma pistol into Garius' face and then froze in horror at what he saw beneath the mask. A polished skull grinned back at him. The flesh of Garius's face had long ago peeled away, though he still felt the touch of wind and pain and heat from the plasma. His eyes had long ago turned to ash, yet he still saw in multiple spectrums, having been blessed with daemonsight. He had not even a nose, yet could catch scents as if he were one of the Blood Gods own hounds. And now his empty sockets bore down into the squirming officer’s eyes as Garius shoved the blade of his chainfist into the officer's chest and roared his unholy weapon to life. The officer erupted into a fountain of gore as Garius released the now dead man and allowed him to slide down the roaring chainblade, bisecting the officer as the corpse was sawn open from the chest up through the shoulder. The bloody slopped to the ground, spilling guts and ichor at Garius’s feet.
All around Garius similar scenes played out as his crimson clad brethren performed the same ritual. As slaughter ritual completed the command center fell silent but for the whirring of command cogitators, the humming of the crimson clad warrior's tactical Dreadnought armor, and the steady dripping of blood that had covered the ceilings and consoles. With the silence, however, came the screaming of the Butcher Nails within the minds of the Ten.
Garius, being the unit’s Champion of Khorne and the eldest of his brothers, had begun the chanting that always followed their bloody ritual.
It was quiet at first. "Blood."
But steadily grew in volume. "Skulls."
Until the crimson warrior's vox amplifiers were maxed. "Slaughter!"
It was the ritual war cry of the Slaughter Lords.
Once the Slaughter Lords were once faithful servants of the God Emperor until revealed to be of hereticus genestock. Known as the Sanguine Lords, they were branded Heretic Extremis by the Imperium they had served faithfully for millennia, and subject to a devastating war that saw their domains burned and sacked and their ranks decimated. Following the Sanguine War, the remnants of the Sanguine Lords Chapter disappeared into the Great Rift where they fully accepted their heritage as World Eaters and rechristened themselves the Slaughter Lords Warband. Their quest for slaughter and vengeance had brought them here, to the surface of Dharrovar, and the municipality of Grey Falls. And here they would pile the skulls of their victims high, and truly bring the blessings of Khorne unto themselves.
Garius Sentris and his nine brothers split up, moving with unnatural speed and unbridled fury through the halls and defenses of the lower levels of the Air Base. One brother stayed behind to reconfigure the command center comms array to block incoming and outgoing communications for the entire municipal sector. No warning would be sent to the other strong points within Grey Falls, only for the warcry of the Slaughter Lords.
"BLOOD! SKULLS! SLAUGHTER!" The words repeated on loop to every Imperial vox receiver in a 30 kilometer radius, utilizing the command center’s vox overrides to block all other Imperial vox communications from getting through.
One pair of brothers took control of the missile batteries, lest they be used to deprive the Slaughter Lords of their blessed butchery. Another pair of brothers disabled the self-destruct cogitators that had begun to countdown as the command center fell.The other five crimson clad brothers, led by Garius Sentris, slaughtered their way to the surface entry point.
Taking a pause before opening the exterior blast doors, Garius Sentris had words for his brothers. "The dogs of the corpse Emperor betrayed us. They burned our worlds. Massacred our brothers and our peoples. Now we will do the same to them, as we have done a hundred times before! We will take from them everything! And give to them nothing except death! For the fallen! For Khorne! FOR SKALAK! BLOOD! SKULLS! SLAUGHTER!"
The blast door opened. A half crescent formation of the crimson terminator brothers of the Slaughter Lords marched out in unison. A booming cacophony of fire erupted from their storm bolters. Heavy weapon emplacements and entire squads of white-helmeted guardsmen erupt into mists of gore, metal, and fire.
"BLOOD! SKULLS! SLAUGHTER!"
For a few brief moments the defenders were stunned. They had prepared for an attack from the east, from outside the perimeter. They did not expect the enemy to appear from within the very place they sought to defend. “BLOOD! SKULLS! SLAUGHTER!”
A rocket narrowly missed Garius' head. The guardsman who fired the projectile exploded into pieces a split second later as a mass reactive shell detonated against his flak vest.
"BLOOD! SKULLS! SLAUGHTER!"
A Heavy Bolter squad swung their weapon round, and managed to squeeze off two rounds and strike brother Ventrilius in the chest. Ventrilius was splayed open, his armor and body alike rent wide. He was dead before he hit the ground. Vengeance was immediate, as brother Quintus unleashed a roar and charged at the position, storm bolter firing the whole way.
"BLOOD! SKULLS! SLAUGHTER!"
The Heavy Bolter and one of its operators burst apart as they were struck by shells, and two more operators were decapitated in a sweeping blow from Ventrilius' sword. Half a dozen nearby guardsmen suffered the same fate only seconds later.
"BLOOD! SKULLS! SLAUGHTER!"
Garius' and his other remaining brothers broke into a sprinting charge. The Butcher's Nails screaming in their minds. Demanding blood. Demanding slaughter.
"BLOOD! SKULLS! SLAUGHTER!"
Garius broke through a two meter stack of sand bags, knocking two guardsmen down and surprising eight more. Garius stomped over the two fallen guardsmen and their guts erupted from their mouths as his armored sabatons sank into their bodies with a satisfying squelch.
"BLOOD! SKULLS! SLAUGHTER!" With a burst from his storm bolter Garius blew four men to his left into chunks of ground meat. With a crossing swipe to the right another three fell, the energy field of his chainfist transforming them into smears of gore upon the ground. With a forward kick the Sergeant was flung ten meters, tumbling and spinning on the ground and bleed profusely from the mouth. His organs had exploded from the force. He was dead in seconds.
"BLOOD! SKULLS! SLAUGHTER!"
Still charging, Garius spotted a Commissar with a chest full of medals and ribbons. The blonde haired man was busy executing the fleeing and cowering white-helmets and didn’t even realize he was about to die. Just as Garius was about to sate his Butcher's Nails with the blood of the small black-uniformed man, he was thrown off his charge at the last split second. As he stumbled one way he was dazed by a strike and thrown another way.
"BLOOD! SKULLS! SLAUGHTER!"
Garius stood and found himself facing a trio of Ogryn, as large as him, wielding massive shields and maces crackling with power. Garius tried to sneer. There was no flesh on his face to contort into feelings he wished to express. Garius roared as he fired his storm bolter at the middle Ogryn and advanced forward.
"BLOOD! SKULLS! SLAUGHTER!"
With it’s shield planted in the ground, the brute absorbed the fire as the other pair of Ogryns advanced on either side of Garius to flank him. An overhead blow came from the left.
"BLOOD! SKULLS! SLAUGHTER!" the pace of his chanting quickened.
Garius let his storm bolter drop to the ground as he raised his gauntleted hand and caught the Ogryn at the wrist. Garius yanked hard, and the howling Ogryn was thrown behind him, its arm being ripped off in the process.
"BLOOD! SKULLS! SLAUGHTER!"
At the same time the second Ogryn threw a sweeping blow from the right towards Garius' head. Garius caught the mace mid-swing with his chainfist’s power gauntlet, crushing the end of the weapon.
"BLOOD! SKULLS! SLAUGHTER!"
With his left arm Garius threw the first Ogryns arm at the Commissar, knocking the man to the ground just as he brandished his power sword in a feeble effort to aid his Ogryn bodyguards.
"BLOOD! SKULLS! SLAUGHTER!"
After destroying the second Ogryns weapon with his right gauntlet, Garius dug his right elbow down into the Ogryn’s shield, leveraging it aside as the revving chainblade beneath his powerfist cut into the Ogryn. As the blade found flesh Garius released his grip from the Ogryn’s weapon and forced his chainfist through the Ogryn. The beast screamed for a moment as its right arm was severed, then went quiet as its chest and other arm was sawn through and its other arm fell to the ground as well. The Ogryn collapsed into a dismembered mess of gore.
"BLOOD! SKULLS! SLAUGHTER!"
Before the second Ogryn fell the Third Ogryn had begun charging, howling in rage and shouldering its shield. Garius braced himself, left gauntleted hand forward.
"BLOOD! SKULLS! SLAUGHTER!"
The Ogryn's charge was stopped cold in its tracks and, holding the shield in place with his left gauntlet, Garius rammed his chainfist against the Ogryn's slab shield. At the same time Garius pulled the shield, and the Ogryn that was attached to it, toward him as hard as he could. For a split second the blade simply growled and sparked against the shield. Then suddenly burst through, the force of the blade penetration and the power fist's energy field blowing the shield and Ogryn apart. Fragments of metals and chunks of meat exploded away from Garius as the Ogryn's ruined body was launched head over heels from the force of Garius' strike. It was almost comical.
"BLOOD! SKULLS! SLAUGHTER!"
Picking up his storm bolter Garius fired two bolts into the Ogryn amputee behind him without looking back. Its head and shoulders burst into bits.
"Blood. Skulls. Slaughter." The chant slowed. The Butcher's Nails were quiet. There was peace to be found in the purity of Slaughter.
The three Ogryns had been dispatched in seconds. Meanwhile the Commissar was just beginning to get up. The Commisar swung his power sword up in a wild one handed arc and stumbled as his blade found nothing but air. The Commissar was only a human. He was catatonically slow by comparison to the gene wrought and warp empowered speed of Garius, who casually leaned back out of range of the strike. With a flick of one finger of his powerfist the Commissar's personal shield was defeated and his pretty awards and medals exploded out of his back with the rest of his chest.
"Blood. Skulls. Slaughter." It was a whisper now.
In the 60 seconds since erupting from the subterranean levels of Maelstrom Air Base, hundreds of Astra Militarum and Navy Imperialis forces had been slain by Garius and his brothers. Though the Imperial defenders had scrambled their aircraft and readied their defenses as best they could, nothing could prepare them for the surprise of Garius’s rear assault. In the mean time hundreds of Slaughter Lord's had burst up from the subterranean caverns of Dharrovar less than a kilometer from the Air Base Perimeter. They had fallen upon the defenders right as Garius and his brothers had come up from the depths. They streamed past him now, the Berserkers and their followers, the Jakhals. They were gore drenched and screaming maniacally as they scoured the base for survivors' butcher and skulls to collect.
The Imperial defenders had been all but slaughtered. Maelstrom Air Base had fallen. But soon the remaining defenders of Grey Falls would be mobilized. Garius knew the battle was only just beginning. Garius also knew that no matter how many lives he ended, the screaming of Butcher’s Nails in his mind would always return. Despite that, for a few fleeting moments at least, Garius had known silence. Peace. Purity.
submitted by BrotherBattleFist to WorldEaters40k [link] [comments]
Where once there was cacophonous pain in Garius’s mind, now there was only silence. Peace. Purity.
The wailing of the Butcher Nails faded away as the chorus of wailing from the Imperial command personnel around him began to rise. Garius and nine of his brothers had appeared from nowhere. A lightning strike teleportation into the subterranean command center of the Aeronautica Imperialis airbase known as "Maelstrom". A fitting name for the base as it became a maelstrom of violence and slaughter.
A blue uniformed officer fired a plasma pistol into Garius' face and then froze in horror at what he saw beneath the mask. A polished skull grinned back at him. The flesh of Garius's face had long ago peeled away, though he still felt the touch of wind and pain and heat from the plasma. His eyes had long ago turned to ash, yet he still saw in multiple spectrums, having been blessed with daemonsight. He had not even a nose, yet could catch scents as if he were one of the Blood Gods own hounds. And now his empty sockets bore down into the squirming officer’s eyes as Garius shoved the blade of his chainfist into the officer's chest and roared his unholy weapon to life. The officer erupted into a fountain of gore as Garius released the now dead man and allowed him to slide down the roaring chainblade, bisecting the officer as the corpse was sawn open from the chest up through the shoulder. The bloody slopped to the ground, spilling guts and ichor at Garius’s feet.
All around Garius similar scenes played out as his crimson clad brethren performed the same ritual. As slaughter ritual completed the command center fell silent but for the whirring of command cogitators, the humming of the crimson clad warrior's tactical Dreadnought armor, and the steady dripping of blood that had covered the ceilings and consoles. With the silence, however, came the screaming of the Butcher Nails within the minds of the Ten.
Garius, being the unit’s Champion of Khorne and the eldest of his brothers, had begun the chanting that always followed their bloody ritual.
It was quiet at first. "Blood."
But steadily grew in volume. "Skulls."
Until the crimson warrior's vox amplifiers were maxed. "Slaughter!"
It was the ritual war cry of the Slaughter Lords.
Once the Slaughter Lords were once faithful servants of the God Emperor until revealed to be of hereticus genestock. Known as the Sanguine Lords, they were branded Heretic Extremis by the Imperium they had served faithfully for millennia, and subject to a devastating war that saw their domains burned and sacked and their ranks decimated. Following the Sanguine War, the remnants of the Sanguine Lords Chapter disappeared into the Great Rift where they fully accepted their heritage as World Eaters and rechristened themselves the Slaughter Lords Warband. Their quest for slaughter and vengeance had brought them here, to the surface of Dharrovar, and the municipality of Grey Falls. And here they would pile the skulls of their victims high, and truly bring the blessings of Khorne unto themselves.
Garius Sentris and his nine brothers split up, moving with unnatural speed and unbridled fury through the halls and defenses of the lower levels of the Air Base. One brother stayed behind to reconfigure the command center comms array to block incoming and outgoing communications for the entire municipal sector. No warning would be sent to the other strong points within Grey Falls, only for the warcry of the Slaughter Lords.
"BLOOD! SKULLS! SLAUGHTER!" The words repeated on loop to every Imperial vox receiver in a 30 kilometer radius, utilizing the command center’s vox overrides to block all other Imperial vox communications from getting through.
One pair of brothers took control of the missile batteries, lest they be used to deprive the Slaughter Lords of their blessed butchery. Another pair of brothers disabled the self-destruct cogitators that had begun to countdown as the command center fell.The other five crimson clad brothers, led by Garius Sentris, slaughtered their way to the surface entry point.
Taking a pause before opening the exterior blast doors, Garius Sentris had words for his brothers. "The dogs of the corpse Emperor betrayed us. They burned our worlds. Massacred our brothers and our peoples. Now we will do the same to them, as we have done a hundred times before! We will take from them everything! And give to them nothing except death! For the fallen! For Khorne! FOR SKALAK! BLOOD! SKULLS! SLAUGHTER!"
The blast door opened. A half crescent formation of the crimson terminator brothers of the Slaughter Lords marched out in unison. A booming cacophony of fire erupted from their storm bolters. Heavy weapon emplacements and entire squads of white-helmeted guardsmen erupt into mists of gore, metal, and fire.
"BLOOD! SKULLS! SLAUGHTER!"
For a few brief moments the defenders were stunned. They had prepared for an attack from the east, from outside the perimeter. They did not expect the enemy to appear from within the very place they sought to defend. “BLOOD! SKULLS! SLAUGHTER!”
A rocket narrowly missed Garius' head. The guardsman who fired the projectile exploded into pieces a split second later as a mass reactive shell detonated against his flak vest.
"BLOOD! SKULLS! SLAUGHTER!"
A Heavy Bolter squad swung their weapon round, and managed to squeeze off two rounds and strike brother Ventrilius in the chest. Ventrilius was splayed open, his armor and body alike rent wide. He was dead before he hit the ground. Vengeance was immediate, as brother Quintus unleashed a roar and charged at the position, storm bolter firing the whole way.
"BLOOD! SKULLS! SLAUGHTER!"
The Heavy Bolter and one of its operators burst apart as they were struck by shells, and two more operators were decapitated in a sweeping blow from Ventrilius' sword. Half a dozen nearby guardsmen suffered the same fate only seconds later.
"BLOOD! SKULLS! SLAUGHTER!"
Garius' and his other remaining brothers broke into a sprinting charge. The Butcher's Nails screaming in their minds. Demanding blood. Demanding slaughter.
"BLOOD! SKULLS! SLAUGHTER!"
Garius broke through a two meter stack of sand bags, knocking two guardsmen down and surprising eight more. Garius stomped over the two fallen guardsmen and their guts erupted from their mouths as his armored sabatons sank into their bodies with a satisfying squelch.
"BLOOD! SKULLS! SLAUGHTER!" With a burst from his storm bolter Garius blew four men to his left into chunks of ground meat. With a crossing swipe to the right another three fell, the energy field of his chainfist transforming them into smears of gore upon the ground. With a forward kick the Sergeant was flung ten meters, tumbling and spinning on the ground and bleed profusely from the mouth. His organs had exploded from the force. He was dead in seconds.
"BLOOD! SKULLS! SLAUGHTER!"
Still charging, Garius spotted a Commissar with a chest full of medals and ribbons. The blonde haired man was busy executing the fleeing and cowering white-helmets and didn’t even realize he was about to die. Just as Garius was about to sate his Butcher's Nails with the blood of the small black-uniformed man, he was thrown off his charge at the last split second. As he stumbled one way he was dazed by a strike and thrown another way.
"BLOOD! SKULLS! SLAUGHTER!"
Garius stood and found himself facing a trio of Ogryn, as large as him, wielding massive shields and maces crackling with power. Garius tried to sneer. There was no flesh on his face to contort into feelings he wished to express. Garius roared as he fired his storm bolter at the middle Ogryn and advanced forward.
"BLOOD! SKULLS! SLAUGHTER!"
With it’s shield planted in the ground, the brute absorbed the fire as the other pair of Ogryns advanced on either side of Garius to flank him. An overhead blow came from the left.
"BLOOD! SKULLS! SLAUGHTER!" the pace of his chanting quickened.
Garius let his storm bolter drop to the ground as he raised his gauntleted hand and caught the Ogryn at the wrist. Garius yanked hard, and the howling Ogryn was thrown behind him, its arm being ripped off in the process.
"BLOOD! SKULLS! SLAUGHTER!"
At the same time the second Ogryn threw a sweeping blow from the right towards Garius' head. Garius caught the mace mid-swing with his chainfist’s power gauntlet, crushing the end of the weapon.
"BLOOD! SKULLS! SLAUGHTER!"
With his left arm Garius threw the first Ogryns arm at the Commissar, knocking the man to the ground just as he brandished his power sword in a feeble effort to aid his Ogryn bodyguards.
"BLOOD! SKULLS! SLAUGHTER!"
After destroying the second Ogryns weapon with his right gauntlet, Garius dug his right elbow down into the Ogryn’s shield, leveraging it aside as the revving chainblade beneath his powerfist cut into the Ogryn. As the blade found flesh Garius released his grip from the Ogryn’s weapon and forced his chainfist through the Ogryn. The beast screamed for a moment as its right arm was severed, then went quiet as its chest and other arm was sawn through and its other arm fell to the ground as well. The Ogryn collapsed into a dismembered mess of gore.
"BLOOD! SKULLS! SLAUGHTER!"
Before the second Ogryn fell the Third Ogryn had begun charging, howling in rage and shouldering its shield. Garius braced himself, left gauntleted hand forward.
"BLOOD! SKULLS! SLAUGHTER!"
The Ogryn's charge was stopped cold in its tracks and, holding the shield in place with his left gauntlet, Garius rammed his chainfist against the Ogryn's slab shield. At the same time Garius pulled the shield, and the Ogryn that was attached to it, toward him as hard as he could. For a split second the blade simply growled and sparked against the shield. Then suddenly burst through, the force of the blade penetration and the power fist's energy field blowing the shield and Ogryn apart. Fragments of metals and chunks of meat exploded away from Garius as the Ogryn's ruined body was launched head over heels from the force of Garius' strike. It was almost comical.
"BLOOD! SKULLS! SLAUGHTER!"
Picking up his storm bolter Garius fired two bolts into the Ogryn amputee behind him without looking back. Its head and shoulders burst into bits.
"Blood. Skulls. Slaughter." The chant slowed. The Butcher's Nails were quiet. There was peace to be found in the purity of Slaughter.
The three Ogryns had been dispatched in seconds. Meanwhile the Commissar was just beginning to get up. The Commisar swung his power sword up in a wild one handed arc and stumbled as his blade found nothing but air. The Commissar was only a human. He was catatonically slow by comparison to the gene wrought and warp empowered speed of Garius, who casually leaned back out of range of the strike. With a flick of one finger of his powerfist the Commissar's personal shield was defeated and his pretty awards and medals exploded out of his back with the rest of his chest.
"Blood. Skulls. Slaughter." It was a whisper now.
In the 60 seconds since erupting from the subterranean levels of Maelstrom Air Base, hundreds of Astra Militarum and Navy Imperialis forces had been slain by Garius and his brothers. Though the Imperial defenders had scrambled their aircraft and readied their defenses as best they could, nothing could prepare them for the surprise of Garius’s rear assault. In the mean time hundreds of Slaughter Lord's had burst up from the subterranean caverns of Dharrovar less than a kilometer from the Air Base Perimeter. They had fallen upon the defenders right as Garius and his brothers had come up from the depths. They streamed past him now, the Berserkers and their followers, the Jakhals. They were gore drenched and screaming maniacally as they scoured the base for survivors' butcher and skulls to collect.
The Imperial defenders had been all but slaughtered. Maelstrom Air Base had fallen. But soon the remaining defenders of Grey Falls would be mobilized. Garius knew the battle was only just beginning. Garius also knew that no matter how many lives he ended, the screaming of Butcher’s Nails in his mind would always return. Despite that, for a few fleeting moments at least, Garius had known silence. Peace. Purity.
2023.03.22 00:05 Amani576 Lost-PLA cast intake manifold?
Okay. I understand that this may be absolutely preposterous but it's something that I've been mulling over today. Lost-PLA casting, like lost-wax casting is a very good way to make complicated aluminum, or any other easily meltable metal, parts. Usually used for jewelry or other small parts. However most things like intake manifolds or cylinder heads are usually sand cast. Obviously something as low-stress like an intake manifold, could probably be made this way. I only ask because I've got a Mitsubishi/Dodge 4G54/G54B that was only ever fuel injected in the Starion, and that only throttle body injected. I'm mulling over even keeping this car (not a Starion, btw), but the idea of making a proper port injection intake manifold has crossed my mind numerous times and so this suddenly crossed my mind today and I just want to pick other 3d printecar folks brains. It doesn't need to be an entire manifold, either. But one could, in theory, design a throttle body manifold setup (butterflies, shafts, provisions for the fuel injectors and fuel rail), or just intake runners, and have the plenum a separate, bolt-on, piece. Probably TIG welded out of aluminum, or just a mount for a large air filter covering all of them. Has this ever been done on a small scale? I'm not unaware that usually custom intake manifolds are just TIG welded with machined flanges welded on, but this seems like something really cool to do, or try, that an industrious enough home-gamer could try.
submitted by Amani576 to 3dprintedcarparts [link] [comments]
2023.03.21 23:48 avetree420 YA Dystopian Knockoff
Welcome to another chapter of me trying to figure out how to not talk like a chronically online TikTok influencer while also completely knocking off YA dystopian novels. Please, please, give me feedback as I hate sounding like I'm brain-dead, and anything that comes out of my mouth is regurgitated from TikTok.
I
Kai’s whole world has just been turned around, maybe that girl was just crazy, or maybe the government had just released a new kind of deliriant into the air, it wouldn’t be their first time. In a desperate attempt to ground himself and tame his thoughts, he jumps up off the floor where his homemade “bed” is, and before he even realizes he’s gulping water from the bathroom faucet like a camel who hasn’t had water in weeks.
Staring at his reflection, wondering how his life has somehow intertwined with this crazy girl, he hears a knock on his door. One knock, then three fast knocks, then one knock. His sisters had arrived.
“So, who’s that new pretty girl setting up a tent a couple of hundred feet away?” asks Genevieve immediately upon arrival. “Who?” Kai replies, trying to collect himself.
“The girl outside, curly blonde hair? Super tall?” she replies, looking at him like he’s a buffoon riding a unicycle while smoking a cigar. “She said she’s on your bus?”
“Oh, yeah, that girl,” he says, “she’s just some blonde bimbo on my bus. No need to make a fuss.”
“Well, I think we should invite her for dinner because she was very generous and gave us fruit!” she exclaims happily. “We haven’t had fruit since dad left.”
Kai was not pleased with his sister’s idea, but when his littlest sister, Constance, jumped for joy at the thought of the “nice lady” joining them he couldn’t help but cave into their commands. “Fine,” he said begrudgingly. “only if you don’t try to set me up with her.” Genevieve smiled at her victory and Constance giddily ran outside to holler for the girl.
Not long after Constance came skipping back into the house the girl followed suit. As much as Kai didn’t want to look the lunatic in the eyes for the first time, he couldn’t help but notice how much light shone from her eyes. If the eyes are truly the window to one’s soul, her soul would be blinding, so much so to the point she could disintegrate anything that came too close to contact with her, but if one stayed the correct distance, she gave you warmth and light.
“Thank you so much for welcoming me into your home, it’s so nice to meet you guys.” the girl says. Genevieve and her exchange pleasantries as Constance tugs at the girl's fingers, asking how her hair can look like hers. Kai hated small talk, and the fact this girl knows about their whole lives.
“Ok, can we go sit down now?” he asks after five minutes of them blabbering.
“Yeah, you can go now, Kai,” Genevieve replies, waving her hand to dismiss him but Kai did not leave, because he did not want to leave his sister alone with her. Eventually, he gets so fed up with Genevieve so casually fraternizing with a madwoman that he pulls her by the arm into the only bedroom and says, “Can I talk to you for a moment?” through his clenched jaw. He slams the bedroom door and looks at his sister sternly.
“I do not like that girl,” he whispers irritably. “she’s a drug addict and I don’t want you hanging around her.” Kai didn't actually not like her for those reasons, he was scared that whatever this girl dragged him into could be harmful, and he didn't want to put Genevie or Constance in harm's way. Genevieve rolls her eyes, unaware of the real reason Kai distrusts her. “You’re such a judgemental prick you know that? Times are tough for everyone, if that’s her way of coping, well then so be it. That doesn’t take away her humanity and kindness," she replies rather loudly. She then turns her back on Kai and slams the door in his face. He stands there for a moment, processing her explosion of emotions, then decides he has to follow after her.
II
Sylvia did not know what Kai needed to so urgently talk about with Genevieve, but there was no need for her to eavesdrop, she’ll find out whenever her bonker powers want her to. Instead, she finds herself thinking about Kai and what position he and his family could be in now that they know, but then again, they too know what it feels like to be hunted. She did not question if she could trust them, her gut told her she could but at the same time, she couldn’t tell if the gut feeling was real or whether or not it was the butterflies in her stomach anytime she was close to Kai. The first time he met her eyes, which was only a few seconds ago, his eyes were a void, not like a zombie-possessed type of void, but like a black hole kind of void, just waiting to take someone into a new dimension if they get close enough. At that moment, it was like the butterflies in her stomach decided to go to an amusement park, but again only a few seconds ago right as Kai pulled Genevieve aside they went on another rollercoaster, but this time she thought the reason was pathetic and deemed her gut to be wrong just this one time.
“Your mother’s promiscuity has rubbed off on you.” her father would have said. Sylvia couldn’t recall what her father would have said or done after that, all she knew was that her brain was blocking it for a reason. She then recalled the one time she asked why he didn’t care about her mom when she was alive. His reply was, “She was a back-stabbing skank, just like you are.” She lightly chuckles to herself as she thinks of the irony of the fact that was the last conversation he had with her.
Then the bedroom door flies open and Genevieve storms out, and that’s when they decide to kick in. Genevieve’s surroundings morph into pastel colors, and then into the muted colors of Kai’s house with a hue of transparent purple covering it. Sylvia found this intriguing because she had seen every color except purple and gray covering people’s memories. She specifically found it peculiar because the hue of Kai's memories is black, one of the other colors she had not seen. The sporadic, lack of patterns that the colors of the memories displayed majorly annoyed her because if there is no pattern, how can she ever know what these things mean?
By the time Sylvia’s processed the whole color thing, she’s already being repelled out of Genevieve’s mind and returns to a puzzled Genevieve staring at her quizzically as if she was aware of Sylvia’s presence picking apart her brain.
“You ok, Sylvia?” Genevieve asks concerned.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m all good, just got a wave of nausea for some reason,” Sylvia replies, lying through her teeth.
“It’s probably all those drugs in your system,” Kai responds under his breath. At that moment, it was as if Sylvia had a superhuman hearing, she whips her head around to look at Kai and doesn’t say a word, just stares intently at him. “Do we have a problem, Kai?” her voice echoes throughout his head, startling him. Instead of having an emotional outburst, he takes a deep breath and asks, "Can I talk to you outside, Sylvia?"
submitted by avetree420 to creativewriting [link] [comments]
I
Kai’s whole world has just been turned around, maybe that girl was just crazy, or maybe the government had just released a new kind of deliriant into the air, it wouldn’t be their first time. In a desperate attempt to ground himself and tame his thoughts, he jumps up off the floor where his homemade “bed” is, and before he even realizes he’s gulping water from the bathroom faucet like a camel who hasn’t had water in weeks.
Staring at his reflection, wondering how his life has somehow intertwined with this crazy girl, he hears a knock on his door. One knock, then three fast knocks, then one knock. His sisters had arrived.
“So, who’s that new pretty girl setting up a tent a couple of hundred feet away?” asks Genevieve immediately upon arrival. “Who?” Kai replies, trying to collect himself.
“The girl outside, curly blonde hair? Super tall?” she replies, looking at him like he’s a buffoon riding a unicycle while smoking a cigar. “She said she’s on your bus?”
“Oh, yeah, that girl,” he says, “she’s just some blonde bimbo on my bus. No need to make a fuss.”
“Well, I think we should invite her for dinner because she was very generous and gave us fruit!” she exclaims happily. “We haven’t had fruit since dad left.”
Kai was not pleased with his sister’s idea, but when his littlest sister, Constance, jumped for joy at the thought of the “nice lady” joining them he couldn’t help but cave into their commands. “Fine,” he said begrudgingly. “only if you don’t try to set me up with her.” Genevieve smiled at her victory and Constance giddily ran outside to holler for the girl.
Not long after Constance came skipping back into the house the girl followed suit. As much as Kai didn’t want to look the lunatic in the eyes for the first time, he couldn’t help but notice how much light shone from her eyes. If the eyes are truly the window to one’s soul, her soul would be blinding, so much so to the point she could disintegrate anything that came too close to contact with her, but if one stayed the correct distance, she gave you warmth and light.
“Thank you so much for welcoming me into your home, it’s so nice to meet you guys.” the girl says. Genevieve and her exchange pleasantries as Constance tugs at the girl's fingers, asking how her hair can look like hers. Kai hated small talk, and the fact this girl knows about their whole lives.
“Ok, can we go sit down now?” he asks after five minutes of them blabbering.
“Yeah, you can go now, Kai,” Genevieve replies, waving her hand to dismiss him but Kai did not leave, because he did not want to leave his sister alone with her. Eventually, he gets so fed up with Genevieve so casually fraternizing with a madwoman that he pulls her by the arm into the only bedroom and says, “Can I talk to you for a moment?” through his clenched jaw. He slams the bedroom door and looks at his sister sternly.
“I do not like that girl,” he whispers irritably. “she’s a drug addict and I don’t want you hanging around her.” Kai didn't actually not like her for those reasons, he was scared that whatever this girl dragged him into could be harmful, and he didn't want to put Genevie or Constance in harm's way. Genevieve rolls her eyes, unaware of the real reason Kai distrusts her. “You’re such a judgemental prick you know that? Times are tough for everyone, if that’s her way of coping, well then so be it. That doesn’t take away her humanity and kindness," she replies rather loudly. She then turns her back on Kai and slams the door in his face. He stands there for a moment, processing her explosion of emotions, then decides he has to follow after her.
II
Sylvia did not know what Kai needed to so urgently talk about with Genevieve, but there was no need for her to eavesdrop, she’ll find out whenever her bonker powers want her to. Instead, she finds herself thinking about Kai and what position he and his family could be in now that they know, but then again, they too know what it feels like to be hunted. She did not question if she could trust them, her gut told her she could but at the same time, she couldn’t tell if the gut feeling was real or whether or not it was the butterflies in her stomach anytime she was close to Kai. The first time he met her eyes, which was only a few seconds ago, his eyes were a void, not like a zombie-possessed type of void, but like a black hole kind of void, just waiting to take someone into a new dimension if they get close enough. At that moment, it was like the butterflies in her stomach decided to go to an amusement park, but again only a few seconds ago right as Kai pulled Genevieve aside they went on another rollercoaster, but this time she thought the reason was pathetic and deemed her gut to be wrong just this one time.
“Your mother’s promiscuity has rubbed off on you.” her father would have said. Sylvia couldn’t recall what her father would have said or done after that, all she knew was that her brain was blocking it for a reason. She then recalled the one time she asked why he didn’t care about her mom when she was alive. His reply was, “She was a back-stabbing skank, just like you are.” She lightly chuckles to herself as she thinks of the irony of the fact that was the last conversation he had with her.
Then the bedroom door flies open and Genevieve storms out, and that’s when they decide to kick in. Genevieve’s surroundings morph into pastel colors, and then into the muted colors of Kai’s house with a hue of transparent purple covering it. Sylvia found this intriguing because she had seen every color except purple and gray covering people’s memories. She specifically found it peculiar because the hue of Kai's memories is black, one of the other colors she had not seen. The sporadic, lack of patterns that the colors of the memories displayed majorly annoyed her because if there is no pattern, how can she ever know what these things mean?
By the time Sylvia’s processed the whole color thing, she’s already being repelled out of Genevieve’s mind and returns to a puzzled Genevieve staring at her quizzically as if she was aware of Sylvia’s presence picking apart her brain.
“You ok, Sylvia?” Genevieve asks concerned.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m all good, just got a wave of nausea for some reason,” Sylvia replies, lying through her teeth.
“It’s probably all those drugs in your system,” Kai responds under his breath. At that moment, it was as if Sylvia had a superhuman hearing, she whips her head around to look at Kai and doesn’t say a word, just stares intently at him. “Do we have a problem, Kai?” her voice echoes throughout his head, startling him. Instead of having an emotional outburst, he takes a deep breath and asks, "Can I talk to you outside, Sylvia?"
2023.03.21 23:48 DoodleSnap Help! Shielded P bass - No sound when cavity is closed
Edit: SOLVED!
What it looks like it ended up being was the stupid (but cool looking) anodized aluminum pickguard.
The pots were getting grounded by their connection to the non-anodized inner parts of the pot holes.
To fix this, I put a piece of electrical tape on the bottom side of each hole and poked a hole in the tape to make a sort of gasket, preventing the pot from touching the inside of the hole.
For some reason, though, the washer was still getting grounded, so a few small pieces of electrical tape between it and the nut was enough to unground the pots and solve the problem.
It was only getting grounded when the pickguard was making contact with the copper tape, which explains why I only had this issue when the cavity was completely sealed.
Thanks all for your help! Solution images below.
https://imgur.com/a/0X3htdM
Original post:
Hi all,
I recently got some copper tape (with conductive adhesive) and after successfuly shielding my Jazz bass, I tried to do the same to my P bass.
I shielded it just like I did for my Jazz, and tested that the whole thing was grounded. When I put on the pickguard, though, I didn't get any sound. I thought maybe I pulled loose a wire but didn't see anything and tested the pickups with the pickguard off, and got a sound. Put it back on, and no more sound. Specifically, this seems to happen when the shielded part of the pickguard covers the control cavity. (I know I need to shield the rest of the pickguard, but I'm waiting to order some more copper tape)
What could be causing this? Am I missing some connection?
I've uploaded a picture of my shielding and a video demonstrating what's happening.
https://imgur.com/a/8Vq0VnB
submitted by DoodleSnap to Bass [link] [comments]
What it looks like it ended up being was the stupid (but cool looking) anodized aluminum pickguard.
The pots were getting grounded by their connection to the non-anodized inner parts of the pot holes.
To fix this, I put a piece of electrical tape on the bottom side of each hole and poked a hole in the tape to make a sort of gasket, preventing the pot from touching the inside of the hole.
For some reason, though, the washer was still getting grounded, so a few small pieces of electrical tape between it and the nut was enough to unground the pots and solve the problem.
It was only getting grounded when the pickguard was making contact with the copper tape, which explains why I only had this issue when the cavity was completely sealed.
Thanks all for your help! Solution images below.
https://imgur.com/a/0X3htdM
Original post:
Hi all,
I recently got some copper tape (with conductive adhesive) and after successfuly shielding my Jazz bass, I tried to do the same to my P bass.
I shielded it just like I did for my Jazz, and tested that the whole thing was grounded. When I put on the pickguard, though, I didn't get any sound. I thought maybe I pulled loose a wire but didn't see anything and tested the pickups with the pickguard off, and got a sound. Put it back on, and no more sound. Specifically, this seems to happen when the shielded part of the pickguard covers the control cavity. (I know I need to shield the rest of the pickguard, but I'm waiting to order some more copper tape)
What could be causing this? Am I missing some connection?
I've uploaded a picture of my shielding and a video demonstrating what's happening.
https://imgur.com/a/8Vq0VnB
2023.03.21 23:24 One_Dragonfruit_8342 Tending the Garden
This is my first post here, so let me know how I did and what I could do better in the future.
I watched the ship take off and disappear into the starry sky and sighed as I knew it’d be another six months before it came back. I turned and began making my way back to the tree. I strode across vast fields the size of hab blocks, waded through a marsh the size of a city, and across a mountain range that reached so high it scraped the edge of the void.
I scarcely noticed as I was lost in thought at the monumental task of running the Garden, my mind linked with the massive atmospheric generators, continent-ringing terraforming engines, and the clouds and rivers of nanites that drifted across the land. With these technologies at my beck and call, I ensured the Garden flourished and was a venerable paradise.
It took me twenty-eight days of ceaseless travel to reach the tree. I unlinked and returned to my body, taking it the beautiful sight that brought tears to every visitor I had brought here.
A massive meadow with golden grass, and in the center rose a low hill that was crested with an enormous tree with leaves of gold that was always laden with silver apples. I made my way to the tree and found my seat, a large dark river stone I had cut and polished til it shone like a mirror. I had nestled it amongst the tree's roots and used it as a seat to rest, from which I taught my yearly visitors everything they needed to know.
I leaned my crook against the tree and rested my bulk on the stone, now long worn smooth by the passage of millennia. I rested my arms on my knees, cast my mind through the link, and ran primary through tertiary diagnostics on every system and function in the garden.
When the diagnostics were done, the grass had wrapped around my feet and grown up my legs to just shy of my knees, and a thick coating of pollen and dust had settled onto my body. I looked down at my dirty robes and skin and decided I needed a bath. I grabbed my crook and headed south.
I passed through jungles and shrublands til I came out onto a savannah that stretched far beyond what even my prodigious sight could see. I made my way toward its heart, and after another thirteen days of travel, I came to a lake so large it could technically be classified as an inland ocean.
I stropped from my robes and began to scrub them in the water until they shimmered white again. Then I took handfuls of the fine sand of the shore and scrubbed every inch of myself til my silver skin was spotless, then I kneeled and washed my golden hair, and when I was fairly sure I was clean as I could get, I dressed and made my way back across the savannah.
After two days of walking, I heard a sound that made me smile, the trumpeting of elephants. I picked up the pace and climbed a boulder ahead of me, and there I saw a herd of them lumbering across the savannah.
There were probably around eighty of them in the herd. I smiled and cracked the butt of my crook against the boulder, and a low note rolled out over the savannah. When it reached the herd, they halted, and I saw the matriarch turn towards me and let loose a trumpet and begin to thunder towards me with the rest of the herd hot on her heels.
I laughed as they reached me, and soon I was swamped by dozens of trunks running through my hair and tugging on my robes I smiled as I patted their heads and scratched ears as I walked through the herd. I stopped at the matriarch and used a nail on my left hand to scratch a mark on her tusk, similar to the dozens of others running up her tusks. I scratched her ears and smiled as I walked off.
It took another ten days until I reached the edge and stood in the wall's shadow. I linked with the wall and could sense the intricate machinery in the three kilometer thick wall at work. I adjusted the wind patterns in the vicinity and ended up dialing the rain back by seven percent.
After that, I traveled back to the tree, but instead of running diagnostics, I accessed the archives and began constructing a new lesson plan. I decided that since it had been over five hundred years since the last time, I would cover the origins of the Garden and how I came to care for it.
Project Garden was created as a last-ditch effort to preserve humanity's history. With the civil war raging and weapons of mass destruction being used as freely as soldiers' lives were spent, a group of scientists began a number of tremendous undertakings.
Project Elysium would create a series of extra-dimensional archives holding every fact of human knowledge. In the end, thirty-seven such archives were created and placed in a dimension unaccessable but through a single data link. The project was a success, and the knowledge of humanity was forever preserved.
Project Tir Na Nog would give birth to the most sophisticated terraforming technologies ever before seen. The power to crack planets and reshape the land like clay, swarms of nanites that could strip things down on an atomic level and assemble it as something new, engines that could create an atmosphere from the most toxic air and able to rebuild one from nothing,
Project Eden was to gather a single cell from every living thing on the planet, from microorganisms to common lichen. These cells would be stored alongside the archives from Project Elysium, and cloning technologies would allow the plants and animals to be reborn and seeded around the world from those single cells.
Project Valhalla was perhaps the one the second most attention was given. Every form of weapon and defensive technology was pooled together, and new and bizarre ones were conceived in the rush to ensure that Project Garden would be safely defended. The main items to come from the project were void shields of a caliber unseen anywhere else and graviton weapons capable of pulling destroyer-class ships in orbit apart at the seams.
Project Du’at was perhaps the most critical of all the sub-projects in that its task was to create a being who would be capable of using all the projects to their fullest in their areas. The being would be unaging, unlike anything the galaxy had seen before. It would never leave the planet and would be tasked with the construction of a “garden” that it would tend to for all of time. At the last second, it was decided that it would also be a teacher so that, hopefully, the ongoing tragedies would never happen again.
I ended up spending four months building the curriculum for the next batch of visitors. When I had finished, I decided to spend the last two months doing a full walkabout around the Garden.
I traveled to the north and checked on the pack ice and the populations of the various seal species. Next, I dove into the water and spent two weeks swimming with the narwhals, belugas, and grey whales.
When I was sure everything in the cold waters of the north was in order, I headed east and came to a great desert and, for the next three weeks, shifted through the sands, checking on every species that crawled through the sand. I ended up having to exterminate a large part of the rodent population due to a virus and replace it with fresh stock from the gene chamber.
After that, I decided that I’d spend the last week wandering the plains and steppes of the southwest. The great herds of bison, wild mustangs, and elk cut vast swathes across the land, always followed by the packs of wolves that preyed upon them.
I realized the week had already passed by when one night, the security system alerted me that a ship was approaching. Instantaneously dozens of passcodes and security checks flew from the Garden to the ship as I turned my gaze skyward and sought out the approaching vessel.
I quickly found it approaching on the same flight vector it had used for the past six millennia. The words Guardian of Terra on the prow caught the light of the sun, and I lowered the void shields. When everything was cleared, I gave the signal to begin the approach for landing.
Being halfway across the Garden, I would never reach the landing pad in time to meet them, so I quickly linked with the Garden’s subgeo array of locators, and with the use of the Fold Gate Array and single step, I was at the landing pad as the Guardian of Terra was beginning to touch down.
When the bay doors opened, I was greeted by a sight that always warmed my heart, five dozen human children, all between the ages of fourteen and fifteen. They were ushered outside by the crew, and the captain, like always, was leading them to take what was probably their first step on a planet.
I stepped forward with a smile, and the captain gave me a small bow. He stepped aside and, with a flourish of his arm, made a grand gesture of showing me the children.
“These lads and lasses are from the Stella Nomade fleet. As the captain of the Guardian of Terra, I hereby hand them over to your care for the next six months. They have all sworn by their names and their fleet to be true and honest in their ways while in the Garden. Do you, the Caretaker accept them and swear to teach them their history and open their eyes to the past so that it may guide them to a better future?”
I looked over the children and saw a mixture of skin tones and styles of clothes show, casing that they were from all walks of life on the fleet. I smiled and gave them a low bow.
“I, the Caretaker, accept them and swear to teach them all I half to offer so that the mistakes of the past may never be repeated. They will come to no harm in my care and will have full access to the Garden. They shall be respected and be treated fair so long as they return it in kind.”
I held up my crook and, with a wide sweep, made the nanites clouds above us generate light like it was noon, and as I turned back to them, I could see every child's face was filled with awe.
“I welcome every one of you and hope that in the coming days, we all can become fast friends. Welcome to the Garden of Terra.”
submitted by One_Dragonfruit_8342 to HFY [link] [comments]
I watched the ship take off and disappear into the starry sky and sighed as I knew it’d be another six months before it came back. I turned and began making my way back to the tree. I strode across vast fields the size of hab blocks, waded through a marsh the size of a city, and across a mountain range that reached so high it scraped the edge of the void.
I scarcely noticed as I was lost in thought at the monumental task of running the Garden, my mind linked with the massive atmospheric generators, continent-ringing terraforming engines, and the clouds and rivers of nanites that drifted across the land. With these technologies at my beck and call, I ensured the Garden flourished and was a venerable paradise.
It took me twenty-eight days of ceaseless travel to reach the tree. I unlinked and returned to my body, taking it the beautiful sight that brought tears to every visitor I had brought here.
A massive meadow with golden grass, and in the center rose a low hill that was crested with an enormous tree with leaves of gold that was always laden with silver apples. I made my way to the tree and found my seat, a large dark river stone I had cut and polished til it shone like a mirror. I had nestled it amongst the tree's roots and used it as a seat to rest, from which I taught my yearly visitors everything they needed to know.
I leaned my crook against the tree and rested my bulk on the stone, now long worn smooth by the passage of millennia. I rested my arms on my knees, cast my mind through the link, and ran primary through tertiary diagnostics on every system and function in the garden.
When the diagnostics were done, the grass had wrapped around my feet and grown up my legs to just shy of my knees, and a thick coating of pollen and dust had settled onto my body. I looked down at my dirty robes and skin and decided I needed a bath. I grabbed my crook and headed south.
I passed through jungles and shrublands til I came out onto a savannah that stretched far beyond what even my prodigious sight could see. I made my way toward its heart, and after another thirteen days of travel, I came to a lake so large it could technically be classified as an inland ocean.
I stropped from my robes and began to scrub them in the water until they shimmered white again. Then I took handfuls of the fine sand of the shore and scrubbed every inch of myself til my silver skin was spotless, then I kneeled and washed my golden hair, and when I was fairly sure I was clean as I could get, I dressed and made my way back across the savannah.
After two days of walking, I heard a sound that made me smile, the trumpeting of elephants. I picked up the pace and climbed a boulder ahead of me, and there I saw a herd of them lumbering across the savannah.
There were probably around eighty of them in the herd. I smiled and cracked the butt of my crook against the boulder, and a low note rolled out over the savannah. When it reached the herd, they halted, and I saw the matriarch turn towards me and let loose a trumpet and begin to thunder towards me with the rest of the herd hot on her heels.
I laughed as they reached me, and soon I was swamped by dozens of trunks running through my hair and tugging on my robes I smiled as I patted their heads and scratched ears as I walked through the herd. I stopped at the matriarch and used a nail on my left hand to scratch a mark on her tusk, similar to the dozens of others running up her tusks. I scratched her ears and smiled as I walked off.
It took another ten days until I reached the edge and stood in the wall's shadow. I linked with the wall and could sense the intricate machinery in the three kilometer thick wall at work. I adjusted the wind patterns in the vicinity and ended up dialing the rain back by seven percent.
After that, I traveled back to the tree, but instead of running diagnostics, I accessed the archives and began constructing a new lesson plan. I decided that since it had been over five hundred years since the last time, I would cover the origins of the Garden and how I came to care for it.
Project Garden was created as a last-ditch effort to preserve humanity's history. With the civil war raging and weapons of mass destruction being used as freely as soldiers' lives were spent, a group of scientists began a number of tremendous undertakings.
Project Elysium would create a series of extra-dimensional archives holding every fact of human knowledge. In the end, thirty-seven such archives were created and placed in a dimension unaccessable but through a single data link. The project was a success, and the knowledge of humanity was forever preserved.
Project Tir Na Nog would give birth to the most sophisticated terraforming technologies ever before seen. The power to crack planets and reshape the land like clay, swarms of nanites that could strip things down on an atomic level and assemble it as something new, engines that could create an atmosphere from the most toxic air and able to rebuild one from nothing,
Project Eden was to gather a single cell from every living thing on the planet, from microorganisms to common lichen. These cells would be stored alongside the archives from Project Elysium, and cloning technologies would allow the plants and animals to be reborn and seeded around the world from those single cells.
Project Valhalla was perhaps the one the second most attention was given. Every form of weapon and defensive technology was pooled together, and new and bizarre ones were conceived in the rush to ensure that Project Garden would be safely defended. The main items to come from the project were void shields of a caliber unseen anywhere else and graviton weapons capable of pulling destroyer-class ships in orbit apart at the seams.
Project Du’at was perhaps the most critical of all the sub-projects in that its task was to create a being who would be capable of using all the projects to their fullest in their areas. The being would be unaging, unlike anything the galaxy had seen before. It would never leave the planet and would be tasked with the construction of a “garden” that it would tend to for all of time. At the last second, it was decided that it would also be a teacher so that, hopefully, the ongoing tragedies would never happen again.
I ended up spending four months building the curriculum for the next batch of visitors. When I had finished, I decided to spend the last two months doing a full walkabout around the Garden.
I traveled to the north and checked on the pack ice and the populations of the various seal species. Next, I dove into the water and spent two weeks swimming with the narwhals, belugas, and grey whales.
When I was sure everything in the cold waters of the north was in order, I headed east and came to a great desert and, for the next three weeks, shifted through the sands, checking on every species that crawled through the sand. I ended up having to exterminate a large part of the rodent population due to a virus and replace it with fresh stock from the gene chamber.
After that, I decided that I’d spend the last week wandering the plains and steppes of the southwest. The great herds of bison, wild mustangs, and elk cut vast swathes across the land, always followed by the packs of wolves that preyed upon them.
I realized the week had already passed by when one night, the security system alerted me that a ship was approaching. Instantaneously dozens of passcodes and security checks flew from the Garden to the ship as I turned my gaze skyward and sought out the approaching vessel.
I quickly found it approaching on the same flight vector it had used for the past six millennia. The words Guardian of Terra on the prow caught the light of the sun, and I lowered the void shields. When everything was cleared, I gave the signal to begin the approach for landing.
Being halfway across the Garden, I would never reach the landing pad in time to meet them, so I quickly linked with the Garden’s subgeo array of locators, and with the use of the Fold Gate Array and single step, I was at the landing pad as the Guardian of Terra was beginning to touch down.
When the bay doors opened, I was greeted by a sight that always warmed my heart, five dozen human children, all between the ages of fourteen and fifteen. They were ushered outside by the crew, and the captain, like always, was leading them to take what was probably their first step on a planet.
I stepped forward with a smile, and the captain gave me a small bow. He stepped aside and, with a flourish of his arm, made a grand gesture of showing me the children.
“These lads and lasses are from the Stella Nomade fleet. As the captain of the Guardian of Terra, I hereby hand them over to your care for the next six months. They have all sworn by their names and their fleet to be true and honest in their ways while in the Garden. Do you, the Caretaker accept them and swear to teach them their history and open their eyes to the past so that it may guide them to a better future?”
I looked over the children and saw a mixture of skin tones and styles of clothes show, casing that they were from all walks of life on the fleet. I smiled and gave them a low bow.
“I, the Caretaker, accept them and swear to teach them all I half to offer so that the mistakes of the past may never be repeated. They will come to no harm in my care and will have full access to the Garden. They shall be respected and be treated fair so long as they return it in kind.”
I held up my crook and, with a wide sweep, made the nanites clouds above us generate light like it was noon, and as I turned back to them, I could see every child's face was filled with awe.
“I welcome every one of you and hope that in the coming days, we all can become fast friends. Welcome to the Garden of Terra.”
2023.03.21 22:30 NegativeGamer Respect Nagi Tahira (Tank Chair)
"What an intense killing intent… Thank you. It's been a while since I was able to stay awake for so long. You can keep going right? Give me more!"
Nagi Tahira was one of the strongest assassins around. Until one day, while saving his sister from a hostage situation, he suffered a bullet wound to his brain that left him in a vegetative state. Bound to a wheelchair, it seemed that Nagi would never regain consciousness. However, his sister discovered that if feelings of killing intent were directed at him, his consciousness would return, if only to deal with whatever the threat was. Now his sister, Shizuka, seeks to pit him against stronger and more dangerous assassins and situations, in the hopes that one day, something will have enough killing intent to fully revive her brother.
submitted by NegativeGamer to respectthreads [link] [comments]
Nagi Tahira was one of the strongest assassins around. Until one day, while saving his sister from a hostage situation, he suffered a bullet wound to his brain that left him in a vegetative state. Bound to a wheelchair, it seemed that Nagi would never regain consciousness. However, his sister discovered that if feelings of killing intent were directed at him, his consciousness would return, if only to deal with whatever the threat was. Now his sister, Shizuka, seeks to pit him against stronger and more dangerous assassins and situations, in the hopes that one day, something will have enough killing intent to fully revive her brother.
Wheelchairs
In total, Nagi was given seven specialty wheelchairs built by Dr. Radio, each one with a unique purpose and functions.- Spike Mode: A function on the Mark 1 wheelchair that produces spikes on both wheels, allowing Nagi to scale up walls, as well as attack with the spiked tires
- Mark 3, Fist Version: A combat wheelchair with large, blocky fists and big wheels
- Mark 5, Cannon Version: A wheelchair that mounts itself into the ground, allowing Nagi to functionally become a powerful cannon
- Mark 6, Ultrasonic Version: A three wheeled chair boasting incredible speed, busting through a large chain link gate and avoiding machine gun fire
- Mark 7, Heavy Version: A steamroller powered by Nagi's arm strength, which busts through walls with ease
- Emergency Use, Office Chair Version: An improvised chair that's just Shizuka pushing him in an office chair
Strength
Arm Blades
- Rips and tears through monkeys, cutting one into pieces by rapidly spinning in place while holding out his blades
- Cut through a guy's armor and the wall behind him
Physical Strength
- Is noted to have exceptional arm strength, allowing him to scale vertical walls while in Spike Mode and contend with and overpower a massive gorilla's strength while in Heavy Mode
- While in Cannon Mode, throws a cannonball 500 meters and kills a sniper
- In a flashback, bites down on a knife hard enough that it starts cracking
- Deflects a punch from Touko, who is strong enough to bust straight through a good chunk of ground
- Shoves a guy's head into the floor after dropping from the ceiling
- Kills two guys with a large metal pipe
Durability
- His armor is bulletproof
- Takes a punch from this massive gorilla that launches him through a wall and far outside a building
- Just two pages earlier this gorilla is shown causing massive damage to the floor with a strike
- Gets pummeled into the ground by Touko after her 2nd valve is released
- Shows little reaction to being stabbed in the chest by a knife, this is followed by being stabbed by four more knives in the back, which he also survives
- Crashes through a wall while on his Ultrasonic wheelchair
Speed
Movement
- Closes the distance between him and a monkey and kills him before his weapon fires, then slashes through a group of monkeys before they can do anything
- Slices through a hallway of monkeys in under a second
Reactions
- Catches a knife stab with two fingers immediately after being awakened by the wielder's killing intent
- Deflects a barrage of gunfire
- Dodges a sniper's shot at him, being awakened just 0.35 seconds prior to him pulling the trigger due to the shooter's killing intent (for context, the sniper was 500 meters away)
- In a flashback from before his hospitalization, catches a knife stab from behind using his mouth
- Shoves his sister away and jumps to the ceiling before a hail of gunfire reaches him
Other
- Spins around in place so quickly that he can slice a monkey to pieces before he starts sliding apart
Killing Intent Detection
General Mechanics
- Nagi can't react to any stimuli unless there's a strong enough killing intent directed at him
- Once the source of the killing intent is taken care of, he can only briefly retain consciousness before becoming comatose once again
- Stronger killing intents make Nagi more powerful/awake
- He's had this ability in some form since before he was hospitalized
Sensitivity
- Even something as small as his sister trying to kill a mosquito by slapping his face is enough to wake him up
- Detects and pinpoints a killing intent from 500 meters away
- A killing intent so potent that it wipes through a city and literally kills people, just causes him to wake up. He can even determine that it was directed at everyone indiscriminately, not specifically at him
Limits
- Nagi can't sense the killing intent of someone using a Headache Octopus, a parasite that hides the host's brain waves, effectively hiding their killing intent
- Killing intent has to be genuine, it isn't something that can be produced without conscious effort, and pretending won't work either
Misc
Shizuka Tahira
Nagi's little sister, and also his caretaker. Not very strong or good at assassination like her brother, but she does her best to help him.- Pilots an eye-shaped drone that accompanies Nagi, allowing the two to talk during missions
- Made a flashbang grenade disguised as a stuffed animal
- Is smacked away by Naozumi while she's using a Headache Octopus, which then stabs through her shoulder with one of its tentacles (she's fine)
- Uses an SMG to shoot at a horde of zombies, though she notes she's not good with guns
- Crashes through a wall while on Nagi's Ultrasonic wheelchair
2023.03.21 21:53 m80mike Don't Feed The Pumpkins
A rule breaking truck driver takes a forbidden detour.
Don't Feed the Pumpkins
I'm typing this as a record of what has happened to me. If someone should find me out here, where ever here is, this is what happened and who is responsible. Also, out of the dozens of vehicles bogged down in this field, mine is the Blue Jay 2013 Freight Liner. If I should die and it is recoverable, it should go to my son, John Grainger in Antioch, Illinois.
I left Litchfield Illinois around 2pm on Halloween with a last-minute load of pumpkins destined for the Antioch Walmart. Despite the fact I was once that told Illinois is the #1 pumpkin producer in the country the itself state appears to be in the midst of a shortage. I was due in about 8pm, but I was trying get in by 6pm and after unloading, I was going to visit my wife Carly and my son for Halloween. It was going to be the first Halloween in my son's life that I was going to be there for trick o treating. My wife was making a big deal out of it and John was 10 now, so, she said he would be “scarred with disappointment” if I didn't show now. So, I probably should have gotten better sleep the night before and sue me, I was gear jamming and popping go-pills like popcorn. Don't look down on me, don't be fooled, this is just the nature of the trucking industry. Everyone does it and I'm not afraid to tell it like it is.
Just after Normal on 39 I hit a wall of traffic. I could hear on the CB that there is a hazmat incident up ahead and they require special teams to clear it off. I, like the other truckers, get to gabbing on the radio, looking for shortcuts. To my surprise, after scrutinizing this route several times before, I was informed about a “gutshot” shortcut just ahead that could get in me into my destination at least an hour earlier, even with the fact I had sat in the backup for at least 45 minutes at this point. A second comrade in gears piped in and stated that the shortcut was closed. The first driver contradicted him and stated, he had used it two weeks ago, it was wide open country land you could go 70 the whole way, and the only town along the way had burned down in an industrial accident 30 years ago. The second trucker chimed in again. He said it was closed for tonight and only tonight and not to use it. I disregarded the second trucker, exited the interstate and followed the directions of the first trucker.
Well, Carly, you always said it would be this way. You always said, I needed to learn how to follow directions to not cut so many damn corners all the time. You always told me didn't put in the work, and the funny thing is, for the first time, on this drive, get there, I did. Sure, I cut all the corners, but I wanted to to put in the work. But you're right, I never put a second of effort in, and if this is how it ends, I suppose you're right, I never will. But I guess, one way or another, you're getting what you've wanted, what you text me, what you don't tell me about, and what I didn't care about. I was coming home for him and damn it, I know it won't hold up in court but I want my boy to get the damn truck!
Anyway, I found the road, 2 lanes clear to the sky, surrounded by corn and then pumpkin fields forever. My straight shot, I pushed 80 the whole way flying on cracked asphalt, diesel, and go-pills. Ahead, there were barricades and I applied the brakes and barely stopped in time. I got out and saw they were chained up with a padlock to concrete posts in the ground. In theory, I could blast through them but I would sustain serious damage. The ground was a bit wet so I didn't think I could cross the ditch and field and not get stuck either. The barricades were not official in the least. They had a sign on them made out of it mailbox stick-on letters which said: “Do Not Feed The Pumpkins”. As far as I could see from my cab and binoculars, there was absolutely nothing wrong with the damn road. I said hell and I knew it would take hours to reverse course and get back in time – in time to even unload much less make it in time to go trick o treating.
And I said it wasn't worth it. I didn't bother to call. I'd just show up now. Because it wasn't my fault. So I started back, turning around with great difficulty. I traveled back 2 miles and saw small signs for a rest area. I must have missed it the first time, too deep into the zone I suppose now. I needed to pee and probably eat a bit before starting a roundabout way back, so I stopped. It was a little old 2 story joint with a small dinner on the 1st level and looked like 4 or 5 small motel rooms on top and oddly an outhouse for a restroom. I want to emphasize the outhouse because that is how you'll find and catch this guy, the guy who did this to me. It was Bill Shaw of Shaw's Shack, who did this to me. It had a sign with the building, it too was made of stick-on letters and vaguely resembled a huge ransom note. It read “Yes! We are open! We are the only rest area for 67 miles and 1 of 2 “tombstones” for the late great town of Pumpkin Grove Illinois – the former pumpkin capital of Illinois. Ask Your host, Bill Shaw about the Pumpkin-beef-bean stew!
The parking lot had three vehicles in it, not including my own, a silver Prius, a grand cheeroke with wood panels, and an older model chevy pick up truck. I went inside. The dinner was small, set in a rustic décor with old license plates nailed to the walls. The cafe had eight counter seats and two smaller tables near the two windows. There were two witnesses to what happened that night, to what Bill Shaw did – at least partial witnesses. There was the older man with stringy white hair and octagonal glasses – unfortunately, I didn't get his name. There was that irritating millennial – All I remember is the metal crap in her ears and lip. Hell, if I die and John starts ever pulling that crap, I'll come back and haunt the crap out of both of you. Anyway, now, I wish I could remember their names or something else about them to put here. I didn't care about either one of them enough to remember.
I guess that goes for Shaw too. He was a bit taller as sometimes I couldn't see his face while sitting at the counter because of the low lights in the ceiling blocking his face. He had gray hair. Hell. That's it. Anyway, the old man said he was part of a historical society, said he spent the better part of his past two years tracking down anyone or anything about Pumpkin Grove. The college student – of course – it was college student said she was from the school newspaper, looking for a spooky story. When she asked me where I was from, I didn't respond.
Shaw came from the kitchen with two big bowls of the famous Pumpkin-beef-bean stew for first two. He seemed taken back by my presence for a bit before saying “howdy” and trying to get real friendly with me. He asked what media I was from. I told him I wasn't from no media and I was trying to get through the barricade up ahead. Neither of the other two seemed to know about the barricade. Shaw said he didn't know anything about it either. I was suspicious of him then because of the lettering on the signs. But I didn't push it. I wanted to eat and he said my choice was the stew or stew. So the stew seemed fine. He said he wished he had more time to chat with me but he promised to tell the story of Pumpkin Grove to the two others but I was welcome to listen and ask questions. I didn't say it but I couldn't care less, I was going no where fast and I needed to eat.
He started off by saying he and his wife are among a handful of survivors of the fire that consumed the town of Pumpkin Grove some 30 years ago on Halloween night. Then his story descended into a cross between a rambling fading nightmare and a ghost story. He said, without hesitation, fear of consequence or remorse that he was accessory to a murder in his childhood. Specifically, some 40 years ago, again on Halloween, he was friends with a small group of young men including one named Donnie, who was a little slow and had a slightly misshaped head. He was picked on a lot by the Gerst Brothers, notorious town bullies and teenage thugs of a bad seed thanks to their neglectful alcoholic single father. Long story short, he said, the Gerst Brothers lured Donnie, himself and another 2 boys out to a pumpkin field where they gave back Donnie's missing dog. Apparently they kidnapped the dog and wrapped every inch of it in duct tape a few days ago. They watched us try to peel and pull the duct tape off while the weakened, hungry, and thirsty dog whimpered away its last in the field. Unbeknownst to any of us, Donnie had a pocket knife and he lost it as the Gerst Brothers cackled around him and the dead dog. He leaped up as they laughed and sliced the vein on their necks. One of the Brothers died quickly while Donnie and the two others fought the other to death. Shaw said he just stood there, covered in arterial blood splatters, watching Donnie and the others finish off the Gersts.
Much of the town was shockingly grateful to hear the Gerst Brothers were dead and everyone was all too happy to sweep it under the rug rather than have 4 of their sons incarcerated for decades when they were needed to help with the town's bread and butter – the Pumpkins. So, they buried the Gerst Brothers in that field and grew pumpkins on their corpses and no one really talked about it. The town paid off their father, who was too inebriated most of the time to care and he gleefully drank himself to death on the payoff only about a year later.
I didn't have much of a reaction to the story. The historian on the other hand, was hesitant to stay and keep writing and he made a brief protest concerning whether or not the story was true and whether or not he could legally listen to it. Shaw said it was both true and legal. After all, there was nothing left of the town and the remains were long gone and he himself, would not bare witness to himself. The college student's dumb metal encrusted mouth was agape in a mix of horror and disbelief.
I was waiting, patiently, might I add, for my stew. Shaw promised it would be up soon. He continued the story, stating that the fields produced abnormally well afterwards and 10 years later he was visiting his parents with his girlfriend for the annual Pumpkin fest. It was just that the pumpkins weren't just more numerous and larger, or more resistant to the rains and the fungus, they were alive and nothing could keep them tame or from spreading wider and wider. And everyone thought this was great at first, the profits were never higher but then weird things began to happen. Equipment went missing and two farm hands were crushed by a wagon full of pumpkins tipping over onto them in what was at first called a freak accident. Shaw recounted how he took his girlfriend through one of the patches and the vines seem to wind and grapple her legs, of course, Shaw's folks passed it off as her not being used to the mud but Shaw said he knew better.
Shaw continued to describe that over the days that led up to Halloween, the Jack O Lanterns on people's porches and elsewhere began to do some unusual things. Things like seemingly move by themselves from dusk to dawn, changing the carvings of their faces slightly, or appearing to “jump” off a table onto the porch without damage or apparent cause. On the morning of Halloween, Shaw said that he found his black cat, Lucky, incinerated in front of a jack o lantern as if it had breathed fire on to it from its mouth though they had long ago blown out the candle inside.
After the cat burning, the elderly man from the historical society tossed his spoon in his bowl. Shaw asked if something was wrong. The elderly man got up to leave and he said it tasted like bitter cold bull and his story was bull and thanked him for nothing. After checking the remaining contents of his bowl of stew, Shaw chased him out of the door, to his car, asking him what direction he planned to go home. When he peeled out of the parking lot he was headed southwest. Shaw came back in and threw up his hands.
I tell nothing but the truth, he said, most people can't handle it. Part of me wanted to go, but I was cozy there, it was warm and the story, while bull to me at the time, was entertaining enough. The SJW sitting down the way looked exhausted, barely keeping her eyes open as Shaw finished out the story. In short he said, Donnie approached him at dusk on Halloween while he and his family sat on the porch eagerly awaiting trick o treaters. Donnie said the Gerst Brothers are alive in the pumpkins and that they planned to burn the whole town down tonight. Donnie said, he had to tell Shaw because Shaw wasn't supposed to die, he was supposed to watch.
I rudely stopped him and demanded more stew. I was still hungry and the stew was somehow unsatisfying. When he returned, he finished the story, stating the town was suddenly engulfed in flames and their house in particular with Donnie on the porch, flash burned to the ground like napalm from an exploding pumpkin. He escaped with his family and his future wife in the pick up truck sitting outside now.
The college student said she felt like she needed to lay down, that she didn't think she could make back to the campus to the north. Shaw attended to getting her one of the rooms upstairs. I stayed down stairs and went to the back for more stew. I rubbed my eyes intensely and felt as if I too should stay for the night. But in the tug of war between fatigue and dexrine, the dexrine was slowly coming out ahead.
Next to the stew was a cutting board and a knife and on it was some bluish whitish powder which I found peculiar. On floor was a bottle of medication. It was Insomnex – a sleeping pill I use when I'm coming off of dexrine. The stew was dosed.
I ran to my truck and pulled out my dexrine and my revolver. As I climbed out of the driver's side, I could see Shaw running out of the dinner with a huge kitchen knife. I ducked under the trailer and back out on his side and pointed the gun at him.
What the hell I asked as I slowly advanced on him with my snub nose pointed at his head. He dropped the knife. He said, I just wanted to puncture your tires, I had to do something to stop you. I know you want to go north and I know you might be crazy enough and your truck tough enough to smash the barricades but I can't let you. I can't let anyone else go through, he said hysterically. I asked the dumb question about whether or not he set the barricades and just as I previously suspected, he did.
I'm supposed to watch, Shaw cried. No one can get through tonight, no can be allowed to. I told him to shut up as he rambled on about how he and his wife took it upon themselves to ward off travelers on Halloween Night. Its a cursed road tonight, he said, we're cursed to stay here and this is the best we can do to stop it from spreading. Its been calling us for 30 years, he went on, we tried to walk away but it kept on spreading, the pumpkins, he said gritting his teeth in anguish.
Maybe it was the dexrine and the insomnex working together, hell maybe it was the stew by itself but I just started to laugh as I guided Shaw back into the dinner and proceeded to duct tape him down to the dinner chair to make sure he could not cause anymore harm to anyone else until the police arrived. I had some cash on me, I wasn't a criminal, I wasn't going to make it seem like I tied him up and dinned and dashed, I was in the right, I was doing the lawful thing. So I left him exact change, no tip for the food. In the process of making change for myself, I found the padlock key in the cash drawer, I was certain of it at the time as I waved it in front of Shaw and he gasped and thrashed behind the duct tape the hardest.
I got into my truck and gunned it north towards the barricades, which, as I suspected was easily opened with the key I confiscated from Shaw. I got on my CB and started making emergency calls to the State Police, I gave them my name, the location of the diner, and Shaw's name. I was in the middle of nowhere so it didn't surprise me when I got static and no acknowledgment. I had no bars on my cell phone either but that is typical of central Illinois.
I was going along about 70. The sun was almost down but I hadn't seen the moon yet. I turned on the radio and found a classic rock station. The song was Born on the Bayou from CCR. The opening riff perked me up and reassured me that I had done everything all well and all good. If things held, there was a chance, I could get my freight unloaded and see John tonight. I was eagerly tapping the steering wheel waiting to bust into “When I was just a little boy...” But just as the lyrics should have entered, the radio station seemed to have accidentally reset the song, it just started over.
The sun faded away entirely and yet no moon came up. The sky was so dark but I didn't remember seeing any clouds or expecting any for that matter. The song continued restarting itself, the same opening again and again. I flipped through the other stations and all of them had it playing. Eventually, the digital clock on my dash began to spin wildly like the LCD numbers on the tuner while in scan mode. The truck buffeted and shook side to side despite my headlights showing no cause for it.
To my shock, ahead, in the distance was single traffic light. It was went from green, to yellow, and red, as any other traffic light but there were no lights or towns on this road. I slowed to 40, then 35 then to 30 as I entered an unnamed densely populated area with small buildings, stores, and houses and one traffic light. I came to a stop at the light and I looked around, locked my doors and tried to glimpse where I was. Where ever I was, I felt, I felt like I shouldn't be there. There were dim orange lights in some of the rooms of the houses at the edge of the intersection.
I looked up at one of the windows and I saw a figure with large head in the window. I couldn't believe my eyes at least not until the figure turned to face outward. It was a jack o lantern, a classic one with a black glow where the eyes, nose, and mouth sat. It was held up right by a thin vine structure that seemed to grow and stretch as it stuck its head out of the window and let out a barely audible shrill whistle and stared directly at me.
I gunned it. I blew the red light as the town seemed to collapse into nothing by dark green swelling pumpkin vine and a sea of glowing jack o lanterns in my side view mirrors. I hit the radio off because all I could hear on it was that whistle filtering through. I drove and the mass of jack o lanterns grew in the mirrors. I glimpsed the left and right windows and the plains were glowing black with more pumpkins rolling and creeping towards the road.
The road began to warp and bend as I started to red line my truck. The buffeting side to side became difficult to control as the engine groaned. I couldn't explain how the road began to shift nor how the moon, blood orange began to circle around me from horizon to horizon. Aside from the moon, I thought I was making progress as I couldn't see the vines nor the hundreds of blacklight pumpkins swirling after me.
The moon slowed and dipped down and I started climbing a hill. As I crested, the moon filled the entire windshield and more. It spun and then settled on a black light pumpkin face and bore down on the cab.
I don't know what happened next but I woke up in my cab. The was engine smoking. All I could see was mud and putrid rotten pumpkins as far as I could see. My Blue Jay was sunk up to the cab down in mud, vines and rot. It wasn't going anywhere in it without some serious assistance. To my right and left I saw dozens of other vehicles, most of them at least ten years old, also up their doors in mud and rot. Swarms of flies were visible all around in the boiling midday sun. I'm not really sure how long it has been or what time it really was because the clock on my phone is broken and simply reads as 99:99. I don't know what day it is. I have no cell signal and no radio.
Carly, I need to be honest with you. I cheated on you. Maybe a dozen times. I did it before I thought, before I knew you were doing it to me. I can't live by the rules of trucking, or marriage or anything. It is the road and you command it and that is the only rule. But now, I'm worried I've broken my last rule. I have no food and no water. There is no road here. There is only rule of a blazing sun with jack o lantern face that never sets. I fear that in time, unless I find help or help finds me, I will be feeding the pumpkins.
Theo Plesha
submitted by m80mike to ChillingApp [link] [comments]
A rule breaking truck driver takes a forbidden detour.
Don't Feed the Pumpkins
I'm typing this as a record of what has happened to me. If someone should find me out here, where ever here is, this is what happened and who is responsible. Also, out of the dozens of vehicles bogged down in this field, mine is the Blue Jay 2013 Freight Liner. If I should die and it is recoverable, it should go to my son, John Grainger in Antioch, Illinois.
I left Litchfield Illinois around 2pm on Halloween with a last-minute load of pumpkins destined for the Antioch Walmart. Despite the fact I was once that told Illinois is the #1 pumpkin producer in the country the itself state appears to be in the midst of a shortage. I was due in about 8pm, but I was trying get in by 6pm and after unloading, I was going to visit my wife Carly and my son for Halloween. It was going to be the first Halloween in my son's life that I was going to be there for trick o treating. My wife was making a big deal out of it and John was 10 now, so, she said he would be “scarred with disappointment” if I didn't show now. So, I probably should have gotten better sleep the night before and sue me, I was gear jamming and popping go-pills like popcorn. Don't look down on me, don't be fooled, this is just the nature of the trucking industry. Everyone does it and I'm not afraid to tell it like it is.
Just after Normal on 39 I hit a wall of traffic. I could hear on the CB that there is a hazmat incident up ahead and they require special teams to clear it off. I, like the other truckers, get to gabbing on the radio, looking for shortcuts. To my surprise, after scrutinizing this route several times before, I was informed about a “gutshot” shortcut just ahead that could get in me into my destination at least an hour earlier, even with the fact I had sat in the backup for at least 45 minutes at this point. A second comrade in gears piped in and stated that the shortcut was closed. The first driver contradicted him and stated, he had used it two weeks ago, it was wide open country land you could go 70 the whole way, and the only town along the way had burned down in an industrial accident 30 years ago. The second trucker chimed in again. He said it was closed for tonight and only tonight and not to use it. I disregarded the second trucker, exited the interstate and followed the directions of the first trucker.
Well, Carly, you always said it would be this way. You always said, I needed to learn how to follow directions to not cut so many damn corners all the time. You always told me didn't put in the work, and the funny thing is, for the first time, on this drive, get there, I did. Sure, I cut all the corners, but I wanted to to put in the work. But you're right, I never put a second of effort in, and if this is how it ends, I suppose you're right, I never will. But I guess, one way or another, you're getting what you've wanted, what you text me, what you don't tell me about, and what I didn't care about. I was coming home for him and damn it, I know it won't hold up in court but I want my boy to get the damn truck!
Anyway, I found the road, 2 lanes clear to the sky, surrounded by corn and then pumpkin fields forever. My straight shot, I pushed 80 the whole way flying on cracked asphalt, diesel, and go-pills. Ahead, there were barricades and I applied the brakes and barely stopped in time. I got out and saw they were chained up with a padlock to concrete posts in the ground. In theory, I could blast through them but I would sustain serious damage. The ground was a bit wet so I didn't think I could cross the ditch and field and not get stuck either. The barricades were not official in the least. They had a sign on them made out of it mailbox stick-on letters which said: “Do Not Feed The Pumpkins”. As far as I could see from my cab and binoculars, there was absolutely nothing wrong with the damn road. I said hell and I knew it would take hours to reverse course and get back in time – in time to even unload much less make it in time to go trick o treating.
And I said it wasn't worth it. I didn't bother to call. I'd just show up now. Because it wasn't my fault. So I started back, turning around with great difficulty. I traveled back 2 miles and saw small signs for a rest area. I must have missed it the first time, too deep into the zone I suppose now. I needed to pee and probably eat a bit before starting a roundabout way back, so I stopped. It was a little old 2 story joint with a small dinner on the 1st level and looked like 4 or 5 small motel rooms on top and oddly an outhouse for a restroom. I want to emphasize the outhouse because that is how you'll find and catch this guy, the guy who did this to me. It was Bill Shaw of Shaw's Shack, who did this to me. It had a sign with the building, it too was made of stick-on letters and vaguely resembled a huge ransom note. It read “Yes! We are open! We are the only rest area for 67 miles and 1 of 2 “tombstones” for the late great town of Pumpkin Grove Illinois – the former pumpkin capital of Illinois. Ask Your host, Bill Shaw about the Pumpkin-beef-bean stew!
The parking lot had three vehicles in it, not including my own, a silver Prius, a grand cheeroke with wood panels, and an older model chevy pick up truck. I went inside. The dinner was small, set in a rustic décor with old license plates nailed to the walls. The cafe had eight counter seats and two smaller tables near the two windows. There were two witnesses to what happened that night, to what Bill Shaw did – at least partial witnesses. There was the older man with stringy white hair and octagonal glasses – unfortunately, I didn't get his name. There was that irritating millennial – All I remember is the metal crap in her ears and lip. Hell, if I die and John starts ever pulling that crap, I'll come back and haunt the crap out of both of you. Anyway, now, I wish I could remember their names or something else about them to put here. I didn't care about either one of them enough to remember.
I guess that goes for Shaw too. He was a bit taller as sometimes I couldn't see his face while sitting at the counter because of the low lights in the ceiling blocking his face. He had gray hair. Hell. That's it. Anyway, the old man said he was part of a historical society, said he spent the better part of his past two years tracking down anyone or anything about Pumpkin Grove. The college student – of course – it was college student said she was from the school newspaper, looking for a spooky story. When she asked me where I was from, I didn't respond.
Shaw came from the kitchen with two big bowls of the famous Pumpkin-beef-bean stew for first two. He seemed taken back by my presence for a bit before saying “howdy” and trying to get real friendly with me. He asked what media I was from. I told him I wasn't from no media and I was trying to get through the barricade up ahead. Neither of the other two seemed to know about the barricade. Shaw said he didn't know anything about it either. I was suspicious of him then because of the lettering on the signs. But I didn't push it. I wanted to eat and he said my choice was the stew or stew. So the stew seemed fine. He said he wished he had more time to chat with me but he promised to tell the story of Pumpkin Grove to the two others but I was welcome to listen and ask questions. I didn't say it but I couldn't care less, I was going no where fast and I needed to eat.
He started off by saying he and his wife are among a handful of survivors of the fire that consumed the town of Pumpkin Grove some 30 years ago on Halloween night. Then his story descended into a cross between a rambling fading nightmare and a ghost story. He said, without hesitation, fear of consequence or remorse that he was accessory to a murder in his childhood. Specifically, some 40 years ago, again on Halloween, he was friends with a small group of young men including one named Donnie, who was a little slow and had a slightly misshaped head. He was picked on a lot by the Gerst Brothers, notorious town bullies and teenage thugs of a bad seed thanks to their neglectful alcoholic single father. Long story short, he said, the Gerst Brothers lured Donnie, himself and another 2 boys out to a pumpkin field where they gave back Donnie's missing dog. Apparently they kidnapped the dog and wrapped every inch of it in duct tape a few days ago. They watched us try to peel and pull the duct tape off while the weakened, hungry, and thirsty dog whimpered away its last in the field. Unbeknownst to any of us, Donnie had a pocket knife and he lost it as the Gerst Brothers cackled around him and the dead dog. He leaped up as they laughed and sliced the vein on their necks. One of the Brothers died quickly while Donnie and the two others fought the other to death. Shaw said he just stood there, covered in arterial blood splatters, watching Donnie and the others finish off the Gersts.
Much of the town was shockingly grateful to hear the Gerst Brothers were dead and everyone was all too happy to sweep it under the rug rather than have 4 of their sons incarcerated for decades when they were needed to help with the town's bread and butter – the Pumpkins. So, they buried the Gerst Brothers in that field and grew pumpkins on their corpses and no one really talked about it. The town paid off their father, who was too inebriated most of the time to care and he gleefully drank himself to death on the payoff only about a year later.
I didn't have much of a reaction to the story. The historian on the other hand, was hesitant to stay and keep writing and he made a brief protest concerning whether or not the story was true and whether or not he could legally listen to it. Shaw said it was both true and legal. After all, there was nothing left of the town and the remains were long gone and he himself, would not bare witness to himself. The college student's dumb metal encrusted mouth was agape in a mix of horror and disbelief.
I was waiting, patiently, might I add, for my stew. Shaw promised it would be up soon. He continued the story, stating that the fields produced abnormally well afterwards and 10 years later he was visiting his parents with his girlfriend for the annual Pumpkin fest. It was just that the pumpkins weren't just more numerous and larger, or more resistant to the rains and the fungus, they were alive and nothing could keep them tame or from spreading wider and wider. And everyone thought this was great at first, the profits were never higher but then weird things began to happen. Equipment went missing and two farm hands were crushed by a wagon full of pumpkins tipping over onto them in what was at first called a freak accident. Shaw recounted how he took his girlfriend through one of the patches and the vines seem to wind and grapple her legs, of course, Shaw's folks passed it off as her not being used to the mud but Shaw said he knew better.
Shaw continued to describe that over the days that led up to Halloween, the Jack O Lanterns on people's porches and elsewhere began to do some unusual things. Things like seemingly move by themselves from dusk to dawn, changing the carvings of their faces slightly, or appearing to “jump” off a table onto the porch without damage or apparent cause. On the morning of Halloween, Shaw said that he found his black cat, Lucky, incinerated in front of a jack o lantern as if it had breathed fire on to it from its mouth though they had long ago blown out the candle inside.
After the cat burning, the elderly man from the historical society tossed his spoon in his bowl. Shaw asked if something was wrong. The elderly man got up to leave and he said it tasted like bitter cold bull and his story was bull and thanked him for nothing. After checking the remaining contents of his bowl of stew, Shaw chased him out of the door, to his car, asking him what direction he planned to go home. When he peeled out of the parking lot he was headed southwest. Shaw came back in and threw up his hands.
I tell nothing but the truth, he said, most people can't handle it. Part of me wanted to go, but I was cozy there, it was warm and the story, while bull to me at the time, was entertaining enough. The SJW sitting down the way looked exhausted, barely keeping her eyes open as Shaw finished out the story. In short he said, Donnie approached him at dusk on Halloween while he and his family sat on the porch eagerly awaiting trick o treaters. Donnie said the Gerst Brothers are alive in the pumpkins and that they planned to burn the whole town down tonight. Donnie said, he had to tell Shaw because Shaw wasn't supposed to die, he was supposed to watch.
I rudely stopped him and demanded more stew. I was still hungry and the stew was somehow unsatisfying. When he returned, he finished the story, stating the town was suddenly engulfed in flames and their house in particular with Donnie on the porch, flash burned to the ground like napalm from an exploding pumpkin. He escaped with his family and his future wife in the pick up truck sitting outside now.
The college student said she felt like she needed to lay down, that she didn't think she could make back to the campus to the north. Shaw attended to getting her one of the rooms upstairs. I stayed down stairs and went to the back for more stew. I rubbed my eyes intensely and felt as if I too should stay for the night. But in the tug of war between fatigue and dexrine, the dexrine was slowly coming out ahead.
Next to the stew was a cutting board and a knife and on it was some bluish whitish powder which I found peculiar. On floor was a bottle of medication. It was Insomnex – a sleeping pill I use when I'm coming off of dexrine. The stew was dosed.
I ran to my truck and pulled out my dexrine and my revolver. As I climbed out of the driver's side, I could see Shaw running out of the dinner with a huge kitchen knife. I ducked under the trailer and back out on his side and pointed the gun at him.
What the hell I asked as I slowly advanced on him with my snub nose pointed at his head. He dropped the knife. He said, I just wanted to puncture your tires, I had to do something to stop you. I know you want to go north and I know you might be crazy enough and your truck tough enough to smash the barricades but I can't let you. I can't let anyone else go through, he said hysterically. I asked the dumb question about whether or not he set the barricades and just as I previously suspected, he did.
I'm supposed to watch, Shaw cried. No one can get through tonight, no can be allowed to. I told him to shut up as he rambled on about how he and his wife took it upon themselves to ward off travelers on Halloween Night. Its a cursed road tonight, he said, we're cursed to stay here and this is the best we can do to stop it from spreading. Its been calling us for 30 years, he went on, we tried to walk away but it kept on spreading, the pumpkins, he said gritting his teeth in anguish.
Maybe it was the dexrine and the insomnex working together, hell maybe it was the stew by itself but I just started to laugh as I guided Shaw back into the dinner and proceeded to duct tape him down to the dinner chair to make sure he could not cause anymore harm to anyone else until the police arrived. I had some cash on me, I wasn't a criminal, I wasn't going to make it seem like I tied him up and dinned and dashed, I was in the right, I was doing the lawful thing. So I left him exact change, no tip for the food. In the process of making change for myself, I found the padlock key in the cash drawer, I was certain of it at the time as I waved it in front of Shaw and he gasped and thrashed behind the duct tape the hardest.
I got into my truck and gunned it north towards the barricades, which, as I suspected was easily opened with the key I confiscated from Shaw. I got on my CB and started making emergency calls to the State Police, I gave them my name, the location of the diner, and Shaw's name. I was in the middle of nowhere so it didn't surprise me when I got static and no acknowledgment. I had no bars on my cell phone either but that is typical of central Illinois.
I was going along about 70. The sun was almost down but I hadn't seen the moon yet. I turned on the radio and found a classic rock station. The song was Born on the Bayou from CCR. The opening riff perked me up and reassured me that I had done everything all well and all good. If things held, there was a chance, I could get my freight unloaded and see John tonight. I was eagerly tapping the steering wheel waiting to bust into “When I was just a little boy...” But just as the lyrics should have entered, the radio station seemed to have accidentally reset the song, it just started over.
The sun faded away entirely and yet no moon came up. The sky was so dark but I didn't remember seeing any clouds or expecting any for that matter. The song continued restarting itself, the same opening again and again. I flipped through the other stations and all of them had it playing. Eventually, the digital clock on my dash began to spin wildly like the LCD numbers on the tuner while in scan mode. The truck buffeted and shook side to side despite my headlights showing no cause for it.
To my shock, ahead, in the distance was single traffic light. It was went from green, to yellow, and red, as any other traffic light but there were no lights or towns on this road. I slowed to 40, then 35 then to 30 as I entered an unnamed densely populated area with small buildings, stores, and houses and one traffic light. I came to a stop at the light and I looked around, locked my doors and tried to glimpse where I was. Where ever I was, I felt, I felt like I shouldn't be there. There were dim orange lights in some of the rooms of the houses at the edge of the intersection.
I looked up at one of the windows and I saw a figure with large head in the window. I couldn't believe my eyes at least not until the figure turned to face outward. It was a jack o lantern, a classic one with a black glow where the eyes, nose, and mouth sat. It was held up right by a thin vine structure that seemed to grow and stretch as it stuck its head out of the window and let out a barely audible shrill whistle and stared directly at me.
I gunned it. I blew the red light as the town seemed to collapse into nothing by dark green swelling pumpkin vine and a sea of glowing jack o lanterns in my side view mirrors. I hit the radio off because all I could hear on it was that whistle filtering through. I drove and the mass of jack o lanterns grew in the mirrors. I glimpsed the left and right windows and the plains were glowing black with more pumpkins rolling and creeping towards the road.
The road began to warp and bend as I started to red line my truck. The buffeting side to side became difficult to control as the engine groaned. I couldn't explain how the road began to shift nor how the moon, blood orange began to circle around me from horizon to horizon. Aside from the moon, I thought I was making progress as I couldn't see the vines nor the hundreds of blacklight pumpkins swirling after me.
The moon slowed and dipped down and I started climbing a hill. As I crested, the moon filled the entire windshield and more. It spun and then settled on a black light pumpkin face and bore down on the cab.
I don't know what happened next but I woke up in my cab. The was engine smoking. All I could see was mud and putrid rotten pumpkins as far as I could see. My Blue Jay was sunk up to the cab down in mud, vines and rot. It wasn't going anywhere in it without some serious assistance. To my right and left I saw dozens of other vehicles, most of them at least ten years old, also up their doors in mud and rot. Swarms of flies were visible all around in the boiling midday sun. I'm not really sure how long it has been or what time it really was because the clock on my phone is broken and simply reads as 99:99. I don't know what day it is. I have no cell signal and no radio.
Carly, I need to be honest with you. I cheated on you. Maybe a dozen times. I did it before I thought, before I knew you were doing it to me. I can't live by the rules of trucking, or marriage or anything. It is the road and you command it and that is the only rule. But now, I'm worried I've broken my last rule. I have no food and no water. There is no road here. There is only rule of a blazing sun with jack o lantern face that never sets. I fear that in time, unless I find help or help finds me, I will be feeding the pumpkins.
Theo Plesha