so, i recently smelled le labos thé noir for the first time at a store and it was definitely love at first sniff, BUT! i immediately thought, this would be an incredible home scent, either a candle or a scent diffuser. so i asked the sales assistant if they have any home products of it and they didn't, so i bought a travel size of it to test it out as a perfume. now that i've given it multiple tries i keep thinking about how much i want my apartment to smell like it, not so much myself. don't get me wrong, i like it as it is and will definitely have use for my travel size in the fall/winter seasons, but i can't believe they don't make any home products of this particular scent, while le labo have so many other perfumes also available as home scents.
so i guess im asking has anyone tried home scent products that have the same vibe as thé noir? i need this in my life lol

My little one turned 1 last week, and to explain a bit more of why this terrified me even more, my husband and I went through roughly 9 months of her life with CPS breathing down our necks because a trigger happy pediatrician reported me claiming I wasn't taking her health seriously enough and that I was abusing her (which we absolutely fucking were not) because of how small she was/still is. She is only 26" tall, and about 16.4 pounds currently and we're still trying to find out why since endocrinology had no answers.
Anyway, so she takes Zyrtec for her allergies and her normal dose is 2.5ml. I had her next months worth dropped off today and the bottle now says to give her 5ml a day. So I call up the Dr office, cause I'm like there's no fucking way this is right, especially because of how little she is. Turns out her pediatrician accidentally wrote the prescription this month for an average sized 2 year old and not a roughly 9 months old sized 1 year old. She can't even get the 3.75ml dose until 15 months!!
All I keep thinking about is how horribly horribly wrong things could have gone later tonight if I had given her that full 5ml dose at bedtime. I'm so glad mom instincts kicked in and that I listened to them instead of just trusting the directions on her medication bottle, cause so often we're looked at as overreacting with a ton of little things, that they sometimes dismiss you without even hearing what you're saying.
Hopefully this post will encourage some of the other mamas out there to trust their instincts too when something doesn't seem right. Thank you to anyone who made it to the end of this rambling venting post. <3

Now I know how he must feel as he sees me withering away by the day.
How I miss cuddling in softness, the comforting feeling of his little tummy after he had eaten, the warmth and the protection of a larger body pressed against my own significantly smaller one. I've never romanticised the idea of size difference, but I can't deny the serenity and contentment I used to feel when he was at a normal weight. I miss how he used to be my giant teddy bear who would protect me from anything.
I miss all of it, because at present, there is less of him I could hold onto, less of him I could love. The feeling of his pronounced ribs against mine repulses me to the core, I'm no longer comfortable sitting on his lap, as his protruding hip bones are jamming up my own boney ass.
I'm aware he isn't doing it on purpose. The fault is in his physically demanding job and lack of free time to eat, which had unfortunately caused his major weightloss. He's trying to eat, for me, but for some reason he keeps losing more and more every day.
Of course, I appreciate his efforts. Then why am I suddenly overwhelmed with a feeling of resentment and abhorrence? I love my partner to the moon, but I hate what has become of him. I hate that my sick brain automatically turns this into a competition of who would get skinnier. I hate that I've become even more restrictive, going as far as relapsing on drugs again, to show him that he can't get sicker than me. I hate how every time he comes home from work, I greet him with "Have you eaten today? What have you eaten? No, that's not enough calories for a man your height. You need to eat more!"
Please, eat more. I don't want you to disappear. Please, I love you more than anything in the world, I don't want to see you as a rival in a pointless competition. Fuck, I'm the world's worst girlfriend. But as endless as my love for you may be, I won't allow you to become slimmer than me. Even if that costs me my life.

I've slowly been building up my tech kit to bring on shows for the past year or so and I'm getting to a point where I'm very satisfied with what I have on me for gigs! So I thought I would start a discussion on tech kits to give some folks the chance to share what they bring along with them to work on a daily basis and maybe help myself as well as other newer AV techs with some ideas on what to load in their Pelican!
For a bit of preface, I am primarily an A1 in the corporate live events world, but I do a bit of video as well, so my kit is very much geared towards that line of AV. I won't name every little thing in my kit but definitely the main things!
Ok here we go in no particular order other than the order I think of things:

• GLinet travel router, for iPad connection to various audio boards as well as Workbench controlling. Probably my favorite new addition to my kit, the compact size makes it so easy to just have available on every gig
• Lenovo Legion laptop and my iPad to do whatever I need on them
• Switchcraft 1/8in to XLR DI (the small red one)
• Radial USB DI (just added this on a whim as my buddy had one he wanted to get rid of)
• Focusrite Scarlett 2i2
• Audiotechnica over ear headphones
• Tack Life laser measuring meter (for delay speaker timing)
• 5 port network switcher, to give myself more ports if needed or Dante use
• a wired handheld mic
• various video adapters, usb dongles, etc
• various XLR adapters; XLR -> 1/4, y-cables, sex changers, etc
• shorty cables of all kinds, XLR, HDMI, 1/8in, cat6 etc
• BNC shorties (newest addition, in order to always be prepared to antenna wireless kits)
• label tape, pens, sharpies, the necessities

COMING SOON

• Sound bullet, I have a RatSound XLR tester but it just broke :'(
• Logitech R800 slide advancer
• USB extender
• Tascam recorder with stereo XLR in
• Stream deck
• RTA test microphone

And that's about it for now, what do you think of my kit so far? What else would you add? What's in your kit? I'm especially interested in hearing what folks bring with them for other roles outside of just audio teching!
BONUS QUETION: What is your favorite thing in your kit that you can't live without or changed your life when it was added? I only got my router about a month ago now, but it's already becoming a huge game changer for me and my entire workflow!

Chapter 1
The Villager’s Warning
In the North near the tempestuous mountains and the groves of the Relum trees, which grow relum, which are like sweet pears, was a prosperous village called “ Alestra”. Alestra is a medium-sized village known for its cloying relums and its soft and crumbly soil perfect for the trees and gardens. They lived a humble and healthy life supplying themselves with veggies and meat from the boars they hunted. The water from Rivenile was the source of their agricultural success and survival. The sound of little children having fun exploring the fields of grain while their family works diligently on the farms. Most of the children spend their time outside either helping with their family's farm or playing near the grains and on the trees playing fun games. All except one particular boy who will spend his days indoors writing stories and reading about the fascinating creatures he wishes to discover. His name was Aran Yearwood, a 12-year-old with red hair living with his parents who helped the village by transporting their food and veggies to nearby villages. Aran eagerly followed his father, perpetually saying “Father, can I hear the story about the Rift Creators of the Coliseum again please?”. The father replied, “ How about tonight when your mother is back for dinner, is that alright?”. “ Yes Father,” said Aran. Aran rushed to his room whose walls were covered with sheets of drawings and a portrait of his family right in the center of his room. His desk was piled with books and maps slightly torn and dirty. His bed was big enough for him, and a little chest lay at the end of the bed to store the items he cherished. Aran sat on his chair and picked up a book labeled “ Creatures of the Night” and he sat on his bed and read from where he began. Meanwhile, the Father went near his stable and put the ponderous goods on the wagon when he smelled a putrid stench of a rotting corpse. The father looked around to find the smell and discovered a Villager riding a horse carrying a wagon with numerous dead bodies disfigured and all missing body parts. “ What happened to them!?” stuttered the father in shock. “ To be honest I don’t know?” said the villager. “It might be a wolf or a bear,” said the villager. “That can’t be bears since it's winter,” said the father. “We might have to stop shipment to other villages,” said the villager. “Why, though, it's only a few animals we can take care of,” said the father. “Well, that depends if the mayor agrees,” the villager says. “Shouldn’t we mail this to animal control, maybe they can control these beasts,” the father said. “Already mailed it to them, should be arriving in a few weeks or so”. The villager rode his horse to the village square leaving the father worried. When it was nightfall the family was at the dinner table eating their food. They had a hot and warm meat pie filled with lamb and pork all mixed with gravy with a side of pan-fried spinach. After their dinner, Aran rushed towards his room with his father following him. “ Are you gonna tell me the story Father?” asked Aran. “ Alright, hold your patience,” said the father as he sat down on the bed. “ The story of the ..colosseum begins with the Greater wills, gods who judge the realms and serve as the way of evolution”. “When these gods see someone they love they give birth to the demigods. “ Each demigod ruled the realms and served as a ruler for their realms,” asked the Father. “ They had abilities like gravity, time, War, pestilence, and even death, while others had less powerful abilities like sand,” said the father. “ Each of the demigods is known to be the best and the most revered in their worlds.,” said the father in a Joyous mood. '' “All had everything they could need in their lives, but some wanted more”. The father looked outside the dark knight. “ Well it's getting late. The father replied with a tired tone “ Sleep well Aran”. “Can you finish the story tomorrow? " asked Aran, resting his head on the pillow. “Of course,” said the father. Aran closed his eyes and dreamed of himself in the stars, seeing the planets go by as he feels the
5 years later
Aran who was now 17 got off his bed with his room no longer having the drawings he used to have and the desk he still had an accumulation of books. He passed his parent's room and went into the kitchen to make his parents some breakfast. Aran's parents were always tired of the number of resources needed for other villages and Aran’s mother sprained her knee when running back to the village. Aran grabbed a few thick pork slices and chopped them to put on the ardent sizzling pan. Aran proceeded to crack a few eggs, mix them with scallions, and place them on the pan with the pork bits until they were cooked well. The sound of the sizzling food awoke the father as he peeked through the kitchen to see his son cook. The father asks” Son it's still dark outside why are you up this early”. “I wanted to give you something to eat while I’m gone with the delivery for the next town,” said Aran. “ Alone, you can’t be alone when Wendigos are out on the road”. “ Let me come and help you deliver the food..” but as the father said that he was cut off and the Aron said, “ It's alright I brought a knife with me and I’ll be cautious”. Aran exited the house and went near the stable to ride his horse carrying the fruits and vegetables on his side. Aran rode his horse down the road to the village square. The village square had big houses with markets surrounding the houses and farms surrounding the Relum trees growing ever so long behind the village. The villagers look depleted and worn out. Aran rode his horse to the other houses to ask for resources and food they offered them all saying “ Tell Newberry to stay strong”. After Aran was finished taking the villager's supplies for Newberry he went to the village chief to gather his resources. He knocked on the door of the Mayor's house and saw him with a pile of water buckets, a few bags of gold, and Packs of wood. “ Ah Aran, please put this on your cart and tell Newberry to stay safe and have hope”. “Of course chief,” said Aran. Aran rode his horse to the village gate next to the tower post. When Aran was next to the post a Knight went outside of the tower replying “ What is your business of leaving Alestra '' . “ I’m transporting my family’s food to the village of Newberry, “ said Aran. “ The village of Newberry isn't doing well since the Wendigos raided them, they're going to need those supplies” said the knight. Aran was permitted to leave Alestera and Aran continued his journey on the path. Aran passed through from a few corpses to an abundance of them until Aran saw the village. The village was burned and ravaged with dark smoke covering the sky and the stench of burning flesh still in the air. Aran rushed to the village to see if anybody survived but found none survived. When Aran was about to leave he saw smoke coming out of the forest, Aran rode his horse swiftly and came to the source of the fire. He saw a few villagers and a small number of children near the fire scared and tired from the raid. “ Are you the villagers of Newberry?” asked Aran. “ We used to be until the Wendigos attacked,” said an elderly lady. Aran with a shocked look on his face asked: “ What about the knights”. “ Most of them died fighting while some died running,” said the old man next to the lady. “ Some more knights tried to help but those insidious beasts forestalled ”. Aran was worried for the villagers of Newberry and shouted“ I have resources from the town of Alestra and we have come for your help!!!”. All the villagers looked at Aran as he continued to shout “ Please gather any resources you need and help yourself to the food you need to survive with!!!”. The Villagers filled with hope and joy rushed to the cart and gathered all the supplies. They were all eating and drinking and covering themselves with blankets making them feel just a little bit safer. “ We don’t know how to thank you, young sir,” said a man with his children next to him. “ Please sir you don’t have to do anything, but if you and the others need help we're just a few miles away south,” said Aran. Aran left with an empty cart and a feeling of beatitude when he saw the villagers of Newberry full of bliss and hope. Halfway through his trip back to his village the horse instantaneously stopped and nearly threw Aran off the horse. “ Stay here Becky,” said Aran smoothly. He jumped off the horse and looked all around to see if anything would jump out and attack him. Suddenly he heard a large screeching sound mixed with screeching. He heard rustling and sticks being broken. He heard the noise again except it was teeth chattering and the sound of a loud sharp horn was closer. “ We have to go, Becky,” said Aran urgently as he jumped on his horse and rode as fast as he could. Aran heard the sound come closer and faster towards him. Aran had the sudden urge to stop the horse midway. Aran stopped his horse and soon after a dark wendigo jumped out in front of him and crashed near some trees and was unconscious for a few seconds. Aran used that time to ride away while horrified by that chase. The wendigo screeched in anger as Aran was out of its sight. Aran returned to the village sweaty and scared and opened the doors only to be on his knees. The father rushed up to him with the mother following him slowly. “ Aran what happened to you?!” asked the father in a frightened manner. “I escaped from a wendigo,” said Aran panting. “ How in this world did you survive?!” asked the father. “ Raranold, let the Aran rest now,” said the mother. “ Aran is traumatized enough for today, we can ask when he is ready but for now let him sleep and rest”. The father took a deep breath and said to Aran “ You can go upstairs and we’ll cook something for you, is that okay ''. “That's okay,” Aran replied. Aran went upstairs to his room and went to his bed to sit. Aran heard voices from downstairs wanting to hear what his parents were talking about. Aran opened the door quietly, walked on the stairs sneakily, and peered through the kitchen to hear what they were saying. “ 7 people died on that road and were eaten, there is no way our son could survive one of their attacks,” said Raranold. “ I think it's time for us to leave the village”. “But where will we go, Raranold,” asked the mother. “ We could go to the city of Elistar and maybe there we can be safe,” said the father. “I don’t know what to do now Elizabeth”. “ We can leave tomorrow when we pack all our stuff and leave while we still have light, and maybe we can reach an inn,” said Elizabeth. “ But what about Aran, how will he handle this?” asked Raranold. “He might be upset about it but I’m sure he’ll love the big city and all its fancy buildings and all the new stuff he’ll like”. “ Plus we have a good amount of money to survive in the city”. “ Now then, we should be cooking dinner at Raranold”. “ Please pass me the mushrooms on your right, we're going to be making some skewers” Aran walked to his room quietly shocked by the fact that he will move from the village he grew up in. Aran looked out the window gazing at the village thinking about how he will never get used to the city. Aran suddenly saw something big and tall in the bushes. It was the same wendigo that was chasing him through the path. Aran quickly fell over in terror and when he got back up, the wendigo was suddenly gone in an instant. “ Oh lords,” said Aran. The wendigo rushed deep into the forests crossing through the dry trees and the murky puddles towards an abandoned camp. The abandoned camp was full of wendigos either resting or fighting each other for food. Near the big stump sat a tall wendigo with various skulls and aches full of bottles and ashes on his sides. The wendigo held a staff with a large skull. The wendigo went towards the large wendigo and shrieked “ Shouldn’t we attack the village now”. The tall Wendigo stood up and said “ We attack when the sun is dim”. They heard horses coming through the road with knights packed with weapons passing by them. The tall Wendigo screamed in the sky letting every Wendigo know that they would attack the village of Alestra.

Coaches,
Based on my experience, there are 5 great avenues to making money as a personal trainer. Here’s a quick breakdown of the pros and cons of each.
Others who have been in the business can and should chime in with experience and critiques as well.

1. Employed by a gym as a W2 employee. W2 employees are hired and paid by the gym to work for the gym. Employees will have benefits, and a base pay.

W2 employees are hired by Crunch, Equinox, 24 Hour, Life Time etc.
Some local private gyms may hire as well.
There are definite pros to being an employee: healthcare and benefits, paid job training and education, a steady stream of clients, and mentors to learn from in the beginning. Some gyms like Life Time and Equinox can be very lucrative as well. Admin tasks like taxes and marketing are done for you, and you have low risk relative to ownership and contracting.
The cons include exploitive pay at some gyms, sales is a requirement (though some local gyms may not require coaches to sell), expected long hours, and a competitive environment to the detriment of the team, and the eventual ceiling where can neither raise prices or work more daily hours.

1. Online Coaching. Online coaching is being a personal trainer online, coaching those from the comfort of your home rather than the box setting.

Pros: Location flexibility, reach to help more people, more money for less time worked, easily scalable with potential to be a medium sized business with little to no overhead.
Cons: It can be very hard to get started online, the market doesn’t understand how to value coaching online vs in person, and tasks of running a business may not be the strong suit of many coaches (taxes, contracts, payment processing, organization etc). Some say the market is over saturated, which I personally vehemently disagree with, but I will say that differentiating yourself from the marketplace can be tough.

1. Independent contractor. An independent contractor is a coach who rents space from a gym in exchange for time and equipment to coach a client book.

Pros: the age old question, would you rather work for someone else and make 200k, or yourself for 100k? If you have an independent streak, most choose 100k. You also build your own brand, set your own prices, and work your own hours. A good relationship with the owner can also help with lead gen.
Cons: the inverse of most of the pros. Most trainers that wash out as ICs generally think they’re better off working for themselves, but didn’t account for the risk and didn’t know how to build a business. If you’re dealing with a bad owner, you may not get clients or the gym could close. Acquisition and business expenses are on you, not the gym.

1. In Home Trainer (this is a copy and paste from point 3). Same as an IC, but you are in a clients home. Equipment costs and wear and tear on the vehicle are a con. Pro is that you often have no split, what you make is what you make with no rent. The time horizon can also make it hard to build a book of business, and virtually impossible if you’re a new trainer with no referrals.
   
2. Gym/Studio owner. You own the space. You have the equipment. You have the staff. Your success begins and ends with the choices you make on a daily basis.
   

Pros: you’re the king. Memberships can be very lucrative with the right marketing and branding. Personal trainer rent can be 1500 a month in my area… you have 20 trainers at that price point and you can do very well.
Cons: one misstep and it’s all over. One bad hire and your business reputation can be over. You rarely do the fitness thing anymore because you’re cleaning toilets, dealing with vendors, chasing down payments, negotiating with the landlord for a new lease, and making sure your staff is taken care of.
In terms of earning potential, online coaches and gym owners have the highest pay on average. There’s some very notable exceptions, but across the board, a successful online trainer or gym owner can scale and have multi million dollar exits or incomes.
In terms of security, employment as a W2 will be the safest move, and one can earn 200k plus in the right location… but that is exceedingly rare.

Server IP - mc.WarOfEitr.com

War of Eitr has been an ongoing project for me for some time now. I've been looking for a way to revive players' love for community-driven towny servers while bringing in enough new content to keep the server interesting. That's what brought about War of Eitr, a Survival RPG towny server.
The server will be split into 3 realms, Towny, RPG & The War. Although currently, only the Towny world is live. Once we're happy with this we will continue to work on the other realms.
Towny
This is the first realm and the one that will be open on launch is the Towny world, a relatively safe area where the main threats to players will be PvP from rival towns and rouge bandits. Players in the towny realm are free to mine, build anything from a small hamlet to a huge sprawling city and PvP anywhere they like.
MMORPG
This is a custom world, to be built entirely by the team. It will focus on a few questlines that help to build on the lore of the War of Eitr. Quests will reward players with currency, items and special weapons to use in other realms. The world will reward exploration with hidden dungeons and side quests. This realm will be in ongoing development for the life of the server bringing players new items, areas, quests and challenges.
To ensure that the server launches as quickly as possible this will be put on hold, to begin with, and instead will be replaced with challenging instanced scripted dungeons. Dungeons will be a lot more practical to create and will give more replayability to players by giving randomized difficulty ensuring loot for each run. Dungeons will have dynamic difficulty to ensure that different group sizes can run these dungeons.
The War
For now, our final realm and one that won't be seen on the server for a couple of updates. This is the server's war world. We will run time-based events on smaller prebuilt battlegrounds. Events will rotate between Town vs Town PvP battles, free-for-alls, PvE survival and many more. Participants and winners will receive unique rewards.

So, I've been with my boyfriend now 23m (I 19f) for a couple months now.
Close to when we first started dating, I decided to commission someone I thought was a really good friend of his, for a custom funko pop. Of the character from a video game he plays for his birthday. This character doesn't exist as a funko pop in any measure, so this is a really frankestiened commision, with a lot of clay work and creativity. It cost $500, and that's entirely reasonable if not, kinda low-balling the hours put into it and the market for this amount of clay work and redesigning. Her stuff is high quality, and for less paint options, I'd be spending even more from the other artists I've looked into, but he specifically likes his friends stuff, so it was never a question of who I'd commision if I wanted to him this.
Well, this friend is one of his closest friends, but she does not feel the same.
This somewhat revealed one of the main four lies.

1. He had good, strong, friendships. Each person he's supposedly so close to? They have issues with his raging at games and they dont play but every couple months(his online friends he known for years) and I know more about his girl friend of four years than he does, which leads to the next lie.
   
2. He's a calm, level headed high skilled gamer, something I commended him for when we first met. I told him I normally avoided people with his game stats because everytime they had anger and rage issues, so does he, which he never outright admitted, instead he just basked in the compliments and two months in, revealed how badly he could rage. Aka, telling people to off themselves verbally, it wasn't and still hasn't been directed at me, but that could change.
   
3. His balanced work, social, and gaming life? Not balanced, he's addicted to gaming, and leaned into a horrible communicator to the point where we go an entire day we both had off, not spending time together because he wouldn't let me know his schedule or plans then he would be sad we didn't spend time together. (My schedule is consistent, his isn't, I also tell him if there's changes to mine)
   
4. Two different girls that he had talked to/pursued, that he told me weren't around anymore, were at the very least, still acquaintances and people that he gamed with. Supposedly only because they were fellow content creators. They also were the ones who ended things, not him.
   

So basically, the very sweet, calm, mature guy, ends up feeling more like I'm dating a teenager, with the communication issues and emotional issues. I'm by no means perfect, I'm clingy, and enjoy the time I spend with him more than my friends, but I also didn't try to get in the way of his friendships. I only had any issues with it when he'd leave me to play with someone he's played with days in a row, when he and I hadn't played in almost a week.
Right now, he got me a dlc and expansion for a game he introduced me to, during his birthday week, while I told our now mutual friend to hold off on the commision until I could tell he and I weren't going to breakup, she vehemently agreed with this, and thinks he's lucky I haven't dumped him multiple times (she thinks I'm being stupid by staying with him honestly) she doesn't think I should intend on commissioning her for this gift until he's behaved as a good boyfriend in her opinion for several months so there's no possible resentment for spending that kinda money on him.
But I can't help but feel guilty even though he says it's okay and apologizes for being a bad boyfriend, something he said first while my mental health started to tank.
I'm constantly between feeling over dramatic and concluding he has a horrible victim complex. We had called for a total of an hour for two weeks and the first night we gamed together in fourteen days, he asked to leave to go game with his friend after only gaming for 2.5 hours on a day off of his with me, whenever he'd leave like this in the past, he'd spend at least four hours with them then crash sleep wise so his promise to come back lead me to tears and getting offline. He spam called me and talked to our mutual friend who didn't know he was with me at the time that she asked. He then told our mutual friend he couldn't game at night anymore because it would just anger me. She sent me screenshots and told me he's lucky, that I try to be so understanding and patient with a man child.
I love him, I wanted to spend more money on him for his birthday but I just couldn't in good conscience and I still feel like shit for basically saying "hey, ya know that gift you've known about for months, yeah, I told our friend to not worry about it since I didn't know if we would still be together by time your birthday rolled around because I wasn't a top priority"
My original goal was to get him a statue of his favorite helmet from a game he plays, a plushie of a video creature he loves from the same one, another video game knife from a different video game, food, and the funko pop. But with my financial restrictions now and the fact we haven't had good weeks in two months, I backed away as much stress as I could from worrying about this.
I feel awful, especially because he bought me a dlc and expansion for a game he just introduced me to his birthday week. He isn't outwardly mad or upset about the gift, he kept thinking I was going to dump him so I think he's honestly just happy I haven't ended things.

Server IP - mc.WarOfEitr.com

War of Eitr has been an ongoing project for me for some time now. I've been looking for a way to revive players' love for community-driven towny servers while bringing in enough new content to keep the server interesting. That's what brought about War of Eitr, a Survival RPG towny server.
The server will be split into 3 realms, Towny, RPG & The War. Although currently, only the Towny world is live. Once we're happy with this we will continue to work on the other realms.
Towny
This is the first realm and the one that will be open on launch is the Towny world, a relatively safe area where the main threats to players will be PvP from rival towns and rouge bandits. Players in the towny realm are free to mine, build anything from a small hamlet to a huge sprawling city and PvP anywhere they like.
MMORPG
This is a custom world, to be built entirely by the team. It will focus on a few questlines that help to build on the lore of the War of Eitr. Quests will reward players with currency, items and special weapons to use in other realms. The world will reward exploration with hidden dungeons and side quests. This realm will be in ongoing development for the life of the server bringing players new items, areas, quests and challenges.
To ensure that the server launches as quickly as possible this will be put on hold, to begin with, and instead will be replaced with challenging instanced scripted dungeons. Dungeons will be a lot more practical to create and will give more replayability to players by giving randomized difficulty ensuring loot for each run. Dungeons will have dynamic difficulty to ensure that different group sizes can run these dungeons.
The War
For now, our final realm and one that won't be seen on the server for a couple of updates. This is the server's war world. We will run time-based events on smaller prebuilt battlegrounds. Events will rotate between Town vs Town PvP battles, free-for-alls, PvE survival and many more. Participants and winners will receive unique rewards.

Server IP - mc.WarOfEitr.com

War of Eitr has been an ongoing project for me for some time now. I've been looking for a way to revive players' love for community-driven towny servers while bringing in enough new content to keep the server interesting. That's what brought about War of Eitr, a Survival RPG towny server.
The server will be split into 3 realms, Towny, RPG & The War. Although currently, only the Towny world is live. Once we're happy with this we will continue to work on the other realms.
Towny
This is the first realm and the one that will be open on launch is the Towny world, a relatively safe area where the main threats to players will be PvP from rival towns and rouge bandits. Players in the towny realm are free to mine, build anything from a small hamlet to a huge sprawling city and PvP anywhere they like.
MMORPG
This is a custom world, to be built entirely by the team. It will focus on a few questlines that help to build on the lore of the War of Eitr. Quests will reward players with currency, items and special weapons to use in other realms. The world will reward exploration with hidden dungeons and side quests. This realm will be in ongoing development for the life of the server bringing players new items, areas, quests and challenges.
To ensure that the server launches as quickly as possible this will be put on hold, to begin with, and instead will be replaced with challenging instanced scripted dungeons. Dungeons will be a lot more practical to create and will give more replayability to players by giving randomized difficulty ensuring loot for each run. Dungeons will have dynamic difficulty to ensure that different group sizes can run these dungeons.
The War
For now, our final realm and one that won't be seen on the server for a couple of updates. This is the server's war world. We will run time-based events on smaller prebuilt battlegrounds. Events will rotate between Town vs Town PvP battles, free-for-alls, PvE survival and many more. Participants and winners will receive unique rewards.

( disclaimer :this are my thoughts am not critisizing anyone or their body shape) Their a time in a man's life he constructs a perfect girl for hiimself in his head,well this happened to me in highschool zile time za double- chem just to push through the time ( those who went to public boarding schools know what am talking about) when i used to fantasize about female characters from my fav shows in nickelodeon ; thundermans and henry danger ( at that ripe age of 15 ) adolescence was hard man!! those times unambao for no reason at all ,umekaa tu sana kwa kiti unaamka BOOM!! woody! ....... was sorrounded by niggaz left and right ......female teacher m-young akikuja class ahh!! We used to go CRAZY!! the class would be a vibe😄😄 ulikuwa unapata kale ka-feeling ka enta👌.....tulikuwa tunasimama juu ya choo majioni huko dorms tupate ka-view of skirts ,used to take mental images so that later u can rub one out ( i bet ungepata dem mmoja like 100 niggaz wamenyonga na mental image ya sura yake ) na funkiezz !!!😂 mtu angesahau date ya exam lakini si ya funkie...i used to call those days " relief days" .wacha niache hapo hizo ni throwbacks Sooooo my ideal girl???......definately a petite babe💯 am not into the new wave of taking manzi amebeba two times your size in the name of "nyash" , didn't go crazy over carrie wahu and the sprite thing...........Soo back to the petite babe akue na ka-nyash ..the one that rhymes with her body shape, boobs??🤔 ..si lazma boobs ni za watoto kunyonya ni just that zisikuwe un-propotional na the nyash ,she may be beautiful idgaf beauty lies in the beholder ( unaeza thani unatembeana peng ting kumbe .....wacha tu),the blacker she is the more beautiful but i don't really care about skin tone na babe hizo pimple mbili kwa uso zisikupee stress...so thats that (By the way you soo focused people spare me your criticism take that shit to twitter)

The whirring blades of my MD-902 throbbed against the warm evening air, and I smiled.
From 5,000 feet, the ground flew by in a carpet of dark forests and kelly-green fields. The sun hung low on the horizon in a picturesque array of dazzling orange and gold, and I could make out the narrow strip of the Ohio River to my left, glistening in the fading daylight. This time of year, the trees would be full of the sweet aroma of fresh blossoms, and the frequent rains kept small pockets of fluffy white mist hanging in the treetops. It was a beautiful view, one that reminded me of why being a helicopter pilot trumped flying in a jumbo jet far above the clouds every day of the week.
Fourteen more days, and I’m debt free.
That made me grin even more. I’d been working as a charter pilot ever since I obtained my license at age 19, and after years of keeping my nose to the grindstone, I was closing on the final payment for real-estate in western Pennsylvania. With no debt, a fixer-upper house on 30 rural acres all to myself, and a respectable wage for a 26-year-old pilot, I looked forward to the financial freedom I could now enjoy. Maybe I’d take a vacation, somewhere exotic like Venice Italy, or the Dominican Republic. Or perhaps I’d sock the money back for the day I started a family.
“Remember kleineun, a real man looks after his own.”
My elderly ouma’s voice came back from the depths of my memories, her proud, sun-tanned face rising from the darkness. She and my Rhodesian grandfather had emigrated to the US when they were newlyweds, as the violence against white Boer descendants in South Africa spiraled out of control. My mother and father both died in a car crash when I was six, and it had been my grandparents who raised me. Due to this, I’d grown up with a slight accent that many of my classmates found amusing, and I could speak both English, and Afrikaans, the Boer tongue of our former home.
I shifted in my seat, stretched my back muscles, and glanced at the picture taped to my console. Both my parents flanked a grinning, gap-toothed six-year-old me, at the last Christmas we’d spent together. My mother beamed, her dark hair and Italian features a sharp contrast to my father’s sandy blonde hair and blue eyes. Sometimes, I liked to imagine they were smiling at me with pride at how well I flew the old silver-colored bird my company had assigned to me, and that made the long, lonely flights easier to bear.
A flicker caught my eye, and I broke my gaze away from the photograph.
Perched in its small cradle above the controls, my little black Garmin fuzzed over for a few seconds, its screen shifting from brightly colored maps to a barrage of grey static.
Did the power chord come loose?
I checked, ensuring the power-cable for the unit’s battery was plugged into the port on the control panel. It was a brand-new GPS unit, and I’d used it a few times already, so I knew it wasn’t defective. Granted, I could fly and navigate without it, but the Garmin made my time as a pilot so much easier that the thought of going blind was dreadful.
My fuel gauge danced, clicked to empty, then to full, in a bizarre jolt.
More of the gauges began to stutter, the entire panel seeming to develop terrets all at once, and my pulse began to race. Something was wrong, very wrong, and the sludge inside my bowels churned with sour fear.
“Come on, come on.” I flicked switches, turned dials, punched buttons, but nothing seemed to fix the spasming electronics. Every gauge failed, and without warning, I found myself plunged into inky darkness.
Outside, the sun surrendered to the pull of night, the sky darker than usual. A distant rumble of thunder reverberated above the roar of my helicopter’s engine, and I thought I glimpsed a streak of yellowish lightning on the far horizon to my left.
Calm down Chris. We’re still flying, so it must just be a blown fuse. Stay in control and find a place to set her down.
My sweaty palm slid on the cyclic stick, and both feet weighed heavy on the yaw pedals. The collective stuck to my other hand with a nervous vibration, and I squinted against the abyss outside.
Beep.
I jumped despite myself, as the little Garmin on my panel flared back to life, the static pulling aside to reveal a twitching display. Each time the screen glitched, it showed the colorful map detailing my flight path over the ground below, but I noticed that some of the lines changed, the names shifting, as if the device couldn’t decide between two different versions of the world.
One name jutted out at me, slate gray like most of the major county names, appearing with ghostly flickers from between two neighboring ones.
Barron County.
I stared, confused. I’d flown over this section of southeastern Ohio plenty of times, and I knew the counties by heart. At this point, I should have been over the southern end of Noble County, and maybe dipping lower into Washington. There was no Barron County Ohio. I was sure of it.
And yet it shown back at me from the digital landscape, a strange, almost cigar-shaped chunk of terrain carved from the surrounding counties like a tumor, sometimes there, sometimes not, as my little Garmin struggled to find the correct map. Rain began to patter against my cockpit window, and the entire aircraft rattled from a strong gust of wind. Thick clouds closed over my field of vision like a sea of gray cotton.
The blood in my veins turned to ice, and I sucked in a nervous breath.
Land. I had to land. There was nothing else to do, my flight controls weren’t responding, and only my Garmin had managed to come back to life. Perhaps I’d been hit by lightning, and the electronics had been fried? Either way, it was too dark to tell, but a storm seemed to be brewing, and if I didn’t get my feet on the ground soon, I could be in real trouble.
“Better safe than sorry.” I pushed down on the collective to start my slow descent and clicked the talking button for my headset. “Any station, this is Douglass Three-One-Four-Foxtrot, over.”
Nothing.
“Any station, this is Douglass Three-One-Four-Foxtrot, requesting emergency assistance, over.”
Still nothing.
If the radio’s dead, I’m really up a creek.
With my hand shaking, I clicked on the mic one more time. “Any station, this is—”
Like a curtain pulling back, the fog cleared from around my window, and the words stuck in my throat.
Without my gauges, I couldn’t tell just how far I’d descended, but I was definitely very low. Thick trees poked up from the ground, and the hills rolled into high ridges with flat valley floors, fields and pastures pockmarking them. Rain fell all around in cold, silvery sheets, a normal feature for the mid spring in this part of Ohio.
What wasn’t normal, were the fires.
At first, I thought they were forest fires for the amount of smoke and flames that bellowed from each spot, but as I swooped lower, my eyes widened in horror.
They were houses.
Farms, cottages, little clusters that barely constituted villages, all of them belched orange flames and black pillars of sooty smoke. I couldn’t hear above the helicopter blades, but I could see the flashes on the ground, along the road, in between the trees, and even coming from the burning buildings, little jets of golden light that spat into the darkness with anger.
Gunfire. That’s rifle fire, a whole lot of it.
Tiny black figures darted through the shadows, barely discernable from where I sat, several hundred feet up. I couldn’t see much, but some were definitely running away, the streaks of yellow gunfire chasing them. A few dark gray vehicles rumbled down one of the gravel roads, and sprayed fire into the houses as it went. They were fighting, I realized, the people in the trucks and the locals. It was horrific, like something out of war-torn Afghanistan, but worse.
Then, I caught a glimpse of the others.
They didn’t move like the rest, who either fled from the dark vehicles, or fired back from behind cover. These skinny figures loped along with haphazard gaits, many running on all fours like animals, swarming from the trees by the dozens. They threw themselves into the gales of bullets without flinching, attacking anyone within range, and something about the way they moved, so fluid, so fearless, made my heart skip a beat.
What is that?
“Echo Four Actual to unknown caller, please respond, over.”
Choking back a cry of shock, I fumbled at the control panel with clumsy fingers, the man’s voice sharp and stern. I hadn’t realized that I’d let go of the talking button and clicked it down again. “Hello? Hello, this is Douglass Three-One-Four-Foxtrot out of Pittsburgh, over.”
An excruciating moment passed, and I continued to zoom over the trees, the fires falling away behind me as more silent forest took over.
“Roger that Douglass Three-One-Four-Foxtrot, we read you loud and clear. Please identify yourself and any passengers or cargo you might be carrying, over.”
Swallowing hard, I eyed the treetops, which looked much closer than they should have been. How far had I descended? “Echo Four Actual, my name is Christopher Dekker, and I am alone. I’m a charter flight from PA, carrying medical equipment for OSU in Columbus. My controls have been damaged, and I am unable to safely carry on due to the storm. Requesting permission to land, over.”
I watched the landscape slide by underneath me, once catching sight of what looked like a little white church surrounded by smaller huts, dozens of figures in the yard staring up at me as I flew over a towering ridgeline.
“Solid copy on that Douglass Three-One-Four-Foxtrot. Be advised, your transponder shows you to be inside a restricted zone. Please cease all radio traffic, reduce your speed, climb to 3,000 feet and proceed north. We’ll talk you in from there. How copy, over?”
My heart jumped, and I let out a sigh of relief. “Roger that Echo Four Actual, my altimeter is down, but I’ll do my best to eyeball the altitude, over.”
With that, I pulled the collective upward, and tried my best to gauge how far I was by eyesight in the gathering night, rain still coming down all around me. This had to be some kind of disaster or riot, I decided. After all, the voice over the radio sounded like military, and those vehicles seemed to have heavy weapons. Maybe there was some kind of unrest going on here that I hadn’t heard about yet?
Kind of weird for it to happen in rural areas though. Spoiled college kids I get, but never saw farmers get so worked up before. They usually love the military.
Something moved in the corner of my eye, and I turned out of reflex.
My mouth fell open, and I froze, unable to scream.
In the sky beside me, a huge shadow glided along, and its leathery wings effortlessly carved through the gloom, flapping only on occasion to keep it aloft. It was too dark for me to see what color it was, but from the way it moved, I knew it wasn’t another helicopter. No, this thing was alive, easily the size of a small plane, and more than twice the length of my little McDonald Douglass. A long tail trailed behind it, and bore a distinct arrow-shaped snout, with twig-like spines fanned out around the back of its head. Whatever legs it had were drawn up under it like a bird, yet its skin appeared rough and knobby, almost resembling tree bark. Without pause, the gigantic bat-winged entity flew along beside me, as if my presence was on par with an annoying fly buzzing about its head.
Gripping the microphone switch so tight, I thought I’d crack the plastic, I whispered into my headset, forgetting all radio protocol. “T-There’s something up here.”
Static crackled.
“Douglas Three-One-Four-Foxtrot, say again your last, you’re coming in weak and unreadable, over.”
“There’s something up here.” I snarled into the headset, still glued to the controls of the helicopter, afraid to deviate even an inch from my course in case the monstrosity decided to turn on me. “A freaking huge thing, right beside me. I swear, it looks like a bat or . . . I don’t know.”
“Calm down.” The man on the other end of the radio broke his rigorous discipline as well, his voice deep, but level. “It won’t attack if you don’t move too fast. Slowly ease away from it and follow that course until you’re out of sight.”
I didn’t have time to think about how wrong that sounded, how the man’s strict tone had changed to one of knowledge, how he hadn’t been the least surprised by what I’d said. Instead, I slowly turned the helicopter away from the huge menace and edged the speed higher in tiny increments.
As soon as I was roughly two football fields away, I let myself relax, and clicked the mic switch. “It’s not following.”
“You’re sure?”
Eyeing the huge flapping wings, I nodded, then remembered he couldn’t see me. “Yeah, I’m well clear.”
“Good. Thank you, Mr. Dekker.”
Then, the radio went dead.
Something in my chest dropped, a weight that made my stomach roil. This wasn’t right, none of it. Who was that man? Why did he know about the thing I’d just seen? What was I supposed to—
A flash of light exploded from the trees to my right and shot into the air with a long finger of smoke.
What the . . .
On instinct, I jerked the cyclic stick to one side, and the helicopter swung to avoid the rocket.
Boom.
My world shook, metal screeched, and a dozen alarms began to go off inside the cockpit in a cacophony of beeps and sirens. Orange and red flames lit up the night sky just behind me, and the horizon started to spin wildly outside. Heat gushed from the cockpit door, and I smelled the greasy stench of burning oil. The safety belts dug into my shoulders, and with a final slip, the radio headset ripped free from my scalp.
I’m hit.
Desperate, I yanked on the controls, fought the bird even as she spun toward the ground in a wreath of flames, the inky black trees hurtling up to meet me. The helicopter went into full auto-rotation, the sky blurring past outside, and the alarms blared in a screech of doom. Panic slammed through my temples, I screamed at the top of my lungs, and for one brief second, my eyes locked on the little black Garmin still perched atop my control panel.
Its screen stopped twitching and settled on a map of the mysterious Barron County, with a little red arrow at the center of the screen, a few words popping up underneath it.
You are here.
Trees stabbed up into the sky, the belts crushed at my torso, glass shattered all around me, and the world went dark.
Copper, thick, warm, and tangy.
It filled my mouth, stank metallic in my nose, clogged my throat, choking me. In the murkiness, I fought for a surface, for a way out, blind and numb in the dark.
This way, kleineun.
My ouma’s voice echoed from somewhere in the shadows.
This way.
Both eyes flew open, and I gagged, spitting out a stream of red.
Pain throbbed in my ribs, and a heavy pressure sent a tingling numbness through my shoulders. Blood roared inside my temples, and stars danced before my eyes with a dizzying array. Humid night air kissed my skin, and something sticky coated my face, neck, and arms that hung straight up toward the ceiling.
Wait. Not up. Down.
I blinked at the wrinkled, torn ceiling of the cockpit, the glass all gone, the gray aluminum shredded like tissue paper. Just outside the broken windows, thick Appalachian bluegrass and stemmy underbrush swished in a feeble breeze, backlit by flashes of lightning from the thunderstorm overhead. Green and brown leaves covered everything in a wet carpet of triangles, and somewhere nearby, a cricket chirped.
Turning my head from side to side, I realized that I hung upside down inside the ruined helicopter, the top half burrowed into the mud. I could hear the hissing and crackling of flames, the pattering of rain falling on the hot aluminum, and the smaller brush fires around the downed aircraft sizzling out in the damp long grass. Charred steel and burning oil tainted the air, almost as strong as the metallic, coppery stench in my aching nose.
They shot me down. That military dude shot me out of the sky.
It didn’t make sense. I’d followed their orders, done everything they’d said, and yet the instant I veered safely away from whatever that thing in the sky had been, they’d fired, not at it, but at me.
Looking down (or rather, up) at my chest, I sucked in a gasp, which was harder to do that before.
The navy-blue shirt stuck to my torso with several big splotches of dark, rusty red. Most were clean slashes, but two held bits of glass sticking out of them, one alarmingly bigger than the other. They dripped cherry red blood onto my upturned face, and a wave of nausea hit me.
I gotta get down.
I flexed my arms to try and work some feeling back into them, praying nothing was broken. Half-numb from hanging so long, I palmed along my aching body until I felt the buckled for the seat belts.
“Okay.” I hissed between gritted teeth, in an effort to stave off my panic. “You can do this. Just hold on tight. Nice and tight. Here we go . . .”
Click.
Everything seemed to lurch, and I slid off the seat to plummet towards the muck-filled hole in the cockpit ceiling. My fingers were slick with blood and slipped over the smooth faux-leather pilot’s seat with ease. The shoulder belt snagged on the bits of glass that lay just under the left lowest rib, and a flare of white-hot pain ripped through me.
Wham.
I screamed, my right knee caught the edge of the aluminum ceiling, and both hands dove into a mound of leaf-covered glass shards on the opposite side of the hole. My head swam, being right-side-up again enough to make shadows gnaw at the corner of my eyes.
Forcing myself to breath slowly, I fought the urge to faint and slid back to sit on the smooth ceiling. I turned my hands over to see half a dozen bits of clear glass burrowed into my skin like greedy parasites, red blood weeping around the new cuts.
“Screw you.” I spat at the rubbish with angry tears in my eyes. “Screw you, screw you, screw you.”
The shards came out easy enough, and the cuts weren’t that deep, but that wasn’t what worried me. On my chest, the single piece of cockpit glass that remined was almost as big as my palm, and it really hurt. Just touching it felt like self-inflicted torture, but I knew it had to come out sooner or later.
Please don’t nick a vein.
Wiping my hands dry on my jeans, I gripped the shard with both hands, and jerked.
Fire roared over my ribs, and hot blood tickled my already grimy pale skin. I clapped a hand over the wound, pressing down hard, and grunted out a string of hateful expletives that my ouma would have slapped me for.
Lying on my back, I stared around me at the messy cargo compartment of the MD-902. Most of the medical supplies had been in cardboard boxes strapped down with heavy nylon tow-straps, but several cases had ruptured with the force of the impact, spraying bandages, syringes, and pill bottles all over the cluttered interior. Orange flames chewed at the crate furthest to the rear, the tail section long gone, but the foremost part of the hold was intact. Easily a million-dollar mess, it would have made me faint on any other trip, but today it was a godsend.
Half-blind in the darkness, I crawled along with only the firelight and lightning bolts to guide me, my right knee aching. Like a crippled raccoon, I collected things as I went, conscious of the two pallets of intact supplies weighing right over my head. I’d taken several different first-aid courses with some hunting buddies of mine, and the mental reflexes kicked in to help soothe my frazzled mind.
Check for bleeds, stop the worst, then move on.
Aside from my battered chest and stomach, the rest of me remained mostly unharmed. I had nasty bruises from the seatbelts, my right knee swelled, my nose slightly crooked and crusted in blood, but otherwise I was intact. Dowsing every scratch and cut with a bottle of isopropyl alcohol I found, I used butterfly closures on the smaller lacerations that peppered my skin. I wrapped soft white gauze over my abused palms and probed at the big cut where the last shard had been, only stopping when I was sure there were no pieces of glass wedged inside my flesh.
“Not too bad.” I grunted to myself, trying to sound impassive like a doctor might. “Rib must have stopped it. Gonna need stitches though. That’ll be fun.”
Pawing through the broken cases, I couldn’t find any suture chord, but just as I was about to give up, I noticed a small box that read ‘medical skin stapler’.
Bingo.
I tore the small white plastic stapler free from its packaging and eyeballed the device. I’d never done this before, only seen it in movies, and even though the cut in my skin hurt, I wondered if this wouldn’t be worse.
You’ve gotta do it. That bleeding needs to stop. Besides, no one’s coming to rescue you, not with those rocket-launching psychos out there.
Taking a deep breath, I pinched the skin around the gash together, and pressed the mouth of the stapler to it.
Click.
A sharp sting, like that of a needle bit at the skin, but it didn’t hurt nearly as bad as the cut itself. I worked my way across the two-inch laceration and gave out a sigh of relief when it was done.
“Not going to bleed to death today.” I daubed ointment around the staples before winding more bandages over the wound.
Popping a few low-grade painkillers that tumbled from the cargo, I crawled wriggled through the nearest shattered window into the wet grass.
Raindrops kissed my face, clean and cool on my sweaty skin. Despite the thick cloud cover, there was enough constant lightning strikes within the storm to let me get glimpses of the world around me. My helicopter lay on its back, the blades snapped like pencils, with bits and pieces of it burning in chunks all around the small break in the trees. Chest-high scrub brush grew all around the low-lying ground, with pockets of standing water in places. My ears still rang from the impact of the crash, but I could start to pick up more crickets, frogs, and even some nocturnal birds singing into the darkness, like they didn’t notice the huge the hulk of flaming metal that had fallen from the sky. Overhead, the thunder rumbled onward, the feeble wind whistling, and there were other flashes on the horizon, orange and red ones, with crackles that didn’t sound quite like lightning.
The guns. They’re still fighting.
Instinctively, I pulled out my cellphone, and tapped the screen.
It fluttered to life, but no matter how I tried, I couldn’t get through to anyone, not even with the emergency function designed to work around having no service. The complicated wonder of our modern world was little better than a glorified paperweight.
Stunned, I sat down with my back to the helicopter and rested my head against the aluminum skin of the craft. How I’d gone from a regular medical supply run to being marooned in this hellish parody of rural America, I didn’t know, but one thig was certain; I needed a plan. Whoever fired the missile could have already contacted my charter company and made up some excuse to keep them from coming to look for me. No one else knew I was here, and even though I now had six staples holding the worst of my injuries shut, I knew I needed proper medical attention. If I wanted to live, I’d have to rescue myself.
My bag. I need to get my go-bag, grab some gear and then . . . head somewhere else.
It took me a while to gather my green canvas paratrooper bag from its place behind the pilot’s seat and fill it with whatever supplies I could scrounge. My knee didn’t seem to be broken, but man did it hurt, and I dreaded the thought of walking on it for miles on end. I focused instead on inventorying my gear and trying to come up with a halfway intelligent plan of action.
I had a stainless-steel canteen with one of those detachable cups on the bottom, a little fishing kit, some duct tape, a lighter, a black LED flashlight with three spare batteries, a few tattered road maps with a compass, a spare pair of socks, medical supplies from the cargo, and a simple forest green plastic rain poncho. I also managed to unearth a functioning digital camcorder my ouma had gotten me for Christmas a few years back, though I wasn’t sure I wanted to do any filming in such a miserable state. Lastly, since it was a private supply run from a warehouse area near Pittsburgh to a direct hospital pad in Ohio, I’d been able to bring my K-Bar, a sturdy, and brutally simple knife designed for the Marine Corps that I used every time I went camping. It was pitiful in comparison to the rifle I wished I had with me, but that didn’t matter now. I had what I had, and I doubted my trusty Armalite would have alleviated my sore knee anyway.
Clicking on my flashlight, I huddled with the poncho around my shoulders inside the wreck of the chopper and peered at the dusty roadmaps. A small part of me hoped that a solution would jump out from the faded paper, but none came. These were all maps of western PA and eastern Ohio. None of them had a Barron County on them anywhere.
The man on the radio said to head north, right before they shot me down. That means they must be camped out to the north of here. South had that convoy and those burning houses, so that’s a no-go. Maybe I can backtrack eastward the way I came.
As if on cue, a soft pop echoed from over the eastern horizon, and I craned to look out the helicopter window, spotting more man-made flashes over the tree tops.
“Great.” I hissed between clenched teeth, aware of how the temperature dipped to a chilly 60 degrees, and how despite the conditions, my stomach had begun to growl. “Not going that way, are we? Westward it is.”
Walking away from my poor 902 proved to be harder than I’d anticipated. Despite the glass, the fizzling fires, and the darkness, it still held a familiar, human essence to it. Sitting inside it made me feel secure, safe, even calm about the situation. In any other circumstance, I would have just stayed with the downed aircraft to wait for help, but I knew the men who shot me down would likely find my crash site, and I didn’t want to be around when they did.
Unlike much of central and western Ohio, southeastern Ohio is hilly, brushy, and clogged with thick forests. Thorns snagged at my thin poncho and sliced at my pant legs. My knee throbbed, every step a form of self-inflicted torture. The rain never stopped, a steady drizzle from above just cold enough to be problematic as time went on, making me shiver. Mud slid under my tennis shoes, and every tree looked ten times bigger in the flickering beam of my cheap flashlight. Icy fear prickled at the back of my neck at some of the sounds that greeted me through the gloom. I’d been camping loads of times, both in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, but these noises were something otherworldly to me.
Strange howls, screeches, and calls permeated the rain-soaked sky, some almost roars, while others bordered on human in their intonation. The more I walked, the softer the distant gunfire became, and the more prevalent the odd sounds, until the shadows seemed to fill with them. I didn’t dare turn off my flashlight, or I’d been completely blind in the dark, but a little voice in the back of my head screamed that I was too visible, crunching through the gloomy forest with my long beam of light stabbing into the abyss. It felt as though a million eyes were on me, studying me, hunting me from the surrounding brush, and I bitterly recalled how much I’d loved the old Survivor Man TV series as a kid.
Not so fun being out in the woods at night. Especially alone.
A twig snapped somewhere behind me, and I whirled on the spot, one trembling hand resting on the hilt of my K-Bar.
Nothing. Nothing but trees, bushes, and rain dripping down in the darkness.
“This is stupid.” I whispered to myself to keep my nerves in check as I slowly spun on the spot. “I should have went eastward anyway. God knows how long I’m going to have to—”
Creak.
A groan of metal-on-metal echoed from somewhere to my right, and I spun to face it, yanking the knife on my belt free from its scabbard. It felt so small and useless in my hand, and I choked down a wave of nauseas fear.
Ka-whump. Creak. K-whump. Creak.
Underbrush cracked and crunched, a few smaller saplings thrashed, and from deep within the gloom, two yellow orbs flared to life. They poked through the mist in the trees, forming into slender fingers of golden light that swept back and forth in the dark.
The soldiers . . . they must be looking for me.
I swallowed hard and turned to slink away.
Ice jammed through my blood, and I froze on the spot, biting my tongue to stop the scream.
It stood not yards away, a huge form that towered a good twelve feet tall in the swirling shadows. Unpolished chrome blended with flash-rusted spots in the faded red paint, and grime-smeared glass shone with dull hues in the flashes of lightning. Where the wheels should have been, the rounded steel axels curved like some enormous hand had bent them, and the tires lay face-down on the muddy ground like big round feet, their hubcaps buried in the dirt. Dents, scrapes, and chips covered the battered thing, and its crooked little radio antenna pointed straight up from the old metal fender like a mast. I could barely make out the mud-coated VW on the rounded hood, and my mind reeled in shock.
Is . . . is that a car?
Both yellow headlights bathed me in a circle of bright, blinding light, and neither I nor the strange vehicle moved.
Seconds ticked by, the screech-thumping in the background only growing closer. I realized that I couldn’t hear any engine noises and had yet to see any soldiers or guns pointed my way. This car looked old, really old, like one of those classic Volkswagen Beetles that collectors fought over at auctions. Try as I might, I couldn’t see a driver inside the murky, mold-smeared windows.
Because there wasn’t one.
Lightning arched across the sky overhead, and the car standing in front of me blinked.
Its headlights slid shut, as if little metal shades had crawled over the bulbs for a moment and flicked open again. Something about that movement was so primal, so real, so lifelike, that every ounce of self-control I had melted in an instant.
Cursing under my breath, I lunged into the shrubs, and the world erupted around me.
Under my shoes, the ground shook, and the car surged after me in a cacophony of ka-thumps that made my already racing heart skip several beats. A weather-beaten brown tow truck from the 50’s charged through the thorns to my left, it’s headlights ablaze, and a dilapidated yellow school bus rose from its hiding place in the weeds to stand tall on four down-turned axel-legs. They all flicked their headlights on like giants waking from their slumber, and as I dodged past them, they each blared their horn into the night in alarm.
My breaths came short and tight, my knee burned, and I crashed through thorns and briars without thought to how badly I was getting cut up.
The cheap poncho tore, and I ripped it away as it caught on a tree branch.
A purple 70’s Mustang shook off its blanket of creeping vines and bounded from a stand of trees just ahead, forcing me to swerve to avoid being run over, my adrenaline at all-time highs.
This can’t be happening, this can’t be happening, this can’t be happening.
Slipping and sliding, I pushed through a stand of multiflora rose, and stumbled out into a flat, dark expanse.
I almost skidded to a stop.
What had once been a rather large field stood no taller than my shoestrings, the grass charred, and burnt. The storm above illuminated huge pieces of wreckage that lay scattered over the nearly 40-acre plot, and I could just make out the fire-blackened hulk of a fuselage resting a hundred yards away. The plane had been brought down a while ago it seemed, as there weren’t any flames left burning, and I threw myself toward it in frenzied desperation.
Burned grass and greasy brown topsoil slushed underfoot, and I could hear the squelching of the cars pursing me. Rain soaked me to the bone, and my lungs ached from sucking down the damp night air. A painful stich crept into my side, and I cursed myself for not putting in more time for cardio at the gym.
Something caught my left shoelace, and I hurtled to the ground, tasting mud and blood in between my teeth.
They’ve got me now.
I clawed at the mud, rolled, and watched a tire slam down mere inches from where my head had been. The Mustang loomed over me and jostled for position with the red Volkswagen and brown tow truck, the school bus still a few yards behind them. They couldn’t seem to decide who would get the pleasure of stomping me to death, and like a herd of stampeding wildebeest, they locked bumpers in an epic shoving match.
On all fours, I scampered out from under the sparring brutes, and dashed for the crumpled airplane, a white-painted DC-3 that looked like it had been cut in half by a gargantuan knife blade. I passed a snapped wing section, the oily remains of a turbo-prop engine, and a mutilated wheel from the landing gear. Climbing over a heap of mud, I squeezed into the back of the ruined flight cabin and dropped down into the dark cargo hold.
Wham.
No sooner had my sneakers hit the cold metal floor, and the entire plane rocked from the impact of something heavy ramming it just outside. I tumbled to my knees, screaming in pain as, once again, I managed to bash the sore one off a bracket in the wall.
My hand smeared in something gooey, and I scrabbled for my flashlight.
It clicked on, a wavering ball of white light in the pitch darkness, and I fought the urge to gag. “Oh man . . .”
Three people, or what was left of them, lay strewn over the narrow cargo area. Claret red blood coated the walls, caked on the floor, and clotted under my mud-spattered shoes. Bits of flesh and viscera were stuck to everything, and tatters of cloth hung from exposed sections of broken bone. An eerie set of bloody handprints adorned the walls, and the only reason I could tell it had been three people were the shoes; all of them bore anklebones sticking out above blood-soaked socks. It smelled sickly sweet, a strange, nauseas odor that crept into my nose and settled on the back of my tongue like an alien parasite.
Something glinted in the beam of my flashlight, and my pulse quickened as I pried the object loose from the severed arm that still clung to it.
“Hail Mary full of Grace.” I would have grinned if it weren’t for the fact that the plane continued to buck and roll under the assault from the cars outside.
The pistol looked old, but well-maintained, aside from the light coating of dark blood that stained its round wooden handle. It felt heavy, but good in my hand, and I turned it over to read the words, Waffenfabrik Mauser stenciled into the frame, with a large red 9 carved into the grip. For some reason, it vaguely reminded me of the blasters from Star Wars.
I fumbled with a little switch that looked like a safety on the back of the gun and stumbled toward a gap in the plane’s dented fuselage to aim out at the surrounding headlights.
Bang.
The old gun bucked reliably in my hand, its long barrel spitting a little jet of flame into the night. I had no idea if I hit anything, but the attacking cars recoiled, their horns blaring in confusion.
They turned, and scuttled for the tree line as fast as their mechanical legs could go, the entire ordeal over as fast as it had begun.
Did I do that?
Perplexed, I stared down at the pistol in my hand.
Whoosh.
A large, inky black shadow glided down from the clouds, and the yellow school bus moved too slow to react in time.
With a crash, the kicking nightmarish vehicle was thrown onto its side, spraying glass and chrome trim across the muddy field. Its electro-synth horn blared with wails of mechanical agony, as two huge talon-like feet clamped down on it, and the enormous head of the flying creature lowered to rip open its engine compartment.
The horn cut out, and the enormous flying entity jerked its head back to gulp down a mass of what looked like sticky black vines from the interior of the shattered bus.
At this range, I could see now that the flying creature bore two legs and had its wings half-tucked like a vulture that had descended to feed on roadkill. Its head turned slightly, and in the glow of another lightning bolt, my jaw went slack at the realization of what it was.
A tree trunk. It’s a rotted tree trunk.
I couldn’t tell where the reptilian beast began, and where the organic tree components ended, the upper part of the head shaped like a log, while the lower jaw resembled something out of a dinosaur movie. Its skin looked identical to the outside of a shagbark hickory but flexed with a supple featheriness that denoted something closer to skin. Sharp branch-like spines ranged down its back, and out to the end of its tail, which bore a massive round club shaped like a diseased tree-knot. Crouched on both hind legs, it braced the hooked ends of its folded wings against the ground like a bat, towering higher than a semi-truck. Under the folds of its armored head, a bulging pair of chameleon-like eyes constantly spun in their sockets, probing the dark for threats while it ate.
One black pupil locked onto the window I peered through, and my heart stopped.
The beast regarded me for a moment, with a curious, sideways sniff.
With a proud, contemptful head-toss, the shadow from the sky parted rows of razor-sharp teeth to let out a roar that shook the earth beneath my feet. It was the triumphant war cry of a creature that sat at the very top of the food chain, one that felt no threat from the fragile two-legged beings that walked the earth all around it. It hunted whenever it wanted, ate whatever it wanted, and flew wherever it wanted. It didn’t need to rip the plane apart to devour me.
Like my hunter-gatherer ancestors from thousands of years ago, I wasn’t even worth the energy it would take to pounce.
I’m hiding in the remains of the cockpit now, which is half-buried under the mud of the field, enough to shield the light from my screen so that thing doesn’t see it. My service only now came back, and it’s been over an hour since the winged beast started in on the dead bus. I don’t know when, or how I’m going to get out of here. I don’t know when anyone will even see this post, or if it will upload at all. My phone battery is almost dead, and at this point, I’m probably going to have to sleep among the corpses until daylight comes.
A dead man sleeping amongst friends.
If you live in the Noble County area in southeastern Ohio, be careful where you drive, fly, and boat. I don’t know if it’s possible to stumble into this strange place by ground, but if so, then these things are definitely headed your way.
If that happens . . . pray that they don’t find you.

Sir David
Far across the Capital city from the impromptu Sarkin wedding feast Sir David and Ariane were walking around the Imperial district, hand in hand, lazily enjoying the light breeze and the warm sun as they played tourist.
Sir David couldn't help but glance over at Ariane constantly, both to enjoy her, and to listen to her next piece of interesting information.
One place he had some mutual hobbies with Ariane was in history, and Ariane had devoured human history and mythology by the truck load once she'd gotten access to the Tear's internal comm net. Her reading speed and retention rate was truly something you had to see to believe.
She'd also proved she was quite crafty in the arts and crafts sense. After she'd found out about the minotaur of Greek myth, she'd set herself to work designing some new outfits that mixes ancient Greek and traditional Agela fashion, then partnered with Mama-san the Pavorus tailor aboard the Tear to produce them.
The result in this particular case was a stunning white dress that was just sheer enough in some places to be more than a little distracting, while not being at all lewd or erotic. Or anything but conservative by galactic standards.
Sure, with a slit in the skirt to her upper mid thigh, and some actual cleavage, she was showing off more skin than an Apuk girl might on average, but anything more than a micro bikini could be considered 'conservative' by galactic standards. Paired with her usual concealed shifter belt which showed off her waist and the sheer intensity of her curves in a delightfully subtle way, she'd then left her bountiful golden hair curly and put it up with a pair of pins.
The total effect between the colors of her body, her rich caramel skin, the blue of her eyes, her shining golden hair, and the various whites and creams of her not quite toga made her look the part of an actual goddess of Greek myth. Ari was an absolute gem of a woman, and was just as beautiful in sweat pants as she was all done up... but Sir David certainly appreciated the results when Ariane took the time to get all gussied up.
It was only due to David's sheer force of will and decades of self discipline that he wasn't all over her like a teenage boy on his prom date to use an American idiom. The temptation alone was... intense. The desire was strong.
Yet.
Sir David wanted to hold back. For his own sake. For Ariane's sake. He wanted to build a bond in more than mutual physical desire... and he had to remember what being... touched... was like. How to touch. How to accomplish the physical parts of being a lover.
He could hear Mary scolding him for ignoring her when she'd told him to seek out someone else to help keep his life fulfilled and happy... letting what were once well developed skills in how to be a partner, how to be a lover, how to be a friend in a context outside the military, atrophy deeply. Then again, could Mary have known just how badly her death was going to hurt him? She'd have likely scolded him for that too, but still. He just couldn't give the old girl up... and with Ariane around to stand next to the ghostly love of his life, and not in place of... well. Maybe Mary would forgive him for waiting just a little bit longer to find the right woman.
That more women could quite easily follow was... something that was becoming somewhat intriguing to David. There was, after all, near limitless potential in the galaxy.
Perhaps he was talking to Jerry too much about such things in the Ward Room after the female officers had mostly left for the evening, but the man made a persuasive, if somewhat self-serving argument in the name of plural marriage in the galaxy. Sir David himself didn't have a religious or moral objection to such things, and considering he already had more or less agreed with his... girlfriend for lack of a better term. Fiancée perhaps. That she would be his second wife per galactic terms, to respect the mother of his first children made the question of a third or fourth wife seem... much easier than simply considering a second. If the right woman showed up... why not?
"Oh! David! Look!"
Before David can be completely shaken from his thoughts he's been dragged through an ornate gate set into a stone wall into a garden. David's eyes wander the place and automatically map out the details. They're just passed through a stone wall onto a platform resting on what appeared to mostly be a natural hill, with a small set of steps leading down to the actual ground level and the stone path that ran through the grass.
The garden itself is quite large, and beautifully crafted with paths, not just of stone but within the plants themselves winding naturally through the stunning blooms and leading towards what appeared to be an altar at one end of the garden and a large set of stairs at the other.
The stairs lead up to a balcony, over which loomed a fortified building some distance behind it. David recognized it as an old fort, in a style endemic to older Apuk architecture that David had seen a few times with Ariane so far this morning while touring the Imperial district.
David makes his second sweep of the area, now looking for even more fine details this time around. Looking up a bit higher finds ten statues lining the area, each paying homage to a larger statue of a woman in armor behind the altar.
She was posed with a warblade that was nearly as long as she was tall, and she appeared to have been very tall in life, regardless of how the sculptor had scaled her up. Still, the detail in the sculpture was remarkable. The warrior woman's smile warmed the garden that was clearly a memorial like she was standing there with them that moment, no matter how long it had been since her death.
Ariane sighs with pleasure at both the exquisite sculptures around them, but also the skillful display of horticulture, taking a brief moment to sniff a vibrant blue bloom before pulling up her guide book.
"Let's see... Yes, this is the Memorial Garden of the First Battle Princess. Hmm. Some warning in the Apuk language I can't read, where's the... ah! Here we are!"
Ariane grins at her success at finding what she was looking for and starts to read the contents of the page to David.
"Princess Mira'Tok Crownborn was the title that she ended her life under many thousands of Centris standard years ago at the dawn of pre-space flight modern Apuk history. Mira'Tok was the first to receive a crown directly from the hand of the woman who would become the first Empress of Serbow, and is the predecessor of every battle princess to ever wear a crown."
The Agela woman's eyes glimmer as she continues to read, clearly excited by both the history and the craftsmanship around them.
"The statues displayed around her are her ten companions, her battle sisters... and there's a twelfth statue behind her, of the Sorcerer Dus'Kvun, her husband. Not to deemphasize him, but rather their display rotates with the Princess being displayed forward by day, and her husband by night when bioluminescent plants from the dark forest naturally light the garden up! Seems the statues automatically rotate into their different positions after sunset and at dawn. The guide suggests this was a commentary on the two halves of martial supremacy on Serbow... and a more traditional depiction of both male and female."
David arches an eyebrow and leans over to read over Ariane's shoulder a bit. "Really, she was the first? Interesting... How old is the statue then? It's incredible. Almost like she's about to start laughing and tell us a story about her adventures."
Ariane nods. "She was famous for doing just that. This garden is a few thousand years old, commissioned early in the current Imperial family's reign. Mira'Tok was named a... it's hard to pronounce it, so I'll just translate, a sword saint. So like the kensei from Japan on Earth that we discussed the other day. So Mira'Tok is a religious figure as well as a historical and martial figure. So this memorial garden was dedicated as an official war shrine of the Apuk Imperial military. What's the mean though?"
Ariane flicks through a few more screens, focused entirely on learning something new about the place they'd found themselves in.
"Here we go! As an Imperial War Shrine, the garden of the mausoleum plays host to a variety of ceremonies annually including the Empress praying for the Imperial military, officers being commissioned or promoted, and senior enlisted swearing fresh oaths of enlistment. To be offered or granted permission to swear your oaths in the garden is a significant honor and marks out either a highly distinguished, or extremely loyal individual with many years or service... or the type of fresh face who's on the fast track to bigger and better things. It's not automatic even for battle princesses who take up Imperial military service."
Ariane pushes her communicator towards David, pointing to a specific paragraph. "Ooh, look! Apparently it's not uncommon for the Empress to turn up unannounced and receive the oaths of those permitted to make their oaths in Mira'Tok's mausoleum personally."
Sir David raises an eyebrow at that. "Dear God, I don't think her majesty ever surprised anyone to take their oaths of service personally... though she did knight me and award me my Victoria cross personally, as was the standard of the age. To take an oath of service personally like that from her warriors. That's truly special for those Imperial officers and enlisted who are privileged to offer their oaths like that I'm sure. To make oaths of loyalty and service personally to your liege. Ye gods and little fishes, it's right out of a fairy tale!"
"I know! Isn't it great?" Ariane clearly suppresses a squeal, doing her best to remain respectfully calm in this sacred space.
Suddenly however, a concerning thought struck Sir David.
"Say, Ari, are there any issues with us being here as outsiders? This is, as you say, sacred ground."
Ariane puts her nose back in her communicator and reads through a few pages quickly.
"Well it says this shrine isn't considered super popular to visit because it's small and somewhat out of the way, though many warriors make pilgrimage here to entreat Mira'Tok's blessing and invoke her courage, so this part of the war shrine is proudly open to the public. Though offworld visitors are of course asked to be respectful to the gardens and the spirits of the Princess, her husband and her shield sisters. In fact... as a warrior yourself you should be able to access the inner shrine if you'd like. There's apparently some rare artifacts related to Mira'Tok, and there's usually a few Wardens, retired senior members of the Apuk Imperial forces, around who are always happy to chat with a fellow warrior. While they nominally guard the shrine, apparently they also give regular discussions and talks about the history of this place, the Imperial military, and Mira'Tok. It's by appointment only, but they also only need like thirty minutes notice."
David nods, looking around again and admiring some more of the sheer effort that had gone into this beautiful little slice of serenity in the capital.
"Sounds like we should register for one of their talks if they wouldn't mind an audience of two. Heh, registering for a tour from wardens of a tower in the capital city of an Empire. It's so familiar it's almost a touch nostalgic."
David gestures upwards at the tower that was clearly the inner shrine.
"It's just like the Tower of London back home in some ways, right down to the wardens. The Yeoman Warders of the Tower back on Earth are all retired senior enlisted military personnel. Next you'll tell me they keep a local species of black bird here. Still, this other part of the shrine, the inner shrine, I can gain access to it? But you made it sound like you couldn't? Why's that?"
David gazes over at the now blushing Ariane.
"No such luck on the black birds. As to the inner shrine... It. Ah. Access to the inner shrine is limited to warriors and their... well. It says husbands but considering you're the warrior I'm sure they'd make exception for your spouse but we aren't married and I-"
Sir David leans over, cups Ariane's cheek and chastely kisses her on the lips, a mark of affection Ariane eagerly returns with a loving sigh.
"Ooh..."
"Maybe I'm not so worried about that any more. Forgive an old man his foibles my dear... besides. I'd say you're at least my fiancée, and I. Well I don't want to presume, but I'd be. It."
David feels his tongue tangle a bit as he remembers he hadn't expressed a lot of his feelings on this subject to Ariane yet.
"I... Ari. I'd be a fool not to marry you. I think I might have done you a great disservice in not being more clear about that. I ah. Yes. It's. You're to be my wife. If you'll have me of course... Bollocks that came out wrong."
Ari looks back at David, her long lashes fluttering as she gives him a coy smile.
"You're impossible sometimes you know that?"
"I'm unfortunately aware."
"I love that about you. I suspect Mary did too. Yes David. I'm going to be your wife. You're going to be my husband. There's no need to ask, it's set in the stars and has been from the moment we first made eye contact when you came to rescue me. Because for all your desire to take it slow, I've utterly failed to honor your desires and I fall more and more in love with you with every passing minute of every passing day. How can I not? I'm a girl who loves fairy tales after all, and here at last is my gallant knight to carry me away. I do prefer the human style role swap honestly. Much more fun to be carried off on horseback by you instead of carrying you off. Makes me feel all delicate."
The first kiss was nice. The second kiss was like nothing else David had ever experienced in his life apart from kisses with Mary, and in that second kiss he wasn't worried about having to remember how to be a lover to someone anymore.
Ari's lips warmed him from the tips of his ears down to his toes, making him melt just slightly as they embrace among the flowers, which seem to bloom all the more brightly in the face of such a passionate act of mutual affection, turning up to the couple ever so slightly as if they were the sun itself.
Then the spell is broken by a sharp wolf whistle and a leering cackle from nearby.
"Hey sister, care to share some sugar?"
Three well dressed Apuk, with what David recognized as gang markings peeking over their collars or out of their sleeves saunter through the gate, slowly spreading out.
"Told you girls I smelled a man. Cute too... So what's the slice sister, you the first wife?"
"S-Second. I'm his second wife." Ariane stutters for a second but quickly gets more confident in her tone, her powerful body tensing.
One of the toughs, a woman with poorly maintained reddish purple locks, looks at the senior tough, a woman with vibrant green hair that's clearly much better taken care of.
"...Why are you asking? We just want to have a little fun right? Make this trip up to the Imperial district worth it?"
"Yep, and all the better if sister here is willing to share. Might even make some easy credits girlie."
Ariane tenses a bit more, as her cheeks color with what David recognizes as anger. Then he notices Ariane's hand subtly going towards the controls for her shifter belt.
"Did you seriously just ask me to whore my husband out to you dirtbags?"
"Hey now, dirt bag's a mean way to put it!" The gang leader's tone takes on an oily, play acting hurt tone as the three women begin to spread out a bit more. "Might just hurt my feelings, and you know girls, when my feelings are hurt there's just about only one thing that'll really quench the fire it starts in me."
"...Bout a liter of this bitch's blood boss?" Says the redhead again, leering at Ariane as she speaks.
The gang leader's smile gets extra toothy, making her look like she was part Cannidor for a moment.
"Yep, and a couple rounds with old boy over there while she bleeds out on the stone. Hey. Call some more of the girls over, I think this might end up being a grand old time."
First Last

Doctor went to bat for me.
I've tried so hard to explain to people that genetics plays a HUGE ROLE in weight loss. I don't eat anymore than most skinny people yet cannot lose weight to save my life.
For 2 months in high school I ate nothing but salads and plain chicken breasts and went to the gym at school 2 hours after school 5 days a week, sweat my ass off and lost 3 whole pounds.
Yet I saw dudes pack away the fucking food, and sit and play video games and were still SKINNY. Like how?
My aunt ended up having to get lap band surgery because she tried every diet and diet pill under the sun.
I want to slap people who say "it's just calories in / calories out". OK then explain to me how people can eat 3X as much as I do and not exercise at all and not gain weight? (and no, these people didn't have an eating disorder, on meth or anything weird).
In fact growing up my mom cooked our meals and ate the same portion sizes and was still skinny. Not me and my dad, on the other hand.
Every one in his family is obese, and not from over eating. Everyone on my mom's side is skinny.
I don't get why doctors can't figure this out? Also fun fact...novicaine takes 3 times as long to kick in than it does other people, same with edibles.

Let's cut to the fat: I weigh 360lbs and that weight isn't coming off in any significant amount before my last minute vacation this week (June 5th-9th). This ultimately means I'm not able to safely go on long hikes or navigate over rugged terrain very well. Swimming and boating activities are fine but some safety items like life jackets can be difficult to procure in my size.
I'd like to get out of my hotel and travel around the island and be as physically active as my body permits. What are some good activities and destinations for people in poor physical condition? I know Diamond Head is right out, but I'm wondering if the Missouri tour and the Iolani Palace are doable for someone with limited mobility (not in a wheelchair or using a cane, I just need frequent breaks to sit down and catch my breath similar to a senior citizen).

so i've had a day to calm down and i'm trying to stay positive but i'm honestly kind of devastated
my surgery was scheduled for June 12th and i had my pre-op appointment yesterday. i got anxious as soon as my surgeon walked in because he seemed kind of annoyed and almost flippant? he was really nice at my consult so i was pretty surprised and confused
basically he denied me because he didn't feel comfortable operating on someone my size. at my consult i was 109 lbs and 5'1 and 3/4 and yesterday i weighed 105 point something, i can't remember exactly. my insurance had approved my surgery for 250g removed and at first he said he just couldn't remove that much, but then when i asked about moving forward without going through my insurance he made it sound like operating on me wasn't possible at all, then after like 20 mins of what felt like him trying to talk me out of even wanting a reduction in the first place, he finally said that he couldn't do a reduction on me
this is the first time he expressed any concern about operating on me over my general size which is honestly really fucking annoying. at my consult in JANUARY, he said i would be one of if not the smallest person he's operated on (which i guess i should have taken as a red fucking flag) but his only concern was my insurance approving the surgery, not him actually performing it. i am glad he didn't just attempt it if he didn't think he was capable, but i feel like waiting until a week and a half before my surgery to do this was pretty messed up
i'm not really sure what to do now. i can look into trying with a different surgeon but i'm in a really weird spot with my insurance - i'm getting kicked off my parents in October but i can't get insurance through my work until i get kicked off, so i'm in limbo until then. i know my surgeon said i wouldn't meet the removal requirements but i would still like a second opinion and to at least try before i just pay thousands of dollars out of pocket
my surgeon mentioned the possibility of getting liposuction on my breasts but that he doesn't do that nor does he have any referrals for someone who does. after googling i guess this is called a "scarless breast reduction," i've found some information but it doesn't seem very common and the closest place that does it is over 4 hours away. has anyone ever done this or know anything about it?? it seems like it could be an option but it will still be a few thousand dollars
i'm really trying not to sink into how shitty this feels but i'm really upset. i was so close and now i'm just going to have to continue being uncomfortable and in pain for who knows how long. also my surgeon was honestly kind of being a dick. he was dismissive and in no way acted like he was giving someone distressing and literally life changing news
i'm just kind of ranting to get this all out but if anyone's been in a similar situation and found a solution i'd love to hear it

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People change all the time and I understand that. Heck, I’ve changed many, many times! Breakups are an unfortunate part of life and I get that. But, the number of stories on here about relationships that spanned over a decade ending breaks me out into a cold sweat, and makes my heart go stone cold. What makes this worse is that these are just the stories I’m hearing about. Not everyone posts on Reddit and there’s still such a large sample size to hear from (potentially). That’s an absolutely terrifying reality.
From what I gathered on this sub (and various other BU subs), or rather a pattern I picked up on: a majority of the breakups discussed here are at the 2, 4 and 10 year mark. I find that so weird, like why even years?? I know it’s nothing to do with the even years, but I’m seriously wondering what the reason is behind this. Do people just experience exponential growth every two years to the point that they grow super apart from their partners? What gives?

First/Previous
Okay everyone. Chiyo began, as all members of the household settled down and sat cross legged in a circle in the living room. We're going to try out a guided meditation. It should help with stress and anxiety, and it's really relaxing! Start by gently breathing deeply through your nose, and then keep repeating this until the guide tells you what to do next…
It was getting late in the evening, and Jack had only returned about an hour ago, having very much lost track of time before he finally made his way back. He had a little trouble finding a path back through the districts despite being able to use a marker on his commlink to pinpoint the location of home. The hot tub, which was slightly larger than Jack had expected, had been mostly finished by the time he arrived. However, due to several employee absences the team leader apologised and promised to finish the last of the plumbing the following afternoon after the group got back from school, which Alora quickly planned out with them. Sephy had swept the area for any possible bugs or electronic tags an undercover enemy could plant, but had fortunately found nothing.
A few of them looked sceptical as Chiyo put on a guided meditation program with some relaxing music in the background, which to Jack sounded like the most bizarre series of timbres and pitches unlike anything he had heard. It had the peaceful, slow quality of meditative music from earth, but it still jarred him somewhat due to its unnatural nature.
Still, he tried to follow Chiyo’s instructions as the Ilithii floated back to the circle to sit next to Sephy, who already looked like she was having trouble concentrating, though she made the effort for Chiyo’s sake. Next to him, Nika was already controlling and slowing down her breathing along with him, both of them semi-used to the concept of meditation already, and it looked like Alora was doing something more akin to prayer. The twins and Vanya seemed to be able to cope enough as well, all having some kind of magical ability that required some basic kind of mental concentration.
“Now, bring your attention to your physical form…” The soothing voice of the instructor gently called out over the background music. “Feel your body pressing into the surface beneath you, and take note of any areas of tension or discomfort…”
“I’m well aware of my injuries you dumb bit-” Nika grumbled before Chiyo psychically reminded her to be quiet during the meditation.
“Do not try to change anything with these sensations, merely observe them…”
Relax Sephy… Chiyo quietly told the Skritta, who was slightly fidgeting. Try not to overthink it!
“Now return your attention to your breathing, noticing all the sensations as you inhale, then gently exhale…” The voice continued. They did so, though by the sounds some of them were making they were overdoing it.
“As you continue to breath, bring yourself mentally to your peaceful place. This could be any location that brings you a sense of tranquillity and relaxation. Now imagine yourself in this place, surrounded by the sights, sounds and smells that make it special to you…”
Jack’s mind brought forth an image of home. His mother, his father, his brothers, his sister, his grandparents all surrounding him. He was safe, he was with his family. He had his whole life ahead of him…
And it had all been taken away from him.
Jack squirmed involuntarily as his mind was dragged back to a dark place, his grief threatening to overwhelm him again…
“As you bask in this tranquil scene, allow yourself to let go of your worries and concerns that may be weighing on your mind. Imagine them fading away, leaving you at ease…”
All the faces of the people he would never see again stared at him coldly, judgingly. He had committed acts of horror he never thought he would ever have to commit. Even if there was a chance he could return to Earth, could his family even recognise the shell of a person he had become? What would they say?
“When you are ready, take a deep breath, and as you exhale, slowly open your eyes, and reorient yourself with your surroundings. Carry this sense of calm and relaxation with you into the rest of your day…”
As the guided meditation came to an end Jack quickly got to his feet to get a drink.
“Jack, is everything alright?” Alora asked him in alarm.
“All good.” He lied. “My legs are just a bit stiff, and the meditation was a bit hard.”
“Yeah I get what you mean.” Sephy used her wings to help her kick up. “I don’t really understand the whole ‘sit-and-do-nothing’ thing to be honest, it’s like I need to be actually doing something. But hell, I still gave it a go…”
Thanks for trying it anyway Sephy! Chiyo smiled.
“So what do we do now?” Nika asked everyone, as Jack returned with some canned drinks for all of them. “Still got a few hours before we probably need to go to bed."
“Nothing exhausting, please. Let’s just watch a movie?” Alora suggested after a few seconds of nobody contributing anything.
Perhaps some of our new housemates have a suggestion? Chiyo asked, looking to Vanya and the two Squa’Kaar, who hadn’t been confident enough to suggest anything as the newest additions to the household.
“I’m only a temporary housemate, I still have my own place.” Vanya smiled softly. But maybe WageMage?”
“That’s a good classic to start with!” Sephy grinned. “Have you seen it before Jack?”
“Can’t say I have, the Temple of Hope didn’t really have movie nights.” Jack reminded her with a smile. “What’s it about?”
“It’s basically a comedy film about an office worker that uses magic to get ahead and prank her bosses!” Vanya told him. “But you really need to watch it!”
“I’ll get some snacks.” Alora called, quickly grabbing a few bags of sweets out of one of the cupboards while the others tried to get comfortable on the sofa. It was large enough for all of them…just about.
“We should probably go furniture shopping at some point.” Sephy pointed out the obvious problem. “Especially if you’re gonna offer refuge for those that need it, Alora.”
“Damn, well, we are gonna hit a few of the rubbish heaps and scrapyards for materials we can use to fix up the shuttle, and anything else that we could use for home improvements.” Nika reasoned. “We even got this sofa from one of them though it was a bitch to drag all the way back here!”
At least we have more people that could help now. Maybe even more depending on who joins us. Chiyo added. Because I remember helping you spend half the day dragging that here, and I swore never to do manual labour ever again!
“Well, perhaps we can find a better way this time.” Alora concluded as she came back with the sweets while everyone sat down, and took a few blankets to warm themselves up with. Jack took one of the ends of the sofa so he wouldn’t be squished between two people this time, and Vanya was quick to sit next to him, even putting an arm around him, which he wasn’t opposed to. The thick, warm brown fur of the Chuna made him feel comfortable, and he subconsciously leaned in and relaxed.
“Ooof!” He grunted, as Sephy sat on his lap, pulling the blanket over them and cuddling up to him. Jack reflexively put his other arm around her to keep her in place, lamenting that he could no longer reach for the bag of sweets until Chiyo telepathically sent one his way.
“Hey Chiyo, could I have one as well?” Sephy cheekily asked the Ilithii.
Sure! Chiyo agreed, sending another sweet floating towards Sephy, before pinging it off her forehead,
“Ow!” Sephy grunted as they started the movie.
Jack appreciated the humour and plot of the movie, with the hapless office worker using magic to explode her boss’s tea, and accidently making her manager believe his wife was cheating on him, only to later discover that she actually was. He could see why this movie was a favourite with the girls, though he didn’t know if it would be well received on earth. Though this film was well written and amusing (despite him not understanding much of the humour), he could imagine it being received as too woke back on Earth. When the plot eventually evolved into the protagonist trying desperately to avoid the investigations of the alien equivalent of ‘HR’, it really ramped up the humour, which had even him chuckling on occasion.
However he was more subdued as the others laughed freely at the shenanigans, his mind going back to the horrible experiences he'd had, and his grief from being separated from his family. Yet all around him, like a beacon of hope was a home full of friends having a good time with him.
Could he get used to this?
Yeah. He thought he could.
*****
Svaartal snarled as his arms ever so slowly pushed the weighted bar up, feeling the burn in his chest and arms as he repeated the motion, over and over, his heart pounding as he pushed himself to lift more weight than he had ever lifted before with his natural strength. Forcing himself beyond his limits, he felt his muscles straining as his breaths became more and more laboured. He knew he was overdoing it, but he didn’t care. He was determined to become stronger, more focused, more powerful. He had Carrow watching over Svaarti, so this gave him the opportunity to really cut loose.
Devil’s Daughter would come for him and Svaarti again. He barely won their previous encounter and it took all he had to stand a chance against the raw power of her spells. Next time he would be better. He had heard the words she spoke to his sister, calling Svaarti a thief, though as far as he was concerned, if his mother looted the Golden Staff during the Demonfire War from the Stygians, it was hers by right of conquest. Not that the Devilspawn would care. If Devil’s Daughter was going to target him, Svaartal had no doubt she would attempt to do so through his sister, so he needed to be ready.
He had been pushing himself harder and harder ever since he first faced Frost to a standstill in that ambush, fully expecting to face him again soon, especially after the Drow of House Mal’Kar recruited him. He had been thoroughly changed by that experience, and he suspected the Outsider was changed by it too. From open hostility towards one another in their first week to caution in the next, it was a strange dance the two of them did.
But now?
Something about the Klown attack had changed him even more. For just a moment the two of them had fought side by side for a common cause, and though he did strongly consider it, he didn’t stick with the human. Despite that however, the words Frost told him certainly stuck with him.
Help me stop them.
And he did, didn’t he? He stopped to rescue several of the trapped partygoers and had cut them a path to safety, only to then decimate the Klown numbers with his most powerful spells. He had been considered a hero of the battle, alongside Frost himself and the dragon-bitch that officially kicked him out of the Red Legion. In a strange way, it felt…gratifying?
‘Though the greatest hero that night may not recover from her sacrifice…’ Svaartal thought to himself sadly. Why, Svaarti?’
He got up from the bench and slowly slunk over to the tension cable, cranking up the weight as high as he dared. Taking a deep breath he grabbed the handle with both hands and pulled, yanking the cable over his shoulder before releasing, then doing the same exercise over his other shoulder.
His memories of his fight with Devil’s Daughter came back to him, though he cursed not having a recording so he could better recall. Many of his actions had been instinctual, so much so that he could barely remember what he even did in several instants. He was fortunate that he kept a versatile array of spells prepared and ready for use in any situation, though it was his blade and quick thinking with his illusion and spacial magic that allowed him to slip through the Stygian’s defences.
But though he focused on the fight, her words still rang out in his mind.
‘Why the hell do you hate my people so much?!’
Dumb question. The Devilspawn killed his mother, and even after the Demonfire War many of their kind went rabid, committing horrific acts on innocent people, just the same as they did when Azazel, Lord of Torment was still alive.
But something about the sheer hurt in Devil’s Daughter’s expression tugged away at the back of his mind, like an itch that wouldn’t go away. Perhaps it was…
He was interrupted by the noise of someone approaching. Letting go of the handle, the cable he was pulling quickly snapped back to ping against the weights as he collapsed to the floor, his body dangerously overheated and his breath coming in ragged gasps. He quickly activated the enchantment of his Riverspray Ring, sending out a cloud of cooling mist that instantly made him feel slightly better.
“Good evening, Dextra.” Svaartal greeted the drow politely as he slinked over to where he had left a towel.
“Hey.” She replied, before something caught her eye and she pointed to his bare back. “What happened there?”
“What do you mean?” Svaartal stiffened at the sensitive question, having an idea what Dextra was referring to.
“By the gods…” She muttered. “Your scales are cracked and fucked up, and you’ve got a lot of scars, how?”
“I am aware that my scales need grooming.” Svaartal replied tersely, trying to be patient with the inquisitive drow despite the sensitive subject. “However I did not have anyone to teach me how to do it growing up. If it displeases you I will attempt to rectify the issue…”
“I’m not my sister, so you can shut up.” Dextra snorted. “You’ve got a fuckton of scars too, that can’t be good for you…”
“It is not.” Svaartal growled in anger before he quickly steadied himself, realising he was talking to a Drow Noble. “My apologies Lady Mal’Kar, what did you wish from me?”
Dextra snorted at the sudden formality, but she paid it no mind as she showed him her commlink. Displayed was a NetTube video from a channel by the name of ‘DevilLover69’.
“What is this?” Svaartal asked, confused.
“You might find this kinda funny!” She grinned, and played the video, the thumbnail of which displayed a medium sized, overweight looking being with pinkish-brown fur, a long cone-like trunk, huge grey bulbous eyes and thin, spindly arms.
“Ahem, attention everyone! Listen up, for I have a message for all of you! Recently, I have heard rumours that somebody out there has apparently defeated my beloved waifu, Devil’s Daughter, in combat! Let me tell you, that is something that will not go unpunished! I have spent countless hours defending her honour online, but now I have heard the call, and The Supreme Gentleman will step up and avenge her!”
“I’ve been training hard all this time, inspired by the queen herself! I’ve watched all of her fights, and I’ve practised martial arts on my Devil’s Daughter body pillow! So I hope the killer is watching, because I’m ready, and I’m coming for you! And I promise you, when I defeat you, you will wish you had never been born! I’ll see you on the streets, punk!”
“Pretty funny right?” Dextra asked, as Svaartal gave a slight grin.
“I really hope that’s not a troll!” he chuckled.
“Well if The Supreme Gentleman is legit and if he comes for you, it’ll give the others a good laugh.” Dextra giggled. “And…um…I could try and help you with the scales if you want? The datanet should have some videos and I could do your back if you want?”
Svaartal considered it for a moment, knowing where this would likely end up. He had not been requested by Izadora tonight, who seemed to be particularly busy with House Mal’Kar business, and they had never been anything more than casual so he had the freedom to do as he wished.
“I don’t see why not.” The Nirah shrugged, as he followed the bubbly drow to her chambers.
*****
“He’s her son.” Grandmaster Ilvella told her with a sad look on closing the door to his quarters. “I knew it the moment I saw him, though I couldn’t believe it.”
“What?” Nya exclaimed, having broken protocol and immediately followed her master to talk, with Rena trying to stop her. “Not a chance! There’s no way! They’re nothing alike! He’s evil, he can’t be!”
“I knew Svaarvali for a long time.” the Grandmaster sighed, drained from sharing his painful memory. “Even if he didn’t resemble her physically, there were subtle things I saw in just those few moments meeting him that could only have been from one of her line.”
“Are you certain he is not a different relation to the Saviour, Master?” Rena asked stoically.
“I am certain.” The Grandmaster nodded, closing his eyes. “But irrespective of how I may feel on the matter I will not sacrifice everything we have built for sentiment. Our plans do not change.”
“What are your orders, Master?” Nya tentatively asked.
“Do not engage this…Svaartal under any circumstances, unless in self-defence, and maintain your civilian cover.” He strictly told them both. “He will no doubt expect Devil’s Daughter to retaliate soon if she is able, so we will be patient and wait. I have not seen this Svaarti you are familiar with, but it seems like she may be more receptive than her brother if she is able to recover. If she does, continue to be her friend and get closer to her.”
His gaze then returned to the steely look Nya was used to from her master.
“However, Devil’s Daughter must be sighted soon, unharmed and doing something good to restore the people’s faith. A few days of inactivity will be expected before you must return, and with luck we can completely obscure the truth of your defeat as mere rumours.”
“I don’t think Head Whisperer Ratai has anything recent, save for the possible signs of the latest Killer Klown attack.” Nya reasoned. “And Scholar Volus is still deciphering what was discovered at the Pallid Pit, though Jack and his group have not relinquished the Gloom Cauldron they discovered as far as I am aware, which had ties to the ritual room, and which they’re theorising might have worked as some kind of beacon, though for what I have no idea.”
“I am sure we will find something.” Ilvella concluded. “Perhaps you and Rena can discover something in your civilian lives? The Outsider for one certainly seems to be a good source of trouble. Regardless, you two are dismissed. Heal up and rest early. You have school tomorrow.”
With that, Nya and Rena took their leave.
“This is…” Rena began.
“Impossible.” Nya snapped. “I refuse to believe it.”
“Nya…” Rena gently called to her, understanding the Stygian’s pain.
No, Rena.” Nya snarled, causing the usually stoic Vulsta to take a step back in shock. This wasn’t like her friend at all. “I should have killed him when I had the chance during our fight, and now I learn he’s related to the Saviour? Her son?!”
“You have another chance in the future.” Rena pointed out. “And you can lay the groundwork for that by preparing and training. Taking a loss like that is difficult, but it can be a blessing if you learn from it.”
Nya looked at her friend conflicted, and Rena was glad that the stone corridor of the monastery was deserted.
“Yes.” Nya sighed as she let go of her anger and returned to her normal self. “You’re right. I’ve taken losses before and I’ve come out stronger. I even faced the Killer Klown himself and sent him fleeing, so the problem isn’t necessarily my abilities, but my mind.”
Rena nodded calmly, seeing that Nya was pulling herself up. “And what is your next move?”
“The Grandmaster is right that I need to make a quick reappearance as Devil’s Daughter.” Nya began, sounding more like her usual self. “The Cult of the Destroyer would be an obvious target but the ones at the Pallid Pit were wiped out when my friends decided to go there for some reason, though at least we were able to kill the Stygian masquerading as me and tarnishing our people’s reputation."
“As a civilian I am already friends with Svaarti.” Nya then reasoned. “And unlike her brother, I can actually believe her being related to the Saviour. I can only hope that she wakes and recovers from her arcane backlash. I did talk to her in astral form, so I have faith.”
“So what will you do now?” Rena prompted. The coolly composed Vulsta still expected an answer to her previous question as Nya closed her eyes to think.
“The Whisperers might have something for me.” She decided. “Though there was clearly nothing worthy of Grandmaster Ilvella’s attention, maybe they have something smaller or less reliable I can use to at least been seen by the public.”
“That would be wise.” Rena agreed. “You still need to heal.”
The Chamber of Whispers was set on the ground floor of the monastery, hidden away and far from the entrance or anything else. Following the subtly different pattern of dim lights, the two quickly made their way to the hidden underground bunker that served as their resident spy headquarters.
“BWAH! I knew you’d be up and ready for more work in no time!” A jovial voice called out before they had a chance to knock on the doors. “Hello to you too, Rena!”
“My footsteps were silent…” Rena muttered as they entered the room.
Upon entering, the first thing that struck Nya’s attention was the sheer number of lights illuminating the chamber, bathing the entire room in powerful brightness, and allowing for no shadows to form in heavy contrast to the route they took to get here. Then she focused on the huge table in the middle, with a large map projection of Naganai City, complete with many extensive annotations on several notable districts, and with one of the Whisperers compiling a report on the Pallid Pit.
The walls of the room were lined with the blue glow of several monitors, either displaying popular all-day news outlets or with investigation boards on notable personages. In one of the side rooms Nya could see one of the monks at a console talking away on a headset, likely tapping into the community’s small network of contacts in the city from the safety of their remote system.
“Nya!” Head Whisperer Ratai grinned as the chubby Stygian waltzed over and gave her a gentle bear hug that still lifted her off her feet. “I’m glad you’re back! We’ve got news but it’s not urgent, so you should probably rest…”
Ratai gave her a knowing wink.
“What’s new Ratai?” Nya smiled, used to acting familiar around the man despite his high position.
“HAH!” The Stygian chuckled. “We mostly have reports of the post-klown cleanup, but a few players have already made their moves. Nothing too big but interestingly I’ve received a reliable rumour that our Outsider friend decided that massacring the klowns wasn’t enough for him and was involved in liberating a thinly populated swamp district."
“He’s claiming it as territory?” Rena asked, suddenly alert. “He may be more of a threat than I had initially warned…”
“No, no.” Ratai’s grin got wider. “Nobody seems to have claimed the land, but interestingly enough Clan Ashtail seems to have rehomed the vast majority of the population, and they seem to be sincere in allowing them to rebuild and recover in their newly annexed territory.”
“Do you consider Clan Ashtail a threat?” Nya asked.
“Of course!” Ratai snorted in amusement. “Vetch Ashtail was the one who all but hinted at the damnable rumour in his last correspondence to me, the smug bastard! His clan plays the game well, but there are many other more nefarious groups that will attempt to take advantage of the chaos. I'm particularly concerned about what Corvin Enterprises will try to do, but if they are planning on making a play, which I am almost positive that they are, then they are being very subtle about it.”
“Anything immediate?” Nya asked.
“That admirer of yours was quick to post a new video!” Ratai teased, causing Nya to bury her face in her hands in embarrassment.
“Don’t remind me.” She groaned. “That guy is pure cringe and you need to stop mentioning him to me!”
“Hah! Well I haven’t gotten much within the city itself, but we’ve found a series of accounts online about gangs trying to run protection rackets and establish themselves as local powers. Maybe you can crush a few of the weaker ones to make an appearance as you recover to full strength?”
“Nya will still need some time to recover.” Rena cautioned. “But if we approach this like any other mission and I act from the shadows, it will be fine.”
“Excellent, I shall begin my delving and let you know.” Ratai smiled. “In the meantime, you kids should go to bed!”
“I wish I didn’t have to.” Nya sighed.
“I didn’t exactly have much of a weekend.”
*****
First/Previous
And with that, the weekend is over for our....heroes?
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