John mayer rise for the river
JM News, Discussion, and Music
2010.08.15 00:30 JM News, Discussion, and Music
A space where John Mayer fans can come together.
2020.03.24 02:15 grimdandango HeavierMemes
The non-stop shop for everything John Mayer memes!!
2013.10.12 22:33 pixelement /r/PublicFreakout
A subreddit dedicated to people freaking out, melting down, losing their cool, or being weird in public.
2023.05.30 06:05 Beautiful-Dance-3518 Sorry not sorry dry beggar Kelsey
| We knew you would use the fires as cry tactic to get more sympathy and for us to “stop” Cry us a river girl You have been trying to dox people all day FYI Your Facebook isn’t private - good try Doxxing would be not blacking out your name although previous posts on here have your full name 🙃 Fires didn’t displace you from going to the car meet yesterday did it? Or posting about your dog grooming maybe if you weren’t a lying narcissistic scam artist this wouldn’t be happening 💅🏼💅🏼 submitted by Beautiful-Dance-3518 to NataliasDumpster [link] [comments] |
2023.05.30 06:04 ZealousidealLunch366 Any help?
| Was laying in my bed when I felt a weird sensation in my chest and instantly did an ECG on my Apple Watch. Was very still so feel like it wasn’t a Mis-read. Have a history with PVC’s which exercise. Should I be concerned? submitted by ZealousidealLunch366 to ECG [link] [comments] |
2023.05.30 06:03 model_72_and_around AK / MIG / AMMO enamels - NOT enamels - disappointment
I have bough some AK and MIG washes and weathering products, called "enamels". As below:
https://ak-interactive.com/product/dark-mud-effect/ https://www.migjimenez.com/en/weathering-products/1504-black-wash.html
Problem? It takes +2 weeks to dry and some of them as still smudging under touch. In fact the smell of these products does not have anything close to enamel, but smells like an oil paint.
One would expect any enamel, similarly Tamiya or Model Master, to touch dry very fast, within 30-60 minutes. And so these do, but not AK / MIG / AMMO.
Further correspondence with AK reveals (some quotes):
"There isn´t a universal standard that unifies the behaviour or composition of enamel-based paints. The only common agreement within this industry is to consider enamel as any paint with a solvent base."
"Our products (AK and Mig) are enamels that contain oil in their formulation to provide a slow drying"
"Our washes, filters, etc. have had, have and will have those slow drying properties. This is not a defect and does not give rise to returns because this will always be the case."
In other words, in my experience, their "enamels" are simply diluted oils paints that dry for weeks. I see it as a misadvertising. Beware, if you want to finish your model sooner than a year or if you want avoid paint/surface problems for moving 'too fast".
submitted by
model_72_and_around to
modelmakers [link] [comments]
2023.05.30 06:02 whyEven_Try_676 Manifesto of the Communist party
The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.
Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.
In the earlier epochs of history, we find almost everywhere a complicated arrangement of society into various orders, a manifold gradation of social rank. In ancient Rome we have patricians, knights, plebeians, slaves; in the Middle Ages, feudal lords, vassals, guild-masters, journeymen, apprentices, serfs; in almost all of these classes, again, subordinate gradations.
The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones.
Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinct feature: it has simplified class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other — Bourgeoisie and Proletariat.
From the serfs of the Middle Ages sprang the chartered burghers of the earliest towns. From these burgesses the first elements of the bourgeoisie were developed.
The discovery of America, the rounding of the Cape, opened up fresh ground for the rising bourgeoisie. The East-Indian and Chinese markets, the colonisation of America, trade with the colonies, the increase in the means of exchange and in commodities generally, gave to commerce, to navigation, to industry, an impulse never before known, and thereby, to the revolutionary element in the tottering feudal society, a rapid development.
The feudal system of industry, in which industrial production was monopolised by closed guilds, now no longer sufficed for the growing wants of the new markets. The manufacturing system took its place. The guild-masters were pushed on one side by the manufacturing middle class; division of labour between the different corporate guilds vanished in the face of division of labour in each single workshop.
Meantime the markets kept ever growing, the demand ever rising. Even manufacturer no longer sufficed. Thereupon, steam and machinery revolutionised industrial production. The place of manufacture was taken by the giant, Modern Industry; the place of the industrial middle class by industrial millionaires, the leaders of the whole industrial armies, the modern bourgeois.
Modern industry has established the world market, for which the discovery of America paved the way. This market has given an immense development to commerce, to navigation, to communication by land. This development has, in its turn, reacted on the extension of industry; and in proportion as industry, commerce, navigation, railways extended, in the same proportion the bourgeoisie developed, increased its capital, and pushed into the background every class handed down from the Middle Ages.
We see, therefore, how the modern bourgeoisie is itself the product of a long course of development, of a series of revolutions in the modes of production and of exchange.
Each step in the development of the bourgeoisie was accompanied by a corresponding political advance of that class. An oppressed class under the sway of the feudal nobility, an armed and self-governing association in the medieval commune(4): here independent urban republic (as in Italy and Germany); there taxable “third estate” of the monarchy (as in France); afterwards, in the period of manufacturing proper, serving either the semi-feudal or the absolute monarchy as a counterpoise against the nobility, and, in fact, cornerstone of the great monarchies in general, the bourgeoisie has at last, since the establishment of Modern Industry and of the world market, conquered for itself, in the modern representative State, exclusive political sway. The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.
The bourgeoisie, historically, has played a most revolutionary part.
The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his “natural superiors”, and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous “cash payment”. It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom — Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.
The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage labourers.
The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation.
The bourgeoisie has disclosed how it came to pass that the brutal display of vigour in the Middle Ages, which reactionaries so much admire, found its fitting complement in the most slothful indolence. It has been the first to show what man’s activity can bring about. It has accomplished wonders far surpassing Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts, and Gothic cathedrals; it has conducted expeditions that put in the shade all former Exoduses of nations and crusades.
The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.
The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connexions everywhere.
The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country. To the great chagrin of Reactionists, it has drawn from under the feet of industry the national ground on which it stood. All old-established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are dislodged by new industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilised nations, by industries that no longer work up indigenous raw material, but raw material drawn from the remotest zones; industries whose products are consumed, not only at home, but in every quarter of the globe. In place of the old wants, satisfied by the production of the country, we find new wants, requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and climes. In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal inter-dependence of nations. And as in material, so also in intellectual production. The intellectual creations of individual nations become common property. National one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and from the numerous national and local literatures, there arises a world literature.
The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilisation. The cheap prices of commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians’ intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilisation into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image.
The bourgeoisie has subjected the country to the rule of the towns. It has created enormous cities, has greatly increased the urban population as compared with the rural, and has thus rescued a considerable part of the population from the idiocy of rural life. Just as it has made the country dependent on the towns, so it has made barbarian and semi-barbarian countries dependent on the civilised ones, nations of peasants on nations of bourgeois, the East on the West.
The bourgeoisie keeps more and more doing away with the scattered state of the population, of the means of production, and of property. It has agglomerated population, centralised the means of production, and has concentrated property in a few hands. The necessary consequence of this was political centralisation. Independent, or but loosely connected provinces, with separate interests, laws, governments, and systems of taxation, became lumped together into one nation, with one government, one code of laws, one national class-interest, one frontier, and one customs-tariff.
The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together. Subjection of Nature’s forces to man, machinery, application of chemistry to industry and agriculture, steam-navigation, railways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole continents for cultivation, canalisation of rivers, whole populations conjured out of the ground — what earlier century had even a presentiment that such productive forces slumbered in the lap of social labour?
We see then: the means of production and of exchange, on whose foundation the bourgeoisie built itself up, were generated in feudal society. At a certain stage in the development of these means of production and of exchange, the conditions under which feudal society produced and exchanged, the feudal organisation of agriculture and manufacturing industry, in one word, the feudal relations of property became no longer compatible with the already developed productive forces; they became so many fetters. They had to be burst asunder; they were burst asunder.
Into their place stepped free competition, accompanied by a social and political constitution adapted in it, and the economic and political sway of the bourgeois class.
A similar movement is going on before our own eyes. Modern bourgeois society, with its relations of production, of exchange and of property, a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like the sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells. For many a decade past the history of industry and commerce is but the history of the revolt of modern productive forces against modern conditions of production, against the property relations that are the conditions for the existence of the bourgeois and of its rule. It is enough to mention the commercial crises that by their periodical return put the existence of the entire bourgeois society on its trial, each time more threateningly. In these crises, a great part not only of the existing products, but also of the previously created productive forces, are periodically destroyed. In these crises, there breaks out an epidemic that, in all earlier epochs, would have seemed an absurdity — the epidemic of over-production. Society suddenly finds itself put back into a state of momentary barbarism; it appears as if a famine, a universal war of devastation, had cut off the supply of every means of subsistence; industry and commerce seem to be destroyed; and why? Because there is too much civilisation, too much means of subsistence, too much industry, too much commerce. The productive forces at the disposal of society no longer tend to further the development of the conditions of bourgeois property; on the contrary, they have become too powerful for these conditions, by which they are fettered, and so soon as they overcome these fetters, they bring disorder into the whole of bourgeois society, endanger the existence of bourgeois property. The conditions of bourgeois society are too narrow to comprise the wealth created by them. And how does the bourgeoisie get over these crises? On the one hand by enforced destruction of a mass of productive forces; on the other, by the conquest of new markets, and by the more thorough exploitation of the old ones. That is to say, by paving the way for more extensive and more destructive crises, and by diminishing the means whereby crises are prevented.
The weapons with which the bourgeoisie felled feudalism to the ground are now turned against the bourgeoisie itself.
But not only has the bourgeoisie forged the weapons that bring death to itself; it has also called into existence the men who are to wield those weapons — the modern working class — the proletarians.
In proportion as the bourgeoisie, i.e., capital, is developed, in the same proportion is the proletariat, the modern working class, developed — a class of labourers, who live only so long as they find work, and who find work only so long as their labour increases capital. These labourers, who must sell themselves piecemeal, are a commodity, like every other article of commerce, and are consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes of competition, to all the fluctuations of the market.
Owing to the extensive use of machinery, and to the division of labour, the work of the proletarians has lost all individual character, and, consequently, all charm for the workman. He becomes an appendage of the machine, and it is only the most simple, most monotonous, and most easily acquired knack, that is required of him. Hence, the cost of production of a workman is restricted, almost entirely, to the means of subsistence that he requires for maintenance, and for the propagation of his race. But the price of a commodity, and therefore also of labour, is equal to its cost of production. In proportion, therefore, as the repulsiveness of the work increases, the wage decreases. Nay more, in proportion as the use of machinery and division of labour increases, in the same proportion the burden of toil also increases, whether by prolongation of the working hours, by the increase of the work exacted in a given time or by increased speed of machinery, etc.
Modern Industry has converted the little workshop of the patriarchal master into the great factory of the industrial capitalist. Masses of labourers, crowded into the factory, are organised like soldiers. As privates of the industrial army they are placed under the command of a perfect hierarchy of officers and sergeants. Not only are they slaves of the bourgeois class, and of the bourgeois State; they are daily and hourly enslaved by the machine, by the overlooker, and, above all, by the individual bourgeois manufacturer himself. The more openly this despotism proclaims gain to be its end and aim, the more petty, the more hateful and the more embittering it is.
The less the skill and exertion of strength implied in manual labour, in other words, the more modern industry becomes developed, the more is the labour of men superseded by that of women. Differences of age and sex have no longer any distinctive social validity for the working class. All are instruments of labour, more or less expensive to use, according to their age and sex.
No sooner is the exploitation of the labourer by the manufacturer, so far, at an end, that he receives his wages in cash, than he is set upon by the other portions of the bourgeoisie, the landlord, the shopkeeper, the pawnbroker, etc.
The lower strata of the middle class — the small tradespeople, shopkeepers, and retired tradesmen generally, the handicraftsmen and peasants — all these sink gradually into the proletariat, partly because their diminutive capital does not suffice for the scale on which Modern Industry is carried on, and is swamped in the competition with the large capitalists, partly because their specialised skill is rendered worthless by new methods of production. Thus the proletariat is recruited from all classes of the population.
The proletariat goes through various stages of development. With its birth begins its struggle with the bourgeoisie. At first the contest is carried on by individual labourers, then by the workpeople of a factory, then by the operative of one trade, in one locality, against the individual bourgeois who directly exploits them. They direct their attacks not against the bourgeois conditions of production, but against the instruments of production themselves; they destroy imported wares that compete with their labour, they smash to pieces machinery, they set factories ablaze, they seek to restore by force the vanished status of the workman of the Middle Ages.
At this stage, the labourers still form an incoherent mass scattered over the whole country, and broken up by their mutual competition. If anywhere they unite to form more compact bodies, this is not yet the consequence of their own active union, but of the union of the bourgeoisie, which class, in order to attain its own political ends, is compelled to set the whole proletariat in motion, and is moreover yet, for a time, able to do so. At this stage, therefore, the proletarians do not fight their enemies, but the enemies of their enemies, the remnants of absolute monarchy, the landowners, the non-industrial bourgeois, the petty bourgeois. Thus, the whole historical movement is concentrated in the hands of the bourgeoisie; every victory so obtained is a victory for the bourgeoisie.
But with the development of industry, the proletariat not only increases in number; it becomes concentrated in greater masses, its strength grows, and it feels that strength more. The various interests and conditions of life within the ranks of the proletariat are more and more equalised, in proportion as machinery obliterates all distinctions of labour, and nearly everywhere reduces wages to the same low level. The growing competition among the bourgeois, and the resulting commercial crises, make the wages of the workers ever more fluctuating. The increasing improvement of machinery, ever more rapidly developing, makes their livelihood more and more precarious; the collisions between individual workmen and individual bourgeois take more and more the character of collisions between two classes. Thereupon, the workers begin to form combinations (Trades’ Unions) against the bourgeois; they club together in order to keep up the rate of wages; they found permanent associations in order to make provision beforehand for these occasional revolts. Here and there, the contest breaks out into riots.
Now and then the workers are victorious, but only for a time. The real fruit of their battles lies, not in the immediate result, but in the ever expanding union of the workers. This union is helped on by the improved means of communication that are created by modern industry, and that place the workers of different localities in contact with one another. It was just this contact that was needed to centralise the numerous local struggles, all of the same character, into one national struggle between classes. But every class struggle is a political struggle. And that union, to attain which the burghers of the Middle Ages, with their miserable highways, required centuries, the modern proletarian, thanks to railways, achieve in a few years.
This organisation of the proletarians into a class, and, consequently into a political party, is continually being upset again by the competition between the workers themselves. But it ever rises up again, stronger, firmer, mightier. It compels legislative recognition of particular interests of the workers, by taking advantage of the divisions among the bourgeoisie itself. Thus, the ten-hours’ bill in England was carried.
Altogether collisions between the classes of the old society further, in many ways, the course of development of the proletariat. The bourgeoisie finds itself involved in a constant battle. At first with the aristocracy; later on, with those portions of the bourgeoisie itself, whose interests have become antagonistic to the progress of industry; at all time with the bourgeoisie of foreign countries. In all these battles, it sees itself compelled to appeal to the proletariat, to ask for help, and thus, to drag it into the political arena. The bourgeoisie itself, therefore, supplies the proletariat with its own elements of political and general education, in other words, it furnishes the proletariat with weapons for fighting the bourgeoisie.
Further, as we have already seen, entire sections of the ruling class are, by the advance of industry, precipitated into the proletariat, or are at least threatened in their conditions of existence. These also supply the proletariat with fresh elements of enlightenment and progress.
Finally, in times when the class struggle nears the decisive hour, the progress of dissolution going on within the ruling class, in fact within the whole range of old society, assumes such a violent, glaring character, that a small section of the ruling class cuts itself adrift, and joins the revolutionary class, the class that holds the future in its hands. Just as, therefore, at an earlier period, a section of the nobility went over to the bourgeoisie, so now a portion of the bourgeoisie goes over to the proletariat, and in particular, a portion of the bourgeois ideologists, who have raised themselves to the level of comprehending theoretically the historical movement as a whole.
Of all the classes that stand face to face with the bourgeoisie today, the proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class. The other classes decay and finally disappear in the face of Modern Industry; the proletariat is its special and essential product.
The lower middle class, the small manufacturer, the shopkeeper, the artisan, the peasant, all these fight against the bourgeoisie, to save from extinction their existence as fractions of the middle class. They are therefore not revolutionary, but conservative. Nay more, they are reactionary, for they try to roll back the wheel of history. If by chance, they are revolutionary, they are only so in view of their impending transfer into the proletariat; they thus defend not their present, but their future interests, they desert their own standpoint to place themselves at that of the proletariat.
The “dangerous class”, [lumpenproletariat] the social scum, that passively rotting mass thrown off by the lowest layers of the old society, may, here and there, be swept into the movement by a proletarian revolution; its conditions of life, however, prepare it far more for the part of a bribed tool of reactionary intrigue.
In the condition of the proletariat, those of old society at large are already virtually swamped. The proletarian is without property; his relation to his wife and children has no longer anything in common with the bourgeois family relations; modern industry labour, modern subjection to capital, the same in England as in France, in America as in Germany, has stripped him of every trace of national character. Law, morality, religion, are to him so many bourgeois prejudices, behind which lurk in ambush just as many bourgeois interests.
All the preceding classes that got the upper hand sought to fortify their already acquired status by subjecting society at large to their conditions of appropriation. The proletarians cannot become masters of the productive forces of society, except by abolishing their own previous mode of appropriation, and thereby also every other previous mode of appropriation. They have nothing of their own to secure and to fortify; their mission is to destroy all previous securities for, and insurances of, individual property.
All previous historical movements were movements of minorities, or in the interest of minorities. The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority. The proletariat, the lowest stratum of our present society, cannot stir, cannot raise itself up, without the whole superincumbent strata of official society being sprung into the air.
Though not in substance, yet in form, the struggle of the proletariat with the bourgeoisie is at first a national struggle. The proletariat of each country must, of course, first of all settle matters with its own bourgeoisie.
In depicting the most general phases of the development of the proletariat, we traced the more or less veiled civil war, raging within existing society, up to the point where that war breaks out into open revolution, and where the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie lays the foundation for the sway of the proletariat.
Hitherto, every form of society has been based, as we have already seen, on the antagonism of oppressing and oppressed classes. But in order to oppress a class, certain conditions must be assured to it under which it can, at least, continue its slavish existence. The serf, in the period of serfdom, raised himself to membership in the commune, just as the petty bourgeois, under the yoke of the feudal absolutism, managed to develop into a bourgeois. The modern labourer, on the contrary, instead of rising with the process of industry, sinks deeper and deeper below the conditions of existence of his own class. He becomes a pauper, and pauperism develops more rapidly than population and wealth. And here it becomes evident, that the bourgeoisie is unfit any longer to be the ruling class in society, and to impose its conditions of existence upon society as an over-riding law. It is unfit to rule because it is incompetent to assure an existence to its slave within his slavery, because it cannot help letting him sink into such a state, that it has to feed him, instead of being fed by him. Society can no longer live under this bourgeoisie, in other words, its existence is no longer compatible with society.
The essential conditions for the existence and for the sway of the bourgeois class is the formation and augmentation of capital; the condition for capital is wage-labour. Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between the labourers. The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the labourers, due to competition, by the revolutionary combination, due to association. The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.
submitted by
whyEven_Try_676 to
ussr [link] [comments]
2023.05.30 06:02 infamouspurr I'm (26F) moving in to my partner's (36M) place in three weeks but we are on currently bad terms. I am scared & nervous. How do I deal with it?
So my partner and I have big plan together which is for me to move temporarily to his place in France, which is 5000 miles from where I am at right now, before settling down in Asia together. We both were looking forward and worked so hard for this plan and we finally have a date set. So, I'm supposed to be flying to him in three weeks or less.
However, we are currently on bad terms. As in, our last fight has hurt us bad that we both are unable to return to each other because we are afraid. We've been working at it for 4 days now. Our interactions have been polite, on-surface level, focusing on solutions on how to get back to baseline, and also did our usual couple's therapy. I personally still feel hurt, raw, and scared but I'm doing what I can to support him at this time which is for me to try and accommodate what he needs for me & to be strong for the both of us.
He asked me to help him build him up by seducing and flirting and telling him I want him. Which I did. He said he's scared and needs to feel like a man to be back to baseline again. For these 4 days, I think I've been catering to what he needs well.
However, deep down, my own fear is I don't want to fly to him worrying about where we stand. Worrying about our intimacy. Worrying about if he's still all in or not. Especially since we gonna live together which is a big milestone in the relationship. I don't want to be there and still feels awkward, hesitant, or scared. I don't want to be there still questioning the relationship. I've been making this clear for him too.
My head keeps telling me 'If he cares about us and this relationship, he should be able to move past his fears and just come back already, like I did.' I am not sure how can I tell him this in a kind, affectionate way without blame or criticism. Because deep down I'm scared too, but I let go of the hurt and focus on us getting back to intimacy. So there's an element of unfairness rising in me.
What's the best possible actions to take for me? Do I stay strong (supportive and accommodating while remaining open and vulnerable on my own emotions too) for the both of us and remain patience? Do I get assertive and tell him that 'I'm hurt and scared too, but I care about you and us and I'm able to move past my own fears and trust in us because of that. So I need that from you too. I need to see that this relationship is something you want, and something you're able to prioritise rather than your fears,'? Is that too rude, if so how do I express it affectionately with level-headed tone?
Thank you. I need outsiders' perspective on this.
submitted by
infamouspurr to
Advice [link] [comments]
2023.05.30 06:01 Rukkman Dead rising 2 TIR
Anyone able to help with the online achivments for dead rising 2? I have two accounts I can use and will need two more I think. (This is for the terror is reality gamemode) GT is RyZe Rukas
submitted by
Rukkman to
xboxachievements [link] [comments]
2023.05.30 06:01 LucyAriaRose AITA for making a separate portion of stuffing for my son?
I am not the Original Poster. That is u/throwawaymom_12. She posted in
AmItheAsshole.
Mood Spoiler: hopeful Original Post: May 19, 2023 I (33F) am married to John (35M). Together we have a daughter (3F) and are currently expecting our second child together. We both also have a child from previous relationships: I have Liam (8M) from my previous marriage, and my husband has Ava (10F).
I make Sunday lunch for my family every week. On Friday, Liam asked if I could make stuffing without onions this week. Liam doesn't normally eat stuffing. He tried it a few times, decided he wasn't a fan, and that was it. He tried it with his dad the weekend before (we have 50/50 custody, so our weekends vary) and liked it. I agreed, and on Sunday made my son his own stuffing without onions. It's no big deal, after all, and I'm happy to make separate portions of anything if it means my children eat more.
This is where the problem starts. We sit at the dining table and John points out that Liam has stuffing on his plate. Liam tells him that I made him stuffing without onions, because he likes it without the onions. Immediately, I noticed Ava's mood sour, and when I pressed her, she asked why I didn't make her stuffing without onions when she'd asked about it months ago. Now, I'd understand where she was coming from if she'd actually asked but I had no clue what she was talking about. I said as much, and she told me that she'd brought it up with John, who said he'd talk to me. John never spoke to me about it, and told Ava that it was 'too much work' for me to take out the onions just for her.
John said he didn't tell me because he thought it'd be too hard on me, wanted to make things easier, thought I'd only say no anyway. He even said that it didn't make sense to make a separate portion for just one person. He said it was stupid that I'd even done it for Liam. He said the kids should learn to either make do with onions or not have stuffing at all, because not everything in life is going to go their way. I called him an idiot. I then went to the kitchen and got the rest of the onion-less stuffing for Ava to try.
Later that evening, Ava went back to her mother's and told her what happened, which caused an argument between her and John (and they're not on good terms anyway). John has been angry with me since. He says it's my fault Ava (and her mother) is mad at him. He says I should've just left the 'd*mn stuffing' alone, that I'm just spoiling my son by giving into him like that. There's been some name-calling, but I'd rather not repeat what he said.
Liam must have told Mike what happened, too, because he's told me that he thinks John is overreacting. John's mother and older sister think I'm an a-hole, but his brother has told me to just ignore him. My parents are also on my side, because they used to make separate portions for me when I was a child if I didn't like a specific ingredient. My sister told me to post on here to see if the majority think I'm in the wrong or not. So, I dread to ask, am I the a-hole for making a separate portion of stuffing to suit my son's taste?
Relevant Comments: Has your husband been saying things to the children about food behind your back? Is it a behavior he exhibited with his ex? "I hadn't thought about that. Liam hasn't mentioned anything, but I'll have to have a talk with him just in case. I'll ask his father if he's said anything about John, too. Thank you!"
"I definitely will. I'm in charge of pick up this week, so it'll definitely be addressed before I head home. I'll be stopping at Mike's place to talk with him and Liam about John, and then I'll talk with Ava and her mom when I pick her up. There have been a lot of helpful comments and I've realised I need to talk to John's ex, too, to see if this is behaviour that he exhibited when they were married"
Is this anger a pattern of behavior for John? "He has always had a habit of calling names when he's angry, but he never used to get angry all that often"
"John hasn't always been this bull-headed. He's kind and funny, and he loves the kids. But I'll admit there's been a change in him over the last few months."
"Thank you, I really appreciate it. He is normally very good to us, but he has been quicker to anger these past few months after I found out I was pregnant with our second child together. Hopefully it'll get better after our talk. Thank you again!"
Did you call him an idiot in front of the kids? "I'll admit calling him an idiot wasn't my best moment. I didn't say it aggressively by any means, but looking back it was wrong to do so. Definitely a slip of the tongue and not something I practice often (especially in front of the kids). I was just blown away, honestly"
OOP decides what else to do: "Thank you. As bizarre as this argument has been, it's definitely been an eye-opener. I'm planning on showing him these comments tonight when our daughter is in bed. I also plan to have a long talk and air everything out before Liam and Ava come home tomorrow"
Can you teach the kids to make their own food too? "That's another thing! Liam and Ava do sometimes help out when I'm making the dinner on Sundays. If they're not otherwise engaged (because holding a child's attention can sometimes be a battle), they'll help me with peeling the potatoes or stirring the gravy, etc. John has always been hands-off on Sunday dinners!"
OOP is voted NTA Update Post: May 23, 2023 (4 days later) Hi everyone. Before I begin, I just wanted to thank everyone for the overwhelming number of comments and messages I received as a response to my original post. Because of the support and advice that a lot of you gave me, I wanted to come back and give you all an update on how things have progressed since then.
On Friday night, aka a few hours after I posted, I sat down with my husband after he put our 3yo to bed to talk about what had transpired and why he reacted the way that he did. We spent fifteen minutes just reading through comments and messages you guys left, and John was ashamed. He was also very hurt that his reaction (i.e. the name calling) was, in the eyes of the majority, bordering on abuse. He was disgusted with himself.
Now onto the onion debacle. I'm not going to quote everything he said word for word, but it boils down to this: John's dad was very strict when it came to meals. You ate what you were given, and that was that. If John or his siblings ever expressed their dislike for something on their plate, even if it was just one thing, then the meal would be thrown out and they'd go to bed hungry. His dad drilled into him the same "not everything goes your way" mentality that John expressed last week. No one ever told John any different growing up. His mom followed the same rules even after his parents divorced. His dad remarried and John's step-mom was just as bad. If John wanted something, it was an automatic 'no' from her. John didn't tell me about Ava's request because he didn't want me to shut her down as coldly as he was. I guess it was two traumas with one stone.
Then it comes to the anger. Again, I'm summarising here, but John attributes it to stress. He feels overwhelmed with the kids and the pregnancy, and his work has been particularly busy over the last few months. He feels constantly frustrated and doesn't know how to bring that down. But then he asked a question that really blew my mind. He asked if I was having an affair with my ex-husband/Liam's father. Apparently his mom (lovely lady) made a comment about how close we were, how it was 'unnatural', and it's been playing on his mind since. I'll admit that Mike (my ex-husband) and I are close. We're friends. We have a child together. But we don't love each other anymore. All of this I told my husband. I asked if I did something to make him not trust me on that.
Well, after four years of marriage, I found out why John and his ex-wife hate each other. She had an affair. He didn't want to tell me because he was embarrassed and he wanted to put it behind him. He also didn't want me to hate her and maybe have that ruin my relationship with Ava, because it was his pain (his 'burden') to carry. He's bitter because she never apologised and blamed him for the affair. He's apologised profusely for the pain he has caused me and our children. I apologised for calling him an idiot. We both agreed no onions on Sunday.
Despite this exhausting and enlightening conversation with John, I still sat down and spoke with Liam the next day when I went to pick him up from Mike's. Liam said John has never said anything 'weird' to him, nor has he gotten angry/yelled at him, he's never raised a hand. Mike said that Liam has never mentioned anything to him about John. He also said that Liam still brings up the time that John took him and Ava to the zoo when I was pregnant with our youngest.
I also decided to go ahead and talk with John's ex-wife, Izzy. I asked her if John was ever 'hotheaded' when they were together, and she said that he'd get angrier with stress. I then asked about the affair, because while I wanted to believe my husband unconditionally, I needed to hear it from her side. She admitted it. She said that she 'connected' with a guy from her job. She said she doesn't feel guilty about it, because it felt like John was waiting for an excuse to leave, because that's exactly what he did. They argued, and he left, and that was it. Neither of them fought for their marriage, and Izzy's bitterness is mostly due to the fact that, when they were in the process of divorcing, John ordered a DNA test on Ava because the affair made him question if he was really Ava's father.
There were no onions on Sunday. John has agreed not only to couple's counselling but to solo counselling as well. We're also considering family therapy, but before we commit to it, I want to get Mike and Izzy's opinions since they're the other parent of our respective children. John has also apologised to both Ava and Liam separately for the incident. He made the stuffing this weekend with Ava, no onions. It was nice. John even apologised to my parents for being a no-show last week. It's been very stressful, but I love my husband. I believe that he can grow from this. I know him to be kind, and funny, and just a good man overall. I hope from the bottom of my heart that things will be looking up by the time we welcome our son into this world.
Thank you to everyone who has left comments and messages again. I genuinely believe that your advice may have helped save our marriage. Or, at the very least, given me the strength I needed to save it myself.
submitted by
LucyAriaRose to
BestofRedditorUpdates [link] [comments]
2023.05.30 06:01 AutoModerator Daily Roundtable: Community Q&A
Greetings Tarnished!
This is the place to ask any questions you may have about Elden Ring. This includes obscure detail questions, "newbie" advice questions, build questions, boss advice questions, and what have you.
Well written, constructive criticism is fine but please avoid ranting about aspects of the game you just don’t like. This includes “so and so boss is stupid and too difficult.”
If you are interested in the game but don’t own it yet, please don’t post “should I buy this game?” or “Is this game worth it?”. If you have played other FromSoftware games and enjoyed them, the answer is yes. If you haven’t, just do a little research! These games are difficult, and sometimes frustrating, and not everyone is going to enjoy them. And that’s okay!
Lastly, be friendly! We are all here because we are interested in the same game! Please treat your fellow players with respect.
Here are a few helpful links:
Our Discord which has an awesome
Helper Request System! Elden Ring Wiki Elden Ring Map Most Recent Patch Notes (1.06)
/BeyondTheFog for co-op help!
/PatchesEmporium for item trading!
/EldenRingBuilds for builds and build help!
Our community password is
straydmn Rise, Tarnished!
submitted by
AutoModerator to
Eldenring [link] [comments]
2023.05.30 05:59 MiaHeat420 Caleb Martin made history!
2023.05.30 05:59 Zornipig The Dancing Plague of 1518
In the town square
On a scorching day
Frau Troffea dances
But there is no music
She winces as she twists
Twirls and turns
But no one offers help -
She could certainly use it
Instead, onlookers join
One by one, day by day
Until hundreds are waltzing
In this silent celebration
Is it for the end
Of the pestilence and famine?
Or to show their devotion,
As God’s saddest creation?
Or perhaps there is no reason
For this grotesque ball, none at all
As summer ends and still they dance
And bodies begin to fall
In the square, red rivers run
From where temples meet cobble
Stone the mad woman, they decide,
As her legs begin to wobble
submitted by
Zornipig to
Poem [link] [comments]
2023.05.30 05:58 SomeRandomRealtor (Discusssion) Appropriate Expectations for Rookie QBs
The 4 QBs drafted this year that are likely (if not guaranteed) to get game time are Bryce Young, CJ Stroud, Anthony Richardson, and Will Levis. Levis and Richardson are likely to get more rope on development, but they'll be slammed all the same if they're not seen as competent by the end of year 2. I wanted to take a look at the 4 teams these QBs will be stepping in to, so we can find out what they're working with and what realistic expectations may be, especially when compared to one another. The good news for these kids is all of their teams are top 10 for projected cap space going in to 2024, with 3 in the top 5 (Houston, Colts, and Titans...jesus christ the AFC south sucks lol). Here are my outlooks on the 4 and what I think are realistic timelines for expectations
Bryce Young (Panthers): Receivers are WR Adam Thielen, WR D.J. Chark, WR Terrace Marshall Jr., TE Hayden Hurst, TE Ian Thomas. Young will have arguably a bottom 2-3 receiving corps in all of football. Thielen was a solid #2 but is aging. Chark is inconsistent and only has 1-1000 yard season. Marshall is a weak #3. Hayden Hurst is a very capable TE, but not a game changer. Offensive line is ranked 15th according to PFF. A lot will rest on Young's shoulders and he has the most work to do. Panthers defense could be decent, but not great. I just hope they can keep him healthy for the first 2-3 years while they build around him. My guess is he'll get the full 5 years afforded a rookie, barring injury or complete bust on expectations.
CJ Stroud (Texans): Receivers are WR Robert Woods, WR Nico Collins, WR John Metchie III, TE Dalton Schultz, TE Teagan Quitoriano. Metchie is going to have to produce early and step up, but is very talented. Schultz is a top 10 TE. Stroud faces an uphill battle as well, but at least he has Pierce to take a little bit of pressure off him. Offensive line is ranked 19th according to PFF. Robert Woods might be the worst #1 in the NFL. Texans just hired a defensive minded coach, and his defense will be hot and cold as they adjust to a new system, but talent wise isn't amazing. Dont be surprised if it takes 3-4 years for Houston to get Stroud with it. I think he gets his 5th year option picked up if hes even a top 20 QB in year 4.
Anthony Richardson (Colts): Receivers are WR Michael Pittman Jr., WR Alec Pierce, WR Isaiah McKenzie, TE Jelani Woods, TE Mo Alie-Cox. Pittman is a #1 at least, but not a spectacular #1. Pierce is an average #2/#3 option and Mckenzie really a #4 on most decent teams. Woods had flashes and good plays, but is too young to see if he's the real deal and Mo is just a #2 TE, nothing special. PFF grades their O-line at 24th He has Jonathan Taylor who can relieve some pressure if he stays healthy and they can block for him, but IMO Richardson has the most rope for development if he can just show flashes of his potential. Steichen will try to reduce the mental load on Richardson early, but he needs to come good in years 2-3 for Colts fans to feel justified. Colts have the 27th rated defense. Richardson will probably get 3 years to develop, but I wouldn't be shocked if the colts draft or hire a potential replacement if he's not good by end of year 3.
Will Levis (Titans): Receivers are WR Treylon Burks, WR Nick Westbrook-Ikhine, WR Kyle Phillips, TE Chigoziem Okonkwo, TE Josh Whyle. A lot rests on Burks meeting any kind of potential after an injury knocked his season short. Westbrook-Ikhine is a very underwhelming #2. Phillips had 78 yards last season. Okonkwo has high potential but is too young to rate. Whyle is a fresh recruit. Titans have a lot of youg and unknown, so its really hard to rate them, but they don't have any veteran talent. PFF rates the titans as the worst Oline in football. They have King Henry, but how much more will you get out of him? The Titans do have a decent/solid defense, but they have a lot of work to do. Levis has some time to sit behind Tannehill and let him take the brunt of the beatings this season while Levis learns. He's realistically got years 2 and 3 to get it done. No 5th year option means he needs to be good by year 3 or he's probably out.
submitted by
SomeRandomRealtor to
nfl [link] [comments]
2023.05.30 05:56 TrtnLB Looking for a help with Witchdoctor pet.
Looking for someone willing to morph pet with me. I'm playing pure staffy weapon, and need readied spell and mojo rising the most. Thanks in advance!
submitted by
TrtnLB to
Pirate101 [link] [comments]
2023.05.30 05:56 myconfessions0219 Am I the bad guy?
I have been talking to this guy(lets call him john) for going on 3 years. Him and I dated for a while but things got rocky so he broke up with me. Four months later he reached out and we became friends again. Now it’s been a year and we have been acting like a couple but not telling anyone about it. None of our friends are aware that we are together and he doesn’t plan on changing it. Due to the fact we are long distance it’s easy to keep our “fling” on the low. Recently i’ve been talking to this guy who is in my town and he seems to be really interested in me. We both are the same age and plan on going to colleges near each other. Sexual talk has come out a lot in our conversations and I’m not completely against it. I’ve told the guy (lets call him Ryan) that i’m not ready to do anything like that yet because we barely know each other. The real reason I don’t want to engage in any activity with Ryan is because I still have strong feelings for John and I really want to be in a relationship with him. I am scared to move on with Ryan even though I find him very attractive because John has been showing more signs that he wants to be in a relationship with me. I’m not completely sure what to do and I have plans to hang out with Ryan this Saturday….
submitted by
myconfessions0219 to
u/myconfessions0219 [link] [comments]
2023.05.30 05:55 ZealousidealLunch366 Should I be concerned?
| Have a history with PVC’s and weird heart palpitations. Was laying in my bed when a weird sensation in my chest happened, decided to do an ECG on my Apple Watch. Was pretty still so I feel like this wasn’t a mis-read. Anybody have a clue? submitted by ZealousidealLunch366 to ReadMyECG [link] [comments] |
2023.05.30 05:54 youngnesquik I (F29) am wondering if I should cancel my boyfriend's (M31) plane tickets to see me
I met my boyfriend in April. I was visiting his country to see if I wanted to move there, decided I wanted to, and then met him shortly after. We had a whirlwind romance for the week I was there. I made it clear I wasn't moving there for him, but he was the cherry on top.
I went to the next country on my travel list and invited him to come with me for the weekend and he did. We had such an amazing time. He even met my dad and my step mom for dinner. We had so much fun and got along so well, I hadn't felt this immediately drawn to someone before, and he said the same.
I went back to the country I currently live in (in Asia) to pack up my things. We continued to talk every day, video chat once a week and constantly send each other pictures. He told me he only wanted to be with me, he wanted to share his life with me, he would wait for me and wasn't interested in anyone else. He implied that he was falling in love with me but didn't want to tell me over text message and wanted to wait in person. I reciprocated everything.
Since I have to move back to my country (USA) for 3 months to work on my visa, I thought it would be fun to invite him to come stay with me since our birthdays are 3 days apart in July. He agreed but said he couldn't afford the tickets and wanted to wait until his next paycheck to buy them, but since the prices kept rising I offered to buy them and he could pay me back later and he agreed.
I am dyslexic and spelled his last name wrong, and the budget airline is being difficult about changing it. He has been irritated about this. At the same time, I went out with some friends one night and didn't text him anything that night and after that he got weird with me. We talked about it after I confronted him and he admitted he feared I hooked up with someone else.
His communication style with my has completely changed. I am constantly affectionate, praising him and complimenting him, trying to initiate sexting or just romantic talk like we used to and he just hasn't been meeting me halfway. It's been about 9 days of this.
I confronted him last night and said I did't want to make things difficult but I felt like something has changed, that I felt I've been making an effort and he hasn't. I said I felt sad about it and asked him if there was something wrong. He said That my messages made him feel stressed and even pissed him off. I replied that I felt he wasn't excited to see me anymore, that I was so grateful for the time we had and how much I want to see him again but I just don't get the sense he wants to anymore.
He just said he didn't notice any of this and I've made him feel like shit and he's stressed about the money and the tickets. I said I didn't want to add to the stress so if he wanted, I would cancel the tickets. He said he felt attacked and it wasn't the case. I replied I never meant to attack him, but I had to say how I feel.
Am I making mountains out of molehills? Or are my insecurities justified?
TL;DR My boyfriend has been distant with me, when I confronted him he said he felt attacked and now I'm considering canceling the plane tickets I bought for him to visit me
submitted by
youngnesquik to
relationship_advice [link] [comments]
2023.05.30 05:51 Sirvink Prisoner Transfers
I run my own server and it is heavily modified in the game settings, to allow big castles, many of them and loads of prisoners/servant coffins. I hadn't done a lot with them when V-Rising first came out, but after Gloomrot released, I have become much more involved.
Initially, I was capturing people, then sending them to my main base in Gloomrot, but I quickly realized that the servants perform best on missions in the regions they originally came from. So, using this data site
https://risingdb.com/npcs/brutes I was able to drill down and find all the specific regional names of NPCs for each class of NPC. Brutes in one region have a different name than Brutes in another region and so on.
So I wanted to move prisoners from the main base to a regional base where they originally were captured, so to make that happen, I first create cages in the destination region. If it isn't the closest base with cages, I have to go dismantle empty cages from any other base that is closer. Next, in my main base, where the prisoners currently reside, I switch to my vampire power "Dominate", go to the prisoner (in cage) that I want to transfer, access the cage and "Subdue".
Once subdued, dismantle the cage and make sure no other empty cages are in that base. Then you could try running to the destination base (good luck!) or use the handy "Dusk Caller" token, which is made in the Alchemy Bench, if you have it unlocked (I hope). That is it!
This doesn't work on servants that have already been coffin trained.
I imagine most people already figured this out, as it isn't difficult to deduce, but sometimes it helps to have these Reddit nuggets to get you pointed in the right direction. I'm constantly coming here to look things up.
One other thing about servants (Spoiler)
So far the only place I have found ones for the Cursed Forest is in the werewolf village, called Gracefall Village, in the very NE corner of Dunly. Capture them in daylight and get them in a coffin or cage before nightfall, or they will turn. They turn in cages, which makes them unable to move to a coffin, but turn back in the day, so don't worry. Once in a coffin, they will never turn again. submitted by
Sirvink to
vrising [link] [comments]
2023.05.30 05:51 Evening_Attention109 How do I write Luke cage as a satisfying side character.
There's no other way to say this, I'm writing a fanfiction.
That out of the way, it's focused on Peter Parker and Laura Kinney. Those of you who aren't well versed with Spider-Man, the kingpin is a character who first appeared in the Spider-Man: no more arc, and I want to do a kingpin story which will include most of early marvel street level heroes banding together to help bring him down.
I'm well versed in Spider-Man and my main cast but not so much on Luke Cage and Iron Fist. I'm learning how to tackle their characters so that it's not ooc and I was wondering if you could help me.
I wanted to have an idea where initially, Luke and co isnt a fan of Spidey leaving, blaming him for the cause of the Kinpins rise, and Spidey and co, not really liking him because as they see him as basically a mercenary with ethics. Spidey and co being X-23, the human torch, and the thing, with Luke cage and Danny not to fond of them for many reasons, with DD being a mediator.
I want them to slowly realize that the other is worth respecting, with them ultimately becoming friends because at the end of the day, they are heroes.
Is this like, not shit?
I really appreciate the help because even though I doubt a fucking Luke cage fan would be reading this, I want to respect the character.
submitted by
Evening_Attention109 to
lukecage [link] [comments]
2023.05.30 05:50 Drakolf Dragon Rising- 4. Counsel:
It was called disassociation, the change in my life had been so traumatic that I just... kind of existed, largely doing things on autopilot, only engaging in things when necessary.
I hadn't wanted to be a Kobold, part of me kept thinking, 'this isn't real, I'm going to wake up any moment now'. But I never woke up to anything but this reality. Rather than tackle this like a normal, sane person, I just withdrew and didn't engage.
"Hello, I'm Ruuk." I said. "I haven't exactly been here the past year and some."
The way everyone welcomed me to the warren, not like a stranger finally being accepted, but as a family member who was gone for far too long- It felt good to just...
connect. While I sequestered myself to my shack on the edge of town, the warren had been organizing, fixing things up, just generally working their asses off to make things as comfortable as possible for people. The result was kind of an anachronistic mess, but it worked. Roads had been turn up and repaved, taking a mess of a car-reliant town and streamlining it so people could actually walk from place to place.
The Artificers had taken cars apart and reused the tools to make a tramway that was convenient for everyone. Why bother with cars when half of us can't even reach the pedals? With the restructuring of the town building by building, done simply because it needed to be done, the surrounding houses could be utilized more efficiently.
The reason why my house was largely untouched was because it was still my house, there was no committee ruling that demanded I give it up. It was understood that I'd know what I wanted to do with it when I was finished being a hermit.
Well, more than a handful of people suggested I just have a full-on mage tower, I realistically didn't need that much space, and even then, the things I wanted to keep were so few that having an entire four-story house to myself with more rooms than I realistically needed.
"Besides, when you get to Level 15, you can create your own demiplane." Tudru, the Fighter, remarked.
The plans for such a hypothetical mage tower put it toward the center of the town, just north of the central tramway. It would be convenient to get to me, and it would be convenient for me to go anywhere.
"Plus, well, we've been wanting you to be the Sorcerer on the Council." Goss, the Sorcerer, remarked.
"The what on the
what?" I asked.
The Council, as I understood, was comprised equally of Humans and Kobolds. Kobolds with a set Class were put into a position to discuss the needs of the town. No matter who it was, no matter the Class, there was a representative, even if they were the only one present.
There was no Sorcerer Councilor yet, in spite of us being fairly common.
"Why me?" I asked after being given a significantly less truncated explanation.
"Because you're the most competent one out of all of us, are unbound by preconceived notions of how things work." Goss replied. "I mean, I would have
never thought of using Magic Missile on that boulder, or staggering the hits like that so nobody got hurt."
I rubbed the back of my neck. "I mean, anyone could have done it." I said.
"The fact of the matter, Ruuk, is that most of us have assumptions based on a bunch of books in a situation that we still don't
really understand. I choose to believe that another world has made contact with ours, and we're the ones burdened with responsibility. That doesn't mean I am
correct."
They further broke down expectations.
"I am in charge of infrastructure." Rekka, the Artificer, spoke. The goal was to transform the town into an entirely self-sufficient place. Since we were still technically under quarantine, we couldn't get supplies in or out, not without the government allowing it through. The dissemination of magic items and technology that was essential to our continued existence hinged on understanding where to put it and how to ensure it was used correctly.
Barbarians and Fighters- in spite of Kuvli and Tudru being the only ones- were in charge of town defense.
"We work in tandem to find the best solution to a threat." Tudru said. "While thus far purely theoretical, we have options for if and when monsters show up. Let's not forget the Dire Rat that came out of the mine."
"Dire Rat?" I asked.
"Big fuckers." Kuvli said. "Ever seen a nutria? That fucker you killed was even bigger."
It was understood that if monsters came about, we would need weapons. Artificers took care of that, we had a small cache of magically enhanced swords ready and available, as well as every gun in town somewhere where people could grab and react.
Bards, when we would eventually get one, would be in charge of communications and entertainment. With the quarantine in place and us having no actual income at the moment, short of going out and stealing shit, we were largely on our own with what we already had.
"I am in charge of ensuring the town's spiritual needs are taken care of, and the adjudication of our laws." Galax stated. "Given the high probability of Gods existing, and the likelihood of demons, ghosts, and other beings eventually showing up, This includes discerning which deities are existent, and which ones are not. So far, we've only had minor to moderate luck with divine magic. Prayer is necessary for it to work, as we have to explicitly petition our Gods for it every long rest."
"Aren't you biased toward Bahamut?" I asked.
"Of course." He said. "Any anyone who comes to the Temple is welcome to hear anything I have to say on the matter. The biggest problem is figuring out how it all relates."
Next was Merti. "We Druids are in charge of ensuring this town's sustainability and harmony with nature." She said. "That includes recycling materials, ethical and sustainable logging, hunting, farming... Essentially, as long as it pertains to nature, it's our duty to ensure we don't shoot ourselves in the foot."
"Well, while you're busy speaking for the trees, we're responsible for going out there and making sure nothing is coming to kill us. That and getting meat." Tatla spoke. "We're also in reserve in case of a combat situation, we defer to our Fighter and Barbarian for that."
"
When we get a Rogue, they will focus on security. As the closest thing we've got to that, I've got plans set up for establishing a wall around the town, just outside the Anomaly, so that people can't just waltz right in, and to prevent any wild animals or hypothetical monsters from getting in." Nakk the Locksmith who might actually be a Rogue said. "And for the record, I've tried everything I can think of to awaken to a Class, and I'm reasonably certain Rogue isn't one." He paused. "That being said, I am offering lockpicking lessons to anyone who thinks it might help."
"Considering we just share and share alike, I don't think we need to worry about
our Rogues." Someone I wasn't familiar with yet said.
The way Nakk reacted to his statement, avoiding his gaze, made me wonder why he reacted that way.
"Nakk, why do you look guilty?" I asked.
He looked at me with wide eyes, and for a tense moment, it seemed like he was about to run. I walked up to him and gently put my hand on his shoulder. "It's better to get it out now, rather than later."
He looked away. "I... I've been overcharging everyone since I moved in." He said. "On top of that, I've used my skills as a locksmith to steal from people."
He expected us to get angry, and a fair number of us did.
"Honor and Correction to the enemies of Justice and Good." Galax spoke, "Nakk, is the confession you have spoken true?"
"Y-yes." Nakk said softly.
"When you moved here, was it your intention to steal from us?"
"No." Nakk said. "I just- I had some bad debts, I was trying to escape, start a new life. But then they found me, told me if I didn't pay off the debt, they'd make me regret it. So I stole, but no matter how much I took, the debt never seemed to shrink. When we were all transformed, I was so happy because I could finally escape. They couldn't possibly hurt all of us, and with the quarantine..."
"Nakk." Galax spoke. "Is it your intention to atone for your crimes?"
Nakk nodded. "Yes."
"Then I shall ease your burden, that you no longer are swayed into such temptation." Galax took a pouch out of another pouch on his belt. "This is powdered silver." He said, several eyes widened, clearly understanding the significance of this. "Bahamut, Grandfather of Dragons, Grand Master of Flowers, Justicemaker. Before me stands a penitent soul seeking to atone for his sins against his fellow people. If he hides from you, you are the one who shall bring him into the light. If he hides his face, you are the one who shall reveal it. If his tongue betrays him against his people, you shall be the one who frees it from evil machinations."
He threw the powdered silver upon Nakk, and as he did so, he roared.
"NOMAG SVABOL UI WHEDAB RANNOX EKESS MITNE!" The silver flashed with brilliant light that, somehow, didn't hurt to look upon, and then Nakk was engulfed in flames. Before anyone could panic, the flames swirled as if caught in a whirlwind and flew into Nakk's open mouth.
For a moment, Nakk was suspended in the air, and then he fell onto his feet, then onto his hands and knees. He gasped for breath, faint wisps of silvery fire escaping his open maw.
"What the fuck just happened?" Kuvli asked.
"
That was the Atonement spell." A Player remarked. "You touch a willing creature whose alignment has changed, and if you're powerful enough, you bring them back to their original alignment. In this case, maybe neutral leaning toward evil back to good."
Galax nodded. "You have caused suffering to your people, Nakk. I have firmly put you back on the path to righteousness. You will no longer fear the reprisal of your warren, but will openly accept it. You will no longer hesitate, you will do what is necessary to make amends. Though I can do this as many times as I deem necessary, for you, this is but one chance. In the guidance of Bahmut, go forth and sin no more."
"I will. Thank you." Nakk said.
"I do not need thanks, I am simply the one who interceded on your behalf. Zhin mrith filkiati."
With that out of the way, the meeting resumed.
"Ruuk, as the Sorcerer Councilor, you would be responsible for the responsible use of magic. As every Sorcerer has unique spells, there is a level of versatility that the Warren can use. It would be your duty to advocate for your fellow Sorcerers, to ensure we do not end up taking advantage of them for our own selfish desires." Rekka said. "What do you say?"
I gave it some thought, then nodded. "I'll do it." I said.
What the Council does, as I learned, is convene every week to go over current events and how to deal with them, and occasionally plan ahead on hypothetical situations. We were each paired with a Human who was chosen by other Humans to serve as their representative on specific matters.
My partner is Dave. Dave is a Pagan, he practices magic as a form of spirituality. He is also, currently, the only Human with any level of magical skill, being able to use magic items fairly easily without it blowing up in his face.
"The only reason why I'm not a Kobold is because I want to be an Elf." He said. "I'm hoping that learning more about the Anomaly on the magical end of the spectrum of scholarly pursuit will allow us to do that." He paused. "I will also settle for Dragonborn. You and Galax are currently the best chance of either."
"Why would we want to do that?" I asked.
"Well, presently, only Kobolds are capable of magic, meaning that Humans in the Forgotten Realms are different from us."
"The what?"
"Common setting for D&D." He said. "Now, back when this was all make-believe, Earth
was mentioned as being existent in the D&D multiverse, meaning that
something decided to mess with us." He paused. "Look, from what I've been able to gather, Earth is in a part of the Prime Material plane that has very weak connections to other planes, we lack magic because of this. However, we are currently in a dome of
sustained magic-"
"It's actually a relatively short column." I corrected.
"-which means something has connected us, and specifically us." He finished.
"Alright, so this raises several presumptions, like the notion that someone did this to us for a
reason. Do you have any ideas as to what that reason would be?"
"Interplanar invasion, the astral plane bleeding into ours, maybe we're crashing into another plane, maybe a wizard got lucky. We don't have enough information."
I sighed. "Look, let's just get some work done."
We got started on requests, most of them were just questions on if a certain spell was viable for use, some were requests to run experiments with certain spells. With Dave and I debating back and forth, we got them done by the end of the day.
[Navigation for 'Dragon Rising'-
[1] [2] [3] [4]]
submitted by
Drakolf to
DrakolfsWritings [link] [comments]
2023.05.30 05:50 lastcapkelly I dare you to pay attention, find out how you go fascist so easy.
Find out why you actually hate Dore, etc. You're just terrorized, thats all, anxious and so easily controlled. Seriously that's all it was. Pure textbook fascist tactics guaranteed to fool 9/10 people.
Cheers to the 1 in 10 who knew better. If you can read deep thinkers, this should be a piece of cake for you. Time to rise above it now.
https://youtu.be/pcloijv9kW8 submitted by
lastcapkelly to
Anarchy4Everyone [link] [comments]
2023.05.30 05:50 AutoModerator John Anthony Lifestyle - All Courses Bundle
Chat us on +44 759 388 0762 on Telegram/Whatsaap if you are interested in John Anthony Lifestyle courses.
The John Anthony Lifestyle courses are ones of the most recognized products on how to improve your dating life.
Texting, Live Game and Infields - everything is included in a package that will truly transform your love life for good.
The courses in the John Anthony Lifestyle bundle include:
John Anthony Lifestyle - The Leads Machine John Anthony Lifestyle - Occam's Razor John Anthony Lifestyle - Platinum Dating System To get the John Anthony Lifestyle courses contact me on:
Whatsapp/Telegram: + 44 759 388 0762 Reddit DM to u/RequestCourseAccess Email: silverlakestore/@/yandex.com (remove the brackets) submitted by
AutoModerator to
JohnAnthonyTips [link] [comments]
2023.05.30 05:49 portcullis357 (SPOILERS MAIN) People Misunderstand This Daenerys Prophecy
I know this has been talked about before, but I felt like most theories I've read about Daenerys' prophecies don't make sense to me. Especially the 333 prophecy.
Three fires must you light… one for life and one for death and one to love… I believe these fires she lights refer to magical fires. The popular theory for the fire to light is the pyre that created the dragons. I agree with this.
The fire for death I believe will occur like in the show, in which Daenerys lights the khals and crones that do not submit to her afire to untie the hordes under her rule. It makes sense. It shows her dominance, which the Dothraki respect.
The fire for love I believe to be a fire sacrifice she will make to have a baby with Jon Snow. This could be any number of fires she sets when she invades Westeros. The reason for this is due to the other prophecy made in the first book:
When the sun rises in the West and sets in the East. When the seas go dry and mountains blow in the wind like leaves. When your womb quickens again, and you bear a living child. Then he will return and not before
So far this all seems pretty standard consensus in the fandom, and it that make sense to me. But now here's where I feel most people give confusing theories:
Three mounts must you ride… one to bed and one to dread and one to love… The popular theory is that this refers to lovers, but that makes no sense for a variety of reasons. Daenerys has already had numerous lovers, and it all seems inconsequential for a prophecy to be like, here's some people you'll fuck or marry or whatever. She already fucks more than 3 people, and she didn't just marry Drogo to bed. She was forced into it. The mount to bed is Silver, but she's not fucking the horse. She mounts Silver and jumps over a fire in order to move on through the ceremony and bed Drogo afterwards. It's treated as a big moment in the books. It’s the first moment in the story in which Dany overcomes fear and begins to take control over her destiny. Silver becomes her spirit animal in many ways, and its death in book 2 is heartbreaking for her. This is her first mount, representing her first leap into adulthood.
The mount to dread is Drogon. She learns to ride Drogon at the end of DWD, and it's incredibly taxing, violent, and bloody. She abandons peace and compromise and has chosen Fire and Blood. Daenerys will ride Drogon to unite the Dothraki. Drogon is the Stallion Who Mounts the World. This is the scariest leap into adulthood, and it leads to pain, suffering, and filth. It relates to losing her innocence and desire for peace. It also calls back to the Black Dread.
The mount to love is the most unclear, since I think it hasn't happened yet, but she will have to mount another animal in order to love. This must have to do with Jon Snow. My guess is that she rides Ghost while Jon rides one of her dragons. But this will lead to her conceiving a living child with him no doubt and be the end to that quickening womb prophecy.
Three treasons will you know… once for blood and once for gold and once for love… The popular belief is Daenerys will be betrayed, due to Daenerys herself thinking this in the books, but it really doesn't make sense.
“The Undying of Qarth had told her she would be thrice betrayed. Mirri Maz Duur had been the first, Ser Jorah the second. Would Reznak be the third? The Shavepate? Daario? Or will it be someone I would never suspect, Ser Barristan or Grey Worm or Missandei?” – (Daenerys I, ADWD)
The previous parts of the prophecy are about things Daenerys must do, so there's no reason for the third part to be any different. Plus, she's already been betrayed more than three times by multiple people. George is misdirecting for most of the book by using Daenerys' POV to steer readers into the wrong direction of thought. It seems clear that Daenerys will be the one doing the betraying. The clearest hint that its Daenerys being the betrayer is clearly spelled out in Daenerys X of DWD when she talks to a vision of Viserys.
"Only when you woke the dragon. I loved you."
“You sold me. You betrayed me.”
"No. You were the betrayer. You turned against me, against your own blood. They cheated me..."
I think George intended this to be a big reveal for readers paying attention. This is a fitting conclusion to Daenerys' arc in DWD. The whole book she is paranoid and thinking about how to achieve peace and avoid conflict, but in this chapter she realizes she must embrace her true nature of Fire and Blood, and that it really is herself that is the betrayer. Her whole arc is about starting as an indecisive innocent girl and becoming an assertive conqueror.
The treason she will know for blood was Viserys. What's interesting is that Viserys says that she turned against her own blood, meaning the treason was not to get blood, but the one betrayed was her blood.
The treason she will know for gold seems to have not happened yet. Daenerys will commit treason against someone that represents gold or where gold plays a significant role. She will need gold to go to Westeros. Gold wins wars. I suspect it could be Tyrion or whoever ends up being her Master of Coin. It could also be someone in Qarth such as Quaithe or Xaro.
The treason she will know for love means Daenerys will betray someone she loves or she will betray someone else for her love. It definitely relates to Jon. Many say what happened in the show could occur, in which Daenerys burns King's Landing. Maybe she promises Jon she won't, but she does anyways. Another possibility is Daenerys may willingly sacrifice herself to stop the whitewalkers. Maybe she knows she is Nissa Nissa and bares her chest for Jon. Maybe she promises Jon that she will not sacrifice herself, but she does anyways to save him and the realm.
submitted by
portcullis357 to
asoiaf [link] [comments]
2023.05.30 05:48 The_Alloquist [A Lord of Death] - Chapter 48
[←Chapter 47] [Cover Art] [My Links] [Index] [Discord] [Subreddit] [Chapter 49→] The blade forging left Sorore exhausted, the failure left her frustrated, and the cold gave way to fear as the night drew closer. As day faded into dusk, she reflected on a morning that had been as full of ups and downs as the mountain paths they’d travelled. The very fact that she had been able to use magic, that it had crashed from the realm of fairy tales and church warnings into the very real everyday occurrence was already an earth shattering experience.
Then she’d moved water with a thought, seen monsters fall from the sky, and watched the paladins cleaving them in two. Her head spun with the strangeness of it all, the sheer onset of fanciful things blurring and mixing together with reality. She began to wonder what else might be true, of the fairy tales in the myth she had heard on the seas in her father’s ship. Of the old folk stories of Erratz, often dismissed as nothing more than old wive’s tales.
A new world had opened up before her, and she wasn't sure to be fascinated or terrified of it. Certainly the paladins didn't want any part of it, and they certainly didn't want her to be involved. And from everything she knew of the church scripture, they were absolutely right. She felt the danger, the power of the matter, and knew that it was only a small fraction of what it could do. She even felt a certain degree of fear towards the masked man in the black robes, as respectful as he had been as a tutor.
At least he didn't use a switch to reminder of when she had failed.
But even in the murk of her disquiet in that moment, she also felt a smouldering frustration underlying it. The knife had been hers, her project, her duty, and she had resolutely failed to craft it. Part of her shifted the blame elsewhere - it was a new technique she had picked up over the course of an afternoon. Efrain himself had said as much, even going as far to say that he hadn’t expected her to do it.
Now that was something she didn’t like at all. When people expected her to fail, despite all her efforts.
However, that resolution meant little now, given that she had been excused from the effort. At least now the mage had the basic shape to work on. She let her hand drift on the rough stone walls of the church. Thousands of individual perfections, many thousands of years old, the stone functioning despite it. Perhaps it would be enough, the basic, overall function, but she recalled all the pittances and channels carved in her vision of the knife.
She knew what was driving the doubt. It was curiosity, that sticking bug that clung to her, despite all her prayers to the contrary. She just couldn’t seem to shake it, despite the ‘assistance’ of church teachers when it reared its head particularly high. She had expected the snap across the palms from Efrain when he drew that piece of wood. It had been a relief when he’d tossed it over his shoulder.
The thought was an unworthy one, she immediately considered. She should’ve been grateful to the various priests and scholars who’d spent years teaching the twins. Some had even prepared their entire lives, just on the chance they’d meet the beloved Bequeathed. If they were strict, then so be it, it was for the sake of preparing her and Frare for their duties.
The church was once more a buzz of activity as people prepared for the night ahead. She and Lillian found their way to the altar, attracting only minor glances. The villagers clearly had gotten used to their presence, although some offered a respectful and perhaps wary gaze for Lillian. One of Frare’s eyes opened as they approached, but he quickly returned to his half-rest leaning on a pillar. Aya was still very much asleep, chest gently rising and falling under the furs where Sorore had left her.
Sorore sat on the wide steps, put her chins on her hands, and began to think. It was a rather dangerous proposition, considering her recent failure. She had a tendency to ruminate on them, and often her twin would find her staring plaintively before loudly disrupting it. This time was no different, as before anything but impotent frustration could boil over, he plopped down behind her back.
“Stop that,” he said, “I can hear your teeth beginning to grind.”
She leaned back to lie upon his lap, despite the admonishment she heard in her head about proper sitting position. His eyes were closed again, and she followed suit, letting the minutes wile away as night crept into the word. She was shaken out of this reverie by a loud pop and Aya’s yelp. The girl was both mid yawn and bright red as both the paladins and the twins turned to look at her. She insisted that she was fine, and took to straightening her clothes subconsciously.
It was a mere temporary distraction for Sorore, who was largely engrossed in considering the knife. Rather than merely wallowing in her problems, she was invested in its function. She could almost see the stone parting before her, revealing the source of that smothering cold behind the door. Maybe if she had tried one more time, maybe if she reduced the complexity of the form, then increased when she got the basic shape. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.
It was all of very little use. She was inside her head once again, at a complete loss of what to do. Maybe, within the grand archives of Angorrah, the answer was contained in a dusty scroll. Some offhand fact or technique of forging, long forgotten in the darkness of the shelves. But these were several weeks of travel away, and she wasn’t sure that she’d see the next sunrise. So then, what could she do to get them to bridge that gap? Just one more day, that’s all they needed, to hold out until the next sunrise.
Nothing. That was the simple truth of it - she was a lost little girl in a small village surrounded by terrible things. The thought was not a comforting one, and she wriggled, trying to nestle deeper into the legs of her twin. Aya by that point had come to sit down beside them, looking greyer as the dark came on. No wonder, for she knew she all felt the chill roll forward as the fog waxed in the night.
Another meal of common fare came and went, though Sorore noted that many soldiers were taking care with it. Perhaps it was common practice, to relish what very well may be your last meal. For her part she found it rather difficult to keep it down, the coming dread of the hours ahead offsetting her appetite.
The faces of the paladins had settled into that implacable, stoney cast once more. They quietly rebandaged their injuries, readjusted their armour, and set to sharpening their great blades with long deliberate strokes. Sorore idly thought that their sleeping faces were significantly more pleasant, if rarer to see. Thus it was that they crossed over into the late afternoon, where the light was quickly fading.
“I would like to take one last little walk,” Aya spoke up, “before… you know.”
The paladins looked up, their eyes twisting with barely veiled misapprehension at the request.
“My lady…” Lillian began.
“We can’t,” Niche said, “Not now. Not so close to dark.”
“Just barely outside the door,” said Aya, “Just so I can see something other than the church. Just to stretch my legs.”
The paladins looked at each other, looked back, and set their faces.
“Well, I suppose it can be accommodated,” Lillian said, “only just outside the church, and only for a few minutes.”
Her tone warned of dire consequences if these conditions should not be strictly adhered to. The children all collectively nodded and the party of five set out past the doors. The barricades within the church had grown in size and strength, at least as far as Sorore could judge. The villagers, under the supervision of the soldiers, had proven diligent in the daylight hours. She could only hope that it would be enough for the onset of the creatures, should they breach the church.
She had a dread certainty that it would indeed be breached, sooner or later. Though she hadn’t heard of any specifics, whispers of just how many of the things lurked outside were passed around. It was a small stroke of fortune that the windows were narrow and ensconced in stone. The last thing they needed was one of the flying beasts to crash through the glass.
The faint red-pink cast to the grey outside was beginning to fade into blackness as the sun shrank. Occasionally, the banks of fog would strip away, revealing the abominable silhouettes standing still past the wall. They would close just as quickly, removing any clarity, and leaving only the icy fear in its place. The remaining soldiers and villagers watched them with anxiety and exhaustion.
The garden around the front of the church was almost non-existent. Most of the flowers had been trampled either in preparation for or during the course of the battle. The only things left relatively untouched were the central beds around the side of the church, which grew produce for its tenants. Some trees still stood, showing minimal damage from the fog and its creatures.
The five ducked under the boughs of the closest one to the doors. The additional chill brought by its shade was a trifling concern at the present. The green, muted as it was by the overcast sky beyond, was a lively anchor in the cold, dead mists. Such was the comfort of the place that Soroe let herself lean back onto the bark of the tree and eyes drift closed.
The trunk was solid, a comforting sensation that seemed to offset the malevolence of the fog.
Enough so that Sorore began to wander the netherworld of half-sounds and sights that characterised pre-sleep. They all wandered with her, some staying, some peeling off, guided by their own demented logic. Little and less was coherent, but it took her away from the horrible reality of what lurked a few hundred steps away all the same.
She fell deeper into this other-state, letting the visions wash over her as the real world slipped away. Time became a mercurial concept, which led her to question when exactly everything had settled. But settled it had, into a hazy blackness which the eye could not pierce. There, in the distance, a bright ribbon of twisting warm color glowed. A piece of fresh-forged metal perhaps, the day’s task going straight to her head. Or maybe it was the remnants of another dream that day, one that was already a blurry memory.
From a great distance, she heard a crash, unmistakable in its ringing clarity. A forge hammer singing out a song of its own, for now merely a rhythm. It shifted in tone as it rang out through the abyss once more, adding progression, then melody, all written in singing steel. Sorore’s fingers began to drum out the sequence on her thighs as she felt it reverberate through her. Then, with a sliding screech, she was left alone in the half-dream, with nothing but darkness remaining.
Still, the bright memory of the song remained, and in the darkness another voice took shape. It was a deep, rich, and handsome sound, that spoke of a confidence of such immensity that you were convinced its wielder could do anything. Sorore had never heard the likes of it before, either on the docks, or in cities, or on the open waves.
“Come now,” it said, “this little thing is giving
you trouble?”
Sorore’s eyes slowly open, pulling her from the dreamscape back into the dreariness of the real. Aya had her knees pulled to her chest, leaning back into the trunk. The paladins, tired but alert, scanned the endlessly shifting banks of fog.
Sorore had a fleeting impression that the answers were just beyond the pale mists. Maybe something would come through, parting it like thin curtains, and impart the inspiration she needed. Or maybe a whole set of schematics will drop into my lap from the sky, she thought with dark irony.
The vision was quickly fading into the abyss of forgetfulness. Perhaps Aya had shared it once more with her, but she was in conversation with the paladins. Not wanting to interrupt, Sorore looked at her outstretched legs. Past them were a handful of leaves that had fallen despite the summer of the valley, with a couple long decomposed to nothing but their skeletons.
She reached out to grasp at the leaves, looking at the yellow-grey veins that raced across its surface. The large ones spread from the central stem and the hundreds of smaller capillaries that interconnected them. Holding up to the sky, she screwed her face, trying to discern the details of this piece of nature. After a few moments of tepid stillness, the clouds parted for just a moment, letting a ray of sunlight lance down to catch their hill in its beam.
For a second, the leaf seemed to glow, shimmering like metal catching glare.
And Sorore had her inspiration.
With that, she sprang to her feat so fast that one of the paladins almost jumped. Both looked around with questioning and slightly alarmed expressions. Sorore didn’t have much of an answer - in fact her mind was going so fast that she could hardly even articulate the solution that had been revealed to her.
“The- the- the-” she said, snapping her fingers, trying to put words to the idea, “I know what to do. I need to find him.”
“Find who? The mage?” asked Lillian.
The fiery certainty of the thought sent Sorore tramping out onto the grass, leading to calls from the paladins to slow down. She didn’t bother to wait for them, consumed by this need to find the mage, the knife, to try again.
The forge was more or less empty, save for the few labourers packing up the tools and ferrying them into the church proper. With a furious set of questions, she gleaned that he’d vacated the premises some time ago. The paladins called for her to stop as she doubled back, but she couldn’, not now.
The scenery seemed to blur as she rushed through the church doors, past the bustling barricades, and to the captain’s tables. A somewhat perturbed Damafelce told the young girl that Efrain had been seen entering the door at the end of the church. With that, Sorore broke out into a run, past the altar, through the door and down into the darkness of the Catacombs.
She stepped out onto the sand floor, the members of her party at her heels as she tried to seek out the path to the black wall. She stumbled more than once as she felt her way along in the darkness, fortunately with no skeletal interruptions this time. Down the stairs and into the long corridor she came, the smothering cold increasing as she pushed forward.
As she had surmised, Efrain was there, just about to start whatever process pried apart the stone. The tip of the blade was raised, pressed into the stone above his head. He turned at the approaching footsteps, cocking his head at the lack of isolation. Sorore didn’t even wait for him to say something, instead thrusting out her head for the crude metal knife.
“ I know- I can- I can do it now,” she said, breathless from the long run from the surface.
Delicately, Efrain removed the metal from the stone, and looked down at her. There seemed to be a questioning quality to the look, at least as far as she could read the emotionless mask. He looked at the cat, then back to the girl, and then to the rest of her party.
“How?” he said, “ If I let you undo this, we may not have enough time to recreate it before the attacks begin.”
“Leaves,” she said, putting a hand on the wall to steady herself as her lungs complained, “it- was the leaves.”
“The… leaves?” he said, “ All right. Stop, take a few breaths, and start from the beginning.”
And so she did, explaining how she sat under the bows of the trees, the half-awake dreaming, and the skeleton of the leaf.
“I got it. I was trying to build the whole thing out myself, all at once,” she said, stumbling over her words, “instead of letting nature do what it wants. The metal wants to come together - I don’t need to force it into its final shape. I just need to build a- a-”
She snapped her fingers at the air, trying to reach past this new blank as Efrain regarded the knife.
“You want to build a frame,” he said, “and let the metal fill in the rest of the empty space.”
After a moment’s hesitation, he turned over the knife, hilt first, to the girl.
“Well then,” he said, “let’s hope you know what you’re doing.”
She did, or at least she hoped she did this time. Within moments, the metal was flowing over her hands like a cold stream, but instead of trying to sculpt it, she began to spin filaments outwards. Like the skeleton of the leaf, little veins of metal stretched outwards, stopping abruptly, and folding back into themselves. If it had been hard before, it was now brutal, the smothering cold dragging at every attempt to shape the material.
Hands trembling, sweat beginning to bead on her forehead, she managed to split the metal into dark fingers. All she had to do was resist gravity and prevent it spilling over the imaginary bounds of the shape. From those dark fingers, snaking vines spread out and connected with each other. Slowly, slowly, branching and arcing, they filled in the skeleton she’d created and fused.
The final product wasn’t altogether too different from what they’d created during the afternoon. The shape, a heavy chisel tip, tapering out to twin furls like a plough, a longer tang. Sorore, half blind by stinging salt, didn’t fail to notice swirling furrows spreading across its surface. She had no idea how she’d managed to etch those designs, or perhaps the metal remembered, just as the stone did.
“Well,” said the mage at last, “suffice to say, I am impressed. Now, hold it up.”
She did so, despite the exhaustion of her arms, the tip wavering as his finger touched its point.
There was a rush of something, extending over the surface of the blade, stopping just short of her hand. It was like a coat of mail had been pulled taught, the links aligning at the same time, snapping together in a regular structure. From the tip of the chisel, down to the tang, the metal shuddered and settled. By the time it disappeared under her grip, it was rigid as any steel tool.
The mage gently took it from her, holding the blade up to that little flickering light above his head. Flicking it this way and that, he seemed to find whatever he was looking for, and pressed the tip to the wall. Sorore, despite her fatigue, was practically exploding with excitement. She’d done it, not only conquering the task, but she was about to see what was behind those dark walls.
Then, before he pressed the blade into the stone and drew it down, he paused.
“Paladins,” he said, voice quiet, “it would be best to take the children back into the church.”
Lillian frowned and put a hand onto her hilt as she stared at the door.
“What?” said Sorore, aghast, “ But I-”
“No buts,” said Efrain, “we don’t know what’s behind this door. It may be dangerous, it may not. But I strongly suspect it’s not something you would want to see. Very well done, little one, but this is something I should deal with on my own.”
The tone of academic authority was not an unfamiliar one to Sorore. But unlike in virtually all other occasions in her life, she attempted to object. Before she could speak more than a few words, Lillian took her by the shoulders, her mind apparently made up. All three of them were carted up the stairs as barely contained rage began to bubble up inside her.
“Do you think we should…?” said Niche, gesturing to the surrounding stone.
“No, not yet,” Lillian said, “putting aside everything else, we still might need him.”
Niche nodded and said no more.
They had made a steady pace, overtaking half the hallway as the scream of metal on stone echoed out. It was followed by a grating rumble as presumably the doors opened. If the temperature below the surface was cold when they came, the resulting drop was freezing. The mist that rose up behind them whispered things in long mournful sighs as the surroundings began to buzz with what must’ve been magic.
Then, from up the stairs there was a long, terrible wail.
[←Chapter 47] [Cover Art] [My Links] [Index] [Discord] [Subreddit] [Chapter 49→] submitted by
The_Alloquist to
redditserials [link] [comments]