How to tighten maui jim sunglasses

Last weekend I found out my husband has been cheating on me. I confronted him, he denied it and increasingly became more unhinged and abusive by the day. I posted about it on this sub, and an overwhelming number of lovely redditors told me I needed to leave before things escalated.
I found an apartment, borrowed money from my dad to pay the deposit, and got the keys on Thursday. That night I called the domestic violence hotline and came up with an escape plan.
Husband goes to the bar every night at 7 pm. With my last $500 I hired two movers and a cargo truck to arrive at 8:30 pm. Friday evening arrives, husband leaves for the bar at 7:30. It’s go time. My heart is about to jump out my chest and I’m drenched in sweat. I gather all my important documents, and start dumping as many of my clothes and belongings into trash bags until the movers arrive. The three of us get what we can fit into the truck in half an hour, I leave half my belongings behind. I smell his pillow one last time and tell the empty room I’m so sorry but I have to go. I kiss our recently passed dog’s urn and tell her I love her and I’m sorry to leave her. I look out our bedroom one last time and memorize the scene.
I catch my two cats, put them into one carrier and jump in an Uber by 9:15. That was it, I was finally out.
That night I get a text that M, husband’s best friend who told me about the cheating, confessed to husband that he told me. Husband told M that he had been lying to M about cheating “to brag.” Husband told M he “brought him into this community and trusted him, how could he do this?”
2 am arrives and husband gets home to find me gone. He calls me twice and I don’t pick up. He texts several of my friends to ask where I am and that he’s worried about me. All he texts me, though, is an angry message about taking one of the rocks from our rock collection, asking when I’m coming to pick up the rest of my stuff, and good luck dealing with the fact that I “bounced on the marital household based on hearsay.” Then he texts me that M lied to me. I don’t respond.
Next morning I wake up to a text from my bank. Our joint bank account initially had 100 for him to eat. Turns out husband drained the account so it now sits at -700. So now I’m completely broke, and then some. I freeze the account.
Friends report seeing husband at the bar at 4 pm wearing sunglasses. He’s pretending everything is great. Later that night he tries to charge a large bar tab to the debit card, it declines. He then tries to order food five more times, each time the card declines.
Then around 10 pm last night, he texts me “so am I supposed to ask if we’re over or is that supposed be to as obvious as it seems?” I don’t respond. Half an hour later he texts “got it. Thanks. Best of luck.” I don’t respond. Then he texts me some random advice about not accepting drinks from strangers, it’s dangerous, “okay that’s all, take care, wish you all the best.” I don’t respond.
I haven’t heard from him since, but a friend reported seeing him at the bar again today which was otherwise completely empty. He has blocked me on all social media.
His behavior after I left only confirms I made the right decision. I think he would have hurt me if I stayed one more night. I’m 10% devastated, 80% relieved, and 10% lonely. But I’m not constantly anxious anymore and I slept better than I have in five years. Now time for the divorce.

Hey everyone! I just got back from Maui and have to say Road to Hana was amazing.
Before I went I had asked questions and saw lots of suggestions but not many reports back on doing both RTH and Pipiwai Trail in one day.
I wanted to share our experience and very happy we did what we did!
Few important things

1. We’re a pretty active early 30s couple
2. We booked the 7-10am time for the state park and black sand beach last minute as it was all that was left and glad we got this reservation!
3. We did the full loop and took the backside, it was stunning!!
4. We didn’t plan exactly what we’d do, but we got the Shaka Guide app and it was 100% worth it

How we did it:
We left Kihei around 6:10am, stopped at Safeway in Paia for water and coffee and went on our way!
We planned to go straight to the black sand beach without stopping, but when we hit Hanawi falls we decided to step out to stretch our legs.
From here we turned on the Shaka Guide app and hit a hidden Lava Tube, Makapipi Falls, and then on to the state park.
We stopped at Hana Farms for the banana bread for breakfast and it was AMAZING.
We then stopped in the black sand beach at 9am and hiked for 45 min and swam for 10 min. Beautiful!
From here we drove through Hana going down different roads and taking our time before heading to Hamoa beach at 11am.
We brought a floatie and swam here for almost 2 hours until 1pm, beautiful 80 and sunny day so glad we did this.
We then went back to Hana and got Poke Bobs for lunch, our favorite poke we tried this trip! (Among Tobi’s, Tamuras, and Star Noodle! Although all of them were still amazing)
It was at this point we were going to pick, take the road back to Paia and see the stops we missed, or on to Pipiwai trail.
We decided let’s go for the trail and made it there at 3pm. We hiked fairly quickly and we’re back at our car by 5pm and the trail was so worth it! The bamboo forest and waterfall were amazing.
Then comes our favorite part of the drive, taking the back road!
If you are at all confident in your driving it’s not a bad drive at all, just keep some space between the car in front of you so there’s always room to pass! And once the road widens back up let locals pass if you’re going slow and there’s a line behind you.
We came around the back side and caught the sunset along this route and it has to be one of the most beautiful drives I’ve taken anywhere in my travels.
On the way stop at Bully Burgers, even just to enjoy the view, and we were back in Paia by 7pm.
Overall this was a stunning highlight of our trip and can’t wait to go back!
Ask any questions and enjoy the drive!

TW: death, thoughts of death
As many others with BPD, I have some pretty bad attachment and abandonment issues. I have been overcome with very emotional moments where I have death anxiety. I create these scenarios in my mind of my loved ones, and sometimes myself, dying and I can’t stop. It mostly revolves around my dad, two younger sisters and I. My sisters are 1 and 5 and it absolutely throws me into a spiral whenever I create these scenarios of them dying and how it would affect me. I keep having this gut-wrenching feeling that my dad will get into a bad car accident and I’ve had to call him at times to make sure he was okay. I fear watching my parents growing old and dying and my throat is tightening now thinking about it. I imagine my funeral despite not wanting to die, I don’t want anyone to die.
I’m meeting with my therapist in a couple weeks to talk it through but if anyone who has experienced similar thoughts I could really use some advice/ways to cope.

Dusk fell over the wilderness with the slow, languid relish of a woman basking in her lover’s touch, and all of the men drifted once more toward the inn. By seven, the public room was crowded with gaiety and good cheer, and a roaring fire blazed in the heath. Farbin had ordered a nine’o’clock curfew in expectation of the wolf’s coming, and the men jostling for position at the counter seemed hell bent on getting in as much revelry before the appointed hour as possible. Griger picked at his meat and potatoes, his mind preoccupied, then pushed the plate away and rolled a cigarette. The pretty barmaid came over, took the plate with a quick smile that didn’t touch her eyes, and hurried away. Griger did not look after her, nor did he allow himself to think of her. He didn’t have the luxury tonight.
“I’ll take two men,” he said, “and we’ll watch the road. I want other men hiding nearby.”
Farbin nodded. His face was drawn and white. Mayhap he sensed something in the air, or maybe he had read the moon; either way, he knew as well as Griger that something was going to happen tonight.
Before leaving, Griger fetched his sword from his quarters. Standing in the middle of the room, firelight licking his face, he turned it over in his hand, hefting it and testing its weight.
When he returned to the public room, it was empty save for Farbin, several aids, and a dozen Guardsmen. The barkeep and the maiden were both gone, likely hold up in their quarters, and Griger could not resist a twinge of loss, no matter how much he may have wanted to. “I’m putting these men under your direct command,” Farbin said of the soldiers. The table before him was laid with maps, parchment, and a large wicker basket full of garlic, as per Griger’s request.
He plucked one of the cloves out, broke it open, and smeared it along the length of his blade. “All of you,” he said, “do like me.”
Without question, each of the men did likewise, applying garlic to their swords like baptimsal waters to a sinner seeking salvation. Next, Griger rubbed half a clove on his face, neck, and arms. The soldiers followed suit without having to be told to. “Aim for its heart or its eyes,” he said. “Those are its weakest points.”
Shoving the sword through his belt, he looked at Farbin. “We’ll be back before sunrise. Likely before midnight.”
Outside, thin clouds wrapped themselves around the moon like rotted burial shrouds and a cool breeze redolent of earth stirred in the desolate street. Guardsmen patrolled the avenues and alleyways with lanterns and the three town deputies manned the gate, opening it for Griger and his party and sparing them anxious, sidelong looks. Well, that’s them gone, those looks said.
Griger strung his forces out along the road, from the bottom of the hill to the river one mile hence. He took up position in a bush pressing against the side of the road, and two of the Guardsmen hunkered behind a wooden cart directly across from him. Griger knelt in the soft dirt, hunched over to fit in the hollow space within the brush, and held the sword crossways so that the blade didn’t stick out and give him away. Silence crashed down around him, broken only by the even push and pull of his own breathing, and shafts of moonlight cascaded through the interlaced branches overhead like celestial search beams. Every so often, a faint kiss of wind would find him and dry the sweat on his face, and once, after he had been coiled an hour, a tiny burrowing mammal brushed past him in the semi-darkness. He reacted on instinct, shooting his arm out and smashing it beneath his fist. A chipmunk stared up at him, a grimace on its face and its eyes wide and staring as if across the gulf betwixt life and death.
A muted sense of remorse twinged his chest, and he took a moment to dig a crude grave with his free hand, then swept the poor, broken creature in and covered it with dirt, which he then patted down.
For a long time, he stared out at the road, his fingers curling and uncurling around the hilt. His heart beat slow and regular, his breathing even. Minutes ticked by, then an hour. The moon sailed above the treeline in the south and cast its light fully upon the world, so bright that Griger could see every pebble in the road, every snarled blade of grass across the way. Nothing moved, no sound carried.
He was just beginning to think he would be there all night when a low, rasping rattle pricked his ears. His muscles went rigid and his grip tightened on the sword. He craned his neck to see toward the bridge, and when he spied the beast, his heart stopped dead. Seven feet, perhaps eight, it ambled up the middle of the road roughly 50 yards off, just far enough away that even with the light it was a hulking, amorphous mass without feature. Its long, crooked legs bent deeply at the knee, and its shoulders rose and fell with the thunderous rhythm of its breathing. As it drew closer, Griger could make out the details of its being. Matted gray fur, so sparse in places that it exposed pink, dimpled flesh, covered its powerful body, and its face protruded outwards in a snout crammed with glistening fangs. Its smell found Griger then, a rank, wild odor, and his nose crinkled. He looked across the way at the cart. One of the men knelt behind it, his wide, horrified eyes stuck to the coming monstrosity. Griger had to remind himself that these men had likely never seen a werewolf before, much less a changeling.
That meant he was largely on his own here.
Right.
When the beast was fifty feet from his position, Griger jumped out of the bush and stood in the path, his legs far apart. The wolf came to a halting stop, and its burning red eyes narrowed in an all too human expression of surprise. Its black lips peeled back from its teeth and its pointed ears laid flat against its skull. It leaned over, its eyes blinking as if to dispel the sight before it, and let out a low growl. Up close, the abomination was even more fearsome, its joints knotted, its fingers and toes terminating in wickedly sharp claws. Griger judged it to be about 350 pounds of sheer muscle mass, not exceptionally large in terms of frame but large enough that if he let it get the upper hand, he would be in trouble.
The wolf tensed and looked around. The Guardsmen, totalling six, surrounded him on all sides, their swords drawn. The wolf squared its shoulders and hooked its talons. Its eyes locked with Griger’s, and Griger was certain that in them was hatred - pure, unadulterated, human hatred.
Letting out a soul petrifying howl, it lunged at him. One of the Guardsmen got in its path, and it swiped his easily away with such force that the man’s head was knocked clean off his shoulders. It hit one of the others and he issued a womanish scream.
Griger met the running nightmare head-on, the sword jamming deep into its belly. He ducked, missing its batting claws by mere inches, and wrenched the sword to the side. Wailing, the wolf brought its hands down hard on Griger’s back; the air knocked from his lungs and he went down to one knee. Acting quick, his mind blank and his instincts in control, he smashed his shoulder into the wolf’s knee in an effort to upset his balance lest he gain the high ground. The wolf staggered back, then kicked him in the chest, its dagger-like claws tearing the front of Griger’s shirt and puncturing his skin. He fell back onto his butt and braced himself for a grounded battle, but the wolf turned its back to him and lashed out at a Guardsman, driving him back. The others formed a tight semi-circle around him. Griger couldn’t see them past the wolf’s broad back, but the ones on the side sprang forward as one, their swords up. The wolf threw out his arm and tore one of their faces off, then snatched another up and tossed him away. The first lay upon the ground, his blood soaking into the dirt.
Getting to his feet, Griger ran at the wolf and jumped onto its back. His training took over and he watched from the center of his own head - a mere passenger -as he hooked one arm around its throat and jammed his opposite thumb into its soft eye. Warm jelly suckled his finger and inhuman muscles rippled and spasmed beneath his grasp. The wolf whipped left and right, and Griger held on, his legs flailing and snapping like twin whips across a horse’s back. Two of the Guardsmen jabbed the wolf’s stomach with their blades, and the wolf hit one with an open hand, cracking his and his comrade’s heads together and decommissioning them both.
Bodies, some dead and others unconscious, littered the ground. The wolf tripped over one and started to fall, but caught itself. Griger took advantage of its momentary misstep and got his legs around its middle. The wolf spun and ried to buck him off, but Griger, teeth gritted, held on, his thumb still deep in the monster’s eye. It wailed in a mixture of agony and frustration, and then threw itself back, its full weight landing on Griger and pinning him to the dirt.
Finally letting go, Griger heaved the monster onto its stomach and scrambled onto it, his knees digging into its furry flanks. Sweat coursed down his face and the back of his neck, and his heart slammed a furious tempo into his aching ribs. It felt like one was cracked but he didn’t have time to care. He balled his fist and smashed it into the back of the wolf’s head thrice in rapid succession, then cried out when it threw him off. He jumped instantly up, fire wrapping itself around his torso like the coils of a big snake. The wolf staggered to its feet, its breathing heavy and body trembling from the damage it had taken. Griger looked around, spotted the sword lying in the dirt, blade slick with blood, and grabbed it.
In the split second it took him to retrieve his weapon, the wolf had loped fifty yards toward the bridge; Griger could just make it out far ahead, lumbering awkwardly on all fours. Someone called out from behind, but Griger ignored them and gave chase, the vise of pain tightening round his chest. He gritted his teeth and pushed through it, every step an agony.
He caught up the creature on the bridge. Its gait had slowed and its breathing deepened. Without missing a beat, Griger spun the sword and brought it down on the wolf’s back one-handed. It sank to its hands and knees and gasped for breath. Griger hit it again, the blade slashing across the side of its face. He raised the sword for a third blow, but so quick he almost missed it, the wolf was on him, its snarling maw inches from his face. It grabbed Griger’s hand and twisted; bones snapped with a wet sound and pain shot up Griger’s arm. The sword dropped to the planks, then went over the side and fell five feet to the babbling river. The creature threw its weight into him, and they hit the railing; it cracked as surely as Griger’s wrist and they plunged into the cold water below.
For a moment they were completely submerged in a confusion of limbs, suspended between the world above and the one below like two insects frozen in amber. The wolf’s claws raked frantically over Griger’s chest, and Griger pounded his fist against the side of its head, barely aware of the pain streaking into his shoulder. They thrashed and rolled, then the wolf shoved him away. Griger broke the surface and sucked a deep breath into his bursting lungs, then looked around. The wolf paddled to the shore and stopped to catch its breath on the muddy bank. Griger swam after, got to his feet, and waded the rest of the way. Instead of attacking, the wolf tried to crawl away. Griger picked his way to dry ground, the grass thick and high, and kicked the wolf in the side. It flopped face first in the mud, then rolled onto its back.
For the first time since the initial confrontation on the road, Griger got a look at the creature. A dozen stab wounds salted its chest, the flesh raised and swollen from the garlic, and its gaping right eye socket was empty, the ruined orb presumably having been washed away in the river. Its dog-like face was crisscrossed with gashes and wounds, and its good eye pooled with misery. The Guardsmen had put up a better fight than Griger realized. Had they been smart enough to duck a bit, they might have brought the wolf down on their own.
The wolf’s gaze met Griger’s, and it tried to stand. Griger pushed it back down with his foot.
Realizing it had been beaten, the wolf let out a canine whimper, and before Griger’s very eyes, began to change like a caterpillar molting into a butterfly. Its features rippled and rearranged, its muscles pulsed and strained, the hair coating its body shedded.
When the transformation was complete, Sel, naked and missing one eye, stared up at him, his scrawny torso cut to ribbons and his face covered in hives. Griger’s heart sank to his stomach and his breath locked in his chest. Sel darted his remaining eye away and looked up at the moon, his mistress. “You watched yourself,” he muttered.
Coldness spread through Griger’s soul and he knelt next to the old man, his face hardening. He barely knew Sel, had only two conversations with the man, but he couldn’t help the faint flutter of betrayal in the pit of his stomach.
And that made him mad.
“I told you,” he said icily, “I can handle a werewolf.”
He wrapped his hands around Sel’s neck and squeezed.
When the old man was dead, Griger got to his feet, grabbed a tuft of white hair, and dragged the corpse back into town.
In an hour, pardon in hand, he left the village of Koreth and never looked back.

​
Griger Kel-Am watched from his cell in the old town jailhouse as workers busily erected a scaffolding in the courtyard below. It was shaping up nicely, he thought with an appreciative nod; the skeletal beams reminded him of the bones of dead animals in the Karel Desert and that comparison almost disturbed him.
Which was no easy feat. Griger had seen the worst the world had to offer. He fought beasts in the Staygin Mountains, fended off feral bandits in the Jarel Plains, and weathered more attacks, fights, battles, and death than most people even knew existed. Nothing on earth could rattle him. He couldn’t afford to let himself be shaken. Life, he had learned, was like a surging storm tide. You either stand strong against it, or you get knocked down and swept away. Griger refused to be swept away. He refused to wind up like the old bones he stumbled across on the North Road and in the snowy stepps at the top of the world. A man must be hard and stoic to survive, and he must be harder and colder to thrive.
Despite his grizzled face, many scars, dead eyes, and unseemly facial hair, Griger, a sword for hire since before the Great Plague, had always thrived.
Sighing, Griger left the window and walked over to the door; three brisk paces. He threaded his arms through the bars and tried his best to look up the corridor. In the cells across from him, other men, their faces dirty and white, cowered, waiting for their judgement.
Their open fear disgusted Griger.
Cowards.
Griger wasn’t afraid to die. Dying was easy; you closed your eyes and went to sleep. Living...living was hard, every day a knock down, drag out fight for dominance against something. Outlaws, nature, your own inner darkness. He did not seek death, but he welcomed it. The prospect of a noose tightening around his neck, of his body jerking and dancing before many jeering eyes and spitting mouths, however, almost bothered him.
But as a wise old man he once knew had said, This too shall pass.
A sardonic smile touched Griger’s chapped lips and he shook his head like a man who couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Of all the things he’d done in his life to deserve a hanging, self-defense is what did him in. Ha.
Two weeks ago, he was following the river from the North, on foot and alone save for his sword and his rucksack. He stopped at a tide pool to drink, and was beset by a man with a knife. In his frock coat and rubberized boots, he was too well dressed to be a highwayman; he never spoke a word until he lay in the grass, his throat laid open and gushing rich red blood. “Scoundrel,” he gurgled.
Griger relieved him of his boots and pocketbook and carried on. Before dusk, he came across the village and rented a room at the inn. Women in cheap, homespun dresses haunted the halls, knocking at doors to sell their company, and Griger, lying in bed by the flickering light of a lamp, was considering spending the rest of the money on one when three constables broke down the door.
The man he killed, they told him later, was the son of the mayor. At that moment, Griger knew he was in trouble.
They refused to believe that the son attacked first and pointed to the things Griger had taken from his as proof of overland piracy, theft, and murder. He was tried in a packed courtroom and found guilty, standing tall and proud but alone as no lawyer in the land would take his case.
Out in the courtyard, someone shouted, and a team of horses neighed, Griger, sitting on the edge of his cot, looked up at the window. The light was getting weaker as night approached. Shadows, long and black, fell through the slats and made unwholesome shapes across the earthen floor. Down the hall, a man cried out for water, and elsewhere, someone raked a metal cup back and forth across the bars. Would they hang him tonight, Griger wondered, or would they wait for dawn?
“You,” someone spat.
Griger looked up to find the mayor standing at the bars, his bloated face filled with hatred. Another man was with him, this one taller and thinner. They were both clad in the finest garments, but the stranger was undoubtedly better suited. Griger took him for a government official.
“What do you want?” Griger asked, an edge in his voice.
The mayor opened his mouth to speak, but the stranger silenced him. “My name is Urick Farbin. I’m the governor of Ezk Province and I have a proposition for you.”
“What’s that?”
Farbin flashed a tight smile.
It looked to Griger like he wouldn’t be hanged at all.
And that made him smile.
***
Griger watched the countryside pass slowly by, all green hills, trickling brooks, and dense thickets. The occasional straw hut loomed out of the wilderness like an antsy thief, and six miles out of the village, they passed a stately manor house that could only have belonged to the mayor.
It was mid-afternoon and the overcast day wrapped itself around Griger like a wet blanket. The previous night, Governor Farbin sprang Griger from his cell and brought him to the inn, where he was kept under armed guard. Griger spent most of the evening in a straight back chair and whittling. You don’t have to worry, he said to the sentry standing at the door, I’m not going anywhere.
And he wasn’t. He was not an honor bound man by any stretch, but Farbin saved his life, and Griger reckoned that earned him a little loyalty.
The guards didn’t stand down, but Griger didn’t blame them. He wouldn’t have either.
In the morning, they set off in a horse drawn carriage, heading northwest along the Western Road. Now, hours later, Griger sat next to the Governor, who wore a dark cloak and wide-brimmed hat befitting his office. Beside him, the driver held the reins and stared ahead with the practiced indifference of a man used to tuning out things he wasn’t supposed to hear.
“Will you explain to me what I’m doing?” Griger asked.
Farbin was quiet for a moment, then he looked up at the sky, the muted light bathing his craggy features. “Your file says that you’ve done work for the Government.”
“Some,” Griger replied.
“You’ve handled things of a singular nature,” the old man continued. “Things that most other men have never dreamed possible.”
Gringer nodded. He had. His only oath was to himself, and he worked for whoever paid him the highest sum. Men like him were called mercenaries but he preferred to think of himself as a businessman.
“There’s a matter in a nearby village that has been ongoing for quite some time,” Farbin said, picking his words carefully. “I have sent my best agents and they’ve done nothing for it. When the paperwork on you came to my office, I checked your name, as I do all condemned men, and knew at once that you were the man for this job.”
Griger was almost touched. “What’s the job?”
The Governor turned to face Griger, his expression bloodless and sober, as though he had something great yet terrible to impart upon him. “Do you believe in werewolves?”
“Yes,” he said, “I do.”
“Have you ever killed one?”
Griger hesitated. “No,” he said, “not personally, but I was with a party that did.”
Five years before, Griger wintered in a village among the steep foothills guarding the forbidding expanse of Mount Grez. In the deepest, darkest days of the freeze, local livestock began to die, ripped asunder and strewn across snowy fields like trash. Wolf tracks larger than any Griger had ever seen led to and from each scene, and at night, high, ghostly howls rose above the shrieking wind, curdling the blood of even the most sturdy men.
After a watchman on patrol was attacked and gutted in the main square, the men of the village banded together and tracked the beast, eventually cornering it in a cave near a frozen river. Even if he lived to be a thousand, Griger would never forget the monster they encountered. Seven feet tall, coated in matted gray fur, its face canine yet human, its eyes blazed with the fires of hell, and as the men approached, it snapped and snarled, the sounds it made so close to words that even now, Griger wondered if it were trying to speak. They beset it with swords and torches, and when the dust settled, five men were dead and three were wounded. The wolf lay crumpled on the ground, decapitated and aflame. Even with no head, even with its heart divorced from its body, it screeched as the fire consumed it, a high, hitching wail that haunted Griger’s dreams for many moons after.
Farbin nodded. “I figured as much. A man as well-travelled as you has to have seen such things.”
He went on to explain that a suspected werewolf was loose in the countryside around the village of Koreth, a tiny fishing port on the sloped and muddy banks of the Rey River. Three weeks before, sheep and horses began to turn up dead, their bodies laid open and their intestines pulled from their stomachs. Before long, travellers along the Western Road started to die in a similar manner. Every time a new victim appeared, officials found large wolf tracks and strands of fur nearby.
Several nights ago, it broke into the home of a land baron and killed him, his wife, and his daughter. His young son survived, but was blinded in one eye.
‘It was a massive beast,’ the boy told the Governor, a personal friend of the baron. ‘It stood seven feet tall, was as wide as it was long, and had the snarling face of a man mixed with a dog.’
“You want me to kill it,” Griger said. It was not a question.
“Yes.”
The carriage jostled as its big wheels splashed through ruts and puddles. “And in return…?”
“You’ll get a full and unconditional pardon.”
Hmm. Griger considered the offer carefully, even though he was in no position to bargain. “Alright,” he said at last, “I’ll do it.”
They arrived at the village three hours later. Perched on the banks of the lazy river, it seemed a single estate rather than a town. A stone wall, roughly a dozen feet high, enclosed it, pitched roofs visible beyond. Two guards in helmets and chainmail, swords on their hips and crossbows in their hands, stood at the gate, their expressions stony and as hardscrabble as the fields sloping away from the walls.
Inside, tiny buildings lined narrow dirt streets and people in plain, homespun clothes went about their business, pushing carts, hawking vegetables, and playing dice. Old men sat in canned chairs before the town pub and a group of boys chased each other back and forth through shadowed warrens, their faces smudged and weatherbeaten beyond their years. Chickens and pigs, both plump and hale, ran free, the former flapping their impotent wings and the latter snorting happily as they wallowed and shat. Griger spotted a blacksmith in his quarters, striking an anvil with a hammer, and wondered idly if he had any interesting items for sale.
“The people here are stubborn and refuse to flee,” Farbin said.
Griger faced forward. “These types usually are.”
“You are not to worry about their safety,” Farbin warned. “They can see to themselves. Your only concern is to be the wolf.”
“Understood.”
The driver parked near the town inn and tied the horse to a hitching post while Griger and Farbin got out. Griger rolled his neck and flexed his shoulders. After so many years of walking wherever he went, he was unaccustomed to sitting for long periods and inevitably ended any long, stationary trek sore.
Past the batwing doors, a shadowy lobby lit by candlelight greeted them. Farbin led Griger directly up the stairs and to a tidy room with a single, neatly made bed and a desk beneath the window. “These are your quarters,” Farbin said.
“Spacious,” Griger said unsarcastically. He sat on the edge of the bed. “What leads do you have on this wolf?”
“None beyond what I’ve told you,” Farbn said. “My men have scoured the countryside but they haven’t found a thing.”
Griger hummed. “No tracks? Droppings? Nothing at all?”
“Not beyond what I’ve told you.”
That was odd. Werewolves rarely strayed far from their den. Unless they were of the rare half-breed that turned upon the cycle of the moon, man at day and beast by night. But those were as common as an honest man in the High Council - not very damned common at all.
“What are you thinking?” Farbin asked.
Griger said what was on his mind.
“But those aren’t real,” the Governor said, a hint of confusion in his voice.
“I tell you they are.”
Farbin’s brow furrowed with incredulity. “A man cannot simply change his form, nor can a wolf, for that matter. It goes against all logic.”
All Griger could do was spread his hands. That a man - even a large one - could transform into a werewolf (and that a werewolf could shrink back to the size of a mere man) did defy logic. Griger could not account for it, but he knew it to be so, and he said as much. Farbin, shaken by the confidence in Griger’s tone, nervously scratched the back of his neck and looked constipated. “Put aside what you think you know and ask yourself. What if it is a wolf-man?”
“But what if it isn’t?” Farbin countered.
Griger ticked his head to the side in acquiescence. “Maybe it’s not. Maybe your men have failed to uncover a den large enough to house a seven foot tall monster. Maybe they’ve been looking up each other’s backsides instead of where they should be.”
A dark shadow flickered across Farbin’s face. “My men are highly trained and highly skilled.”
“That’s why you came to me.”
Farbin fumed. “I came to you because you have experience in such things.”
“Right,” Griger said. “I do. And I’m telling you - in my expert opinion - that if there is no den, the wolf is a changeling. I cannot explain the science behind how and why it is a changeling. I don’t know how it can happen...but it does. You have to consider the possibility that you are looking for a phantom, that your wolf may be out there right this second ploughing a field or herding sheep and not asleep in a cave waiting to be found and made.”
Farbin turned away and put his hands on his hips. No shoulder had ever been colder, and for a second, Griger thought the old man was going to send him back to the gallows. “Alright,” Farbin finally said, “suppose it is a half-breed. What then?”
“I want to see where the latest attack happened.”
A half an hour later, Griger and Farbin stood before a large stone house with a slate roof and wide windows. A dirt drive looped around an ornate fountain and tall trees rustled in the new breeze. Several Provincial Guardsmen accompanied them, all with swords and crossbows and one, the commander, with a rare flintlock on his hip. Farbin led Gringer to the west side of the structure. “The wolf came in through the servants’ entrance,” he explained. A set of paw prints led to the door and Gringer knelt to study them. Roughly half a foot apart, they were slightly larger than any other he had seen.
Inside, the house was dark and cold, shadows clustered in corners like demons waiting for the fall of night to advance their ghoulish aims. Dried blood stained the wooden floors and spackled the bare walls. “Has anyone seen this creature and lived but the boy?”
Farbin shook his head. “No.” His face was white and strained, the somber, funeral atmosphere affecting him.
“You’ve told me everything?”
“Yes.”
Griger nodded to himself. If the wolf were a changeling, someone, somewhere likely would have seen it coming or going. That was a strike against his theory. On the other hand, there were likely dozens of isolated farms and homesteads scattered through the surrounding countryside. The wolf could be anyone from anywhere.
“I want to talk to the locals,” Griger said as he and Farbin walked back to the carriage.
“Right.”
“I’ll also need a team of men at my disposal,” Griger said. “And a sword.”
They were sitting across from each other in the carriage’s enclosed cab. Without, the sky was beginning to cool to purple and evening gloom stealthy crept from the forest. “We’ll get you one.”
“It must be made with silver,” Griger said.
Farbin frowned. “Silver is a poor alloy for sword-making.”
“But it’s the only alloy for werewolf killing,” Griger said. “It shouldn’t be made entirely of silver, but there must be some in it, the more, the better.
Farbin nodded that he understood.
By the time they made it back to the village, full dark had fallen. The streets stood deserted, the animals locked up for the night and most of the people hunkered in their homes. A few guards walked the lanes and dooyards, bows and swords at the ready, and a stray cat with no tail slunk furtively between piles of refuse, its ears laid flat against its skull and its fur matted and crisscrossed with scars from battles past.
The only activity was at the pub attached to the inn, where lights burned in the segmented windows and the chatter of many voices drifted into the street, occasionally flaring in laughter or song. Apparently, those hearty souls refused to let a wolf stand between them and their end-of-day festivities.
Griger’s respect for them increased.
Before entering, Farbin and Griger called on the blacksmith, a burly man with a bald head and a mustache that reminded Griger of walruses he had killed and eaten at the top of the world. Griger explained his need and impressed upon the man a sense of urgency. “I need it as soon as you can possibly have it ready.”
The blacksmith nodded gamely. “I’ll have it by dawn.”
Farbin took out his purse and paid, then they made their way to the inn.
Inside, a roaring fire crackled in the stone hearth and lamps on the walls sent shadows flickering across the floor. A dozen men sat at the bar with stines of beer and a half dozen more occupied the many tables in the middle of the room. A barkeep kept the drinks flowing while a pretty waitress with her blonde hair done up in an elaborate braid like a golden tiara brought trays of beer and pretzels to the tables.
Griger and Farbin sat at an empty table near the fireplace and Farbin removed his gloves. “Men will make merry even while the world burns around them,” he mused.
“Why not,” Griger said, “they can’t do it in the grave.”
The women came over and they ordered a pitcher of beer and a sandwich each. While they waited, Griger went to every man one-by-one and asked them about the wolf. They responded, to a man, with an eye roll or a dismissive laugh. None were worried in the slightest. One man lifted his brow in a pitying sort of way and looked Griger up and down as though he were mad. “Werewolves? Why, those were banished from the Realm centuries ago, it’s all much ado about nothing.”
“It’s a big wolf,” the barkeep said, “and dangerous too, that much is fact. But it’s a lot of hysteria. People today are too goddamn soft. In my time, we had wolves and bears too. If they acted out of line, we hunted them down and cut their heads off.”
The last man Griger came to was a wispy, white-haired oldster with rheumy eyes and three days’ worth of stubble covering his angular chin. Baggy brown clothes, old and wrinkled and caked in the dirt of the field, hung slack from his scrawny frame, and his long, spindly fingers threaded through the handle of his mug like fleshless bone. If Griger had ever seen a man who bore the official title “Town Drunk” he wouldn’t look the part any more than the old man.
Before Griger could ask him a single question, he spoke in a rusty voice that conjured images of graveyard gates in the dark Province of Helem. “I seen it,” he said, “and it weren’t no regular wolf neither.”
The barkeep sniffed. “You see lots of things, Sel. Like them little pink elephants.”
A wave of mean-spirited laughter ran through the bar, and Sel’s jaw clenched. Griger sensed that Sel was often made sport of at the bar.
Ignoring the other, Griger asked, “You’ve seen it?”
Sel nodded and held up three fingers. “Thrice, in fact,” he said with a belch.
“Tell me.”
The old timer looked up at him with a twist of suspicion. “Down by the road leadin’ up,” he said.
“All three times?”
“All three times,” Sel confirmed.
Once a mason, Sel had moved to the village ten years before to try his hand at farming, he explained. His homestead, comprising five acres, a tumbledown barn, and a decomposing shack masquerading as a house, sat below the walls, in a hollow between the hill and the river. Many nights, he sat on the front porch and “communed with the King” (King Rum, Griger assumed). From that perch, he witnessed “The damned beast” loping toward town. “The first time, I seen’t it over in the road,” he said, pronouncing road as rud. “I have good eyesight and I knew right off it weren’t normal, so I jumped outta my chair and ducked down real low so ways he couldn’t see me.”
Sel couldn’t provide a description of the wolf beyond “near eight damn feet tall and built like a mountain” but Griger didn’t need one. The old man’s story supported his supposition that the wolf was coming from somewhere else and not a den in the hills. Why would it come down the middle of the road each time? The only thing to the south was the river and open fields dotted by stands of forest, all of which Farbin’s men had already searched.
Werewolves are nocturnal creatures who sequester themselves somewhere dark and dry during the day. Farbin’s men should have found it by now. That they hadn’t suggested that it was a changeling.
Thanking Sel for his help, Griger went back to the table and sat across from Farbin. “The baron’s house lies in the direction of the river,” he said, more to himself than to the Governor. “What of the other attacks?”
“Mainly in that area,” Farbin said, “why?”
“The changeling - and that’s what it is - comes from across the river. How many homesteads are there beyond the banks?”
“At least two dozen,” Farbin said.
Griger crossed his arms and thought for a moment. “I want your men, tomorrow, out there going door to door with garlic. Make everyone they come across smell it and anyone who sneezes is put under watch.”
The Governor looked stricken. “But...why?”
“Changelings are allergic to garlic,” Griger said.
Farbin pursed his lips in contemplation. “Alright,” he said, “I’ll have them start at first light.”
After dining, they adjourned to their rooms, Farbin on one side of the hall and Griger on the other. A team of six Guardsmen took up position in the empty saloon and kept watch, ready to roll out at a moment’s notice. Griger threw the window open and perched on the ledge, the night breeze washing over him and rustling his graying hair. He rolled a cigarette, lit it with the bedside candle, and looked up at the glowing face of the waxing moon. Tomorrow night it would be full and the changeling would be compelled to turn and hunt as the tide was compelled to crest. It could come tonight still, but unless it was killed, it would return tomorrow for certain, mad with bloodlust.
Well past midnight, Griger blew out the candle and retired. The mattress was far too soft and it took him nearly a half hour of tossing, turning, and muttering curses to himself to find a position he liked. Once he did, he fell into a light sleep from which he was aroused near dawn by a knock at the door. One of the guards informed him that the blacksmith was finished with his sword, and after dressing, he and Farbin went to collect it. Comprising a simple blade with a guard and a grip, it was far from the most opulent weapon Griger had ever wielded, but it was well-suited to his needs and fit comfortably in his hand.
Back at the inn, Farbin gathered every available man under his command, including the constable and his three deputies, and ordered them to sweep the countryside as Griger had suggested the night before. They showed no reaction despite their lord’s strange request, and departed in a single file line.
The saloon opened for breakfast at six and Griger and Farbin each had a plate of eggs, bacon, and beans. People began to drift in as they ate, Sel the Drunkard at the head of the pack. The maiden, who quartered somewhere upstairs, came down in a simple white dress beneath a waist apron, and Griger’s eyes tracked her as she carried out her functions. The dress - loose and high cut - revealed nothing of her bosom, but pulled tight across her bottom when she leaned over to set food and coffee in front of her guests. Their gazes met, and her eyes flicked quickly away like two timid minnows in a fish bowl.
She was beautiful.
She reminded him of someone.
His mind went back to the jagged mountains atop the world, to a little cabin where weary travellers waited out the snowstorms that raged sometimes for weeks in the winter. There, in one of the most isolated outposts of the Realm, lived a woman Griger had known. She was tall and gaunt whereas the barmaid was average and healthy, her hair was black to the maiden’s blonde, but their eyes were the same breathtaking hazel. Now, staring at his plate, his chest stirred in a way that it hadn’t in years.
He didn’t like it.
“...else,” Farbin was saying.
“Yeah,” Griger said, as though he knew what Farbin had said. Now, the woman he loved one winter was on his mind and his mood was verging on foul. He recalled the way her hair brushed the creamy slope of her throat when she turned her head, the sound of her laughter, how her heels dug into his behind, urging him deeper unto her.
He was young, then, and a fool. People, he learned later, come and people go. Loving someone...indeed even hating them...was pointless, for in a breath of summer wind, they’re gone.
After finishing with breakfast, Farbin requested a metal tub be filled with water so that he could bathe. While he did that, Griger threaded his sword through his belt and walked down to the river, keeping his eyes open for wolf tracks. He spotted a few in the dirt edging the road, all pointing in the direction from which he had just come, and squatted down to examine one more closely.
Just before reaching the water, Sel’s farm appeared on the right, the main house seeming to sag in the middle as though under the burden of years and the field out back overgrown and gone to seed. The place looked as though it had died, come back to life, then died again. The screen door, which naturally hung askew, banged open, and Sel himself backed out butt first, a ceramic pot in his hands. He turned, saw Griger, and hesitated, then ducked his head and scurried down the stairs, disappearing around the side of the house Griger lingered a moment, then followed, tangles of grass pulling at his boots. In the back, a clear patch boasted several pots like the one Sel had come out with, each blossoming with an assortment of multicolored flowers. Sel knelt before one and heaped rich soil in with his hands. A gust of wind flipped his lank, white hair back and forth, and a satisfied smile played at the corners of his thin mouth.
“You garden?” Griger asked.
Sel shot him a dirty look. “I do,” he said, a defensive edge in his voice. He stopped, favored the flowers with a sober look, and added, “These plants are the only friends I’ve got.” He chuckled self-consciously.
“Plants seem like they’d make poor friends,” Griger said. “When the first frost comes, they leave you.”
Sel ticked his head to one side in acquiescence. “Tis better to have loved and lost than not to have loved at all.”
An image of the girl at the top of the world flashed across Griger’s mind, and for a moment he could feel, feel, her presence. “I don’t believe that,” Griger said. “Loss is hard for a man who’s known love.”
“Still better than never knowing it at all,” Sel said and got stiffly to his feet. He dusted his hands on his pants.
“You’ve never lost someone,” Griger said.
“You’ve never loved someone,” Sel countered.
Griger stiffened. Mouthy old bastard, yes I have.
“What do you want?” Sel asked.
“I wanted to ask you about the werewolf.”
Sel’s face crinkled. “I told you everything I know.” He started walking back to the front of the house, and Griger fell in beside him.
“Is there anywhere around here you think a werewolf might live?” Griger asked. “Caves? Dens? Anything.”
“There’s some caves about,” Sel said, “other than that, I can’t say.”
They were on the porch now, Sel holding the door open.
“Can you tell me your story one more time?” Griger asked. “Maybe it might jog something you forgot.”
Sel sighed. “I don’t have nothin’, okay?”
He started to go inside, but Griger stopped him. “Please?”
The old man looked at him, then sighed. “Fine. Come in.”
They sat in Sel’s tiny and cluttered parlor. The furniture was as old and threadbare as the man who owned it, and the simple walls were crowded with old photos, many of them featuring a smiling woman with dark hair. She looked nothing like the girl at the top of the world, but Griger was reminded of her anyway. “Your wife?” he asked.
Sel, seated in an armchair across from him, busied himself pouring Griger a cup of tea. “Yes,” he said shortly.
From his tone - and the woman’s absence - Griger inferred that she was dead. “I’m sorry.”
Sel’s hand shook as he pushed the cup across the table. “So am I,” he said.
“Children?” Griger asked.
“Three,” Sel said. “Two boys and a girl.” Tears crept into the old man’s faded eyes and he fixed his gaze on a point over Griger’s shoulder. Open displays of emotion made Griger uncomfortable, and he shifted in his seat, sorry that he had brought the topic up. “We were married thirty years,” Sel said. His lips trembled and Griger thought he was going to break down crying. Instead, he smiled. “Those were good years.”
Griger nodded to himself. “I bet.”
He must not have sounded convincing, because Sel creased his brow. “Are you married?”
“No.”
“Ever loved someone?”
“No.”
Sel looked at him with a frank directness that bordered on mind-reading, and though it wasn’t possible, Griger could almost imagine the old man was seeing into his mind...and his heart. “You’re a liar.”
Griger considered his reply for a long time. “When I was a boy,” he said. “I thought I was in love.”
“What happened?”
Perhaps the old man had cast some kind of pall over him...or maybe he was in a rare mood...but Griger heard himself answer honestly. “I left her.”
A heavy silence lay between them.
“You left her?”
Griger nodded. “I moved on. She had her ways and I had mine. I didn’t see us working.”
“You regret it.”
“Yes,” Griger responded instantly. “I wish I tried.”
Sel nodded understandingly. “All boys make mistakes. Some are just luckier than others, I reckon.” He laughed, his posture relaxing, and Griger realized he was starting to like the old bastard.
“True,” he said. “Now your story…”
Sighing, Sel lifted a hand. “I don’t have much ways else to say.” He ran through his story just as he had before, with no additions or subtractions.
Griger nodded that he was satisfied, and got to his feet. “That’ll be all.”
Sel walked him to the door and stuck out his hand. “That damned thing’s a monster,” he said as they shook, “you watch yourself.”
“I can handle a werewolf,” Griger assured him.
Later on, after returning to the inn, Griger and Farbin rode out to meet the men on the other side of the river, catching up to them at a fork in the road. “No one’s sneezed or broken out, sire,” Farbin’s second-in-command, a tall, rodent-faced man, reported.
“Expand the dragnet,” Griger said.
Rat-face looked at Farbin for confirmation, and the Governor nodded.
They would find the wolf...or the wolf would find them.
Griger wanted the former, but would settle for the latter.
If he had to.

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So over the years, I've posted 1 story AAR and 2 life stories of characters in the game in Reddit. Today, as I played it I got inspired-ish.
So this is an entirely fictional account of a Battle using ships I designed in a system I imagined.
​
----
Battle for Cygnus A a Fiction Story
YXX13, 1 jump from Cygnus A onboard HOS Burgundy, Flagship of the 2nd Fleet Zulu Combat Command
Master Arabella Paidar sat on her command chair and faced the 6 projections in front of her. She took note of their stoic faces and wondered if they were really as impassive as they looked.
Thinking that she started. “So Paladins any updates?”
The two Paladins of both fleets and the four Paladin Squires commanders of the four flotilla looked at one another and soon looked towards Paladin Isador, commander of the 1st Battle Fleet. She composed herself and looked towards a point off center before looking back towards her superior and started her briefing.
“Master, our Battle Group is currently 2 hours from the Jump point towards Cygnus A. As you know raiders have been harassing shipping in the system and the planetary governor has been raising hell with High command.”
“Fleet intelligence has indicated 11 contacts, 4 of sizes estimated around 9k tons and 6 at 12k tons. The final contact while still being confirmed has been identified to be around 20k tons.”
“We don’t know their full capabilities yet but Quincy, our diplomatic ship that encountered them reported nearly 200 missiles were launched at them over 2 hours of contact she had with the enemy fleet as she ran for safety.” She looked sad as she said the next moment “Quincy reported they took down nearly 160 missiles before she was struck by a salvo that came too close with another salvo and wasn’t able to shoot those down. Knight Captain Orion died with with his ship”
There was a sudden intake of air from all the paladins present as everyone remembered that the commander of the Holy Order’s name was Mersadie Orion.
“Elder Mersadie was very clear with her orders. We are to hunt and sink all enemy ships in the Cygnus A System.”
As she said that, Paladin Meng the commander of the 2nd Battle Fleet looked up from a panel he was looking at and reported. “That does tell us something of their missile capabilities though, Quincy reported initial passive contact with their fleet at 20 million klicks. Their active sensors then picked up the missiles entering their active ranges soon after.” He looked around the holo displays again and said “Say they opened fire at 20 million klicks and the Qunicy was able to shoot down 160 missiles. Granted the ship mounted 5 CIWS defense systems more than any of our current warships, but we got 40 ships. Better armor, better sensors if anything we should be able to hammer the aliens easily!”
Paladin Squire Indrick his 3rd flotilla commander spoke up next “Quincy was a not a warship, the CIWS systems on her was also outdated. We on the other hand have the most advanced systems available to us” He smiled as he looked towards Arabella, “Sir, I recommend we go in hard, let the frigate squadrons cover our advance and once we are close enough, our heavy lasers should make short work of their ships.”
As he closed with that, the other paladins nodded their heads and turned towards Arabella. She took in their determination and gave a smile of her own. “Indrick, your plan seems simple enough. While we do have to devise a more suitable plan of action, the idea is there. We are here to follow the orders of the Elder! All of you should gather your staff and make an attack plan. Report back in 2 hours, we will hold at the Jump Point and once we select the best course of action. We shall purge the xeno-scum from our space!”
She stood up and drew her sword and yelled out. “For Holy Terra and the Order!” and watch with satisfaction as the other paladins did the same.
—-
YXX13, in Cygnus A, Outside Jump point charlie.
The 2nd Fleet jumped into Cygnus A a day later, upon which the fleet started a full burn towards Cygnus B1, a small rocky planet just 2 billion km from the sole colony in the system.
As Arabella received reports from the colony and their garrison commander, she frowned and turned towards Knight Captain Eun-Young's display showing the ship bridge and the organized chaos that was playing out behind him. “Is this right? Captain?” and looked up at the display. “They did nothing? The aliens did not push in to raid the colony?”
Captain Eun-Young also turned to face Arabella and reported back. “Master we have received the most up to date reports and our sensors report the same thing. The aliens are holding at their last reported location and we are sure that they did not move, our passive sensors are already picking them out at the maximum range.” Arabella looked towards her own sensor officer and saw the nod he gave her and turned back to Eun-Young. “Ok then it looks like a slug fight is on the table. Give the order to the fleet and let them know to proceed with Plan Gamma”
Captain Eun-Young saluted and spoke “For the Order!, Sir” She watched her flag captain and her communications officer on her own flag bridge start distributing orders and sat back while watching the monitors. “What next?” she muttered watching the unmoving contacts on her sensor displays and wondered what was to come. She suddenly felt something in her guts but waved it off.
History, it seems, loves to repeat itself. The battle would be a very long one for Arabella and she would never forgive herself for what would come next.
—-
YXX13 in Cygnus A 4 hours from Raider Fleet, 30 million klicks.
Everything seemed fine and they were 2 hours from the raiders expected launch range when the sensors on all 4 of the Destroyer Leaders saw the same thing.
Arabella was in her stateroom when the klaxons started blaring the same message over and over again. “Battle Stations! Battle Stations!” as Knight Captain Eun-Young's voice came over the alarms.
She ran out and into the elevators waiting to bring her towards the flag deck. She entered the room and glanced at the holo projectors showing her paladins and their flag decks as well as the bridge deck of the HOS Burgundy. She did not like what she saw.
The organized chaos that was there was still visible but when you see multiple combat decks and all their crews speaking with more urgency and in her mind signs of panic in their voice. Even she could not help but be affected.
She turned towards Eun-Young and he spoke with haste as he met her eyes. “Sir! Primary sensors are now picking up multiple incoming, We believe them to be missiles. They crossed the 4 million klick inner detection ring just seconds ago!”
“If this is correct, their launch range is significantly larger than expected and we just waltz into their kill zone.” She frowned and stared at the plot showing the missiles coming in at 20k km/s almost twice the rated speed for tracking on their CIWS and Gauss turrets.
She then noticed the numbers. Spinning back to the communication displays she spoke to no one in particular “200 a salvo!? How many salvos have we detected!” Paladin Squire Romulus, her 4th flotilla commander, replied with a heavy tone. “Sir we have just seen the 8th salvo crossing into our detection zone, I recommend we start defensive action!”
She looked at the plot again and saw the 9th salvo coming in and said nothing for a minute watching even more salvos come into range. “Defensive fire is authorized, Laser and Gauss batteries are to start area defensive fire. Pull all ships in tighter for better anti missile coordination” She then looked towards the flotilla commanders. “Push the frigates forward, they were designed for this work.” All of her commanders tightened their eyes and nodded, they knew that it was the best chance for their destroyers to survive and close into the alien fleet.
She then watched as orders were given and the men and women of her fleet brought their guns to bare. She knew it wasn't enough. 200 missiles and salvos around 20 seconds apart. It would break them. She prayed it would not.
Break them, it tried, the salvos stopped after the 20th one came into range. The defensive fire of the River class frigates tore into the salvos, each River class ship came with 3 batteries of Quad Gauss turrets and they fired non-stop. Even the jump and leader class frigates mounted at least 1 battery of turrets.
By the end of the 20 salvos, 40 ships became 31. 6 Rivers 1 Counties (Leader) and 2 Minbari (Jump) frigates lay stricken as the fleet pushed forward and left their wrecks behind.
The damage to the fleet was just as significant, all the remaining frigates were damaged to a degree and some of the destroyers took heavy armor damage. Some 2500 crew died in a span of 10 minutes of desperate fire and explosions, The Holy Order lost ¼ of its Heavy elements in 10 minutes and they were still needed to close to gun range of the alien fleet.
—-
YXX13 in Cygnus A 3 hours from Raider Fleet, 22 million klicks.
Master Arabella Paidar knew her career was over as she watched screens of damage reports, one screen showing the flag deck of the 1st Battle Strike Flotilla showing artifacts and when it was working a damaged and burning deck.
She knew Paladin Squire Boreas was dead, Paladin Isador who also had her flag bridge on the same ship was still out of contact. She prayed Isador was still alive and in the meantime Paladin Squire Zhang Soo-Kyung would have to command both flotilla of the 1st Battle Group.
Her flag deck was still calm but as she glanced up towards the bridge deck display she saw her Flag Captain standing at his command console and directing damage control teams, His XO who should have been doing that Knight-Lieutenant Tycho died when the Auxiliary control bridge was blown up from a missile strike.
Even now she prayed for the souls of those who were lost and blamed herself for underestimating the enemies. She turned towards the remaining flag offices and gave her next orders. “Transfer the wounded to the ships most heavily damaged and direct them back to Jump point, the Rescue squadron and logistic fleets have already jumped and will know the results of this battle soon.” She sighed and looked towards the plot and the 11 red glowing dots. “We got hammered badly and they still aren’t damaged. They may have fired all their offensive missiles but we can’t be sure. Tighten the formation and rotate the ships to ensure we have full fields of fire for anything else”
She turned back to the displays and narrowed her eyes. “We still aren’t out of the fight and we still got our main batteries! I want constant reports on anything that happens with the alien fleet from now on and our sensor watch is to be kept on high rotation to ensure we don’t get caught flat footed again!”
Hearing the assembled paladins reply back in the affirmative, she turned back to the plot and sat impassively, watching and waiting for the next phase of the battle to start.
—-
YXX13 in Cygnus A 10 minutes from Raider Fleet, 1.2 million klicks.
The two fleets came within 1.2 million klicks and…
To be continued ;D
​

My book is about my experience growing up as the child of a Vietnam veteran, how my father's war trauma played out in my home as violence, and the impact this has had on my life. This is one of the scenes from my childhood.
**\*
As we reversed the boat into our regular spot among the hive of families at the campsite we stayed at most holidays, my stomach did little flips. I had almost let myself forget. Before entering the warm, sparkling water or building my first sandcastle, there was the matter of the tent.
Our tent was not like other tents. There was no flimsy nylon for us. We spent our holidays cocooned within the warm embrace of a massive ex-army tent, that could, and had, withstood cyclones without so much as a ripped seam.
When that tent came out, Dad entered military mode. The car had barely come to a stop before he peeled himself off the vinyl seat and moved to the back of the car, releasing the heavy metal tailgate with a loud creak. We rocked in our seats as Dad began manoeuvring
the tent out from underneath our sleeping bags and clothes.
Dad was as solidly built as the former rugby league player he was, but the mammoth weight of our tent still tested him. He walked awkwardly to somewhere approximately in the centre of our site and hoisted the tent off his body. It landed with a heavy thud, throwing sandy dust into the air.
I hopped out of the car and rested against my door. No member of the family was allowed to shirk their duty when the tent came out. Even so, I thought God might have more power than Dad so I appealed to Him for help. Dear God, if you don’t make me put up this tent then I will know that you love me and I will be good all the time. Thank you. Amen.
‘Dad, can we go down to the beach first?’ I ventured, wondering how quickly God answered prayers.
‘First we set up the tent, then we relax.’
God obviously hated me.
Dad unwrapped one layer of canvas then waved us stiffly over.
‘Right, you kids get here.’ He looked to where Mum was unloading the blue camp stove. ‘You too, Barb.’
Over time, Mum had become so scared of putting a foot wrong she had all but given up on making decisions of her own. She took action only when Dad told her to. Most of the time I didn’t really think of Mum as a parent at all. It was us against him.
‘David, you’re on peg duty.’ Dad removed the canvas peg bag, handing it to David. The weight was a surprise and the bag dropped to the ground. I immediately moved forward and grabbed one handle, making sure Dad could see that though there was an error, it had been dealt with quickly and effectively: no need for him to intervene.
David and I shuffled over to one of the patches of threadbare grass scattered around the sandy site and released the peg bag with a clang. Unlike the tiny pegs that go with normal tents, our army pegs were about thirty centimetres long, two centimetres thick and covered in rust. No one messed with them, not hard ground, not solid rock, nothing. David opened the bag and started lining them up.
‘C’mon, Ruth.’ Dad’s words had their endings clipped off, the way he talked when he meant business. I walked over to where Dad, Mum and Kerstin were gathered around the tent and grabbed a corner.
‘All right. Diagonal walking. Now.’ Everyone marched.
I struggled against the weight of the canvas and tightened my grip to keep it from slipping out of my hands.
Dad dropped his corner down and looked up to see me standing in place. ‘Walk, Ruth!’
I leaned back with my whole body.
‘You’re not trying! Pull the bloody thing!’
‘I am trying!’ My feet scrambled in place for another moment, but finally my section began to unfold and I walked backward with my corner.
Dad stalked toward me then placed his hand roughly on top of mine. ‘Pulling. This is called pulling.’ In his effort to show me the correct way to pull, he knocked me off balance. I fell to the ground and started crying.
‘Don’t be silly. I didn’t mean to do that.’ He pulled me up roughly, grabbed my hand and forced it onto the corner of the tent again.
His big hand crushed down harder on top of mine. As he heaved, his elbow banged into my face. I screamed out and cried some more.
‘Stop being such a sook. I didn’t do it on purpose.’
Just because it was an accident doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt, Dad.
He dismissed my sobs, walking toward David as he lectured me over his shoulder. ‘Just try harder next time and do what you’re told.’
He bent down and grabbed a handful of pegs. Noticing us all standing where he had left us he lifted his eyebrows and rolled his eyes.
‘Well.’ When we didn’t move he spoke slower. ‘Everyone grab some pegs and drop them where they need to go.’
We collected our pegs and paced around the perimeter of the tent, but it wasn’t fast enough for Dad.
He came up behind us in a low running crouch to get us moving. ‘Run! Run! Run!’
We picked up speed, the bell chimes of the heavy pegs making music of our jog. It was still not quick enough.
‘Move it! Hut! Hut! Hut!’ Dad yelled again. David was only four so he was the slowest. Dad gave him a little shove in the back to get him moving faster. He started crying.
Mum was running with us, dropping pegs as well, when Dad said, ‘Barbara, you need to help me tie these ropes.’
Tying the guy ropes to the tent properly was an art. Each time we went camping Mum got it wrong. I slowed my run and shifted my entire focus to her, willing her to do it right this time.
‘Right.’ He handed her a rope. ‘You remember how to do this, don’t you?’
Mum nodded. She grabbed the rope and threaded it through the hole without pause.
‘No, Barbara.’ His defeated voice told me she had already failed.
‘You come in from the top, not underneath.’ I was walking now, watching. Her hand shook, making her struggle to thread the rope as instructed.
Dad would hate how weak that shaking made her look. Weak and incompetent: his two least favourite things.
Dad snatched the rope out of her hand and shook it at her, speaking as if she didn’t understand English. ‘This rope.’ He shook the metal eyelet. ‘This hole.’ He stabbed at the hole and moved the rope in and out. ‘Rope go in hole.’
Mum’s arms dropped and she looked down at her feet. He grabbed her hand and pushed it back onto the rope. ‘C’mon, I can’t do everything myself. Tie the rope like I’ve shown you a hundred times before. Show me.’
She grabbed the rope, twisting it around itself. He moved in until he was almost standing on top of her, the easier for him to pounce when she made the wrong move. He didn’t have to wait long. ‘Give it to me,’ he said in disgust, wrenching it from her hand,
‘I guess I will do all the ropes then.’
Mum stepped quietly onto the small hill where Kerstin, David and I were watching ants race along on the uneven sand. I grabbed her hand and gave her arm a hug, but she pulled away from me gently, opening her eyes wide and tipping her head toward Dad.
I looked over to him. His strong hands moved with quick assurance as he expertly tied rope after rope. He seemed oblivious to the heat, though the back of his yellow t-shirt was darkened with sweat. This was how he wanted us to be. No mistakes. No fumbles. No feeling.
My heart throbbed and I stepped away from Mum so she didn’t get in more trouble. No matter if Dad managed to hold his comments in; this was the undercurrent of their entire relationship. He never hit Mum – though in a matter of years he would break that rule as well – instead, he drained her of self-worth: death by a thousand cuts. Snide little comments, rolling eyes and always that tone in his voice, the one that told her how worthless she was.
I wished I was brave enough to tell him not to talk to her like that. I had always known Mum was no match for Dad, but I didn’t feel that way. If I was a bit bigger I could protect her from him.
I returned my attention to the ants’ movement, wondering what urgent mission made them scurry at such a pace, but my ears were tuned entirely to Dad. The five-second window we normally had to respond to his requests didn’t exist when we were setting up the tent. We had to be like runners on a starting block, ready to sprint as soon as the words left his mouth.
From his occasional swearing and the way he kept looking at us and shaking his head I knew he was annoyed we were just standing there, but none of us had any idea what to do that would not end with more trouble.
‘At least make yourselves useful and start setting up the beds,’ he yelled over to us. Mum ran over to the stack of bed components and dealt them out to us.
Continuing with the army theme, there were no air mattresses; we slept on army-issue hessian beds. They were extremely scratchy but very comfortable to sleep in, even with the creaking noise they made when you turned over. We worked silently, sliding hessian over metal poles until the five beds were constructed.
Dad had moved on to assembling the central pole for the tent. About ten centimetres in diameter and three-and-a-half metres high, it was made of timber and covered with flecks and streaks of yellow paint. Dad was the only one strong enough to manoeuvre it properly.
‘C’mon, Barb, give us a hand,’ he spat out.
She jogged over and he got down on his tummy and disappeared under the dark underside of the boiling hot canvas, shimmying his way in the dust and sand along to the middle until he inserted the pole’s pointed end into the reinforced hole in the centre. He then used all his weight to push the tent up.
As soon as it was erect, Mum ran under and grabbed the pole from him so he could get the support ropes up as quickly as possible. The canvas flapped in her face as she strained to stop the pole wobbling.
‘Hold it still!’ Dad yelled.
She muttered through gritted teeth. ‘I am bloody trying to hold it still.’
Once the tent was basically up, its true size was revealed. It looked like a circus tent. Kerstin, David and I ran inside it. ‘Stop running around or you’ll hurt yourself . . . and don’t trip over the pegs.’
It was guaranteed that at some stage over the next few days we would all trip over the pegs, and Dad would bash us in turn because we should have been more careful.
While Dad continued tightening ropes we dragged our beds into position before moving to the kitchen area. Often we just brought our red folding card table away with us, but this holiday went for a couple of weeks so we had strapped our Laminex kitchen table with the steel legs to the roof of our car. After putting the folding chairs around it, the tent immediately felt like home.
Nearly two hours after we arrived, we were finally set up and ready to start our holiday. ‘Right,’ Dad said, ‘now we can go to the beach.’
The days of our holiday passed in relative freedom and we spent hours building sandcastles, fishing or playing cricket on the beach. But unless Dad went out on a solo fishing trip, it was rarely relaxing.
Trapped in a tent with him, I lived outside my body, scouting ahead for the next mistake that would tip him over the edge. The proximity of people in neighbouring tents kept his violence to a minimum, but sometimes strangers witnessed a slap or a shove.
The moment they became conscious of what they were seeing, they averted their eyes and hurried past as if wanting to put distance between themselves and something unclean. That they had seen it, and not tried to stop it, made me wonder if they too thought I deserved to be treated that way. Long after they had gone I felt their eyes on me as hot as a brand, burning the shame of exposure deep into my skin.
On the way home, after a pack-down as stressful as the setup, we stopped at a fruit shop twenty minutes down the highway, loading up on rockmelon and mandarins. Dad bought us each a soft-serve ice-cream in a cone as well. I put the mandarin I had peeled away, not wanting the bitter taste to taint the flavour of the sweet.
***
I would love to hear if you resonated or had similar experiences to me. I still feel like growing up in a home with violence, and the transgenerational impact of war, isn't something that gets spoken about very often.

Visit article from Nikkei Asia (Grade: B) or alternatively:

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Was performing conventional deadlifts, 225lbs, nothing unusual about how I was performing the lift other than that I was not wearing a belt. While performing the upward drive portion of the lift in which the legs bring the weight off the ground and the core tightens, I felt a distinct pop in my right bottom rib. Was concerned about hernia initially but the discomfort and rather mild pain travels across the entirety of the rib to the side, but the discomfort is predominantly focused closer to the diaphragm.
Insurance is an issue, so I’m questioning if treatment is necessary and if the injury is even worthy of a visit.
Spark notes: - Bottom rib popped while doing deadlifts. - Pain primarily localized to where bottom floating rib and diaphragm meet. But pain does occur along the rib. - I can take full deep breathes without trouble. - I completed the set after putting on a belt post pop without much difficulty. - Discomfort is residual in nature. Doesn’t matter exactly what I do, it is present at all times. Only becomes exacerbated by slouching or fiddling with site of injury. - Pain is a 1.5-2/10. - There is no bulge or noticeable physical deformation.
What should I do, rest? See a doctor? Just don’t want to end up paying out the nose for a visit I don’t need.

Also any info available on where and how I my self can learn to draw muscles and anatomy,

I don’t know why but recently I notice that I’m getting more overwhelmed with stress; somehow everytime I wake up at morning I can feel my chest tightened and I struggle to breathe when I think about the day I need to go through and all the work I need to get done. My productivity has also decreased by a lot and I find it hard to motivate myself to do anything, which of course makes me feel like shit.
And the scariest part is suicidal thoughts just keep on appearing randomly while things ain’t that ‘bad’, I guess? I feel like it’s just me not knowing how to deal with my own problems so I just exaggerate things. Or maybe not. I’m confused. I think about death but I don’t wanna leave my life behind. I wish I could escape from all these negative thoughts.

I posted on a completely anonymous app and did not name any names nor give any personal indicators away. A kid in my class today was 20m late, after skipping for several days after our teacher yelled at him, came into class wearing a black trench coat, a ski mask, and sunglasses.
This scared the absolute shit out of me and many others in my class. I posted something along the lines of "I should not have to explain how scary it is for you to walk into a classroom wearing a black trench coat, a ski mask, and sunglasses. Seriously what the fuck dude?" I followed up by posting in comments the context of him not coming to class after the teacher yelled at him, coming 20m late today, sitting next to the only exit in the room, and not even pulling out his notebooks or anything. He just sat there, looking over the class.
I was honestly terrified. And so were some of my classmates. I couldn't focus for the rest of the period because I was just watching his movements.
I emailed our teacher and told her that it made me very uncomfortable and scared. And i asked her not to take away any of his opportunity for education but to perhaps have a conversation with him to prevent this behavior and get him the help he needs.
At this time my post popped off. A bunch of comments were agreeing saying they were also scared and are scared in their other classes with him. Then it started to get derailed and some assholes decided to name drop him in the comments. I reported the comments to get them deleted but it was too late. I tried to deescalate by saying he clearly needs help and I don't want any privileges to be taken from him. I said to give him the benefit of the doubt.
His friends started DMing me and telling me they're scared of him too and stopped being friends with him as a result of his lack of desire to get any help for his conditions. I noticed they deleted their DMs after this all happened.
Later that night, he found the post and responded to it. He said that he didn't mean to scare anyone and that he has body dysmorphia and that's why he wore all of that. I responded and said I'm sorry that he's experiencing that and told him about some of the resources on campus if he ever needs it. I asked if he could just not wear a ski mask to class because that's going to scare people, and that everything else was fine by itself. I said that although he may be harmless, people who don't know him won't know that, so he may be perceived the wrong way (as he was). I couldn't see any responses after this point because of glitches so I don't know what was said to or by him.
Later in the night i got a notification that one of the students had attempted suicide and everyone was posting saying it was him. I deleted my post about him as I should've done earlier. Updates say he's completely fine.
But idk what to do now. It's entirely anonymous so idk if they're going to try to find me because of my original post? Should I try to reach out to him or something? I really didn't mean for it to turn out this way. I vented online because I was scared and then angry that he made me scared, but I should've kept it between me and the teacher. It spiralled into something a lot worse.

Ever heard of pattern recognition?
Even if you haven't, you've experienced it. It's how we recognise faces, read writing, appreciate music. The human brain loves patterns, sorting and systemising and categorising them. We know that smiles are meant to signal friendliness, that grey skies mean rain like as not. We even see patterns where there aren't any – shapes in clouds, faces in burnt toast, connections between unrelated events and coincidences. Pattern recognition is what the human brain is built for.
To be frank, I don't know why me and Mike ever became friends in the first place.
We met in Freshers' Week, that time when just about anyone can get into a party, and just about everyone does. Me being the socially maladjusted type that I was of course, I'd spent most of this one quietly milling about, sipping beer and hovering around conversations before ultimately relegating myself to an empty corner with a houseplant for company. Somehow it took me at least five minutes to notice I wasn't alone.
That was thing with Mike: he stood out when you were looking for him, and when you weren't he may as well have been invisible. This was a student party just running past midnight, and the guy was wearing a wrap-around sunglasses and a suit. Combine that with the undertones of a frankly dubious smell, and you can imagine the first impression to come to mind.
Maybe that was what drew me toward him. We were both outsiders in our own way, and I was far from the sort of person who could afford to be prejudiced. If he barely moved, barely spoke, and when doing either left me with a deep sense of discomfort, who was I to judge? It wasn't as though I was a people-person either, and if my new acquaintance's social skills were still less up to par then we at least had more in common than with any of the other people partying in that room.
I didn't go to many more parties after that, but I kept in touch with Mike. I never stopped feeling that sense of discomfort around him, but I did start to see myself as his friend – maybe his only friend. Wasn't I doing the right thing?
I once heard that gut instinct is pattern recognition on the subconscious level. Hell, some guy even wrote a book on it. Ever had a time when you just knew something was deeply, deeply wrong? A person, a place, a situation where nothing should've seemed amiss, yet you couldn't help but feel the fear?
That's pattern recognition. You might not notice these things, but your subconscious does. Those little social cues, strange details, signals from inside your body; the brain sees them, correlates them, and tells you to run. If you know what's good for you, you'll listen.
I know I should've done.
Things started to go wrong around the time Mia Greene disappeared.
I hadn't known her all that well – a blonde sociology student, she'd shared a class with me, and we'd spoken every now and again. Still, it was enough to notice when she stopped turning up to seminars, and to be truly concerned when the missing person's report got publicised.
Mike entered the cafe at exactly 1 PM, as he always did, dressed in black suit, black gloves, black sunglasses, as he always was. He moved to my table with a smooth, clean stride; graceful I suppose you'd call it, but not in a pleasant way. Perfectly regular, no twitches, no hesitation, no tics or taps or tumbles – he moved when he meant to, and once settled was still as a puppet whose strings have been cut.
We ordered, the same coffee and same sandwiches as ever. He flicked something off his shoulder.
"You aren't talking."
God, even his voice was deliberate. Utterly even, a perfect recreation.
I shrugged apologetically. "Sorry, bit distracted. You saw the news, right?"
"The disappearance? She'll be fine, she'll come back sooner or later."
"Yeah, maybe, but how can you be sure?"
A fluid shrug. "They always do."
Mike stood and left, coffee and sandwich untouched as always. There was something else left on the table though; almost invisible, yet impossibly eye-catching. Gut feeling I suppose you'd say. I picked it up.
It was a long, thin strand of blonde hair.
Pattern recognition isn't always reliable of course. A gut feeling might save your life, but anyone with an anxiety disorder isn't likely to be too thankful for one. The gambler, the conspiracy theorist, the cargo cultist – all are served by the patterns they see. A million years of evolution has made us able to recognise them. A million years of evolution has made us able to ignore them. Even when we shouldn't.
Mike started getting worse after that. Not that he had ever been well of course, but as my first year wore on, those distinct feelings grew steadily stronger. His movements were fewer, still perfect and deliberate, but now with an added stiff artificiality to them. He spoke less, and when he did our conversations only ever followed the same well-worn patterns, patterns which grew still less varied. He smelled worse.
The disappearances didn't stop with Mia. The university found its excuses – drunk students drowning in the river was the new talk of all the PSAs – but that didn't stop the rumours. They talked about gangs, or trafficking, or a serial killer. Myself, I figured I had too much work to think about as is to worry, and too little of a social life to be much at risk in any case.
Then Mike disappeared.
I tried to report it, but they said there wasn't anyone by that name and description living here; not in the university, not in the town. No one I've talked to remembers him. I tried looking online, but the closest match was a rather literal dead-end.
And sometimes I think back to that final night, the one I tried to tell myself was only a nightmare. How I bumped into my friend in the sunglasses on the way back from a long stay at the library. How we were joined by his friends, as quiet as he. How cold it was, how I only ever saw the fog of my own breath. How we passed under a streetlight, and how I looked into the eyes of a woman with blonde hair.
How I screamed. How I ran.
You might not have heard of pattern recognition, but you've probably heard of the uncanny valley. People on the internet make a big deal out of it, but the answer is really quite mundane. Nature doesn't want you interacting with the diseased. It doesn't want you breeding with the deformed. And it most certainly doesn't want you hanging around the dead.
Pattern recognition. There's a hundred little signs of life we never notice, and a dead body has none of them. It won't move, it won't blink, it certainly won't breathe.
That was the problem with Mike. It always had been.
I'd been talking to a corpse.

The complex that I’m currently residing in is exactly that, complex to say the least. There’s rules to follow and more lessons to be learned than there are stars in the night sky.

1. A tenant must never kill or fatally harm another tenant willingly.
2. Nothing may leave, but all can enter.
3. Your room is safe.
4. Rule 1. is void when in another’s room, but only to the room’s tenant.
5. Damaging the complex or its property purposely is forbidden.

I’d do anything to be able to feel outside once again. This place and the thing that runs it is a warden and a caretaker depending on how you treat them. I’ve been doing good and my room has been getting some upgrades after I've lost everything when I disrespected this place. I finally have a mattress again and even some of the cracks in my ceiling and wood in my floorboards have been fixed while I was asleep. Small progress, but progress at least. The laptop I was given is the only thing keeping me sane right now and I think was only provided to warn others, but I think there’s a problem.
I’ve noticed that there was a small black spider, no bigger than my pinky nail with only 7 legs, in my room that has been…watching me. I know this sounds crazy, but I woke up on the floor like normal a few weeks ago and on the floor was a small spider. I wasn’t moving and was about a foot or two away from my face just watching me. When I started to get up it scurried away under the broken floorboards and disappeared. I don’t have arachnophobia or anything, but if it belongs to what I think it belongs to then I may be in trouble. As crappy as this room is now, the door is completely sealed. No room for even the wind to get in. When the rules say, Your room is safe, they meant it. It must’ve either followed me in or was on my person when I came inside from before.
The next day after I first saw it I woke up to it again a little closer and once again it hid in the floor when I woke up. So after a couple of hours I came up with an idea. I went to my front door and slept as close to it as I possibly could. I laid there for a little over an hour with my eyes closed and pretended to be asleep. Just like before I “woke up” to it watching me again in almost the same distance away as last time. As predicted it hid inside the floor again. I got up and opened my front door and tossed my shoes outside to simulate me walking out. As softly as I could I stepped far over when it had crawled into and laid down eye level with the floor. I swallowed my breath and held it. I luckily can hold my breath for a long time since I loved swimming as a kid.
Very slowly and cautiously I watched the small spider crawl out of the floor facing the door that I allegedly left out of. Once it was fully out and watching the door as it crawled slowly I waited until it was above a solid holeless spot. I quickly slapped my hand with a cupped palm over my tiny intruder and captured it. Due to rule #4 I know I could’ve killed it since it intruded into my room and that it couldn’t harm me due to rule #1 and #3, but I never like killing pests. Even if they meant harm to me. Although it could just be a normal small independent spider nothing living in this complex, no matter how big or small, will ever have the courage to break one of Winthorp’s laws. As tight as I could I cupped my hand together as delicately as possible I trapped my new guest in my palms. I awkwardly used my elbows to open my door while holding the spider hostage in my hands. It took a few tries, but I eventually got my door open.
I walked a good distance away from my room before walking up to one of the ancient cheesy gold framed hallway paintings that decorated the pathways. I cautiously released the spider onto the painting and after hesitating slightly it slowly crawled onto the decor and turned to face me. I told her to be more careful next time and to have a good day, my friend. Being alone in this place long enough will have you talking to anything that won’t harm you. I was just glad to be able to speak out loud for once. It’s been weeks since I’ve even heard my own voice. The small 7 legged spider watched me gather my shoes and retreat back into my room. As weird as it sounds I miss the company already, but not if she belonged to The Host.
I’ve seen The Host a few times throughout the complex, but The Host isn’t always the same host; if that makes sense. You see The Host isn’t just one being like Him and Her, but more like a collective hive. Whenever The Host makes a new host it’ll look different at first since it’s fresh, but after a while they look like The Crypt Keeper from Tales from the Crypt covered in small black spiders, small holes and egg sacs. The spiders have a united hive mind and separate individually to spy. That's how they find weak prey. I had the misfortune of seeing this in the lobby of all places a little over a month ago. A place I thought was safe since we were in the presence of Winthorp. I was sitting in the lounge area reading one of the old books that are provided for minor entertainment and enjoying the company of the gay ape like humanoid couple that I met.
Jim is a big dark brown apeman and Jon is a grayish/white cryptid and yes, I asked, apeman and cryptid are their pronouns. They spoke 3 languages each, luckily they both knew english very well. Really smart and nice guys, but never call them BigFoot or Sasquatch. Turns out those are racial slurs. Jim was patient enough to explain how offensive those terms are, but not until after Jon hit me across the lobby a few days prior in a blind rage after I accidentally whispered those terms outloud in awe at them. Turns out they also have amazing hearing. We’ve been cool ever since though. We were peacefully enjoying each other’s company in the lobby, reading when suddenly the peace was broken by a single loud scream.
Just slightly off the center of the lobby The Host had what looked like a powerless pure white skinned elf girl pinned down. It had her wrists and ankles anchored down, but not enough to harm her and this zombie looking creature held her in place. This caught the attention of everything in the lobby. She screamed and pleaded in a language I didn’t understand and kept looking towards the concierge desk where Winthorp was reading the paper and giving the commotion no mind. The bellhop in the straw hat that we know as god in this place just kept reading its newspaper and leaning back in its wooden desk chair while everything else watched.
Once the poor girl realized that not it or anything was going to help she turned back to her captor and struggled with all of her might. No one and nothing wanted to intervene as to not accidentally break rule #1. We all watched as The Host opened its mouth and what I thought was a long white bubbled tongue was actually a giant spider egg sack. It moves around like a worm looking for dirt. The poor girl screamed and cried in horror and when her mouth was wide, it dropped. The giant egg sack wiggled and crawled into her mouth and forced its way down her throat. After the deed was done The Host released her. She ran away crying and The Host just got up and limped away like nothing happened.
I asked Jim and Jon what the hell that was all about and they explained what The Host was. The Host is a collective of tens of thousands of small black spiders. Their “room” is The Host. They explained that the girl is doomed. That egg sac that was its tongue is covered in a venom that’ll numb her nerves immediately, making her immune to all feelings. Even if her mouth was shut that egg sac was lubed in that venom would’ve just gone into her nose, ears or eyes. The eggs are tiny at first. Small enough to get into your tightly shut eyelids and past your eye. It makes the process painless, but that’s just the beginning. Even if only one or two got in the job still would’ve been done. It would only make the process longer. When those eggs hatch the babies will slowly eat her from the inside out, but she’ll never feel it or anything ever again. They’ll replace everything they eat with their web and her fluids with that venom so as to not damage their new home.
Those spiders are omnivores and will eat her down to the bone. Her body will rot, but hold together with webs and after a while they will be able to control her every movement with those webs. She’ll become trapped in her own living corpse and unable to feel or move anymore, like a living puppet. Then she will become The Host. They only do this when the old home is fully decayed and with no more nutrients. They leave as much of your brain intact as possible and they’ll force feed you using your own body as a puppet or use those holes your body is covered in as tunnels to carry anything you need inside you. When they're done they'll just let whatever is left of you die on its own of dehydration, so they technically didn’t kill you either. Since this is the process they didn’t break any rules. So now she will wait and will never know when the conversion is fully done. She will beg for death, but you know Winthorp will not let it come until theyre done with her. Even the deaths and reapers know better to answer her call or else they'll break Winthorp’s laws.
I didn’t want to hang out in the lobby anymore after that, as much as I do miss Jim and Jon. I still see them in passing, but it’s been awhile now. Yesterday I ran out of food and had to make a trip to Don’s Market. A room in the hotel that has a faded red and blue neon OPEN sign where the room number should be. A Costco sized market filled with almost any food imaginable that shifts constantly and run by one man named Don who is a nephalem. It usually only appears nearby when your room's food supply is almost or completely gone. That room is a whole other story for another day. I was on my way back to my room, both hands had bags full of groceries. I was looking over my goods when I exited and you're unable to go back inside if you have supplies. The door shut and in my moment of distraction I looked up and realized I was in between the now sealed door and The Host.
It was just a foot or two away from me. The once beautiful white skinned elf girl from a few weeks ago is now only recognizable by the branded body tattoos her body had. She was bald, but the spiders gave her a head full of long gray webs for hair. Her galaxy colored eyes are now an open pocket and the other a giant egg sac going from its left eye to ear. Her body is covered in open holes for the spiders to easily access her insides and they were running around all over her like a busy New York sidewalk. It was like looking into a decade old dried up corpse. Her jaw hung loosely open and only being held on by old flesh and webs. I can see the new tongue egg sac that wiggles around impatiently for a new host inside.
Inside where the right eye used to be was a small black shine that moved slightly. I was frozen in fear and didn’t realize it was now just a little over a foot away from my face. I was trapped. What I thought was the remnants of her left eye began to come forward into the light. Out of its open eye socket emerged a golf ball sized spider. If The Host was a hive like collective then maybe this was the queen and/or mother. Once the spider crawled out more, that's when I noticed it had only 7 legs. We stared at each other for a minute and in a raspy voice from The Host’s mouth came, “F-frieend”. The decaying air that escaped made me almost puke. Pops and cracks were audible as The Host controlled their new home and began limping into Don’s Market past me.
If not for a small act of kindness I might've become The Host, but it seems maybe I’ve made a new friend, for now at least. I can’t wait to tell Jim and Jon about this when I see them next time, but I think I’ve had enough for now. I think I’m going to stay in my room again for a while. I know better than to get too comfortable in The Pandemonium Complex.

The complex that I’m currently residing in is exactly that, complex to say the least. There’s rules to follow and more lessons to be learned than there are stars in the night sky.

1. A tenant must never kill or fatally harm another tenant willingly.
2. Nothing may leave, but all can enter.
3. Your room is safe.
4. Rule 1. is void when in another’s room, but only to the room’s tenant.
5. Damaging the complex or its property purposely is forbidden.

I’d do anything to be able to feel outside once again. This place and the thing that runs it is a warden and a caretaker depending on how you treat them. I’ve been doing good and my room has been getting some upgrades after I've lost everything when I disrespected this place. I finally have a mattress again and even some of the cracks in my ceiling and wood in my floorboards have been fixed while I was asleep. Small progress, but progress at least. The laptop I was given is the only thing keeping me sane right now and I think was only provided to warn others, but I think there’s a problem.
I’ve noticed that there was a small black spider, no bigger than my pinky nail with only 7 legs, in my room that has been…watching me. I know this sounds crazy, but I woke up on the floor like normal a few weeks ago and on the floor was a small spider. I wasn’t moving and was about a foot or two away from my face just watching me. When I started to get up it scurried away under the broken floorboards and disappeared. I don’t have arachnophobia or anything, but if it belongs to what I think it belongs to then I may be in trouble. As crappy as this room is now, the door is completely sealed. No room for even the wind to get in. When the rules say, Your room is safe, they meant it. It must’ve either followed me in or was on my person when I came inside from before.
The next day after I first saw it I woke up to it again a little closer and once again it hid in the floor when I woke up. So after a couple of hours I came up with an idea. I went to my front door and slept as close to it as I possibly could. I laid there for a little over an hour with my eyes closed and pretended to be asleep. Just like before I “woke up” to it watching me again in almost the same distance away as last time. As predicted it hid inside the floor again. I got up and opened my front door and tossed my shoes outside to simulate me walking out. As softly as I could I stepped far over when it had crawled into and laid down eye level with the floor. I swallowed my breath and held it. I luckily can hold my breath for a long time since I loved swimming as a kid.
Very slowly and cautiously I watched the small spider crawl out of the floor facing the door that I allegedly left out of. Once it was fully out and watching the door as it crawled slowly I waited until it was above a solid holeless spot. I quickly slapped my hand with a cupped palm over my tiny intruder and captured it. Due to rule #4 I know I could’ve killed it since it intruded into my room and that it couldn’t harm me due to rule #1 and #3, but I never like killing pests. Even if they meant harm to me. Although it could just be a normal small independent spider nothing living in this complex, no matter how big or small, will ever have the courage to break one of Winthorp’s laws. As tight as I could I cupped my hand together as delicately as possible I trapped my new guest in my palms. I awkwardly used my elbows to open my door while holding the spider hostage in my hands. It took a few tries, but I eventually got my door open.
I walked a good distance away from my room before walking up to one of the ancient cheesy gold framed hallway paintings that decorated the pathways. I cautiously released the spider onto the painting and after hesitating slightly it slowly crawled onto the decor and turned to face me. I told her to be more careful next time and to have a good day, my friend. Being alone in this place long enough will have you talking to anything that won’t harm you. I was just glad to be able to speak out loud for once. It’s been weeks since I’ve even heard my own voice. The small 7 legged spider watched me gather my shoes and retreat back into my room. As weird as it sounds I miss the company already, but not if she belonged to The Host.
I’ve seen The Host a few times throughout the complex, but The Host isn’t always the same host; if that makes sense. You see The Host isn’t just one being like Him and Her, but more like a collective hive. Whenever The Host makes a new host it’ll look different at first since it’s fresh, but after a while they look like The Crypt Keeper from Tales from the Crypt covered in small black spiders, small holes and egg sacs. The spiders have a united hive mind and separate individually to spy. That's how they find weak prey. I had the misfortune of seeing this in the lobby of all places a little over a month ago. A place I thought was safe since we were in the presence of Winthorp. I was sitting in the lounge area reading one of the old books that are provided for minor entertainment and enjoying the company of the gay ape like humanoid couple that I met.
Jim is a big dark brown apeman and Jon is a grayish/white cryptid and yes, I asked, apeman and cryptid are their pronouns. They spoke 3 languages each, luckily they both knew english very well. Really smart and nice guys, but never call them BigFoot or Sasquatch. Turns out those are racial slurs. Jim was patient enough to explain how offensive those terms are, but not until after Jon hit me across the lobby a few days prior in a blind rage after I accidentally whispered those terms outloud in awe at them. Turns out they also have amazing hearing. We’ve been cool ever since though. We were peacefully enjoying each other’s company in the lobby, reading when suddenly the peace was broken by a single loud scream.
Just slightly off the center of the lobby The Host had what looked like a powerless pure white skinned elf girl pinned down. It had her wrists and ankles anchored down, but not enough to harm her and this zombie looking creature held her in place. This caught the attention of everything in the lobby. She screamed and pleaded in a language I didn’t understand and kept looking towards the concierge desk where Winthorp was reading the paper and giving the commotion no mind. The bellhop in the straw hat that we know as god in this place just kept reading its newspaper and leaning back in its wooden desk chair while everything else watched.
Once the poor girl realized that not it or anything was going to help she turned back to her captor and struggled with all of her might. No one and nothing wanted to intervene as to not accidentally break rule #1. We all watched as The Host opened its mouth and what I thought was a long white bubbled tongue was actually a giant spider egg sack. It moves around like a worm looking for dirt. The poor girl screamed and cried in horror and when her mouth was wide, it dropped. The giant egg sack wiggled and crawled into her mouth and forced its way down her throat. After the deed was done The Host released her. She ran away crying and The Host just got up and limped away like nothing happened.
I asked Jim and Jon what the hell that was all about and they explained what The Host was. The Host is a collective of tens of thousands of small black spiders. Their “room” is The Host. They explained that the girl is doomed. That egg sac that was its tongue is covered in a venom that’ll numb her nerves immediately, making her immune to all feelings. Even if her mouth was shut that egg sac was lubed in that venom would’ve just gone into her nose, ears or eyes. The eggs are tiny at first. Small enough to get into your tightly shut eyelids and past your eye. It makes the process painless, but that’s just the beginning. Even if only one or two got in the job still would’ve been done. It would only make the process longer. When those eggs hatch the babies will slowly eat her from the inside out, but she’ll never feel it or anything ever again. They’ll replace everything they eat with their web and her fluids with that venom so as to not damage their new home. Those spiders are omnivores and will eat her down to the bone. Her body will rot, but hold together with webs and after a while they will be able to control her every movement with those webs. She’ll become trapped in her own living corpse and unable to feel or move anymore, like a living puppet. Then she will become The Host. They only do this when the old home is fully decayed and with no more nutrients. They leave as much of your brain intact as possible and they’ll force feed you using your own body as a puppet or use those holes your body is covered in as tunnels to carry anything you need inside you. When they're done they'll just let whatever is left of you die on its own of dehydration, so they technically didn’t kill you either. Since this is the process they didn’t break any rules. So now she will wait and will never know when the conversion is fully done. She will beg for death, but you know Winthorp will not let it come until theyre done with her. Even the deaths and reapers know better to answer her call or else they'll break Winthorp’s laws.
I didn’t want to hang out in the lobby anymore after that, as much as I do miss Jim and Jon. I still see them in passing, but it’s been awhile now. Yesterday I ran out of food and had to make a trip to Don’s Market. A room in the hotel that has a faded red and blue neon OPEN sign where the room number should be. A Costco sized market filled with almost any food imaginable that shifts constantly and run by one man named Don who is a nephalem. It usually only appears nearby when your room's food supply is almost or completely gone. That room is a whole other story for another day. I was on my way back to my room, both hands had bags full of groceries. I was looking over my goods when I exited and you're unable to go back inside if you have supplies. The door shut and in my moment of distraction I looked up and realized I was in between the now sealed door and The Host.
It was just a foot or two away from me. The once beautiful white skinned elf girl from a few weeks ago is now only recognizable by the branded body tattoos her body had. She was bald, but the spiders gave her a head full of long gray webs for hair. Her galaxy colored eyes are now an open pocket and the other a giant egg sac going from its left eye to ear. Her body is covered in open holes for the spiders to easily access her insides and they were running around all over her like a busy New York sidewalk. It was like looking into a decade old dried up corpse. Her jaw hung loosely open and only being held on by old flesh and webs. I can see the new tongue egg sac that wiggles around impatiently for a new host inside.
Inside where the right eye used to be was a small black shine that moved slightly. I was frozen in fear and didn’t realize it was now just a little over a foot away from my face. I was trapped. What I thought was the remnants of her left eye began to come forward into the light. Out of its open eye socket emerged a golf ball sized spider. If The Host was a hive like collective then maybe this was the queen and/or mother. Once the spider crawled out more, that's when I noticed it had only 7 legs. We stared at each other for a minute and in a raspy voice from The Host’s mouth came, “F-frieend”. The decaying air that escaped made me almost puke. Pops and cracks were audible as The Host controlled their new home and began limping into Don’s Market past me.
If not for a small act of kindness I might've become The Host, but it seems maybe I’ve made a new friend, for now at least. I can’t wait to tell Jim and Jon about this when I see them next time, but I think I’ve had enough for now. I think I’m going to stay in my room again for a while. I know better than to get too comfortable in The Pandemonium Complex.