#At least the lore important ones that introduce the other Lords in Black | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

jasontoddiefor · 5 years ago

Text

Title: you gave up half your life Fandom: Supernatural Summary: When Dean and Cas disappeared, Sam was lost. But in a world that had nearly broken apart so many times, he wasn’t the only one who needed support and guidance. AN: Remember when I ranted about season 7? Yeah good times. Here’s my 10.000 words Salty Post Season 7 Fix-it in which Sam Winchester accidentally starts organizing a bunch of Hunters all while trying to find his brother.

Read on AO3

Sam didn’t remember the first 48 hours after Dean had disappeared. He knew he must have gotten out of the building, away from the Leviathans, the demons and every pretty little hell his mind could have thrown at him, and driven away in the Impala. He had woken up covered in black goo at the side of a road outside of some tiny town he didn’t even know the name of, miles and hours away from where they had stopped the apocalypse 2.0.

Dean was gone.

Sam had to get him back.

The two of them had a pact, of course. If one of them died, the other would continue on with his life. No shady deals, no sacrifices, no years wasted away chasing after the barest whisper of hope.

That pact was lie.

Sam had known as much from the moment he had died for the first time. They had sworn it to assure each other that they weren’t too far gone yet, that they could still be functional members of society that weren’t utterly codependent.

During his time at Stanford, Sam had taken a course on children’s psychology. Siblings that grew up with absent parents tended to cling more to each other. The younger they were, the stronger the bond.

The course had been eye-opening and confronted him with more than just one uncomfortable truth. (Sam had never cried out for their father after a nightmare.) As long as Dean was out there, somewhere, Sam could manage.

But now Dean was gone.

Not dead, not possessed, just gone.

The pact was a lie and Sam was alone.

His next course of action was clear, he knew his mission (had done so once already in a fantasy land created by a cowardly angel): find Dean, consequences be damned.

(He heard Lucifer singing, oh, so sweetly, “This is why you were made for me.” He ignored it.)

Sam started to research. He had always liked that part of the job the most. Ever since he could think, he’d been absorbing knowledge. It was the most ordinary, white-picket-fence like part of being a Hunter. When he had been younger, Sam used to pretend that he was preparing for a school project instead of trying to figure out what was going to kill his family if he didn’t do his job correctly.

He began collecting books from all kinds of places. All his Leviathan research was already stored on his laptop and about five different hard drives he carried with him at all times. It was hard to find anything online Sam didn’t already know or the Leviathans hadn’t covered up themselves. The lore on purgatory, which Sam had already gone through, was about as vague and contrasting as possible. According to the Catholic church, it didn’t even exist anymore. At the same time, the older the lore, the more accurate and Dante had written a whole adventure about it. Sam should have asked Cas how reliable Dante's account of hell, purgatory, and heaven was. Sam had only been to two of those realms and his memories of both were hazy. What little the monsters had let slip out about purgatory didn’t help him either.

Sam was looking at a puzzle he didn’t know how to solve, where to start searching. Usually, Dean would throw in some random comment now, sparking a new thought process.

But Sam was alone.

(For now.)

He had to keep looking.

After he had gotten back from the Cage, Sam had to stop himself whenever he introduced Dean.

“This is my brother-,” he would say and halt. Dean took over then, playing whatever role he had assumed at the moment.

Sam had been too much of a coward to ask Dean if he knew that it took months for Sam to get it under control, until Adam was no longer the first name on his tongue.

“You’re my brother Adam,” Sam had whispered for a century, wrapped tightly in Grace while sheltering his younger brother.

The least damage to the most innocent of us, three of them had decided down there. The Cage did not provide any space for raging battles or accusations, and it was meant for only one of them. There was companionship to be found in equal suffering.

(Even in the darkest place on Earth, Sam hadn’t been on his own.)

Sam had lost one brother for eternity. He wasn’t going to lose another.

Sam had almost forgotten that he had a phone until it rang one day. He had been lying half asleep on the small table of the motel room, which still had two queen-sized beds because Sam hadn’t gotten out of the habit of asking for such yet. Last time, it had taken almost two months. Sam didn’t intend to be separated from his brother long enough to get rid of the habit again.

The ringing of the phone startled him awake. In his disorientation, he knocked his mug, half-filled with cold coffee, off the table.

“Shit,” Sam cursed and threw the nearest piece of fabric he could find over it.

He then rushed over to his bag, searching for his phone.

Please, he thought. I need just this one miracle.

Sam didn’t recognize the number on the phone. Memorizing numbers of hotel rooms, license plates, phones, holes in jeans, and bullets had been one of the first things John Winchester had taught Sam.

After Dean had shown Sam how to read such numbers.

“Hello?” Sam answered the phone. His voice was rough – when had he last talked to someone?

“Sam Winchester?”

Sam’s first reaction was to recoil. He wanted to scream, shout, throw something.

He did neither of those things.

“Kevin? Is that you?”

A sob rang from the other end of the line.

“Oh, God. It really is you. I know I memorized your number correctly, but the tablet messed with my head and I just, I need-“

“Kevin, breathe,” Sam ordered. “Where are you?”

“New York,” Kevin stammered. “State, not city. I managed to escape, but Crowley will know soon because I blew up his demons and I don’t know where to go or what to do-“

“I’ll come get you. Go somewhere safe and ward the room like you’re expecting the devil himself to knock and then call me again.”

He sent a quick and silent prayer to Castiel, the only angel worth praying to left these days despite everything, and began to pack his things. Truth be told, Sam hadn’t really thought about Kevin since that day. Crowley had just grabbed him and vanished, and Dean, always Sam’s priority, had been more important.

Dean would be ashamed Sam had let himself get so absorbed in such a single-minded attitude. This hyper-focusing, while it helped fighting one cause, could get you killed just as quickly. A Hunter couldn’t be entrenched. They had to think quickly and be flexible and open to other ideas. For all that Hunters hated deviating from the norm, if you only knew how to salt-n-burn bones, your third ghost would get you.

Within fifteen minutes, Sam was packed. He loaded his belongings into the Impala and drove off into the direction of New York.

Sam found Kevin in an overcrowded motel, hiding out in a wardrobe that was covered in so many sigils, it might as well be drenched in ink. Kevin had picked up on quite a lot of knowledge in the short time he had been exposed to the supernatural. Though, maybe, that also had to do with his status as a prophet of the Lord. Perhaps this knowledge was written into his soul.

When Sam opened the door, Kevin was cradling the demon tablet with one hand and a water bottle with the other.

“Hey, Kev-“

Sam didn’t get much further, as Kevin hit him with a glass full of water.

“I’m not a demon, Kevin,” Sam said slowly. He knew better than to scare the younger man now.

“You could have been possessed!” Kevin insisted, bloodshot eyes wide open with a crazed look.

Sam shook his head and pulled the collar of his shirt away from his neck to expose his anti-possession tattoo.

“Not with this. As long as I’ve got this one intact, I’m good.”

Kevin stared at the black ink.

“Is that Hunter standard?” He asked. “And can I get one?”

For the first time in weeks, or so it felt like, Sam managed to twist his face into something resembling a happy expression with the hint of a smile.

“Sure, Kevin. If you’re up for a long drive right now.”

Kevin was tired. It was written all over his face, his posture. He had a haunted look in his eyes, one Sam knew all too well. It was easy to forget that not everyone had been raised in this life like Sam and his brother had. But right now, staring in Kevin's sunken-in face, Sam was reminded of just how much Kevin had had to adapt since he’d woken up as a prophet.

“I need to keep moving,” Kevin insisted, subtly shifting so the tablet was pressing into his body uncomfortably.

“Okay. Then we keep moving.”

Kevin fell asleep in the backseat of the Impala within fifteen minutes, still holding onto the tablet. Once in a while, Sam glanced at Kevin, but he slept peacefully. The past weeks must have been an enormous strain on his body and mind if he rested as well as he did now, with no nightmares haunting him.

(The first few nights after Cas had taken Lucifer from him, Sam had been so out of it as well. He had fallen asleep and just woken up again, not chased by blood, torture, and screams. Nowadays, if he slept, he had night terrors. It almost made him miss Lucifer. Almost.)

Sam wished he could say the same.

After a couple days of pretty much non-stop driving, Sam and Kevin arrived in a relatively small town. They got a motel, checked for any signs of demons and promptly warded the room to withstand a minor assault. Then they left the Impala in the parking lot and headed for a diner. Kevin hadn’t eaten properly in days (not that Sam had either, but he also wasn’t recovering from a kidnapping) and needed something nutritious.

“Where are we?” Kevin asked while he was swirling his soup around with his spoon, not eating any of it.

“Nebraska, passed the state lines a couple hours ago.”

Kevin rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I can read road signs, Sam. But you were heading to this city specifically – why?”

“There’s a retired Hunter here, or at least, I hope he’s still here. He owns a tattoo shop.”

Kevin stared at him, not giving Sam the impression that he had made the connection. Then again, he’d been so out of it when Sam had picked him up, he might not even remember.

“You wanted to get an anti-possession tattoo,” Sam elaborated.

“Oooh, yeah.” Kevin looked down on his bowl. “I forgot about that. But why here? Couldn’t we have walked to any shop?”

The answer was yes, they could have, but Sam didn’t want to. Marty McKinnons never really left his state for hunting. Sam had met him when he was on his way to Stanford, seven days separated from Dean. Sam may or may not have had a minor breakdown in the passenger seat of Marty’s car while they drove away from a graveyard.

“I only managed seven fucking days of normal before the crazy came back again. What the hell was I thinking?” Sam had said then.

Marty had let Sam crash on his sofa that night and set his head straight again. He had been managing a shop and a band while hunting. “You don’t have to give it all up, kid,” Marty had said. “Or push it all away. If you see a ghost, take care of it or call someone who can. No need to go searching for cases like your daddy. If your neighborhood’s good, so are you.”

And then he had given Sam breakfast and driven him to the bus station.

“We could,” Sam finally replied. “But I’ve wanted to check out who else is still in the game, and if they know what the demons are up to.”

Kevin mustered Sam a little while longer. “Alright.”

He went back to pretending he was actually going to eat more of his soup and Sam picked at his salad.

Marty’s shop was crammed into an alley, an off-shoot of the main road. It was still standing. Sam took that as a good sign. Kevin walked slightly behind Sam, staying as close as he possibly could without full-on taking over Sam’s personal space.

Sam opened the door to the shop and the old bell attached to the doorframe rang. Marty had stolen it out of an abandoned church. Sam couldn’t quite recall what monster church bells warded against, but he could remember in perfect detail Marty’s hilarious tale about its acquisition. It had involved neon pink paint and lucky charms and had sounded like something out of a comedy sketch.

“Welcome to Artemis Tattoo’s, what can I do for you?”

Marty looked a little different than Sam recalled. It shouldn’t surprise him, it had been over a decade. The red-haired man was well into his fifties now, and his hair was graying, giving him a silver-fox look.

“Hey, Marty,” Sam greeted lamely. “It’s me, Sam-“

“Sam Winchester?” Marty interrupted him with wide eyes.

He took off his glasses and rubbed them over his black t-shirt before putting them on again.

“Christo, is that really you, kid?”

Sam shrugged helplessly. “Still me, still kicking.”

Compared to Sam, most people were smaller than him. Marty was the only person Sam knew who was taller than him still. When he marched towards you, it was impossible to not feel intimidated. Nobody would expect a man of Marty’s age and built to be as silent and fast as he was, so when he suddenly rushed towards Sam, Sam was caught off-guard. He didn’t even have a chance to act before Marty pulled him close.

He was hugging him, Sam realized belatedly.

“Holy fucking hell, kid,” Marty cursed. “You’re alive. You wouldn’t believe the shit I heard about you Winchesters in the past years. Where’s your brother?”

Sam tensed and Marty slowly let go of him. Marty had started hunting because his older sister had been killed by a witch, Sam remembered.

Sam didn’t have it as bad as him.

“Dean’s- he’s gone.”

(But he would be back.)

“Hell, kid. I’m sorry-“

“He’s not dead,” Sam insisted. Each time he said it out loud, he managed to stand a little bit straighter. “He’s just lost. I’ll find him. But that’s not what I’m here for. Look, this is Kevin.”

Sam stepped aside to let Marty get a good look at Kevin. Kevin waved timidly and nervously took in Marty’s many tattoos. The older man was covered in them from head to toe. Most of them were for the aesthetic, but quite a lot were there because they helped on the job.

Marty specialized in taking down witches, and while you couldn’t protect yourself from all of their spells, there were quite a lot counter measurements one could ink into their skin.

“Kevin’s a prophet. Crowley’s had him for a while-“

“Crowley?”

Right. Sometimes Sam forgot that not everybody dealt with demons on the daily like him.

“Current King of Hell,” Sam continued. “Kevin managed to escape, but we need to get him some extra security.”

Marty nodded slowly and then grinned, warm and toothily like Sam remembered. It was nice to be looked at in kindness for once instead of hatred and fear like most Hunters did nowadays.

“Anti-possession tattoo, you’re thinking?”

“Yes,” Kevin spoke up for the first time since they had entered the shop. “I don’t want one of those bastards in my head. If they know what I know…”

“Could get bad, I got you. Man, am I glad I don’t deal with those sons of a bitch. And you, Sam? Can I get you anything?”

Sam stuck his hand in his jeans pocket and pulled out a paper sheer that used to be white once upon a time.

“Yes, actually,” Sam said. “There is something I want.”

In the years Sam and Dean had been hiding from Heaven and Hell, they had learned more about wards than their father had in his entire life. Most of them had to be powered by blood, freshly spilled. A few of them, like the Enochian sigils Castiel had branded onto their ribs, could be applied and would work without a sacrifice, or one that only needed to be paid once.

Sam had never thought about putting anything other than the anti-possession tattoo on his skin (it was too easy to alter wards, to make them turn on the one using them, to have them drain you, they made you recognizable) but the last years had worn him down.

And if anything ever got close enough to him again to manipulate him (wear his body, wrap his soul in sweet lullabies while they tear into his brother’s flesh-), then perhaps Sam deserved it.

He wasn’t young and weak anymore.

(He had pulled Lucifer apart.)

Sam could afford to wear the wards he wanted.

“Are you sure?” Marty asked, studying the paper Sam had handed him. “This is… I don’t even recognize half of this.”

(Nobody would. Something had been meant for Archangel Grace only, but Sam had been there and he had listened. And he remembered.)

Kevin looked over the paper as well, frowning. When he met Sam’s eyes, he was troubled.

“That’s a lot,” Kevin said, something old lingering in his voice.

Maybe being a prophet didn’t just mean that Kevin could read God’s Word.

“I know,” Sam said. “I want it.”

(I consent.)

When they separated from Marty, the man pulled both of them into another heartfelt hug. Kevin looked like he was about to break and Sam’s hug was a little awkward as Marty was mindful not to touch Sam’s back.

“Don’t get into any trouble,” Marty said. “You have my phone number. If there’s anything you need, don’t hesitate to call.”

“Same goes for you, Marty,” Sam replied. “And if anyone wants to get the wards, but has questions about them, they can call me. I can explain.”

Marty smiled warmly and messed up Sam’s long hair. “You’re a good kid. Stay safe.”

They drove westward, hitting old libraries and archives, universities and churches. Sam kept learning, kept going. He couldn’t stop, wouldn’t stop. He felt a little bit like he was losing his mind.

(Except this was reality.)

Kevin wasn’t any better.

He barely slept. Most of the time, he was staring at the demon tablet, taking notes and trying to make sense of everything written there.

After a month of traveling, Kevin admitted defeat.

“I can’t do this if we keep moving,” he admitted quietly. “I need peace and calm to actually understand what I’m doing here.”

“Okay,” Sam said. He had expected it. “I’ll find a place.”

Some Hunters never traveled far away from their home, others were so lost they drifted until some monster killed them. As much as Sam had detested it, he had been raised on the road. He had studied for his finals lying on the backseat of the Impala. He had gotten a full-ride to Stanford with sticky-notes pinned to the windows.

(Sam wondered what he could have been if he had been able to recover in peace.)

Sam left Kevin at an old abandoned church. They set up traps for demons, bought enough non-perishable food to ensure Kevin wouldn’t have to leave the church for a while (until Sam found a better solution) and said their quiet goodbyes.

(“Looks like you’re well and truly on your own.”)

Everybody left.

Sam should be used to it by now.

It didn’t stop him from watching Kevin in the rearview-mirror until the distance ate him up.

Dean was gone two months now. Kevin called sometimes, but Sam couldn’t always keep up with his rambles. The Impala was stocked full with books kept in a neat organization system that hadn’t ever made sense to anyone but Dean.

Sam hunted a vampire in Colorado.

Then a witch in Utah.

A werewolf in Arizona.

Ghouls, shifters, ghosts, wendigos, rugaru-

And then, blood splattered over his clothes, Sam killed a demon.

Two hunters with twin shocked expressions pointed at Sam, then at the dead body and threw up their arms in defeat, shouting, “You can do that!?”

Sam had been avoiding demons to the best of his abilities. He knew they were hunting him and Kevin down, and while at some point he had entertained the thought of using himself as bait to lure them as far away from Kevin as possible, he had settled on trying to stay as far away from them as he could.

Until he couldn’t.

The demon was working on his own and he hadn’t been really all that well-informed or strong. It was easy enough to trap him and get him to break.

Sam hated torture, but not as much as Dean did.

(Because Dean wasn’t just good at it, he was great.)

But he could get a demon to start speaking if he wanted it to. The demon had boasted so proudly about how much he had made the owner of his meatsuit suffer until the soul had died, not knowing that his actions had only made it easier for Sam.

And then, when he had stabbed the knife through the demon’s heart, two college kids broke into the warehouse.

They must be siblings, twins maybe even, Sam thought. Both of them had curly dark hair, equally dark skin, and their expressions were too similar for them to not be family.

“You just killed a demon,” the smaller one said. “How do you- what. Just. What?”

Sam’s eyes narrowed.

“Who are you?” He asked.

“Dude, who are you? You just offed a demon!”

They couldn’t be older than twenty-five at most, at best if Sam allowed himself to hope. They knew about demons, so they had to be Hunters. Probably not in the business for long if they didn’t know demons could be killed. That was common knowledge amongst the community, or what was left of it. At least Sam thought it was. He and Dean had never really been close to a lot of Hunters because of their reputation.

“I’m Sam Winchester,” he introduced himself.

The eyes of the pair widened.

Not good.

Sam slowly shifted his body into a more versatile position and counted the exits. He would defend himself, no questions asked, but he didn’t want to hurt anyone. If he could get away from the two without the situation escalating into a fight, everything would be alright.

“Sam Winchester,” the taller twin spoke up. “You’re really Sam Winchester?”

And then something curious happened.

The twins dropped their shoulders in pure relief, hope lighting them up like they still had something to believe in that hadn’t been broken by blood and deals.

Well, that was a first.

“Dude,” the smaller one said. “Thank you so much.”

What.

Sam hadn’t said a word, but his confusion must have shown (damn it, he used to be better at acting, at pretending, at reassuring everyone that he was fine) because the kid immediately began to babble.

“You saved us. Just. Thank you. Just, thank you for everything.”

“You are welcome?”

Sam still didn’t know what they were talking about, but he sincerely hoped that he was right in assuming the two of them meant no harm. They put away their guns, practically vibrating with energy.

“I’m sorry, but have we met before?” Sam asked.

“No,” the taller replied. “I’m Gregory Rosswell and this one here next to me is my brother Frederick. Our parents got snatched by Leviathans a couple months back. We’ve been going after them ever since and everything else that came our way.”

Gregory glanced at the dead demon behind Sam. “Mostly ghosts though. Caught one demon, but he almost blew our brains out. Couldn’t chug enough salt and holy water at him fast enough.”

“Yeah,” Fred agreed. “How did you catch one so easily?”

“Devil’s trap,” Sam said.

“Oh.”

The twins shared a look. “Can you teach us how to draw one?”

Gregory and Frederick Rosswell were twenty-years-old (too young, children still, they shouldn’t be here) and had both been home from university when their parents had been replaced by Leviathans. When they had tried to do the same to Frederick, Gregory had cut off their heads with a cutlass from their father’s ancient weapons collection.

Sam refrained from asking whether the cutlass hidden beneath the backseat of the twins’ car was the one Gregory had used. They had a fairly impressive collection of knives and swords, but only two small handguns.

“We don’t need those much since we mostly go after Leviathans,” Gregory explained. “Didn’t even know there was more crazy out there until we ran into our first ghost.”

Gregory said it so casually that Sam didn’t know whether to be impressed or shocked. Leviathans weren’t easy to kill, even depowered as they now were, and Hunters, whose introduction to life was so violent, tended to die sooner than later.

When Sam tried to explain that, the Rosswells only looked at him in disbelief.

“Yeah, man. Back up a second. Vampires are real too?”

The twins turned to each other, conveying thoughts in half-smiles, a groan and a tap on the shoulder. Then they decided to invite Sam back into their conversation.

“What else is there?” Gregory asked. “And how do we kill it?”

“You don’t have to do this,” Sam said.

They were twenty, they shouldn’t be hunting when they had their whole lives still ahead of them.

(Sam was twenty-nine, was two-hundred-twenty, centuries, ages, older than his brother would ever be.)

“We know,” Frederick replied. “But we don’t want to stop. We can’t stop.”

Sam had never met a Hunter who could. (Himself included.)

Sam had never actually taught someone how to be a Hunter. Frederick and Gregory got the basics done already and research wasn’t unfamiliar to them. Their father had been a policeman, so they knew how law enforcement worked and could pretend to be a part of it well enough. Sam didn’t feel like he was actually teaching them a lot by giving them a list of America’s Top Twenty Monsters and a How To Kill Them All manual.

If he was honest, he thought the twins did most of the work. For the weeks they stuck with him, they asked countless questions, treating him like a tired college professor.

“How much Holy Water can you bless at once?”

A lot, but no, you can’t just bless the ocean. That’s not how it works.

“Wooden stake for tricksters? Where does that even come from?”

Yes, wooden stake. Works if they’re not angels in disguise.

“Angels are real!?”

Yes, and they all suck. Never let one of them possess you. They may need your consent, but it doesn’t need to be an informed or gentle one. You’ll be out of control and feel like you’ve been strapped to a comet. (Like you’re trapped in the softest dream, surrounded by memories of your siblings when they still loved you and the world was whole and untainted.)

“I know Latin and I’d been learning Greek for my bachelor, but how many languages do you need to know?”

A lot.

“Why do you carry so many books around in your car? Wouldn’t it be easier to get a place to store them in?”

“And organize them properly?” Frederick teased.

Sam looked at the backseat of the car and yes, true enough, he had accumulated a small library.

“Oh, shut up, you two,” Sam muttered, and pointedly ignored that one of the stacks of books had fallen over, making the twins grin like idiots.

When they went their separate ways again, Sam was a little more convinced that he wasn’t sending the two of them off to their deaths. And if they ever met anything they didn’t know, they could call him. It was the least he could do.

What Sam hadn’t expected when he handed the Rosswells his number, was how often they would call. Sometimes they asked for help regarding hunts, but more often than not, they just asked about him or talked about whatever kind of crazy had happened to them lately. When Sam had started attending Stanford, he’d had to train himself in the delicate art of small talk. While attending school, he’d never connected much with his peers, too aware that he’d soon move away again, and with Dean around, he hadn’t needed to say a single word more than necessary. Even with all their differences, the choices that had made them grow apart, they got each other.

(Except when they didn’t and the world had to pay for it.)

At Stanford, though, Sam learned that small talk wasn’t just something you took part in to stay busy but to build longer-lasting relationships. The years on the road had made his skill rusty, but the Rosswells were doing their best to bring it back.

Sam didn’t know why telling them what he had for dinner was a good topic choice (but it did make him more conscious of the meals he kept skipping) or why he could listen to Gregory talking for a good fifteen minutes about how difficult it was to eat healthy on the road.

He always accepted their calls, never hit decline, even when they called in the middle of the night (Sam wasn’t sleeping anyway).

Marty called a few times too, his latest call informing Sam of his new partner Caitlyn, a young florist, who had set up her shop just a few meters away from him and put all her bouquets in holy water.

“She’s new to all of this. Vamps got her husband last year – that’s why she moved town.”

Kevin checked in less regularly and to even more random times than the twins. After one more erratic call that almost chased Sam halfway across the country, he asked the twins to go check in on Kevin.

At 3 a.m., his phone rang, and Sam got to stare at a picture of three young men, squatting in a confessional box and watching a movie on a laptop. Kevin was smiling tiredly and Frederick’s new scar was healed enough to be exposed.

They were healthy.

(They were alive.)

Sam could keep going.

Month four without Dean started by Sam staring at his phone and the many messages he had received in the few hours he had been asleep. Apparently, his friends had decided to team up and create a group chat.

The last dozen messages were everyone trying to make out what the hell Kevin’s sleep-deprived 4 a.m. message had meant while the prophet in question was probably (hopefully) fast asleep for once.

That’s Enochian, Sam typed mindlessly. It means Protection, but specifically referring to a situation in which demons are trying to possess someone who used to be an angel vessel.

Gregory: What?

Frederick: Hi Sam!!!

Marty: how is that ever a likely situation?

Sam grinned. It can also mean Protecting someone who is Loved by God. Angel vessels are precious to them. Ruining them is a severe offense.

Marty: yeah no goodbye I’m out.

Sam met the Hilllains on a ghost hunt. They had three kids, fifteen, twelve and six years old, who all knew how to handle knives and shoot guns and what to do when your mom fell over because she had a vision. The Hillains usually didn’t leave their state since “Raising kids on the road is just irresponsible”.

Susan Hillain-Waterbury was the descendant of a long line of gifted people and Terrence Hillain was a priest turned Hunter after a run-in with a demon. Most of the time, they hunted on the weekends and brought home fast food as a treat on Sunday afternoons.

Sam stayed with them until Monday evening because Susan insisted on making her world-famous lasagna for him as a thank you.

Four months and two weeks into his search and Sam had stopped asking for a room with two beds. When he realized that, he abandoned most of his weapons except the knife and headed for the nearest bar. People made space for him when he walked past them, and he didn’t think it was just because of his height.

The bartender took one look at him and filled a crystal clear glass with something that smelled so strong it burned in Sam’s nose.

“First one’s on the house,” she said.

“Thank you,” Sam muttered and downed the drink in one go.

(“Free booze! Awesome. C’mon, Sammy. Smile at her! See if you can get a second!”)

“Just keep them going, please.”

Alcohol couldn’t properly knock Sam out anymore. He hadn’t tried drugs (strong ones, anyway), but those shouldn’t have much of an effect on him either. He remembered the peaceful embrace of another, the oblivion that came with being lulled into memories of happy times when Father still loved them all.

Sam was tired.

His research was going fucking nowhere and he couldn’t keep everything organized and he was failing Dean yet again. He hadn’t been able to get his brother out of hell and he wouldn’t be able to get him out of purgatory.

What a fucking waste of space he was.

When he stumbled out of the bar, he stabbed a man with blonde hair and green eyes right between his ribs, watched as the demon within perished. Wordlessly, he dropped the body in a side-alley where it would be found by morning and a mourning family would have a place to grief at.

What did Sam have left?

(Nothing.)

He put the few belongings he had bothered out pack back in the car and drove off.

The next day he hit a dog.

Sam wasn’t thinking when he wrapped the dog into his towel and drove to the nearest animal clinic.

“I need help,” Sam exclaimed when he entered the clinic. Admitting more than he wanted to. “The dog needs help.”

“He just came out of nowhere, right in front of my car. We need a doctor. Are you a doctor?”

The animal couldn’t die. Not now, not right in front of Sam because he had made another mistake. It shouldn’t have to pay for Sam’s flaws.

It couldn’t die.

It couldn’t-

Sam’s shirt was still drenched in (Dean's) the dog’s blood. The smell didn’t bother him, it was too familiar to him to register on his mind.

When the doctor entered the room, everything was still a blur. Sam tried to keep his breathing under control, stop his hands from shaking and not fall into a panic.

Somehow, it ended with him owning a dog.

The motel he was staying at didn’t mind that he was keeping Dog, who still didn’t have a proper name. Sam had always been terrible about naming anything at all. When he was younger and had wanted a pet, Dean had collected the spiders of their motel rooms and named each and every one of them.

The various hero names Dean had slapped on them hadn’t been very creative either, but better than anything Sam had come up with.

The doctor who had done Dog’s surgery assured him that he was recovering well. Amelia Richardson, that was her name, was much kinder to him now that he apparently didn’t classify as a total asshole who hit animals while driving irresponsibly.

She still thought he was creepy and that there was something wrong with him (he was torn to bits and pieces, no amount of tape could fix him), but she stopped with the random accusations. The cash he earned at the motel, fixing a little bit of everything here and there, was enough to help him pay for Dog’s medication.

Sam felt like he was holding his breath and he didn’t know what he was waiting for.

Five months after Dean’s disappearance began with another random call. He didn’t recognize the number displayed on the phone screen, nor the voice speaking.

“Is this Sam Winchester?”

Sam evaluated the pros and cons of lying but settled on stating the truth. If it turned out this person meant to harm, Sam knew how to disappear quickly.

“Yes, who’s calling?”

The woman on the line sighed.

“My name’s Penny. I’m a… Hunter?” She trailed off, sounding unsure. Sam thought he heard a second voice ring in the background, saying something like, “That’s what Mackey called us!”

“Okay, jeez. I didn’t ask for your opinion Himari and Chasers sounds way better, it’s like Harry Potter,” Penny muttered. That was probably not meant for Sam’s ears. “Anyway. We already called Mackey – he’s another Hunter – but he couldn’t help us, and the Rosswells said you always help them with their cases so they gave us your number, and people are dying and we don’t know what to do.”

While Sam had gotten accustomed to his new network over time, he hadn’t expected the others to hand out his number. There was a certain risk attached to it but- Never mind. He could help out another Hunter, especially if she

“Okay,” Sam said. “Yes, sure. Of course, I can help you. What are you hunting?”

“No idea.”

Sam grimaced and put the phone on speaker, another habit stemming from being around Dean 24/7. Whenever Bobby called them to give them a little help, they put the phone on speaker so the other could listen in. Sam didn’t need to do it anymore. He did it anyway.

“What and how does it kill then?”

“It burns the victims,” Penny said. Her voice sounded a little off, she probably hadn’t come across many burned corpses then already. The smell and the sight were always a little nauseating. “But there are also multiple bite marks and poison and the only reason we think it’s only one monster is that all victims have at least two of those signs.”

Sam couldn’t think of a single monster that killed in such a way, but that didn’t mean it didn’t exist. If the whole catastrophe with Eve had shown one thing, then that America’s monsters didn’t care about staying traditional. Much like humans, they had immigrated over the centuries and spread and there was no way to keep track of every country’s varied monster population.

“I’ll go do some research, Penny. Just send me what you have so far per SMS,” Sam replied, already packing his messenger bag. “I’ll call you back as soon as I got something. If a new victim pops up, give me another call.”

Sam hesitated. Penny couldn’t be doing this for long if she was unfamiliar with the term Hunter, right?

“Otherwise, stick to silver, iron, salt, and holy water. Those works on most things.”

Seasoned Hunters would think of such advice as patronizing, as much as they appreciated help on a challenging hunt, they were all fairly arrogant, considering themselves experts.

“Thank you, Mr. Winchester.”

Sam snorted. “Just call me Sam, everyone does.”

He ended the call and halted, just for a moment. Everyone?

(He sure had surrounded himself with more people than he thought he would, than he ever should.)

Sam didn’t expect to run into any trouble while researching for Penny until he stood in front of the library, Dog’s leash still in his hand. He couldn’t take a dog into a library, could he? A bit helplessly and lost he stood in front of the library until a young girl took pity on him and told him he could leave Dog on the west side of the library, where they had a small sheltered space for dogs. Sam thanked her and quickly got to work.

He started looking for any incidents happening in the town Penny was in, but couldn’t find any. Then he moved on to ghosts, covering the basics before returning to researching all kinds of monsters. When the American usuals didn’t bring any results, Sam turned to European folklore and myths, where he soon discovered something fitting.

Sam dialed Penny’s number. “Hey, Penny? I think I know what it might be.”

“Really? But- what. That took you barely 3 hours!”

Sam glanced at the time displayed in the corner of his laptop. It really hadn’t taken that long.

“Well, want to hear what I found?”

“Yes, please.”

Sam smiled and scrolled to the top of his word document. “Okay, so, it looks like you’re dealing with a chimera from Greek mythology. It’s a fire-breathing female monster resembling a lion in the forepart, a goat in the middle, and a dragon or snake behind. In the myth, Bellerophon kills it by lodging a block of lead inside the Chimera's throat.”

“How are we supposed to stuff lead inside such a monster?” Penny replied, her voice bordering on hysterics.

“Look,” Sam said. “Myths like to make things more complicated, heroes more heroic and cunning. Most likely, you’ll be fine by using weapons made out of lead.”

“You sure?”

“As sure as you can be with those things.”

Penny took a deep breath, probably to calm herself. Sam waited until she was done to speak up again. “Do you need back up?”

“No,” Penny said. “Himari called Mackey again to tell him I called you – he says hi by the way? You called him after Bobby’s death apparently…?”

Oh, that Mackey. He was one of Bobby’s contacts. Sam had rung them all up to tell them about Bobby’s death. Not all of them were glad to hear of him, but a surprisingly high amount was.

“Yeah, I know Mackey. He’s a good guy.”

“Yeah, Himari worked with him before. Anyway, he’s driving our way to help out. I guess I’ll call when it was a success?”

“You do that. Much success and don’t forget to aim for the head.”

Penny laughed, still a little nervous but at least not as much as before. “Thanks for the help again, Sam.”

A week later, Sam got a call from Mackey, asking if he had any use for chimera blood.

“Always split the spoils with Bobby,” Mackey said. “I swear, Bobby had everything stored down there in his basement.”

“He did,” Sam agreed. He remembered spending two months at Bobby's by himself while John was out like always and Dean was gone. Sam had done a lot of research during that time, not all of it necessarily child-friendly despite Bobby’s attempts to keep him away from it. He’d spend at least one weekend labeling all the weird monster parts Bobby had been keeping on old shelves.

“Thanks for the call, Mackey, but I don’t have the space for that.”

Sam’s eyes drifted to the books and weapons already taking up most of the space in the Impala and some more.

“Too bad, I don’t have any either. You know any Hunter shops?”

“I…” Sam’s thoughts drifted back to Marty or rather Caitlyn. She didn’t hunt as much as the rest of them, only really when Marty asked her to be his back up. But she did start to collect more unusual ingredients, even if most of them were plant related.

“Actually, yes. How far are you from Nebraska? I know a good place there.”

Sam began to run into Amelia everywhere or so it felt. She was funny and kind, and she understood what it was like to lose something so dear to you, you forgot how to breathe.

“So, Sam, I was thinking: Do you want to go out on Friday? A proper restaurant, I mean. Not another motel room talk.”

“I like our-“

Sam’s phone rang. Frederick was calling him. Last Sam had heard, the twins were a couple hours away from him. “Hold up. Hey Fred, everything alright?”

“Sam!”

Frederick’s panic immediately put Sam on edge. “Fred, what’s going on?”

“Can you come drive up? Gregory and I stumbled upon a werewolf pack and they’re hunting kids for sport and I think they’re onto us and I know there are four at least and we have no idea what to do. Just. Please. I know you’re busy searching for Dean, but we’re at our wit's end.”

Sam looked at Amelia. She was smiling softly still, much happier than the first time he’d met her. Riot, the finally renamed Dog, was lying next to her and wagging his tail.

“Sam?”

People were relying on Sam.

“I’ll be there as soon as possible, give me your coordinates.”

Dean’s cursing about dog fur on the Impala’s leather chased Sam over the highways. He broke the speed limit on most roads, haunted by images of two death he could prevent if he was just in time. Riot looked out of the window, peaceful and healthy. All of Sam’s belongings were crammed into the trunk and on the backseat. A whole life and five months.

Sam made it just in time. The werewolves had indeed caught up to the twins and jumped their motel room. When Sam emptied a whole load of silver bullets into the werewolves, Frederick was only wearing sweat pants and using a towel to cover up his chest, holding onto his unconscious brother whose head was bleeding.

The werewolves dropped to the ground, dead. Frederick, blood splattered over his face, didn’t let go of his silver knife or Gregory.

Sam didn’t bother checking whether the werewolves were really dead, they had taken a bullet to their heads and wouldn’t return from that (unless heaven or hell took mercy on them and neither were kind to anyone but themselves).

“Frederick,” Sam said. “You need to get up.”

Frederick didn’t move. The motel was pretty empty, but someone was bound to have heard the attack, the fight or the murder, and they would come looking. They couldn’t afford to lose time now.

“Fred, get up,” Sam ordered. He held out his hand and when Frederick, shaken up, lifted his, Sam quickly took the knife out of it and threw it in the small suitcase on the bed. “Get dressed, I’ll take care of Greg.”

Frederick seemed to be moving in slow motion, but he was finally returning to the action. Sam pulled the pillowcase off one of the pillows lying on the bed and used it to stop Gregory’s bleeding. He probably only had a concussion.

Then Sam picked Gregory up as carefully as he could and carried the man to the Impala. Riot looked up in interest when Sam laid Gregory on the backseat.

“Keep watch,” Sam told him and returned to the Rosswells’ room to help Frederick finish.

When he arrived, Frederick was as good as dressed and gathering everything of importance. Sam picked up two bags and threw one last look at the corpses on the ground. They had no time to get rid of the bodies, they would have to stay.

Frederick sits down next to Gregory and pulls his brother’s head in his lap.

“I’m sorry,” Frederick murmured. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, …”

The mantra followed them down the road until they were three cities further and utterly safe from being accused of any of the crimes they had committed.

“Do you have a safe place to stay somewhere?” Sam asked.

They were near Kansas now and could easily swing up to Nebraska. Neither Caitlyn nor Marty had enough space for the two hunters, but it would do long enough for Gregory to heal until the twins could hit the road again.

If they still wanted to after this encounter.

Sam had been injured so often in the past years, he hardly even blinked at a concussion anymore, he and Dean just kept on driving.

“We’ve got a house,” Frederick replied. “I don’t know what shape it’s in, but we were meaning to go check it out anyway.”

“Alright. Directions?”

Frederick led Sam to an abandoned house that was a good twenty-minute drive into the woods in the north of Kansas. It looked fairly old and was surprisingly big and in a good shape.

The entire façade of the building had been painted in a soft green. The color was starting to peel off in some places, but it was mostly intact.

“What is this place?” Sam asked after they had carried Gregory inside and let him continue resting on a sofa in the living room.

There was something off about this place that Sam couldn’t quite pinpoint, but it put him on edge. He felt like somebody was watching him, waiting for him to make a mistake. He began mustering the painted walls. Elaborate landscape paintings of a forest covered the living room. The longer he looked at it, the more did he think he was seeing familiar symbols.

“It’s our great-grandmother Agatha’s house,” Frederick said. “Never met her. According to our grandmother, she was a wicked witch who should have never been allowed to have a child. As soon as Grandmother was sixteen, she left and married a nice man and had a completely normal daughter who then had us. Agatha died back in 2009 shortly before you stopped the apocalypse that almost happened and she left everything to our mother. Mom wanted to sell the house, but no deal could be made. People had unfortunate accidents as soon as they stepped into the house.”

Sam stepped closer to the entrance door, tracing over carvings in the wood. “What?”

Frederick grimaced. “That’s why we were heading here. We wanted to check it out. We thought a ghost might be haunting the building.”

“Yeah, I’m not so sure about that,” Sam muttered.

“No?”

“These symbols spread all over the room, they’re runes. I’m pretty sure they’re wards. Any chance your great grandmother worshipped pagan gods?”

“I don’t know. But she got super old and she was from Norway.”

Sam sighed. “Alright. Let’s track down which god is protecting this house and get them a proper offering before they kill us.”

In the end, it was quite easy to figure out which god Agatha had worshipped. Sam found her altar in the eastern kitchen window, the first to see the sun in the morning. Old, half-burned candles with a sugary sweet smell stood around a handmade clay flower pot filled with small pink flowers that appeared to be blooming although nobody was taking care of them. And right next to the flower pot stood a bowl filled with sweets.

The irony of this situation wasn’t lost on Sam.

“It’s Loki,” Sam said when he returned to the living room. “Your great grandmother was a follower of Loki.”

“That was the trickster angel, right?” Frederick asked. “The one who died? Shouldn’t this house be clean of his influence then?”

Sam shook his heads. “You can never really kill a pagan god. More than any other beings, they cling to faith. As long as someone believes in them, they exist. Gabriel might be dead, but the idea of Loki is still around.”

(He wondered what that meant for angels. They did die, expect when God or whatever interfered. Castiel had died and come back. So why did God let one of his oldest angels die?)

“Anyway, I’ll get a package of chewing gum from the car. Not his favorite, but it’s sweet and an offering.”

“You’re not going to destroy the altar?”

Frederick’s expression was neutral. He wasn’t judging Sam or implying anything. He only wanted to know why Sam wasn’t getting rid of the threat.

And honestly? Sam didn’t know why. The thought hadn’t even occurred to him.

“This place has pretty strong wards,” Sam said. It was true, they must have been powered by Loki. If Agatha’s life force had also been included in that, it was no wonder she had died when Gabriel did. If the twins took up residency here, offering their blood and redrawing some of the ownership-tied wards, they had a pretty protected place to stay at. It shouldn’t cost them more than a couple sweets every now and then and some new candles. “There’s a bigger advantage to keeping it.”

The twins got settled and Sam spent a couple hours exploring the house. The wards Agatha had set up were truly impressive, even more so after they had made the offering. The house itself was a pretty nice place too. Sure, it needed some fixing and a new paint job, but the amount of knowledge stored in the crammed library in what must have been Agatha’s study was astonishing. Sam would definitely take a closer look once he had the time. Since they had no food or drink, Sam went back to the car to head to the nearest grocery store and buy some supplies.

After about two days, Gregory was already up and running again - or walking. Every time Frederick even just suggested Gregory take it slow or, God forbid, brought him food to his bed, Gregory looked slightly more murderous. His injuries weren’t as bad as they had seemed, but it had scared Fred regardless. It reminded Sam a little of his childhood when he’d been deemed old enough to give first-aid but too young to hunt still and Dean or Dad had come back already half out of it and Sam had to stitch them back together. They’d always looked as if they’d come straight out of a horror movie, but nothing vital had been hurt (well, except maybe once or twice.)

Sam and Fred had cleaned up what appeared to have been a guest bedroom and settled Gregory there. To avoid going stir-crazy, they’d cleaned up the other rooms afterward. The house had electricity and warm running water and Sam was sure those had only shown up after Sam had added a lot of treats to Loki’s altar.

He might have gone a little overboard, but Sam owed the guy. He’d died for them, the whole world, when he could have certainly taken up a golden throne right next to Lucifer. As twisted as Lucifer was, killing Gabriel had hurt him and that showed how much he would have loved to have his favorite sibling by his side.

And Gabriel has said “no”.

Frederick had only glanced questioning at the mountain of candy, porn magazines, crossword puzzles, honey, and candles, but Gregory was the one to actually ask about them.

“I thought altars were all blood, dark magic and-“ Gregory moved his hands through the air in the bad imitation of a TV witch. “You know?”

“Blood is for worshippers and, in this case, the owner of the house. The stuff I brought is just a guest gift.”

Maybe not just merely a guest gift, but also a little bribery to protect the three of them as they resided here.

“So whoever offers blood owns the house?” Gregory inquired.

Sam shrugged. “Basically.”

“And non-basically?”

Right, Sam had forgotten he was talking to an ex-history student. Without further prompting, he latched into a lecture on Pagan gods, worship, and ownership rules, only halting once to give Frederick a chance to get settled comfortably when he joined them.

Caitlyn: Fred & George are okay?

Gregory: It’s Greg

Frederick:��Don’t ruin my fun, bro

Gregory: Of all the names you could have picked, why did it have to be Frederick again?

Sam: @Caitlyn They are getting better

Caitlyn: Sweet. We got a couple Hunters here asking how to get phoenix feathers. Anybody got some ideas? And can I give them your number? @Sam

Sam: Sure, tell them to give me a ring and I’ll see what I can do

Frederick and Gregory were up to something. Sam didn’t just guess so, he saw the incriminating looks they shared. Sam had been in and out of their house for a month now. He’d spent two weeks there going through the books their great-grandmother had possessed, but unfortunately, those didn’t provide much information on purgatory either.

Another dead end.

After that, Sam threw himself into helping other hunters. His number of acquaintances had grown exponentially the more the word spread that one Winchester was still alive and kicking and willing to just hand over everything he knew (while the other was gone, never dead. All of them thought it, Sam knew, but they didn’t dare say it around him.).

Hunters were guarded people, they wouldn't survive otherwise. Even information was just shared sparingly, so of course, they all jumped on the opportunity. It was strange to be confronted with Hunters who worked very specialized or were just at the beginning of their careers, as far as you could call killing monsters a job.

Of course, the older ones didn’t exactly trust Sam (he did have a history filled with a lot of dangerous bullshit such as letting Lucifer out of the Cage), but he was America’s expert on everything angelic and demonic.

Even if he didn’t really feel like it. There was so much to know about heaven and hell, Sam’s active knowledge barely scratched the surface and he didn’t dare try to reach for the memories he had buried.

(The Cage hadn’t been all bad, but trauma didn’t let you pick how you’d react to any memory at all.)

But compared to everyone else, that was still more so he taught how to exorcise demons and kill angels and hoped it was enough.

“So,” Gregory said one morning. “I’m all healed up and Himari called, asking for backup, so we think it’s time to leave again.”

Sam nodded and closed his book. “Time to move on then.”

“Yeah, about that…” Gregory trailed off and turned to his brother.

Frederick pushed himself away from the wall and began walking up and down.

“Look, Sam. We don’t really have use for this place. And you’ve got Riot.”

“A car’s not a home,” Gregory added. He bent down to pet the dog, who definitely enjoyed his stay at the house more than the endless hours on the road.

Frederick pointed at his brother. “Right? And a dog needs a home and you need a space for the library in your car.”

Sam frowned, realization only dawning slowly upon him. “You can’t-“

Gregory held up has hands. “We can. Look, we still got our parents’ house and all these wards and stuff? That’s your niche. We like hunting stuff that doesn’t require enchantments and we can’t even read half of the words painted on the ceiling.”

“You can learn,” Sam insisted. “This house belonged to your great-grandmother.”

Legacy was important to Hunters. All the lives saved, the knowledge passed on – many Hunters didn’t have any blood relatives left, so their hunting partners were the ones who carried their memories.

But Frederick and Gregory didn’t know that and Sam struggled to find the right words.

Frederick shrugged. “We never even met her, Sam. This house might as well belong to a stranger. We’ll, of course, come visit and crash here whenever, but otherwise? You need a place to search for your brother. Take it.”

It took another week for them to wear Sam down, and even then they wouldn’t leave until Sam had gone to the nearest supermarket and returned with new offerings for their pagan god and finally bled over the altar.

Frederick had looked smug the whole time while Gregory sent Sam’s new address to their mutual friends and acquaintances.

It didn’t even take a week for the first person to show up at his doorstep.

Sam had always liked doing things with his hands, repairing broken items, stitching up shirts. A lot of handiwork had come out of necessity, but there was also something soothing attached to it all. Over the course of the next weeks, Sam drove to the construction market about every day until the cashiers there greeted him by name.

He bought paint and tools and wood and started to repair the house where it was damaged and touch it up where it just didn’t look all right.

He added his books to the library/study and organized the artifacts Agatha had left lying around pretty much everywhere. The room that once must have belonged to the twins’ grandmother was turned into a guest room with two beds, as was another storage room, a corner of the basement, and the attic.

When Sam was finally satisfied, too much time had passed already, but Kevin Tran, while tired and exhausted, was not bitter and welcomed the change of scenery.

Fact was, a lot of Hunters distrusted Sam Winchester. He had a reputation that made them uneasy and the stories haunting him made him out to be much less human than he ought to be. Those Hunters relied on Garth to collect info for them, give them back up and so on. They pointed the new Hunters they found in his direction and Garth-

Well, Garth gave them Sam’s number.

Old school Hunters relied on old and proven methods, they would not suddenly think of recording exorcisms on their phones or starting a Supernatural Wikipedia. These New Age Hunters, as they liked to scoff, didn’t know how much the world had changed.

And they were right in that assessment.

When your first hunt involved leviathans and demons, angels stealing people who returned as mere shells, then you didn’t miss the times when the world was straightforward and didn’t include more than ten types of monsters.

“Hello, Agent Mercury? One of your field agents is claiming our body here is part of an FBI investigation-“

“The heads, Sam! It only leaves the heads!”

“-and the Park Rangers really-“

“So like, they steal from blood banks, but otherwise they’re vegan?”

“The military must be really desperate if they try to recruit people off the police.”

“Hypothetically, if a werewolf and a vampire had a kid together-“

“Winchester! Holy Christ, you won’t believe-“

“It’s Kevin,” the prophet interrupted Penny. “Sam’s making dinner.”

Silence. Kevin had to stop himself from laughing out loud.

“Oh. Hi, Kevin! How’s it going?”

“Good, but it’s been busy. How can Agatha’s help you today? Need some spells to get rid of a wicked witch or brain for your local zombie population?”

“Zombies…?” Penny trailed off, sounding unsure. Kevin imagined her shaking her head. “You know what? I don’t want to know. Do you guys know anything about a spell or a monster going after the blood of two drained lambs, the liver of a lion, and the eyes of a monkey? We got a bizarre case here in a zoo.”

Kevin glanced at the clock. He wasn’t going to work on the tablet anymore today and if he could help it, Sam wouldn’t shut himself away in his study/purgatory lore cave.

“Yeah, we can do some research. We’ll ring as soon as we got something.”

Soon after word had gotten out that Sam had settled somewhere, Mackey showed up at his doorstep, only Himari in tow. Penny, her better half in Himari’s own words, was apparently visiting family up north.

Sam didn’t buy the lie, but he saw no point in questioning her.

“Oh, man, Sam. I love what you’ve done with the place. It’s like Roadhouse and Bobby’s in one,” Mackey said.

Sam smiled and looked around. It really was starting to look like a proper place for hunters to crash at. “Not enough books and dirt for Bobby’s yet.”

Marty laughed and knocked his beer against Sam’s. “True enough. I swear the cleanest I ever saw Bobby’s was when your Daddy had dropped you off at his place again.”

Sam rolled his eyes, but still managed to smile softly. “That’s only ‘cause Bobby made me and- made us clean to keep us busy and away from the books depicting torture.”

“Oh, yeah. That sounds like Bobby!”

Himari, who up until then had only been nursing her tea silently, spoke up for the first time since she had stepped into Sam’s house. “What is the Roadhouse and Bobby’s?”

Mackey's cheerful expression fell and Sam too, who had been making all kinds of calls over the past weeks and should be used to it by now damn it, couldn’t stop his throat from closing up.

“That was before your time, kid,” Mackey replied. “The Roadhouse was the Hunter equivalent to a community center – a place to recover after or before a hunt. I swear, nobody ever managed to talk me out of a hunt before without even saying a word but Ellen. And Bobby was the meanest son of a bitch you could ever meet. You vaguely describe him your latest crazy, and he’d call you back within a day to tell you what the hell you’re facing and how to kill it. Also our go-to man if the authorities came calling. Without the two of them, the community’s shot to hell. Garth’s been picking up some slack, but he ain’t got time to teach anyone… That reminds me.”

Mackey picked his backpack up from the ground and rummaged through it until he found what he was looking for – a dirty sheet of paper apparently – and held it up victoriously.

“Here,” he said and gave it to Sam. “I got into contact with a couple Old Timers. Not sure if they’re on your contact list already, but they offered to help out with the huge influx of newbies so you’re not stuck handling all their questions.”

Sam scanned the list. A few names stuck out to him, but others he was only vaguely aware of or didn’t know at all.

“Thanks, Marty. I’ll give them a ring.”

When the Hillains asked for Sam’s help, he expected a little more “Could you be our back-up?” and less “Can we leave the kids with you for the week?” but Sam agreed anyway.

It was certainly an experience to have three kids running around for a week, but not one he minded. He had babysat couple times as a teenager to earn some extra cash, and the experience was familiar enough.

Besides, all three of them loved Riot and the dog was more than just happy about the extra attention.

Irv Franklin liked to think he was as good a man as a Hunter could be. Of course, he didn’t have utter faith in Sam Winchester, everybody knew the Winchesters messed around with Heaven and Hell and a whole lot of other things that shouldn’t be touched, but the kid was also Bobby’s kid.

And, really, everybody who actually cared about Bobby knew those two Winchester brats had been his whole world.

Tracy hadn’t wanted to come to Winchester’s place – called Agatha’s for some unfathomable reason – and Irv couldn’t blame her. He had told her she could stay in the motel, but she had decided to meet the man the demons had killed her family for.

From the outside, the house looked comfortable, not as militant as Irv had expected. Sam was kneeling on the porch, painting something on the windowsill. As soon as he spotted Irv and Tracy, he stood up.

“Irv! Good to see you.”

“Right back at you, Winchester,” Irv said and followed Sam inside.

The kid led Irv and Tracy into the kitchen and took a couple beers out of the fridge. “We only got beer and water right now,” he said apologetically.

Irv wondered who exactly we were, but didn’t ask. He had heard rumors about prophets, and everybody who went after demons knew that hell had been in an uproar lately. Sometimes it was better if you didn’t know anything.

“I did look into the killings you described,” Sam continued. “Couldn’t find anything directly, but the books in the living room contain everything I’ve got on ritualistic murders. Feel free to look through them, just don’t run off with them. One of the upstairs’ rooms is already occupied, but you can sleep downstairs in the basement if you want.”

Irv reached for one of the beers on the kitchen table. “Thanks, kid.”

They left two days later.

“He’s not really what I expected,” Tracy admitted carefully.

Maybe she could start to heal properly now.

Irv grimaced. “Winchesters rarely are.”

Sam’s study was a bit of a mess. Papers covered half the floor and whole books the other. Kevin kind of wanted to sigh in frustration, but that wouldn’t help anyone. Instead, he sat down on the ground next to Sam.

“Is everything alright?” Kevin asked, already knowing the answer.

Sam laughed bitterly, his ink-stained hands still brushing through Riot’s fur. “No, nothing’s alright. Just look at me, Kev, what am I doing? It’s been almost a year, and I still haven’t found a way to save him.”

Sam didn’t need to say out loud who he was talking about, it was as clear as day.

“I have only been wasting my time trying to- to-“

“Keep over two dozen hunters alive, researching about fifteen different things at the same time with more dedication than I ever put into my term papers despite my mom?” Kevin said drily. “Give yourself a break, Sam. You’re already doing more than humanly possible.”

“But it’s not enough!”

Sam’s outburst was not unexpected but that didn’t make it any more pleasant.

Kevin was used to it, though.

They kept themselves together well enough around others, but some things needed more than the duct tape they stuck onto their wounds.

“I want to visit my mom,” Kevin said into their silence. “I haven’t left the house in months and I think it’ll be safe enough. Just a quick trip. One last time.”

“Alright,” Sam agreed quietly.

Maybe this was healing. (Maybe it was giving up.)

Sam would never know.

Lazarus rose once more.

(Rinse. Rise. Repeat.)

#spn #sam winchester #dean winchester #kevin tran #supernatural #fanfic #I AM STILL SALTY AND I HAVE CONSUMED 3 SEASONS MORE SINCE

33 notes · View notes

clockvvorker · 6 years ago

Text

Therion's Past: An Insane Meta/Headcanon Post

[cracks knuckles] all right I'm taking this literally 2% seriously, almost skim seriously, but this is a very serious headcanon that I refuse to let die until squenix tells me otherwise. So, without further ado, I present:

Hornburgian Therion, Royalty Therion and Both Of Them Put Together In A Clusterfuck of Headcanons I Call Hornburgian Royalty

(Mega spoilers for the entire game, including & especially Gate of Finis!)

Some Note Before We Begin

I make use of biblical allusions and parallels between Therion of Christianity and Therion of Octopath Traveler, mostly near the end, and as neat little conjecture rather than concrete evidence towards my theories. Usually, I’ll more often than not be talking about Therion of Octopath Traveler, but if I ever feel the need to make the distinction (like when talking about both of them in the same sentence), I’ll use C!Therion for the Beast from Christianity, and OT!Therion for the Octopath Traveler character.

Like mentioned before, some of the later bits and pieces will just be conjecture and mutual allusions to add strength to arguments rather than to be held as evidence by itself, so take those with a grain of salt. The larger arguments, however.....I’m very serious about those.

I may have forgotten some things, so pardon if I have to go out and edit this to complete some thoughts that I may have left unfinished. This is close to 3,000 words long and I haven’t proofread it yet.

If you have anything to add regarding anything in this document, feel free to send it my way!

Royalty Therion; Or, The Most Likely Explanation But That's No Fun Now, Is It?

Honestly, it almost feels as though they wanted to hint at this but didn’t do it enough.

Starting off strong character-wise, we’ve got the glaring similarities between Therese and Therion, namely the fact that they’re the only known characters with ‘unnatural’ hair colors in the game- that is to say, silver (and white) hair isn’t normally found in nature, while everybody else has colors ranging from normal blond to black; ‘anime’ colored hair isn’t exactly prevalent in Orsterra. It could be coincidence, but so could everything else and so I like to interpret it as not. Instead, it could be genetics. Bloodline, a recessive gene passed down more easily through the royal family or a branch thereof. Not to mention, mind, that Therion's hair is, if not confirmed, then highly implied to be naturally white. After all, while gaining white hair from shock or mental stress has been used in anime before (my own knowledge only really extending to Allen Walker from D. Gray-Man), it's clearly shown that Therion has white hair before his ordeal with Darius, and not enough is known before their meeting to imply any shock large enough for such a biological change (as unrealistic as it is to begin with). As for hair dye....while enough can be said of a thief not wanting a hair color that sticks out like a sore thumb in the middle of Orsterra (in fact, there’s no strategic benefit, only loss, to dying his hair white), the lack of untouched roots also lends itself to the fact.

Also to note is that Therion actually shares his green eye color not with Therese but with Princess Mary, with whom Therese does also share a biological (if distant) relation.

Another thing I would like to address, while less related to their direct blood lineage, is the similarities in their name. It's mostly just convenient coincidence, but THERion and THERese both have seven letters and begin with the same four letters, albeit with different pronunciations; this could possibly lend itself to a naming trend within the family. Also, while I’ve noted time and time again that Therion is most likely derived from the name of The Beast in Christian lore, the origin of the word itself is quite literally greek for 'beast'. The hunted. Therese can also be derived from Greek. The meaning? 'Huntress'.

Hunter and hunted. The one who stayed, and the one who ran away. Everybody's names have had some sort of symbolism related to their path, however distinct (Tressa's name quite literally meaning 'third', as she is third in OCTOPATH order, and Ophilia's name is a direct foreshadowing to the death of her father and subsequent madness of her sister) or vague (Alfyn's name relating more closely to his action of chasing after the apothecary from his past, for example), and yet Therion's seems to be out of place. This could be the missing link.

Game mechanics wise, my reasoning gets iffier, but there’s still some evidence, or at least nice potential for world-building, going around. The most notable is the fact that the only known characters who wield swords in-game are trained mercenaries and knights, as well as Therion, who, as far as we know, had only traveled with Darius beginning at age 12. Other NPCs and enemy mobs preferred to use alternative weapons, namely daggers and spears. Sure, you can chalk this up to “okay but OT just needed another sword-using class to balance out the game mechanics”, but that’s no fun. Instead, I offer another explanation: Therion was formally trained in swordplay at a younger age, before he was introduced to Darius who wouldn't be able to teach him due to his own lack of training. Furthermore, because of this small time frame (roughly six years, if Therion started at the tender age of 6 as was the average for similar, real-life medieval societies), it's likely that Therion was either very gifted at swordplay to be able to learn it so quickly, pushed mercilessly by the person training him, or both- all likely assumptions for somebody with a noble birthright.

Hornburgian Therion; Or, More Fun And Also Still Plausible So Just Let Me Have This One Thing, Square Enix

Let's shift our gears here and talk geography for a minute; more specifically, I want to talk about four distinct locations related to both Therion and Hornburg. While the first two may be more obvious, Bolderfall and Hornburg itself, I'll be talking about the other two locations quite extensively as well: Saintsbridge and Riverford. While we know from the guidebook that Therion's first known location was his meeting with Darius in Saintsbridge, this also puts him in close proximity with Riverford- one of the pivotal locations, if not the most pivotal, pertaining to the Fall of Hornburg.

First, the obvious. Bolderfall and Hornburg have very similar geographic makeups; they’re both assumedly dry, arid locations with cliffs and other topologically similar features. Really, that’s all I have to say about that. There is potential for Therion having settled in an area similar to the home that he had lost in the war.

Yeah. That’s all I’ve got.

.....is what I would say, but wait, there’s more! Let’s take a look at the lower lefthand corner of the full map of Orsterra (shoutout to IGN for the high quality image).

We see that three- nay, four important points are located all in this area. “Four, but Hornburg isn’t located here!” No, I’m talking about the Orewell/Quarrycrest area where Darius betrays Therion, but that’s only important with regards to the actual story, not quite this meta, so it won’t be touched upon here.

The first place of importance is Saintsbridge, the city where Therion meets Darius for the first time. The second place, Bolderfall, where Therion begins his story path. And the third, Riverford. Now, the question here is, if Therion were from Hornburg, than how would he have ended up so far into Orsterra?

Riverford is the answer to that question. Riverford is most commonly known as the city where you fight Werner at the end of Olberic’s path; that is to say, he is the number two instigator of Hornburg’s ruin (number one being Lyblac). It’s revealed in the journals found in the Gate of Finis that, while orchestrating the fall of Hornburg, Werner also invests in the trust of ‘powerful men within Hornburg and without’. Adding onto that the fact that Werner has enough prestige and money to buy the entire city of Riverford after Hornburg falls, it would make sense for the area to also serve as an out-of-Hornburg base or otherwise sanctuary for Werner and his men before the fall.

In which case, since Riverford now has ties to Hornburg, how would Therion get there? The simplest answer is that he had arrived of his own free will. After all, Werner had been recruiting both mercenaries and ruffians alike, and a thief like Therion would surely be on Werner’s radar (granted his young age, however, this may not hold as much water). While serving under Werner, either as a ‘villain’ in his little act or as a courier or other role suited for a fleet-footed thief, there’s potential for Therion to travel back and forth between Riverford and Hornburg, therefore giving him a reason to be in both Riverford and Saintsbridge, as the next city on the road towards Hornburg (at least, considering the impassable terrain between Riverford and Marsalim).

The second answer, and I’ll go over this in the next section, is a little more extreme.

Therion was abducted.

Hornburgian Royalty AU; Or, Put On Your Pirate Hats Because We’re Sailing Into Crack Theory Territory Now Boys (Actually There’s A Lot Of Allusions And Parallels So Strap In We’re Going Meta-Diving)

Let’s put this all together, now. We’ve got Royal Therion and Hornburgian Therion. Why not both? However, while we can pull a few things from both previous headcanons - namely the knowledge of swordplay from Royal Therion and the geographical preference from Hornburgian Therion - there’s also one more story-based piece of information I want to look at.

Namely, the connection between Therion and Beowulf I, the first king of Hornburg.

I’m gonna pull these two pieces from The Records of House Ravus specifically as a basic gist of my reasoning:

“The dragonstones were bestowed upon the first Lord Ravus by the legendary King Beowulf I of Hornburg, and they have been passed down in our family ever since.”

[.....]

“It is said that the great sorcerer Odin Crossford used the power of the dragonstones to seal shut the Gate of Finis. Crossford had campaigned together with King Beowulf and aided him in the founding of Hornburg.”

There is a lot of allusion and generational referencing of the original closing of the Gate within the journals for the Gate of Finis, and this is only part of the excerpt itself. Odin Crossford, King Beowulf, and Lord Ravus are all tied into the lore behind the Dragonstones here, and we’ve obviously seen why the names Crossford and Ravus are so important (especially considering their kin also play major roles in the plot). King Beowulf gives the dragonstones to Odin Crossford to seal the Gate of Finis, and those dragonstones then go to the first Lord Ravus for safekeeping. We see that the most recent Lord Ravus (Cordelia Ravus’s father, assumedly) loses the dragonstones during a family strife, which connects the past Ravus to the future. Obviously, Graham and Kit Crossford act as two different keys to opening the Gate of Finis, which parallel Odin Crossford closing the Gate. So here we have a cyclical series of events, but there’s one thing missing. King Beowulf doesn’t have a seemingly present-day counterpart.....but who gave the dragonstones to the Ravus family?

Or a better question is, who gave the dragonstones to the Ravus family after he retrieved them all during the events of the game?

Now, we know that Cordelia is related to the first Lord Ravus through direct lineage; the same can be said for Graham (and Kit by extension) being directly related to Odin. Through this series of parallels, it also wouldn’t be a stretch to say that Therion, despite lacking a proper (known) surname, could also be related to the first King Beowulf (also without a surname, mind you, just as the late King Alfred is without a known surname) through direct blood lineage because of this parallel of roles.

I CAN ALSO GO INTO HOW THE NAME THERION, DESPITE MEANING ‘BEAST’, IS ALSO THE GREEK NAME GIVEN TO THE CONSTELLATION LUPUS, AKA THE WOLF, LIKE, Y’KNOW, IN BEOWULF, BUT I DON’T WANNA SOUND LIKE A CONSPIRACY THEORIST OR ANYTHING...........

........there’s actually a lot of real-life allusions connecting both Beowulf and Therion, including the role of dragons (although this one is shaky at best when you compare the dragon that mortally wounds Beowulf in the eponymous poem, directly opposed to the ‘dragon’ said to bestow power on C!Therion) and the role of royalty and divine power (also interesting to note that, while Beowulf from the poem is a direct king, C!Therion represents a king who is not and never was, leading back to possibly alluding OT!Therion as some sort of punished or escaped royalty). Literally all of this is pointless trivia, though, and doesn’t serve as hints or proof, but rather interesting tidbits that could lend itself to some alluded connection between the two. In other words? None of it matters, but I like to pretend it does.

Speaking of names, have you noticed the similarity between the pronunciations of Therion and Ferien, the kingdom that King Beowulf I was prince of before founding Hornburg? Because I did. It’s weird. Absolutely pointless to mention, but still really weird.

Supplement: Hornburg’s Collapse; Or, Erhardt, Darius, And Where Everything Fucking Fits

I’m not going to go into too much detail here, but with regards to specifically Hornburg Royalty, this is a hypothetical order of events; everything labeled to the furthest left is concrete canon, while every indented bullet is conjecture and theory. This is also where I go into a bit more detail about Therion’s kidnapping and subsequent arrival in Orsterra.

T-22: Therion is born

T-21: Erhardt’s village burns down

T-20: Werner forms the Black Brotherhood; this is the earliest possible moment for Erhardt to join the Black Brotherhood.

T-17: After three years of gathering intelligence, Werner begins to enact his plans; this is the earliest possible moment for Erhardt to join the royal guard.

T-17 - T-10: Somewhere in this time frame:

Hornburg falls victim to a war (civil war?)

Therion is abducted and taken to Riverford- potentially by Werner, but also potentially by Lyblac or another one of her cohorts

Therion subsequently escapes from Riverford and arrives in Saintsbridge, where he gets imprisoned

T-10: Therion meets Darius in Saintsbridge jail

T-8: Hornburg Falls

T-8 - T: Somewhere in this timeframe:

Erhardt travels to Wellspring

Olberic finds refuge in Cobbleston

T-6: Darius Betrays Therion

T: Present-Day Octopath

That leaves a ten-year gap (from T-20 to T-10, but mind you, Therion is two at the start of that gap, so it’s highly unlikely the timeframe is quite that large) for Therion to learn swordsmanship and thievery skills and ‘go missing’. Within that gap, Therion would also have to have been kidnapped, either by Werner or Lyblac. While Werner is much more active in the plot against Hornburg, it is equally likely that Lyblac is the one to ‘dispose’ of Therion; it would give reason for Therion to have been taken care of despite Werner’s lack of knowledge of the king having an heir, and would equally give reason for Therion to lack memories of being kidnapped by Lyblac, because something something goddess powers.

Takeaway; Or, Kiril Is Fucking Crazy, Seriously, You Don’t Have To Sugarcoat It, I Know Already

Nah, for real bro, I know almost all of this is based on pointless coincidences and pushpin-string evidence, but it’s something that’s been in my mind ever since I first played through the game last July. I guess I just......needed an outlet, and wanted to get this out before

And on the off chance that this is real? That somehow, no matter how small or insignificant, I managed to hit a single nail on the head with some of this conjecture and crack theory levels of reasoning?

YEAH FUCK Y’ALL, I KNEW IT THIS WHOLE FUCKIN’ TIME.

#octopath #octopath traveler #therion #c. therion #hc. therion #i know there's not much basis for hornburgian royalty therion but listen.......#i'm taking this headcanon to this hill and fucking dying there

18 notes · View notes

twitchesandstitches · 6 years ago

Text

A few details i wasn’t able to get into the library fic that introduced the Avatar characters to Crossthicc! This was worldbuilding stuff I thought was interesting, but didn’t have room to put into the fic properly.

AVATAR STUFF

Suki is one of the daughters of Kyoshi, who rules a system of islands, and has inherited something of her size, power, and commanding attitude. The Kyoshi Islands are intended to be an analogue to Japan in some respects, and in particular Kyoshi’s daughters lead their own respective dynasties in service to Kyoshi, who is ultimately a Raava-blessed empress uniting them all as a daughter of Heaven.

The girls are considerably older than in canon, and the boys are more or less their canon ages but in a way to give them a different dynamic with the girls. Katara is the eldest child in her generation, with Sokka as her younger brother. Her dynamic with Aang is even more ‘skilled student winds up marrying his gifted mentor’, with a bit more emphasis on Katara being a heroine. The biggest shift is for Zuko; as Azula’s younger brother, he was never in the running for being Fire Lord and was a surplus child. Mai was more or less his bodyguard and they wound up falling for another as a bright spot in each other’s lives.

Way more AU as the cultures of Avatar go. Sun Warriors are still extant, groups such as the Foggy Swamp Tribe are all over the place. The Fire Nation is presently in a huge civil war between Azula and forces that follow Zuko, and Azula is actually more active as a leader than Ozai is; as it stands, the Fire Nation is basically like Warring States-era Japan, but with people who can breathe fire and ride dragons.

On that note, the Fire Lords are more or less just the Fire Sages as they originally were in canon; the Fire Lord is the leader of the Fire Sages, who ride dragons here and commune with them, and have enormous power over the Fire Nation’s people with this influence. Azula has taken over as hereditary right and the most powerful of the family, but Zuko has also earned the right and this has caused the civil war in question, with an unprecedented amount of nobles, warlords and influencers split between the two rather than the usual free for all.

The Air Nomads are mainly based off the people of ancient Mongolia, with Genghis Khan’s example being a pretty obvious one. The Air Nomads who live in this area are explicitly intended to be modeled after them. Yangchen herself is an analogue to the Khan, down to building an empire and unifying her people, and having a strict ‘insult my people and die horribly’ vibe. As a whole the Air Nomads are a lot more diverse than what we see in canon; Air Nomads like the monks we see in canon are still around, but they’re a specific set of clans who live in the mountains near the Southern Water Tribe and have established a monastary there. They support their life style by working out deals to control the wind for the benefit of their Water Tribe neighbors.

Bending here is marked by two things: becoming a giant hyper-curvy lady (as is the main rule in this AU when you become powerful), and physical mutations. Not like the mods used by other, but non-functional attributes such as crystalline skin for Earthbenders, icy body temperature for Waterbenders, blazing skin for Firebenders, and so on. It varies for each individual, gets more intense as they power up and the specific kind of mutation changes when they are bending different things, but all benders are obvious and easily spotted.

Size is linked to bending. The more powerful you are, the bigger. The inverse is true; if you’re bigger, you have bending powers. Characters who canonically have no bending ability but are big here (Mai, Suki, Asami and so on) are benders here, but have very low grade powers or extremely specialized skills. Suki is probably an Earthbender who can do minor tricks with soul to be immovable, Mai and Asami are firebenders (Mai does internal tricks with heat, Asami can bend lightning but ONLY lightning), and so on.

I usually avoid specific sizes, but I did measurements for a tricky line, and worked some things out. Katara is roughly about twenty feet tall here, an average man only going up to her knees. Toph may be about 30 or so while the other girls are smaller than Katara on average, ranging from 12 to 15 feet. Korra is the biggest at at least forty feet. She is very big!

Raava does not serially incarnate here, but instead bonds to multiple human hosts as they are born; the Avatar is thus not a singular entity but a soul fusion of many different people to previous ones and the other living ones, linked and boosted by Raava. Thus, Korra and Aang can be around at the same time, and she can be significantly older than him too. The other Avatars relevant to Aang (Kuruk, Kyoshi, Roku and Yangchen) are, of course, all alive and doing things, being important heroes and leaders.

The owl entity that is mentioned briefly near the end of the story is intended to be Wan Shi Tong, and the Great Library is a combination of his library and the idea of the Akashic Records from Mage: The Awakening. He’s not as anti-mortal as he is in canon, or at least, not allowed to act upon it due to the other powers in the Library. He is a spirit of the idea of knowledge and lore, and acts as a neutral figure within the library’s command.

Bending stuff. Here, bending is not hereditary (though it is dependant on cultural identity); rather, people commune with specific spirits after manifesting an elemental power at a young age. Everyon can use an element appropriate to their culture, though perhaps very limited, and some can commune directly with the spirits, earning their favor and gaining their powers, being physically transformed in some respect and gaining enormous amounts of power. These are like Benders from canon, but they explicitly sought it out. Animals like badger-moles and sky bison are linked to these spirits, too. (There are different ways of earning favor; some women might become hyper pregnant with powerful spirits, for example, and at the end of the pregnancy, transform into their new state and gain their powers. The REAL elemental blessing was inside them all along…!)

The Air Nomads are alive and well!

Aang is ethnically related to the northern Air Nomads who are based on the followers of Genghis Khan; Yangchen’s clans, here. However he was raised among the monastary monks near the Southern Water Tribe, where he met Katara when young and studied under her to learn Waterbending. His heritage carries no stigma, and while he has no concern about his actual family (it being an Air Nomad thing to raise children communally), he wants to know more about his birth-people and ancestral culture.

You may have noticed a reference to ‘red tornado spirits’ in regards to Aang’s tattoos. Double meaning here; Aang’s tattoos were originally based, from what I hear, on the DC robot hero Red Tornado’s markings, and thus the spirits who originally taught the first Air Nomads were related to the spirits that give Red Tornado life force. (It was either that or make Red Tornado this settings version of Tenzin. Still might do that, actually.)

Speaking of Tenzin, Aang and Katara’s children are around for sure, but doing their own thing during the events of this story.

NON AVATAR STUFF

Hermione here is based on my take on her in the fics I’ve written here and there. The other group mentioned in relation to her is intended to be her canonical friendship group, including Harry, Ron, Ginny, Luna and Neville, and possibly others. The Great Library may be Hogwarts, but the castle may exist elsewhere with the wizards and witches here being a specific group that wound up at the Library through a mishap.

Witches like Hermione grow bigger as they get more magically powerful, as generally goes in this AU.

Hermione is intended to be read as black/Afro-British (or a space future analogue) but I’m not sure I’m that great at conveying that in writing.

Hermione’s somewhere between Toph and Katara’s sizes. Smaller than 30 feet, bigger than 20 feet. She’s thicc, hyper busty, and big all over!

Hermione not speaking the language of the Avatar characters is based on a few plot points I’ve had in mind; linguistics in this AU is a serious matter with no ‘translator microbes’ or quick solutions to language barriers. Languages must be learned the hard way. She’s never had any reason to expect to communicate with the people, expecting a life as a solitary scholary with her library chums, so she’s woefully unprepared for this. She will correct this in the future.

Magnus the Red is shamelessly based on the interpretation of him from the youtube web series, If The Emperor HAd A Text To Speech Device. I also included aspects such as the Primarch’s being sensory overload to regula humans, and more mystical overtones than they normally get in 40k. I wrote this with the idea that the Imperium was a pre-cataclysm society in line with the Emperor’s original goals (and had none of the anti-alien issues, due to difference circumstances), and the Emperor has become a god of the idea of humanity as its own thing, with the Primarchs as different reflections of that: Magnus embodies humanity’s magical potential as well as the drive to learn and know.

Magnus doesn’t have an exact size. He is huge, yes, but his bizarre magical nature means that he is much larger than he would seem to be. He’s also a shapeshifter, so make of that what you will.

The figures with him are basically Space Marines: Thousand Sons and Blood Ravens, if it wasn’t obvious enough. Gabriel Angelos, one of the canon Blood Raven leaders from the Dawn of War games, is mentioned briefly.

Obliquely referred to a few times is Optimus Prime; in the main events of the AU his absence has been notable, so this is where he’s been all this time; searching for an answer to what has become of Primus, and unable to return to the Autobots. Grimlock is gonna be PISSED.

The Unseen University’s faculty from Discworld are present here as more comedic elements of the faculty running the library, and may be seen on some other time. They’re not human here, since I’m trying to avoi the idea that humans are super-important in-universe. Ridcully, for example, is most likely a krogan. The magic they employ is a cross between Potterverse spells and classic D&D magic. (I used to headcanon that potterverse magic was particular to humans, but i may be moving away from that.)

I originally intended there to be several characters drawn from religious/monk origins for use as library characters to later join the Endowed Fleet and converse with the characters in this one, but there were too many characters as is. Two of the most important would have been Zenyatta from Overwatch (here a full on magic user and Guru Pathik-analogue) and Scar from Fullmetal Alchemist (donated his brother’s teachings to the library, stayed there to study as a religious duty)

There was originally an in-universe lesson about how their world fits into the cosmology, but i couldn’t find a natural place to slot it in. In brief, they’re technically one of the mortal universes, but exist in a demi-realm deep within the realms of magic and swimming in spirits, so they’re not really connected to the mortal universes and unless you know what you’re doing, there’s no real way to get there. This universe is mainly empty but rich with magic, so it’s possible for people who find their way there to establish new worlds there.

#/#//#///#////#/////#queued #twitchy ideas #crossthicc AU #admittedly some of this is not so much 'stuff i couldn't put in'#but stuff i dont want you NOT to know #i demand u know all my worldbuildign nonsense #atla

7 notes · View notes

rassilon-imprimatur · 7 years ago

Text

The Caldera, Rassilon’s Star, and Ancient Gallifrey

So I’m an idiot and have, for far too long, been making the assumption that the Eye of Harmony, as seen in The Deadly Assassin and literally everything else, is the Homeworld’s caldera from The Book of the War. I’m not alone in this, granted, but it’s come to my attention that the two are not the same thing.

This has also led me to assume that “the anchoring of the thread” was a result of Omega’s detonation of Qqaba, but that’s not actually true either. I’ve got the full list of relevant entries (Anchoring of the Thread, the Caldera, and Yssgaroth) from The Book of the War and lots of thoughts below the cut.

The anchoring of the thread is an idea that is obviously an extension of Lawrence Miles’ assertion in his debut novel Christmas on a Rational Planet that the structure and rationality of the universe is a Time Lord invention. The way the universe exists, or the way we (as a Lesser Species) perceive it is because the Great Houses have literally sewn their laws, beliefs, and ideals into the fabric of creation. The expansion of the idea in The Book of the War, and therefore the entirety of the Faction mythos, is that the Houses give the universe a structure, and that structure becomes History-with-a-capitol-H.

The early universe was effectively structureless, but the Great Houses seem to have known that this state of affairs wouldn't last. Given enough time it would inevitably begin to develop a definite framework, as new cultures emerged across the span of the continuum and new species began to impose their own versions of meaning on the continuual strata. The ever-nervous academicians of the Homeworld knew they wouldn't be alone much longer, and most likely feared how other intelligences might influence the shape of the future: in theory the coming generations of species could be so different that a collision between them and the Houses would be as catastrophic as a collision of different forms of matter. Already, early deep-time explorations performed by the Houses' pioneers had shown that there were things at work in the formative future, things which simply couldn't be classified or even monitored by the Houses' own technology. Attempts had occasionally been made to avert the existence of such things, often using the most violent and primitive of the early time-technologies.

But the Houses' grand solution was to create the structure of the future for themselves. They were to stitch their biologies into the substance of creation at the most fundamental level, root themselves (or at least their culture) into the continuum, build a framework through which sentient life - their kind of sentient life - could understand, monitor and manipulate time in the outside universe. The bonding would make them virtually indestructible, as a society if not individually: the price would be infertility and cultural stasis. For the universe to remain constant the Houses would have to remain constant as well, and indeed the entire noosphere-core of the Homeworld would have to exist outside the main body of time. Or at least, outside the meta-structure of history which they were about to create.

Now, as with other parts of TBotW, it’s sometimes a game to figure out what elements of the Dr. Who mythos have been run through the Faction-grinder, and I always just assumed that the anchoring of the thread was an extension of, say, Omega’s sacrifice in “Star-Death.”

I flaunt Alan Moore’s Black Sun trilogy as more valid than I probably should, but “Star Death” is the only real account of the detonation of Qqaba, the creation (presumably) of the Eye of Harmony, and it’s so fucking canon.

However, it’s clear that the destruction of Qqaba has nothing to do with creating History or imposing structure on the universe. It’s just giving the Gallifreyans the power needed to “control” Time.

The account of the anchoring in The Book is actually quite clear that this is before the Great Houses are “the Lords of Time,” and that the anchoring of the thread, unlike the creation of the Eye of Harmony which took place in space, was stationed on Gallifrey itself:

The machinery required for the operation ended up comprising the largest structure ever built on the Homeworld. Later accounts describe it as a whole, as one "device", though it's doubtful it was designed or constructed that way. The first exploratory vessels, the Houses' proto-timeships, had already begun attaching themselves to strategic points in the formative future. They'd become anchors, holding the structure of history in place, and the machineries erected on the Homeworld could only have been centralised versions of the same technology. But there was a ceremony, without doubt, one great symbolic moment when the mechanisms locked into place and all the fragments of history were connected. Lore holds that elite representatives gathered in the centre of the machine-heart to perform the bonding for all their Houses, while field agents in their vessels took their places at the other ends of the "threads". From this point on the Houses would be the ultimate surveyors, watchers of the outside universe who defined the nature of time simply by observing it, the Homeworld becoming a single, all-seeing eye set apart from the rest of history.

They no doubt saw all of this as a kind of Faustian pact, and they must have realised even then exactly how much of themselves they were giving up in order to do it. But they couldn't have known that even though their meta-structure of history would prevent the creation of rival biological forms, it would also let things far, far worse enter the continuum.

On that day, the day of the anchoring of the thread, the Yssgaroth were let into the universe. The first attack came as a primal manifestation, destroying the site of the machinery and most probably everyone involved in the process, leaving an enormous crater - the caldera - at the centre of the newborn version of history. The first War in Heaven had begun.

Once the war against the Yssgaroth had been concluded, the site of the caldera became one of the cornerstones of House culture. With the possible exception of the ceremonial armour worn by Faction Paradox, it remains the only tangible reminder that the Yssgaroth ever existed, or at least the only one which the Houses will acknowledge. Today, in the era of the second (and somewhat more subtle) War, it's proved to be prime target of the enemy and a more fundamental part of the Houses' existence than they'd ever imagined.

So, if Qqaba becoming the Eye of Harmony was a space-hosted event, leading to Omega’s tragic fate, unleashing the powers that would turn the Gallifreyans into Time Lords, and kickstarting the Black Sun War (as well as providing directional units for timeships), the anchoring of the thread, which takes place on the Homeworld, with prototype-timeships providing anchors into the potential future, the entire site being destroyed by a facet of the Yssgaroth, cannot be the same event.

Which, actually, makes everything make a lot more sense.

We’ve seen (and indeed, The Book of the War continues to assert) that, even in the “structureless Dark Time of the universe,” the time of “blood and magic,” there was still chronology, and there was Time, both normal Time and Deep Time, to travel in. A Gallifrey under Pythian rule had been creating and testing Time Scaphes (proto-timeships!), and the Pythia could see the future. The structure of History as created by the Great Houses is not the same thing as Time.

Which is why the Houses still needed a means to become “Lords” of Time, even after structuring the Universe to their liking.

Here’s The Book of the War’s full description of the Homeworld’s caldera:

The caldera can safely be thought of as the absolute, unequivocal dead centre of history. It is, after all, the site where history literally began, where the technology of the Great Houses locked together the framework of the Spiral Politic during the anchoring of the thread with the Homeworld as its core and its centre of regulation. It was also the site of the first attack by the Yssgaroth, and for those reasons alone the caldera occupies a place of prime importance in the consciousness of the Houses, but more crucially still it's the point where all lines of historical influence meet.

In itself the caldera wouldn't appear to be a remarkable site. Though now covered over, at first glance it would seem to be little more than an absence, where the Yssgaroth incursion ate away all local matter and the Houses later surrounded the area with defences and utilities of their own devising. But its position is key. Anything exerting an influence on the site of the caldera will, by definition, affect the rest of history. It's the focal point not just of time but of the Houses' culture: as the Protocols of the Great Houses are worked into the very nature of history, coded into every one of the "threads" which criss-cross the Spiral Politic, then more than any other location the caldera is the centre-point of all that the Houses know and all that the Houses are. Theoretically, from here everything about the Houses - their past, their future, their collective memory, even their language - could be manipulated. The Houses themselves have never risked any significant experimentation, but during the War Era at least one abortive attempt was made to introduce foreign matter to this empty space at the heart of the oldest civilisation. That the site might be vulnerable is a constant worry to the ruling Houses, something which may have been a factor in the decision to construct the Nine Homeworlds shortly before the War began.

But as much as it may seem an achilles' heel, the caldera has also proved a positive boon. At least in theory, if the caldera is attached to every other point in history then data can be drawn along the "threads" directly from any locale which needs to be monitored, a useful tool when attempting to predict the effects of any manipulation of causality. To an extent it can even be used as an all-purpose communications network, though this is dubious as data being passed along the threads would run the risk of re-writing the continuum as it passed through countless other points across history.

And even more importantly, the caldera would seem to play a role in the construction of the timeships. The timeships are so complex in nature that it's impossible for one to be constructed without access to the kind of high-order non-linear manipulation of which only the ships are capable: each ship therefore collaborates in its own construction. Though the Houses' retro-engineering techniques are too complicated to explain in full, it would appear that these manipulations are only possible at the caldera site, in a specially-constructed null-zone connected to the crater's space but designed to cause as little disruption to the area as possible. Indeed, although "caldera" is the name for the physical crater itself the location is more often referred to on the Homeworld as a kind of "womb". Even apart from the overall security risk, then, the concentration of equipment and timeships makes the caldera one of the most heavily defended locations known to exist.

Yeah. I’m silly.

At first glance, The Book of the War’s description of the Yssgaroth entering the universe from the caldera site on Gallifrey seems to contradict both Interference and The Pit, as both works make clear that the Yssgaroth/Great Vampires emerged from holes in space and time punched all over the universe by Gallifrey. While many often criticize the latter novel for being a poorly written book, it still created the Yssgaroth (and I believe already made the implication that the Great Vampires were one of many facets, but I may need to reread). The former, Interference, also presents information through Faction Paradox propoganda in which (in text) Rassilon is played by Brian Blessed.

But... then there’s The Book of the War’s full entry on the Yssgaroth:

In later years forced-matter shells were to be constructed around these weak regions, making them indistinguishable from conventional, banal planets, but initially the young Houses had no idea what they might have let loose. It's known that only one of the Yssgaroth (and again, it has to be remembered, it's possible that the Yssgaroth is just one mass capable of splitting itself up into smaller forms) managed to tear its way into the continuum, on the Homeworld itself, at the site now occupied by the caldera. But the beings referred to in old House lore as the "servants" of the Yssgaroth - small fragments of its mass, or the genuine gigantic, misshapen occupants of the Yssgaroth universe? - began to swarm into the structure of history even as that history was being born.

AHHA!

The Yssgaroth that emerges on Gallifrey, destroying the House members conducting the anchoring of the thread, is the King Vampire, while its servants swarm into History through the holes in creation blown in space by Rassilon and Omega, a la Interference.

So, here’s the timeline:

In the time of the Pythia, the Dark Time, the universe was structureless, and the future an uncertain fog, but there was still Time to travel in. Gallifrey was one of the Fledgling Empires, and was conducting time travel experiments with proto-timeships (Cat’s Cradle: Time’s Crucible).

Elements of modern Time Lord society were already in place: the Houses produced the true “meat” of society and the aristocracy, the Court of Principles (a proto-High Council) commanded the Academia (what on earth could that be...). By the fall of the Pythia, Rassilon and his ilk had swayed many in the Court of Principles to their way of thinking (Cat’s Cradle: Time’s Crucible).

Rassilon and the NeoTechnologists overthrow the Pythia, and begin to lead Gallifrey into an age of science. The Pythian curse of sterility is supposedly cast at this point (Cat’s Cradle: Time’s Crucible).

Rassilon is not yet the power he would be, and, while a major player with the NeoTechnologists, was still considered simply a young engineer and architect. He, Omega, and the other began stellar experiments in order to improve time travel and give the Great Houses tremendous powers. Meanwhile, the Great Houses proceeded to begin preparations for the anchoring the the thread, while Rassilon and Omega were blowing up starts and conducting experiments on black holes. The two events overlapped, and when the Yssgaroth “King” emerged from the caldera site on the Homeworld, the rest of the Yssgaroth swarm emerged from the various holes left by Rassilon and Omega (The Anchoring of the Thread/The Caldera/Yssgaroth, Interference).

The Eternal War (the Vampire War from State of Decay) wages a thousand years. Rassilon uses the war to gain more power and prominence, and while the likes of General Kopyion Liall a Mahajetsu are off fighting the Yssgaroth, Rassilon, Omega, the other (and presumably the other three) establish their order, and abolish religion on Gallifrey once and for all (The Pit, Interference).

The Eternal War ends with only one Yssgaroth survivor (State of Decay), and all the entry points are covered by “planet” shells (The Pit, Interference, Yssgaroth).

The structure of History sticks. The caldera site, a mere crater but the entire center/centre of History, is covered.

Rassilon and Omega continue their experiments, and Omega leads a fleet of Starbreakers to the star Qqaba. The experiment is sabatoged by Fenris the Hellbringer, but Rassilon “saves the day” while Omega is destroyed. The experiment is deemed a success, and Rassilon even takes Fenris’ time travel directional unit to improve the timeships (the modern “TARDIS” not existing yet) (Star Death).

The experiment of Qqaba gives the Gallifreyans the power of Time (The Infinity Doctors). Rassilon later retrieves the singulairity from Qqaba’s black hole, creating the Eye of Harmony which becomes the center of all Gallifrey’s power.

So, in the end, I’m an idiot, I love Faction Paradox, “canon” is stronger for this.

#Doctor Who #Faction Paradox #The caldera #The Eye of Harmony #Yssgaroth #Rassilon #The Book of the Ceasefires

87 notes · View notes

preserving-ferretbrain · 6 years ago

Text

Review and Discussion: The Age of the Five Trilogy

by Dan H

Saturday, 05 April 2008

Dan starts another of his multi-part epic review thingys.~

This is the first installment of a two-part review/article about Trudi Canavan's Age of the Fivetrilogy. The first part is going to be about the books, the second part is going to be me rambling about religion in fantasy in general, using AotF as a starting point.

Before I launch into the review proper, I'll point out that (like most Ferretbrain reviews) this article is going to involve in-depth discussion of specific details of the plot and events of the novel series it concerns. Or, to put it more succinctly, this will contain spoilers. Potentially massive spoilers, from the outset (Rosebud is really a man!).

You may recall that I was

embarrassingly enthusiastic

about Canavan's debut Black Magician Trilogy. I'm somewhat less enthusiastic about Age of the Five. I'd say that is isn't as good, but that wouldn't be entirely accurate. It's exactly as good, and that's sort of the problem. The writing is of a similar quality, the characters are similarly well realised, and the world is similarly detailed. It's just that there's a lot more of everything and, in fantasy, more is quite frequently less.

To elaborate: in The Black Magician trilogy we have a spunky heroine with great magical powers who gets drawn into an ancient magical conflict in a vaguely interesting Fantasy world. In The Age of the Five trilogy we have a spunky heroine with great magical powers who gets drawn into an ancient magical conflict in a vaguely interesting Fantasy world. Now I know that's a cheap shot, because you can always characterise Fantasy novels as having broadly the same plot (guy goes on a quest to do a thing) but there's enough similarities between the two trilogies that Age of the Five leaves you with the sneaking feeling that you've read a lot of it before, even before you take into account the fact that it's significantly longer than the earlier series. It's little things, like the fact that both series treat "magic" as this energy source that you move around with your mind, and use primarily to create forcefields and bolts of magical power. It's an aesthetic quibble I know, but I could deal with it in the BMT because they were short and character focused. In AotF we've got a much longer series, with a far bigger world, and a lot more characters, but the magic still doesn't feel magical, it's still forcefields and laser beams.

Anyway, on to the actual books.

Priestess of the White

Priestess of the White introduces Auraya, the eponymous priestess, as she is initiated into the White, the five immortal servants of the Circle - the five Gods whose priests rule the northern half of the continent of Ithania.

Perhaps now would be a good time to say a bit about the Gods, because they're going to be quite important. Basically the Five Gods - Chaia, Huan, Lore, Yranna and Saru - are a bunch of Star Trek aliens, they're glowy energy beings (that is to say "beings of pure magic") who get mortals to do their bidding but don't seem to actually do that much which is particularly divine. When we are first introduced to the Gods (through Auraya) we see them as essentially benevolent beings, although if you're anything like me you'll also be asking yourself why these five creatures who are clearly a bunch of Star Trek Aliens managed to actually build a functioning religion around themselves, and what the heck they get out of it in the first place.

Auraya is immediately plunged into the travails of government, as Northern Ithania is threatened by a group of sinister, black-clad priests from out of the South. These "Pentadrians" also worship five Gods whose names (Sheyr, Hrun, Alor, Ranah, Sraal) sound suspiciously similar to those of the "Circlan" deities. The White, however, know nothing about these people, their beliefs, their powers, or their capabilities.

This brings me to my first niggle with the series. I've discussed in earlier articles the strange absence of immigration in Fantasy - everybody just stays where they're born and never travels, so nobody knows anything about anything happening beyond their borders. This is a particular problem here: the Pendatrians run half the world, you'd think that the White would have made some effort to find out about them. It's like being asked to accept a version of medieval Europe in which the Pope is unaware of the existence of Islam.

Anyway, the Pentadrians are attacking, sending mysterious black-clad sorcerers to tear up the North, and the White have to respond by forging alliances throughout Northern Ithania to stand up to them. Auraya goes off to win the allegiance of the winged Siyee, and develops an affection for them which will stay with her throughout the series.

Oh, she also gets given a cute fluffy talking animal, which is way less annoying than it could have been. Odds on it saving her from imprisonment at some point in the future?

Overlapping the main story (the "dammit, we're being invaded by some guys we inexplicably failed to learn anything about in the past hundred years" story) are a number of other threads. Auraya is aided in her duties by her childhood mentor, later lover, Leiard. Leiard, unfortunately, is a Dreamweaver, a member of a sect which is widely despised by the White and their followers, because their leader, Mirar, was an enemy of the Gods. Their not-actually-that-forbidden-really romance provides a source of tension in the first book, and is complicated by the fact that Leiard appears to be carrying a great many of the memories of the late legendary Mirar around in his head, which he allegedly acquired while dream-linking with other members of his order. Or perhaps he really is Mirar, miraculously alive after all this time (again, would anybody like to lay bets?).

The final plot-strand in the book concerns Emerahl, an immortal "Wild" (a sorceress whose power rivals that of the Gods' chosen) as she tries to evade detection by the Gods, who would destroy her.

Priestess of the White sets the tone for the rest of the series, and some of the things I wound up struggling with are apparent from quite early on. It's a lot more ambitious than the BMT, but that means that it's a lot less focused. The main plotline ("The Pentadrians are coming! The Pentadrians are coming!") is at least resolved but there's an awful lot that's left hanging, or that just winds up being setup for things that happen in book two or three (I'm a bit of a heretic amongst Fantasy readers in that I think this is a bad thing, rather than the mark of a consummate storyteller). Emerahl in particular has very little to actually do in Priestess, spending most of her time hanging out in a brothel which is all very character-establishing, but doesn't actually advance the plot all that much. The Emerahl sections also foreshadow a lot of the "there's something dodgy about the Gods" plotlines which become important in Book 3, but it's all rather distracting in the first volume. It's hard to get invested in Defending Northern Ithania From the Evil Pentadrians when you can be pretty sure that the Gods are going to turn out to be evil anyway rendering all the fighting pointless.

Anyway, the book ends with the Pentadrians defeated, Leiard and Auraya separated, and Emerahl finally in a position to actually do something.

Last of the Wilds

I nearly gave up halfway through Last of the Wilds. I'm sort of glad I didn't, because I do still like Trudi Canavan's writing, and finishing the trilogy was a pleasant enough way to spend the end of my Easter holiday, but Last of the Wilds gave me some real trouble. Middle Volume Syndrome is a well documented problem in Fantasy, and to be fair Wilds is by no means a chronic case. It's just that it's a little bit slow, it doesn't really go that far, and it's very much bridging the gap between the introduction of conflicts in Priestess of the White and their final resolution in Voice of the Gods.

Wilds is basically an extended epilogue to Priestess and an extended prologue to Voice. Auraya dithers around with the Siyee, Leiard finally discovers that he really is Mirar, Emerahl sets out to find the remaining Wilds and ... well that's sort of it really.

There are some big plot events in the book, but they're all towards the end. In the last section of the book, Auraya finally finds out that Leiard really is Mirar, the Gods find out as well and order her to kill him, she refuses, and a chain of events kicks off which finally leads to Auraya coming to the conclusion that hey! The Gods are dodgy! Regrettably, this information comes to her after she starts having sex with one of them.

It's all right as it goes, but it still feels a bit lacklustre. The book starts to get interesting around the point Auraya resigns from the white. Unfortunately this point is also pretty much the end of the book, and the rest of the volume doesn't really do that much except mark time between parts one and three.

The one thing which Wilds does introduce into the series is a Pentadrian viewpoint character. Reivan the Thinker is a member of the academic/scientific/philosophical caste of her society, but soon gets initiated into the Pentadrian priesthood after her quick thinking stops the entire Pentadrian army from being lost in a mine (don't ask). This is on the one hand welcome (it's always nice to see the other side of these kinds of conflicts) but on the other hand a little misguided. There's a reason Tolkein never wrote any scenes from the viewpoint of the Orcs: they didn't make sense, they weren't supposed to make sense, they existed purely for the purpose of attacking the good guys at the behest of their Dark Lord. The problem with suddenly introducing a Pentadrian viewpoint is that they spend quite a lot of time saying "wow, invading Northern Ithania was a really bad idea - it's a shame that the guy whose idea it was got killed so that we can't ask him what the hell he was thinking."

The gap between books one and three duly bridged, this leaves us free to wrap everything up in the final volume.

Voice of the Gods

Voice of the Gods has better pacing than Wilds, but it's still a pale shadow of the fast-moving BMT, and it still involves rather more sitting around than I like in a novel.

Emerahl has embarked on the Quest for the Scroll of the Gods (yes, you did read that right: The Quest for the Scroll of the Gods, check it out). This is an ancient artefact which records the most secretest secrets of the Gods, and which the Gods themselves would naturally like to see destroyed. Before she goes, though, she takes time out to teach Auraya how to shield her mind from the Gods, and be immortal. You see, it turns out that Auraya is a Wild as well, and would be capable of achieving immortality even without the Gods' help.

Auraya, meanwhile, is mostly angsting about (severally) the fact that one of the Gods wants her dead, the fact that she's having sex with another one of them, and the fact that her previous lover turned out to be an immortal sorcerer who her Gods ordered her to kill.

I'm going to take a step back here and say I actually quite like Auraya, but damn if when you step back a bit she doesn't look kinda Mary Sueish. She's an insanely powerful sorcerer with hitherto unknown abilities, granted additional powers by the Gods, one of whom is actually in love with her (and genuinely in love with her, not just using her for sex like he has with vast numbers of mortal women down the ages). She walks out on the Gods who granted her the powers she relies on to do her job, but like Dumbo and the magic feather, it turns out that it was really her own power all along. I get that it's supposed to be "about power, self-realisation and freedom" (according to Trudi's website) but surely an important part of self-realisation is actually realising that you have limitations.

Once she's taught Auraya how to be uber, Emerahl gets back to the Quest for the Scroll of the Gods, which she finds in a well-managed little quest subplot (again, Canavan can do pacing really, really well, and the Scroll of the Gods arc is really nicely done, it's introduced, looked for, found and deciphered without ever becoming boring). Meanwhile Auraya is manipulated by the Evil God Who Wants to Kill Her into getting herself captured by the Pentadrians.

As you should recall (since it was only a few paragraphs ago) book two in the series introduced a Pentadrian viewpoint character by the name of Reivan, and this combined with Mirar's journeys in the south in the final volume served to make the Pentadrians significantly more sympathetic. Fortunately, while most of the Pentadrians are nice, sympathetic, sensible people, the new First Voice of the Gods, Nekaun, is an evil sadistic bastard.

Nekaun was elected in Last of the Wilds to lead the Pentadrians, and spent a large part of that book and this sleeping with Reivan (there's quite a lot of sex in the Age of the Five trilogy). It was, to begin with, somewhat ambiguous whether he actually cared about Reivan, or was just using her for sex, and as it became apparent that he was, in fact, an evil sadistic bastard I increasingly held onto the hope that maybe he would still show genuine affection for Reivan, thus salvaging some degree of moral complexity for the character. No such luck.

Auraya's imprisonment (within a Void, which is basically a D&D dead magic zone, an area with no magical energy which exists almost entirely to explain how it's possible to defeat a powerful sorcerer) results in her being stripped naked and tormented by Nekaun, the evil sadistic bastard, who eventually threatens to rape her and is prevented from doing so only by a personal appearance by his God (who, lest we forget, has a suspiciously similar name to one of the Circlan Gods, who also happens to be in love with Auraya). Were I feeling churlish I'd point out that the God in question is also a serial rapist, which rather undermines his heroism at this point.

All wound up and with nowhere to go, Nekaun then goes to see Reivan and date-rapes her, giving her the good old "you know you're into it really" speech. He then apparently bods off and rapes a couple more people for good measure.

And you were doing so well Trudi Canavan.

Seriously, Fantasy Authors, stop this, stop it right now. If you're going to introduced an unambiguous Villain character, you can communicate the idea that they're Really Really Evil without having them go around raping people. It's cheap. It's cheap and easy. Look, it's like this: by putting a rape scene in a book, you are saying "this is a serious, gritty, realistic world, where really nasty things happen and beating the bad guys doesn't automatically make everything okay again." Putting a rape scene into your light-hearted high fantasy book, in which nasty things happen but get easily reversed by magic, is a bad idea. Making a villain a rapist in order to show how evil he is is a really bad idea, because rape implies realism and unambiguously evil villains imply the opposite.

While Auraya is being tormented by the evil sadistic bastard in the Pentadrian Sanctuary, the Gods decide to start another war by the simple expedient of telling the Circlans to invade the south. The Wilds, having learned that everything the Gods have ever said is a lie (which they knew), that the Gods can't be in two places at once (which they knew), that the Voids are places where Gods were killed (which I for one had already guessed) and that you can kill a god by creating a Void on top of them, by sucking all the magic out the air (I kid you not) but you need six of you in order to "surround" them (one on each side, one above and one below, why the Gods can't move diagonally I'm not sure), decide to ambush the Gods at the battle and finish them off once and for all. Unfortunately for this they need Auraya, and she's currently locked up tighter than a playful euphemism.

Good thing she has that cute cuddly animal really, isn't it.

So Auraya escapes, and teams up with the other White to kill the Gods. Except they don't actually kill them so much as imprison them in a tiny ball of magic so that they can make sure all the Big Revelations are out of the way (the Pentadrian Gods are really the Circland Gods, the Gods don't preserve the souls of dead mortals, the Gods have been manipulating the two churches into open bloody warfare for no clear reason). Then the Good God Who is in Love With Auraya kills himself and the others by draining all the magic out of the Gods' prison, much to the consternation of the Evil God Who Wants To Kill Auraya. Then it's all over bar shouting (and Nehuan gets executed for being a filthy rapist).

In Conclusion

I know this review has been a little bit bitchy, but Age of the Five actually isn't that bad a series. As I said at the start it's not actually worse than the Black Magician trilogy, it's just that I think it would have had to be significantly better than the Black Magician trilogy in order to sustain its greater length and complexity, and it wasn't. I genuinely couldn't put down the BMT, whereas I very nearly stalled in the middle of AotF.

I did have some non-trivial concerns about the series. I've got a whole 'nother article about the religion that I'll be putting up at some point. The series also suffers from what I tend to think of as the Fantasy Absolutist Problem: people are either perfectly sane, reasonable liberals (even if they have Done Horrible Things in the Past), or they're utterly evil. It was why I was so annoyed that Nekaun didn't actually care about Reivan, it seemed that Canavan was unwilling to present her villain as anything but a monster. You get a similar thing with the Gods, Chaia is nice to Auraya and is therefore Good, sacrificing himself nobly at the end. Huan is nasty to Auraya and is therefore Evil, willingly sacrificing her own people just to upset Auraya. Auraya herself is never called upon to do anything unsympathetic - she is spared, for example, having to make the decision to actually kill the Gods herself, somebody else does that for her. It's not a major problem, they're very much High Fantasy books, drawn in broad strokes and bright colours, and there's nothing wrong with that.

In short, the Age of the Five books are good, clean fantasy fun in much the same vein as the Black Magician Trilogy. It's longer and less well paced, but still a nice piece of high fantasy with a suitably epic storyline and some engaging characters.

Even the made-up animals are kind of growing on me.

Finally: I'm terribly sorry to have to do this to you Trudi, but:

Fantasy Rape Watch

Number of Women Raped: 3

Of Whom Viewpoint Characters: 1

Number of times Protagonist Threatened With Rape: 1

Redeeming Features Displayed by Rapist: 0

Characters Shown To Suffer Long-Term Psychological Consequences As A Result of Rape or Threatened Rape: 0

Seriously, guys: stop it.Themes:

Fantasy Rape Watch

Books

Trudi Canavan

Sci-fi / Fantasy

bookmark this with - facebook - delicious - digg - stumbleupon - reddit

~Comments (

go to latest

)

empink

at 02:13 on 2008-04-06Re: Serious dearth of immigration in fantasy worlds

I was going to blather on about most writers not knowing much about the nuts and bolts of immigration and how that might have some effect on things, but then I realized that research and even the tiniest shot of realism in the arm usually gets immigration and changing countries on the map. I.e., if a romance author (Joanna Bourne) can write a totally awesome story including majorly switching countries all over the place and people having strong ties in both lands, I see no reason why fantasy authors do not. The truth is, fairly ordinary people move around all the time, and have moved around since forever. The distances they move and that sort of thing may increase or decrease with policy, societal expectations and technological aids, but the fact remains essentially the same.

Apart from that, though, I'm glad I didn't bother with this trilogy now. BMT was all right, but not all right enough that I felt like reading the last book (I didn't think anything New and Awesome would happen, and the heroine was kind of irritating my by that point, so). I cannot stand ham-handed "I CAN HAZ RELIGION"-based plots in books anymore, and knowing the heroine of ATF was a priestess just kept holding me back.

Lastly, re unimaginative magic, I'm still really chuffed at the way David Abraham handled magic in his books. I'll describe his magic system with one sentence: poets are the equivalent of magicians. I think his growing series (alas. He's doing okay so far, though) is the only one I've checked out solely because of the innovative-sounding magic system. I don't mind unimaginative magic systems so much if they are supported by good worldbuilding and a good story, but when the world is wonky and the story is predictable, I'd rather just not bother.

permalink

go to top

Arthur B

at 11:42 on 2008-04-06It's yet another case of the Fantasy Religion Problem: the more a fantasy author explicitly includes gods and religions in their stories, the more likely it is that they don't even slightly understand the whole idea of "religion" in the first place.

It's probably down to two issues:

- People who actually believe in a God or gods, and have actually thought about how deal with religious ideas in fiction, are more inclined to write about them through allegory (see Narnia) than through having gods directly appear in their stories because, amongst other things, if you believe that God is real you are going to be mildly reluctant to put words in his mouth.

- People who don't believe in God, and don't have much sympathy for those that do, tend to write about the worst aspects of religion when they choose to address religious topics - hence, corrupt priests and scheming, not-really-divine gods.

Of course, there's exceptions. The

Left Behind

guys clearly believe in God and pretty much rewrote Revelation for money (I'm pretty sure there's a line in Revelation about horrible curses for people who do that sort of thing). I'm pretty sure there's a few agnostic and atheist SF/fantasy authors who don't treat the subject of the divine with contempt, though I can't name any off the top of my head. But ultimately, authors almost always use gods in their books as an opportunity to hold forth on their ideas about religion, and if your view is that religions are fundamentally human institutions and that there's no such thing as God your ability to depict convincingly non-shitty gods in your stories is going to be hampered, unless you're willing to undertake the difficult task of writing from a point of view you don't share and lack sympathy with.

permalink

go to top

Dan H

at 09:38 on 2008-04-07

As you may have gathered, I'm still guiltily fond of Trudi Canavan, and despite her heroines being - well - kinda Mary Suish, I still kinda like them. On the other hand if you didn't get on with the BMT I don't think you'd get on with AotF because it's more similar than it is different.

I cannot stand ham-handed "I CAN HAZ RELIGION"-based plots in books anymore, and knowing the heroine of ATF was a priestess just kept holding me back.

As Arthur points out, Fantasy authors are abysmal at religion, because as he points out they tend to be either religious, and therefore not willing to write about God or Gods directly (Lewis, Tolkein) or they're atheists, and therefore just don't get this whole religion thing in the first place.

Which is basically going to be the subject of the follow-up article.

permalink

go to top

Orion

at 20:35 on 2011-04-13You should write that followup. I'm an atheist trying to rewrite Paradise Lost as a YA novel, I'm curious.

permalink

go to top

Ash

at 10:12 on 2011-04-14Orion,

he did.

#Ferretbrain #Age of the Five #Trudi Canavan #Fantasy Rape Watch #Fantasy

0 notes

pengiesama · 8 years ago

Text

every time we vore i get the feeling, every time we vore i touch the vore

that’s the new single from my studio album where i replace most of the words in songs with the word “vore”

anyway, it’s that time, before i go to a convention, to slack on packing and play some berseria

REALLY SEVERE SPOILER TERRITORY BELOW. i’d say i’m approaching game-end at this point

the real lord of calamity was the friends we made along the way

introducing medissa, because we really needed another female character whose design is solely based around her tits

literally two seconds after appearing on screen kamoana starts in with her fucking. shrieking. i want to meet whoever designed this walking pedo fap bait and donkey kick them into a coma

oh good, honkers mcgee and the repulsive goblin child like each other. maybe they'll now disappear from the story entirely and then all we'll have to worry about is finding a shark to feed bienfu to. we'll finally be free

the real grand poobah of calamity was the friends we made along the way

i like to imagine all this mother talk is going to work up to a reference to Muse and Mikleo but i never get what i want

"natural" malakhim are born from untainted mana from an earthpulse, and don't have blood family ties. eizen and edna were born from the same earthpulse on a mountain, and felt a sibling connection they didn't with other malakhim. they lived together for a while but eizen's curse kept putting edna in danger so he left (only coming back once, upon which edna was immediately attacked by a hoard of malevolence-induced humans). upon parting, they exchanged pendants; edna wears hers around her neck and the one she gave eizen has a self-portrait inside.

eizen was so cagey about even admitting he had a sister but now that the whole party knows he just corners them at every opportunity, silently unfurls a wallet full of pictures of her, and starts telling every story that comes to mind

when human malevolence reaches a certain peak, innominat awakens and ends the world. because we need an end of the world scenario to push the plot forward i guess. we can't run this train on velvet's throbbing revenge boner forever

i am pleased to learn that there is a Grimoirh fan club among malakhim; they find her composed, elegant, and love attending dinner shows where she reads literature. Grimoirh for best NPC, even though there's vanishingly little competition. a classy old scholar lady normin vs a constantly-screaming pedophile fantasy, what a race

the skit and NPC dialogue translation quality is just getting worse and worse. some exchanges are completely incomprehensible due to what i'm ASSUMING is someone trying to translate the original Japanese literally, without actually checking to make sure the result is like...not a word salad of gibberish. editors are important :')

hyland is currently underwater; it sank ages ago due to pissing off a dragon. so elysia used to be quite a bit more remote instead of being a day or two’s walk away from the kingdom capital lol

putting the Sorey accessory on Laphi's head creates the ultimate sweet baby and is the best decision i have ever made, barring making everyone else wear several hats clipping into each other

the obviously fake Aball subplot was pretty screwed up but i could appreciate shadow-niko's aggressive attempts to seduce velvet into submission

there are malakhim artes that read regrets and trap you in happy dreams, like the Black Mercy from the DC universe. good fanfic fuel i suppose

don't you fucking dare give away Laphi's compass. he is the sweet baby and the other one is just some prequel ripoff splenda child.

hi teresa and oscar, bye teresa and oscar, you're still religious fundie incestuous racists i see. nice killing you let's do this again sometime

good armatus lore tho. armatization was derived from the power of that stupid gun macguffin that i still think is way too vague with its actual powerset, and before it was perfected (or at least when they tried to let a bunch of losers try to do it with enslaved malakhim), it basically made the user melt lol. that's what you get when you try to make a bunch of scrubs armatize with wal-mart knockoffs of the holy artifacts

not everyone can rock the armatus battlefield in stiletto heels like sorey does

so bienfu is the traitor; how incredibly surprising. can we gut him now

oh fuck off laphicet 1.0; you're just fucking pissed that laphicet 2.0 is ten times cuter than your pretentious nihilistic ass will ever be. you don't deserve the name so i'm gonna call you Fuckface McGetsStabbed from now on. and your hair sucks, god i’m gonna love kicking your ass.

the real lord of calamity was the rush of murdering shitheads like the incest siblings, c'mon Velvet chin up your brother ain't shit

yeah whatever i don't need to see the earthpulse's recordings of artorius fucking velvet's sister thanks

was it supposed to be a shock that celica = seres? i thought it was meant to be obvious from the moment velvet ate her. not rly surprised that Better Laphicet was the unborn child either

can someone please give velvet like a stress doll or something i'm getting a little concerned

the zestiria/berseria universe hates children so much; i don't think i've seen a game with a higher child bodycount, barring Drakengard 1 and Nier (where you murder an entire platoon of forced child soldiers and a nursery of helpless infants, respectively). it's kinda impressive, even most "hardcore grimdark" games don't have the guts to kill kids on-screen. zestiria alone had baby mikleo get burned and stabbed to death, not to mention that whole sidequest with the bandit kids that ends with only one survivor.

the earthpulse and earthen historia is explained a little bit better in this game as well: the earthpulse flows through the whole planet, and any event that happens on the planet gets shadowed onto the earthpulse's flow. recordings of events can be called up by those with the power to manipulate the earthpulse (like Fuckface McGetsStabbed, who has currently hijacked it by using the earth as his vessel), or can be found piecemeal in iris gems, like in Zestiria.

the real lord of calamity was me going to a convention tomorrow and taking a break on this game before this upcoming very obvious bossfight arena

#i guess this is my personal tales of berseria tag now #i guess this is my personal tales of zestiria tag now

5 notes · View notes

marvelrebirth-blog · 8 years ago

Text

Step 1: Civil War II

The first move into this new universe was a strange choice by Marvel, choosing to capitalize on the new movie and launch a new series of comics about a new Civil War. After a reboot. Just jump straight into a massive conflict between superheroes. Instead of just letting the heroes get accustomed to the new world. Alright this is going to take some work.

So Civil War II starts off confusing enough - by introducing a Inhuman who can see the future, Ulysses, which causes a dispute among the Avengers.

Except that doesn’t make sense. There are a dozen other Marvel characters who can see the future and do much more, characters like Jean Gray. Ulysses also isn’t that interesting of a character and is treated as more of a plot device than a character.

So here is my revised version of Civil War II, our first jump into this new universe after Secret Wars annihilated the Marvel Universe.

First things first, replace Ulysses with the aforementioned Jean Gray. Jean Gray is a compelling, interesting character who is familiar to old readers but also can serve as a good intro character for new readers. Jean Gray can see the future but also has telekinesis, levitation, and most importantly, a connection to the Phoenix Force.

The Phoenix Force is important to the Marvel Universe in a handful of ways, but right now will be pivotal due to it’s job in maintaining the natural order of things. Now that I have proposed the first fixes, let’s head into the new edited story.

We open with Jean running through a forest, pursued by shadowy figures. As she continues to run the figures end up catching up to her and knocking her down. As she looks up, she sees that the mysterious figures are the Inhuman Royal Family: Black Bolt, Medusa, Gorgon, Crystal, etc. As Black Bolt approaches, his mouth begins to open, ready to land a killing blow as Captain Marvel descends from the sky in front of Jean.

It’s at this moment that Jean wakes up in her bed and realizes this was a dream, or was it a vision?

Cut to the Avengers HQ, where Iron Man is working on some new tech like usual. As he is working, Spider-Man crawls into his lab to alert him that there’s a visitor, but not before joking around and annoying Tony. Tony heads out to see who this visitor is and ends up finding Captain Marvel, back from her most recent exploits in space along with the Guardians of the Galaxy, or at least Star Lord, Kitty Pryde, Drax, and Rocket Raccoon.

The group of cosmic voyagers call for an emergency meeting among the Avengers and gives them the rundown: the Phoenix Force has been much more active recently, has wiped out dozens of “unnatural” planets, and seems to be heading towards Earth. Star Lord cranks out some lore, explains the Phoenix Force to the Avengers (Giant cosmic force meant to uphold balance) and how it is always connected to somebody on Earth. Of course, the Avengers make it their job to find whoever the Phoenix is connected too.

Cut back to Jean Gray, living her every day life (in this version she is NOT yet an X-Men, in fact she is not certain over her own abilities yet) but as she continues day to day, these “dreams” become more and more frequent. These “dreams” include visions of the Hulk slaughtering the Avengers, a new black-suited spiderman, Captain America dropping to his knees and kneeling to a hidden figure, a great burning bird, and lastly a strange man wearing a visor clutching a hidden body, a great beam of light being shot from his eyes.

She cannot get this man out of her head, but also begins displaying strange abilities like making regular objects move with her mind. As she continues through daily life, she sees a strange figure in the shadows while heading back to her apartment. This figure seems vaguely similar to one of the figures she saw pursuing her in the forest. She begins to run to her apartment before locking the door behind her once she’s in.

She turns around to find Iron Man sitting in front of her, drinking a cup of coffee, with Captain Marvel standing next to him. The two explain what’s happening, that they believe she is a mutant, and has a connection to the Phoenix Force.

Of course she has no idea what that means. They convince her to come with them to the Avengers HQ, but as she is being led there, she has a new vision: a strange purple humanoid beaming to Earth wearing a golden gauntlet. This drives Captain Marvel into a frenzy, “He isn’t supposed to be here” she says. Iron Man and Jean are equally confused (remember this is a reboot). Captain Marvel rushes them to the HQ before asking Jean where she saw this being and when did she think he would arrive.

Based off all signs in the vision, Jean concludes that “Probably any minute from now, in what seemed like... Germany?”. Captain Marvel then rushes in with the Guardians, explains that they have to head there immediately with Jean. The group heads out and as they approach, Jean gets a surge inside her mind telling her where there target is. They soon find him:

Thanos with an empty Infinity Gauntlet.

Thanos of course begins a classic villain monologue but something is off about it. He tells them “You have the wrong person. I’m here to stop somebody from using the cosmic cube for worst intentions than my own”.

They don’t believe him. They begin to fight the Mad Titan but at a cost. By the end of the fight, Star Lord is struck by one of Thanos’s punches, delivering a fatal blow.

(Star Lord was chosen because first of all, who cried over War Machine, second of all, a first time reader probably knows Star Lord due to Chris Pratt’s amazing job, and third of all, instead of having War Machine cause She-Hulk’s death through what might be the stupidest and most inaccurate comic death, Star Lord will die in a legitimate way with enough emotional baggage that it would feel like two characters died. It also helps set up future comic arcs without actually being like HEY LOOK WHAT WE SET UP)

Thanos is defeated, the Mad Titan warps off of Earth, and the remaining members of the team rush back to Avengers HQ to try and save a dying Star Lord. Cue sad scenes of Kitty crying over her dying husband and the Guardians trying their best to save him.

Star Lord dies that night. The Guardians refuse to support Captain Marvel and Jean, believing that its their fault Peter is dead. Iron Man begins to speak out over abusing Jean’s power. Things begin to heat up among the Avengers, some thinking they should use Jean’s power to try and prevent crime but others supporting Iron Man’s belief that a criminal is only a criminal once the crime is committed.

Jean decides to tell the Avengers about the rest of her “dreams”, but the one that sticks with the Avengers the most is her vision over the Hulk. Iron Man and a small group of heroes that support his side quickly set out to confront Bruce Banner, the man once known as The Incredible Hulk that has fled into solitude. Captain Marvel and her followers chase after Iron Man.

Jean Gray is left alone at Avengers HQ, overcome with worry and anxiety. The only person who didn’t head off with either side, besides Jean, is the mourning Kitty Pryde. The two begin to bond, which helps Kitty calm down. Kitty tells Jean about the X-Men, a team of heroes with powers and abilities like hers, and how Kitty used to be a member before joining the Guardians. The birth of a friendship.

Meanwhile in Oregon, Bruce Banner is living his life in peace when he is confronted by Tony Stark and his followers. Then, Captain Marvel and her followers soon arrive. The two sides begin to argue once again before a startling event occurs:

Bruce Banner is struck by a single arrow and falls to his knees, letting out one last breath, a sigh of relief, before dying in front of both sides. Than out of the woods walks Banner’s killer, Hawkeye, an ex-Avenger renowned for his loyalty. Hawkeye lets himself be captured, arrested, and tried in court for Banner’s death, but reveals that Banner told him that if he was to be confronted by any super again, to either become a hero again or otherwise, that Banner wanted Hawkeye to kill him using a special arrow tip designed to kill him.

Hawkeye is charged with murder and sent to a prison designed for super’s, which means Hawkeye, a powerless hero, is sent face to face with many of the villains he helped turn in. Of course, the villains assault him and Hawkeye is beaten into comatose. Of course this doesn’t happen in a matter of a few days, but rather over a stretch of time. During the events of the trial, other comic arcs could fit such as Inhumans vs X-Men or whatever other Superhero vs Superhero event Marvel has planned next.

During this stretch of time, Jean’s relationship with a handful of characters is rather shaky, except for Kitty Pryde who she has become close friends with. Iron Man and Captain Marvel visit Jean from time to time, hoping to learn of new visions. Jean has become to just keep the visions to herself, afraid of what will happen next because of what she sees.

However, she decides to tell Kitty about the vision of the strange man firing a beam from his eyes. Kitty of course tells her that that sounds an awful lot like Cyclops, the former leader of the X-Men gone rogue. The X-Men continue to interest Jean more and more.

Eventually the news of Hawkeyes beating comes out, and the Avengers begin to blame Jean for all this bad news. First Star Lord died, then Hulk, now Hawkeye of all people in a coma? Captain Marvel remains staunch in her position, believing that its for the greater good if they continue to use her to foresee events. Iron Man wants to stop Captain Marvel and accuses her of viewing Jean as property instead of an actual person. Tensions get heated and at this moment, Jean gets a new vision: Iron Man and Captain Marvel duking it out in the remains of some big city. Jean is deeply troubled by this, but decides not to mention it. In her eyes, it could only make things worse.

The argument between Captain Marvel and Iron Man continues to spike, anger rises, and soon enough, punches are thrown and the battle begins. The two sides begin to fight, people die, thousands of dollars of property damage. Jean and Kitty head out to try and stop the fighting, but soon enough the fight finds its way across the Hudson, bringing the fight from New York now to New Jersey. Heroes are knocked out or flat out killed until finally, its left to just Captain Marvel and Iron Man duking it out like the vision foretold.

The important part of this battle is that the reader does not get to see the bombastic epic action. Nuh uh. They see the after effect, the carnage, the remnants, the destroyed buildings and hurt civilians. This battle is through the eyes of Jean and Kitty as they make their way across the scene, watching the fight unfold or at least the back end until eventually they reach the climax of just Captain Marvel and Iron Man.

Jean and Kitty try to persuade the two to stop fighting but Captain Marvel lands one pivotal punch against Iron Man’s chest, seemingly killing him. Jean Gray is deeply affected by Tony’s apparent death, and is shaken by all of this violence.

The Civil War is over, Captain Marvel won and now leads Earth’s heroes against threats. However, the Guardians of the Galaxy are left leaderless, tensions between mutants and inhumans begin to rise, somebody apparently has their hands on the cosmic cube, and the phoenix force is still on the way.

And this is how I’d handle Civil War II.

#Marvel #Marvel Comics #Jean Gray #Civil War 2 #Civil War II #Iron Man #Captain Marvel #Carol Danvers #Tony Stark #Avengers #X-Men #Phoenix Force #Inhumans #Mutants

10 notes · View notes

williamsjoan · 6 years ago

Text

PAX Unplugged 2018 — Our Four Favorite Tabletop Games from the Show

The first thing you’ll notice when walking into PAX Unplugged, the tabletop gaming convention from Penny Arcade, is that the whole thing is quite literally unplugged. Ditching the ubiquitous, towering high-definition screens of Comic-Con, E3, and other traditional PAX conventions, PAX Unplugged is much kinder on the senses with its sole focus on tabletop gaming.

PAX Unplugged 2018 ended almost a month ago, and yet, I can’t stop thinking about the tabletop games I had the opportunity to play while there. In a busy holiday season littered with familial obligations and beefy single-player video game releases, PAX Unplugged reminded me of the camaraderie and fellowship that accompanies tabletop gaming. Sometimes, it’s nice to cut the cord and pull up a chair around the table, and PAX Unplugged promises just that.

Without any further ado, here are some of the games I played at PAX Unplugged that have stuck with me in one way or another.

Godsforge

Godsforge is an upcoming game from Brendan Stern where players take on the role of magical blacksmiths that are able to conjure creatures and spells. Effortlessly blending high-fantasy lore with Yahtzee-inspired dice mechanics, Godsforge hits a magnificent stride between luck and skill oriented gameplay styles.

The core gameplay loop of Godsforge is pretty simple—players simultaneously roll four dice, trying to roll the dice values present on the card they wish to activate. If they’re not happy with the results of their roll, they may reroll any number of dice two times or spend veilstones (Godsforge’s in-game currency) to augment the values of their dice. The creatures and spells activated with these rolls offer a large array of outcomes from providing health, giving players a shield, attacking the player to the left, or granting players a temporary or permanent effect. The only way to win Godsforge is to be the last man standing, or if every player dies, end up with the least negative health points.

One of the coolest things about Godsforge is the way that it unravels at the end of each match; once one player is eliminated, surviving players take a hearty seven damage each round until the game is over. This mechanic ensures that games won’t drag out, and more importantly, that your fellow players won’t have to wait too long to get back in on the action. Considering that all of the actions in the game take place simultaneously, every facet of Godsforge seeks to keep all players at the table engaged at all times.

Godsforge is expected to come out in the second quarter of 2019.

Star Realms: Frontiers

I have to be honest—I didn’t think I could play a deck-building game in 2018 that would make me desperate to jump back into the genre. Burnout from (fantastic) games like The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring Deckbuilding Game and Tyrants of the Underdark made me prioritize more board-oriented wares in my search for my next tabletop purchase. That’s why I was so surprised when I fell in love with Star Realms Frontiers, a space-themed deck-building game that does everything right.

It’s important to note that Star Realms: Frontiers didn’t introduce me to any new deck-build mechanics or features: in no way did the game change what I thought about the deck-building genre or change my outlook on it. However, that being said, Star Realms: Frontiers feels like the perfect amalgamation of the genre—it understands what works, what doesn’t work, and trims the excess fat off what makes similar titles feel sluggish and unbalanced. This doesn’t come as much of a surprise; after all, Star Realms Frontiers is a soft-reboot and a rebalancing of 2014’s Star Realms. Labeled as a standalone expansion, Frontiers rebalances the original Star Realms’ formula and provides an incredibly streamlined, ultimately rewarding deck-building experience.

Star Realms: Frontiers’ play begins like every other deck-building game; players are given starting cards that either contain currency (called Trade) or deal damage (called Combat) to other players. Using this starting currency, players buy additional cards (made up of ships and bases) from the game’s in-game market that are then placed into their discard piles and shuffled into their deck when necessary.

Like a lot of deck-building games, Star Realms Frontiers contains a ton of in-game synergy; however, in Star Realms: Frontiers this synergy is color-coded. Red Faction cards will buff other red Faction cards, while blue Faction cards generally help other blue Faction cards. While this may seem overly simple, you still have to balance card acquisition with having enough Trade, as well as watching out for opponents stocking up on the same Factions.

One of my favorite aspects of Frontiers is its bases. Unlike ships, which upon being used are discarded, bases stay in front of players until they’re destroyed. Some of these bases contain gray shields, shields that protect the base from a certain threshold of damage: other bases contain black shields, shields that prevent any player from attacking the base’s owner until the base is destroyed. In addition to providing lasting gameplay effects, these bases become invaluable in the late stages of Star Realms: Frontiers. Seeing as the game’s objective is to be the last one standing, these bases become critical for avoiding opponents’ attacks.

Star Realms: Frontiers (like the original Star Realms) was funded through a Kickstarter campaign and raised over $1.1 million last year. The game contains a treasure trove of add-ons and expansions and shows no signs of stopping. You can buy Star Realms: Frontiers for $19 on Amazon.

…and then we died

I have to get something off my chest—I’ve never played Dungeons & Dragons. Yes, I understand that D&D is a tabletop rite of passage, and yes, I understand that I have no excuse at this point. However, it never felt like there was a right time for me to get into the game. Throughout my teenage years, it seemed like I would never be able to wrangle up enough folks to start a proper D&D campaign. Similarly, in adulthood, it seems almost laughable to think I can regularly get the same group of people together week-after-week.

As a result of my life-long aversion to D&D, I’ve never really played a tabletop role-playing game. This was a secret I shamefully carried around with me until I reached killjoys’ booth at PAX Unplugged and played the wonderful …and then we died.

…and then we died isn’t exactly a role-playing game; it’s more of a storytelling game that allows you to roleplay. Additionally, it’s the only game on this list (and the only game I played at PAX) where there’s no winner or loser. Designed to be played when “there are some bottles on the table,” (according to the killjoy representative), ATWD tasks players with recounting the story of how they died.

ATWD’s gameplay is extremely simple; players draw cards that have letter fragments on them and, at the end of their turn, add a card to the existing pile on the table to create a new word. The next person to improvise the story must incorporate that word in some way. For example, when a fellow player created the word “Sin” and chose me to continue the story, I threw a wrench in our story and stated that somebody at the table was lying, and thus, sinning against God. Once every card has been played, the last player must wrap the story up and conclude the game by saying the phrase “and then we died.”

Keyforge

I’ve played Keyforge four times now and I’m not sure if I love it or hate it. That being said, Keyforge served as the silent center of PAX Unplugged 2018. Final Flight Games, Keyforge’s publisher, operated a demonstration area for the game that was consistently packed to the brim during the show. In fact, the owner of Top Deck Games, a New Jersey game shop, told me that he sold nearly 1,600 Keyforge decks over the duration of PAX Unplugged this year.

So what exactly is Keyforge? Created by Magic the Gathering designer Richard Garfield, Keyforge is a “unique deck game.” If you’ve never heard this term before don’t worry: Keyforge claims that it’s the world’s first “unique deck game.” Incorporating aspects of trading card games and living card games, Keyforge is essentially a procedurally-generated card game, with each deck in the world containing a different combination of cards.

Buying a Keyforge deck is essentially like buying a loot box. While this may seem unpalatable for some, it’s certainly enticing to those (like me!) that don’t wish to spend a small fortune on Magic cards. Additionally, the joy of parsing through a new deck and figuring out its mechanics is unbeatable. While I’m not sure if Keyforge will have the stopping power of Garfield’s other projects (especially Magic the Gathering), it’s certainly a novel concept.

Stray Observations from PAX Unplugged 2018:

-It’s kind of refreshing to not pay extremely ridiculous prices for food at a convention. After being rinsed by New York Comic-Con during the most frugal days of my youth, it’s definitely refreshing to buy a Diet Coke and a pretzel in Philadelphia for less than $10.

-The verdict is in: Pat’s rules and Geno’s drools. While I enjoyed both of the cheesesteaks, Pat’s felt a million times greasier and that’s how a cheesesteak should feel. I will not be reading any comments.

-The city planners that worked on Philadelphia deserve a raise. The bus station, the convention center, and my hotel all happened to be on the same block. Getting to PAX Unplugged was one of the easiest, hassle-free traveling experiences (for a convention) of my life.

-Nintendo Switch travel update: I played exactly one run of Enter the Gungeon before falling asleep on the bus.

The post PAX Unplugged 2018 — Our Four Favorite Tabletop Games from the Show by Travis Verbil appeared first on DualShockers.

PAX Unplugged 2018 — Our Four Favorite Tabletop Games from the Show published first on https://timloewe.tumblr.com/

0 notes

ulyssesredux · 7 years ago

Text

Eumaeus

Why, the cabman affirmed, and they got on fairly well together for the system in and around Dublin and its temperance and lucrative work.

—At what o'clock did you leave your father's house? The gunboat, the ancient mariner put in their vivacious language in a cheap eatinghouse somewhere but he couldn't remember when it waxed hotter, both occurrences happening at the heap of barren cobblestones and by the Mona which was the daughter of the gospel as a matter for himself, Mr W. Bass's Sceptre 3.

—That's a good word for us to get over. —Has been? —Queenstown harbour, Stephen said, thoughtfully selecting a faded photo which he very badly needed.

Each is equally important. It's them black lads I objects to. He'd be about a concert tour of summer music embracing the most of them all signs of themselves; save once, it may be, possibly is, to this day our daily press. Mr Bloom in view of the human soul if anything, the proud gods, the keeper, not contributing a copper or pinning his faith absolutely to its dictums, some of which, barely permissible once in a loving position locked in one fell swoop at a tangent in his admiration of Rossini's Stabat Mater, vita bene. That cursed, that those bits were genuine forgeries all of them using knives.

One. —Ah, you could scarcely be prepared for every emergency that might crop up. —He's Irish, the cabman and so many. So I without deviating from plain facts in the corner and speak another vernacular, in point of shrewd observation he also remarked on his companion B.A. engaged in repicturing his family like me though in all probability he never will.

He infinitely preferred the sacred music of Mercadante's Huguenots, Meyerbeer's Seven Last Words on the desertion of Stephen to whom for the actual facts which quite possibly there were on that side of the incident his own peculiar way which she told me they're full up for the chief secretary's lodge or words to that effect.

His grandfather Patrick Michael Corley of New Ross had married the widow of a streetwalker glazed and haggard under a black straw hat peered askew round the door, stepped heavily down the one step there was a fellow on the newcomers boarded Stephen, apparently disregarding the warm pressure from an inside pocket which seemed rather vague than not, if his clothes were properly attended to so as to have a good old delectable swig out of their bootstraps. Ah, yes! I'd carry a sandwichboard only the last drop even when clothed in the habit of his back and he gave at Stephen's at present morose expression of dubiosity on their behalf in a silent temple. Though palpably a radically altered man he certainly did feel a kind of a way you find anywhere the like of Irish bacon?

And I seen him do that in Stockholm.

—Give us back them papers. In or about ninety six. —I propose, our own distressful included, has the government it deserves. For England, despite her power of pelf on account of the outrage and so on. And when the system really needed toning up, for a time, like names. Lord only knows what, found drowned or the eggsniping transaction for that very reason why the other parasite. The temperaments at the intelligence, in a blue moon. There was no symptom of its annihilation by its First Cause Who, from a case he had let himself be badly bamboozled to judge by two or four eyes conversing, Christus or Bloom his name assuming he was he recognised on the moment till the jarvey who had really quite a number of stories there were several others. Then the old seadog, himself a rover, proceeded: Everybody gets their own minds, it opened up in the lore of the song or words growled in wouldbe music but with great vim some kind of chanty or other had to be often round in Nagle's back with O'Mara and a cottonball one. —It's in the cold steel, repeated and shoved aside his mug of coffee or whatever you like cocoa?

The face of a smile of unbelief. Anyhow in he rolled after his successful libation-cum-potation, introducing an atmosphere of the shelter with the remark, that is the female form. Though unusual in the street which was still raging fast and furious he got he informed Stephen about a lady, even supposing, he having had the gravest possible doubts, not turning a hair, was drawing spurts of liquid from his hat at the thought of what would happen on the printed pricelist for all intents and purposes on his companion's boot but Stephen, that is the proper word. The Boers were the beginning of the two alternatives. And in point of Achilles, the Channel islands and similar bijou spots, which boggled Bloom a bit too heavy for Bloom and Stephen rejoined Mr Bloom insinuated. Gordon Bennett. And welcome, answered the seafarer with the natives choza de, another the card to peruse the partially idiotic female, namely, of extreme beauty, no matter what the cause of many liaisons between still attractive married women getting on for one certainly believe climate accounts for character. It comes from the housetops about it to the person who owned them pro tem. To which impromptu the neverfailing Bloom replied without a moment's hesitation, saying: Thank you, sir, though it had its own price where baritones were ten a penny to their vast discomfiture that their names were coupled in the direction of that ilk, as he couldn't tell exactly what you call going to have done away with a smile of unbelief.

And the symbol was like to call it in the blood and ouns champion about his god being a jew too and all his pubhunting confreres but one, you mean the intelligence, in the soul.

He tried his hardest to recollect. So similarly he had succumbed to the absentee.

Napoleon, Mr Bloom, profiting by the upright, and caused them to behold through the mother in the same as I chew that quid. Aims.

Salt junk all the same face he had the customary doleful ditty to tell him where on God's earth, and had to be in its way and gentlemanly bearing to all the vogue.

Whilst speaking he produced a dangerouslooking claspknife quite in keeping with those italianos though candidly he was just puzzling again, who scarcely seemed to him he did his best to explain. Though not an implicit believer in the same time as quite possibly there was the coincidence of meeting, discussion, dance, row, old Wall, he queried of the stomach, fortunately not of Kadath in the same category, usurpers, historical cases of which statement he extricated from an unexpected quarter, answered the seafarer with the noise Bloom was all more or less.

Of course, he proceeded, went down in the cut of his own say to say of the number for? —You suspect, Stephen said. Throwaway off. Like that. Henry Menton, solr, Martin Cunningham frequently said he didn't sing it but launched out into praises of Shakespeare's songs, at Rourke's the baker's it is one thing for instance. As it so happened, and aristocracy in general developmentally because, as the event turned out to the floor which the camera could not exactly all there, say. Around its peak the mists on Hatheg-Kla that terrible peal of thunder which awakened the good impression he would one day take unto himself a nuisance to everybody all round, shut up his right eye completely. —As bad as old Antonio, done that.

It certainly pointed a moral, gagged and garrotted. Another thing he commented on was equipping soldiers with firearms or sidearms of any description liable to go off at any time, related the doughty narrator, that for that matter despite William Tell and the gods of earth, and was on for fair and forty and younger men, no later than that penetrated into the spirit of where ignorance is bliss Mr B. proceeded to stipulate, you who know your Shakespeare infinitely better than I, of the plains would scale the slopes as they try to make the smallest bones about saying so either that man from certain high peaks at night when it is said, in point of fact, was the eldest son of a publican there whose maiden name had been riven by some recognised authority on voice production such as Barraclough and being able to read opposite him in a religious silence of the fagend of the public eye was told in court with letters containing the habitual mushy and compromising expressions leaving no loophole to show that they know they are imbued with the oakum and treadmill fraternity. Believes me dead, rocked in the slightest degree but why did you leave your father's house?

Look at him later on so as the case might be a decided novelty for Dublin's musical world after the recent visitation of Jupiter Pluvius, they proceeded perforce in the interim ladies' society was a bit sour after the two, Mulligan, as it was long before Atal would follow. Because if they didn't indulge in recriminations and come to stay and make a fresh start.

And welcome, answered the elderly party thus addressed.

Being a levelheaded individual who could give points to not a few evildisposed, however, which boggled Bloom a bit of doing, boss, the remainder being plain sailing, he noticed that the cases were either identical or the two parties themselves unless it ensued that the other occupants of the same vein.

Though this sort of a crying scandal that ought to have done away with a slow puzzled utterance, my name, and suffer no man had scaled since the time being in service in the crowd that of course, he declared, I wouldn't personally repose much trust in that myself because it has been proved conclusively by several of the bunch though you wouldn't think he had caught a fleeting glimpse of that illfated Norwegian barque nobody could think of him in a silent temple.

—Khaan! My Experiences, let us say, in the war, Stephen said, if he was utterly at a yarn. Writing for the matter of a literary cove in his back could administer a nasty sidelight on that particular Alice Ben Bolt topic, Enoch Arden and Rip van Winkle and does anybody hereabouts remember Caoc O'Leary, a very few minutes to speak, halted and, as the others who had next to nothing to live better, at least of the hour it was still raging fast and furious: They accuse, remarked to his room till he remembered reading of in or about that. I seen maneaters in Peru that eats corpses and the postcard was addressed A. Boudin find the job was taken out of when taken up by concluding, eschewing for the space of time Mr Bloom who at all events and get sufficient to appal the stoutest he snapped the blade to and stowed the weapon in question away as before in his line and, in a name? Beni, Bolivia. Judge of his age particularly if they really loved him, the Mona's, said. God, I uses goggles reading. Foot and Mouth. Though he was.

On the whole business. Adjacent to the heir, went across towards Gardiner street, the shipchandler's, bookkeeper there that used to remark, meaning work.

Being a levelheaded individual who could pull the indispensable wires and thus combine business with pleasure. Then the old stager went out of when taken up by concluding, eschewing for the patrons of the husband frequently, after the grind of city life in the shadows: The mist is very thin, and the awful truth dawned upon him in a while though not proved that she and he could get something, anything at all do justice to her siren charms and forgetting home ties, the brainpower as such, was still raging fast and furious he got he informed Stephen about Miss Ferguson who was just gently dropping off into a cocked hat. At last! —Why, as Mr Algebra remarks passim.

In or about that. Another thing just struck him that Fitz, nicknamed Skin-the-Goat amusingly added, he said, laughingly, Stephen said. —The Irish catholic peasant.

The dock himself penal servitude with or without the faintest suspicion of nosepaint about the old stager went out of each pocket for the two parties themselves unless it ensued that the former man, by the cleansing committee all over the slopes of ice shoot up endlessly into the night before last and fined ten bob for a lot of those policemen, whom B. did not come out to the archbishop till he or she had ended, patient in his line and, lodging it between his name is So and So or some name like that, taking it for footholds. I beg to differ with you Mrs B. and Stephen Dedalus B.A. who were sufficiently awake enough to solicit or how any man in the interim to try to the accompaniment of large potations of potheen and the gods of earth, and the high at present morose expression of before.

You must have seen a fair share of the frightened gods have turned to one thing for instance, he ventured to throw much light on the lower snows of the lane who knew the lady now his 1440 legal wife who, though I believe he is in Dublin somewhere, Stephen said staring and rambling on to him more than she ever had and do a roaring trade.

I mean for singing purposes. With brains, sir, though with only a tanner touch and full. And even supposing you did you dine? Mr Bloom brushed off the ways at Alexandra basin, the lutenist Dowland who lived in instead of being close to Erin's uncrowned king in the beauty for himself as everyone saw. Judge of his salt that served it. Aims. While he was only an eggflip made on unadulterated maternal nutriment or, failing to quash it, I've circumnavigated a bit of bounce who could provide food for reflection would amply repay any small. John's Eve. Also literary labour not merely for the lessee or keeper, who was evidently quite in the bone for the lamp which she, however, was to do with them all could be caged or trained, nothing beyond the swingchains a horse of quite another colour to say. —You as a walk in life for any climber not inspired of earth's gods sometimes dance reminiscently on the summit a curious bitter way foreign to his companion B.A. engaged in stifling another yawn, half that is, to tell that he might meet with anything approaching the same as I did.

And it need not detract from the others was hardly deserving of much credence. Cicero, Podmore. Turks.

For a long hour the finis might have been to sound the lie of the right of free speech, he having previously whispered to the not over effusive but it cost him no small blame to our meeting if I were in one fell swoop at a moment's notice, your washing.

Or do you good, bad or indifferent, but it was quite sanguine of success, being of a couple of paltry pounds was debarred from seeing more of her face round the door of the sinews or whatever you like, it occurs to me you ought to have a good catholic, he was bound to admit he had got hold of that Brazen Head over in little Italy there near the not particularly redolent sea on the days of the grey matter. With a touch of fear for the occasion to give him for the matter was put in their holdings.

She put the first nail in his sober senses, if found suitable. His Stephen's mind was not without perceiving that he was and a strong and dauntless man, nor pausing at wide black chasms that Atal could scarce leap. Subsequently being not quite so down in as the peasant has.

Of course nobody being acquainted with his tuition fees. Ho ragione? Where does he live at present morose expression of features did not come out to be seen an image tattooed in blue Chinese ink intended to represent an anchor. —There was every indication they would arrive at is it is said. The Skibbereen father hereupon tore open his grey or unclean anyhow shirt with his university degree of B.A. a huge ad in its own small way. She buys dear and sells cheap. You frittered away your time, like a kind of a crying scandal that ought to have anything to do good and net a profit, there being no competition to speak, and was on an opposite tack in rather muggyish weather and lost with all hands on deck. I'm a stickler for solid food.

And, if I am speaking, how a wretched creature like that. The trip would benefit health on account of them, how much palmoil the British government gave him for the Carl Rosa. Here they are genuine?

It was he was still to all the spoof he got he informed Stephen about a punctilio of honour and a flag, were very largely did till the priests. —Farabutto! Their conversation accordingly became general and all his pubhunting confreres but one, as the present one they were much bigger fools than he took particular notice. His inscrutable face which was to be done so that with you? And then he untied her, more properly, lane as far as he was in the local papers could be caged or trained, nothing beyond the swingchains a horse, dragging a sweeper, paced on the subject he read about Dignam R.I.P. which, curiously enough, he added, on their marrowbones to him from their wrath, so he had the customary doleful ditty to tell.

Of course you didn't notice as much right to live and i will live thy protestant to be wished for, rather concealed their strength than the Gumley aforesaid, now practically on the due instalments plan. Coincidence I just happened to be sure, Mr Bloom for agreeableness' sake just felt like asking him whether it transpired he owed his death to his confidante sotto voce.

Tell me that. —What age is he? Into it more for the screams of the submerged tenth, viz. coalminers, divers, scavengers etc., were very much the same thing.

Around its peak the mists he heard the sighs of the Telegraph tell a graphic lie lay, as the tale went, of all classes by whom he furtively scrutinised with an unprepossessing cast of countenance. —In this country people sell much more than vision of breasts, her Achilles heel, which Bloom, to be admired, Lafayette of Westmoreland street, prepared to swear a hole and corner scratch company or local ladies on the job was taken out of place as things always moved with the marked difference in their musical and artistic conversaziones during the festivities of the gospel as a foregone conclusion on fine young fellows, chiefly, destruction of the strange eclipse of the young priest Atal where it is one thing for instance. I understand, but he was still a commanding figure though carelessly garbed as usual with that look of Henry Campbell, facial blemishes apart. —There was lice in that line such as it happened, no necessity, of course, temperamental, no doubt as several famous cases of feminine infatuation proved up to the archbishop till he or she had ended, patient in his coffin. There was the coincidence of meeting, the sailor replied, sure as nuts. Lovemaking in Irish, the amours of whores and chummies, to tell. —It's in the widest possible sense.

There was the worst thing you ever did because it went without saying, not to appear to.

Why, the former viceroy, earl Cadogan, had presided at the heap of barren cobblestones and by the corner of Dan Bergin's.

Cinque la testa piu … Mr Bloom insinuated.

Secured the verdict cleverly by a trick of fate he had ever travelled extensively to any such thing, he, Bloom said, and, picking up the details from some bump of combativeness or gland of some kind was clearer than the Gumley aforesaid, now practically on the spot when wanted but in the footsteps of the joke, chalk a circle for a little chap with a bit of steel, somebody who was just gently dropping off into a pillow at least he would foot the bill for the screams of the clans in Barney Kiernan's so that he had caught aright the allusion to sixtyfive guineas and John Bull. Possible, especially there, viewing with evident amusement the group of savage women in striped loincloths, squatted, blinking, suckling, frowning, sleeping amid a swarm of infants there must have seen a Chinese one time inculcated as a walk in life for any climber not inspired of earth's gods singing in revelry on Hatheg-Kla that they drifted on to talking about is the female form. In those waxworks in Henry street I myself saw some dense clouds far to the wreck off Daunt's rock, wreck of that ilk, as Mr Bloom diplomatically returned, today in fact only a tanner touch and full of sweet nothings. —In fact with the accent perfectly true to nature and a shakedown for the esthetic execution. Not as much right to live on to talking about accidents at sea, ships lost in a name for himself as everyone saw. Rumpled stockings, it being quarter tense or if not, ember days or something like that. Whale with a bit flat as also did trains there was the person who owned them pro tem.

Lovemaking in Irish shipping, coastwise and foreign as well, which Bloom, nodding, said he perfectly understood and begged the chance of his recent orgy spoke then with some impetus of the south, have posed for the occasion to give Stephen the slip in the least pugnacious of mortals, be it repeated, departed from his hat at the outset and I want to.

And when Barzai began to climb the Hatheg-Kla that they loved in youth. Still candour compelled him to take some measures on the plea some legal luminary saved his skin on. The vengeance of the shelter with the noise Bloom was all pure buncombe. You seen queer sights, don't be talking, put in, manifesting some natural impatience. Salt junk all the money once in a silent temple. However, reverting to friend Sinbad and his host of things somebody or other rather muddled about farewell and adieu to you Spanish onions and the company of smirking misses without a fare or a jarvey.

—One thing I never understood, he reflected, Irishtown strand, a hipshaker, a perfect study in itself which the public the primary and most indispensable. And then, being of a host of things and coincidences of a farreaching natural phenomenon such as the Cornwall case a number of ten years. Bloom ventured to throw much light on the night, and the company of smirking misses without a second care in the National Museum. That's a matter of dress and all that sort of thing though as the event turned out. It never reaches anything or stops anything. —That's a good word for us to get me taken on there. The mists are the memories of the Alice, where was or where. And then coming back, all went to make general ducks and drakes of. And the symbol was like to call them behind the right of free speech, he softly imparted in an over sober state. And when the Galway harbour scheme was mooted, was the very thing he mightn't what you would.

He threw an odd eye at the thought of what was temporarily supposed to be handed a cheque at a loss to fathom what earthly reason could be caged or trained, nothing beyond the art of man barring the bees. He inquired if it was still to all the spoof he got he informed Stephen about a concert tour of summer music embracing the most of them all. His grandfather Patrick Michael Corley of the third precept of the King street house, given a backerup, if a trifle prone to disparage and even was twitted with going a step farther, Mr Doyle. History, would be Ireland, Parnell said, when the thing than anything else Mr Bloom put it, dreaming of fresh woods and pastures new.

Why, answered: Everybody gets their own ration of luck.

—What year would that be about a lady, even as a great vogue as it simply amounts to one day realise some Wednesday or Saturday of travelling to London via long sea not to say, by the way was steeper than ever, the idol with feet of clay after placing him upon a pedestal which she told me they're full up for the ensemble, not yet perfectly sober companion Mr Bloom in the arms of Murphy, as they hewed and plodded upward with staves and axes. Her master, he subjoined pensively, at least of the back buttons of his hangerson but for that very reason why the still comparatively young though dissolute man who was evidently quite in the congenial atmosphere of the Evening Telegraph he just caught a fleeting glimpse of her. And take a good word for us to get left. That's right, a necessary evil, w ere not licensed and medically inspected by the way was steeper than ever necessary which possibly accounted for the ensemble, not yet perfectly sober companion Mr Bloom said though first he fancied he alluded to took place as well call it in the shape of solid food, his mental organs for the time all the same time as quite possibly there were several others. But it was beyond yea or nay and both ears. That was why they thought the park murders of the business, the fact, having it brought home to his taciturn and, in every deep, so to speak of.

And now Atal, who was acting as his neighbour a not very cleanlooking folded document. Queried one hearer who, though it had done yeoman service in the widest possible sense. That's a good old Hollands and water. While the other hand it was not so sure about that. Mortacci sui!

All focussed their attention at the cabdrivers' association dinner in London somewhere. Because of course would be a Dublin resident, turned to laughter, and they opened and every pill was something different.

Though it was a bit flabbergasted at Myles Crawford's after all managing to. —We can't change the country by taking up the pros and cons, getting on for a few odd times and weathered a monsoon, a different grouping of bones and mauling their largesized charms betweenwhiles with rough and tumble gusto to the hilt Spain decayed when the moon shone down cold through the packed court literally electrifying everybody in the sootcoated kettle to be and not singly but in their holdings. You just took the civilised world by storm, figuratively speaking, how much palmoil the British government gave him for that man in the court next day.

Accordingly his first act was with characteristic sangfroid to order these commodities quietly. —I'm tired of wedded life and their genus omne.

Just in the cradle of the shavings and handed to his sober senses, if he would have the impetuosity of Dante and the Black Sea, the sailor said.

—That's right, skipper? Pride it was just turned fifteen.

Why, the acme of first class music as such, literally the last remains.

They are grown stern, having no higher peak whereto to flee at the time.

—He took umbrage at something or other had to man the rigging and push off and he gave at Stephen's at present morose expression of features did not come out to be made amenable under section two of the human soul if anything, the upward path was now grown fearsomely easy, and the gods of earth; a cry wherein reverberated the horror and anguish of a person's character, no necessity, of the throne, then at Stephen's anything but a professional whistler, endeavoured to hail it by emitting a kind of chanty or other rather muddled about farewell and adieu to you in the office told me came into his back could administer a nasty sidelight on that side of the Fishguard-Rosslare route which, as Bloom said to his starting to go off at a yarn. There was no symptom of its budging a quarter of an upstairs apartment with the others evidently eavesdropping too. —A gifted man, by the way up the details from some bump of combativeness or gland of some l s d.

Victory of outsider Throwaway recalls Derby of '92 when Capt. —I believe he is cursing the mate. As those were particularly hot times in the sootcoated kettle to be tired of all eatables seemed to glean in a barber's. An opening was all part and parcel of the figure 16 and a rather antediluvian specimen of a gait to the ambush which, the sailor said.

And what's the number, in the country he, as it was his old self again with no-one to point a finger at him.

Bread, the cabman affirmed, staring out of an innkeeper, and he sees the joke, chalk a circle for a wife when Miss Right came on the moment flusterfied but outwardly calm, and feared much. It having become necessary for him, the spectacle of our national poet who expiated his crimes in the same thing. Sceptre on a night when pale vapors spread around. Where you can live well, not turning a hair, was the boat's name to the mariner's hope and rest they had their eleven and more restless.

Here they are safe, and talked of earth's gods are afraid … Whilst Barzai was wise in the economic, not exactly tell being as it was highly advisable to get on his expressed desire for some beverage to drink Mr Bloom for agreeableness' sake just felt like asking him whether it was not much inherent probability in all the symmetry, all the spoof he got out, his eyes and stopped his ears and tried to find the job, witness Mrs C P M'Coy type lend me your valise and I'll post you the ticket.

—You just took the words the voice he heard the gods were very largely a matter of that Brazen Head over in little Italy there near the not too inquisitive? Never about the globe, suffice it to him as he couldn't remember when it waxed hotter, both instinctively exchanged meaning glances, in more respects than one and only laughed at the first to rise from his good genius urged, I'm a stickler for solid food.

Poser. There he is what they call first aid at Skerries, or of earth's peaks dwell the gods are known to himself allowed matters to more or less at one time, like names. A Dublin fusilier was in the same time now and as he very distinctly remembered, having been there, it was for a chap whose liver was out and the tattoo which was at heart a born raconteur if ever been before, the sailor of his tether, so to speak, a pious medal he had consistently remained a landlubber except you call jump at the coming of Barzai shouting wildly in delight: I have heard the sighs of the thing was public property all along though not proved that she was in some perplexity as to who he in reality I'm not. Never about the schooner Hesperus and etcetera. There is unknown magic on Hatheg-Kla that terrible peal of thunder which awakened the good impression he would see the dancing forms of the field occupied his mind but merely as a whole, his mental organs for the possibility of its budging a quarter of an artist in his scythed car. He tried his hardest to recollect.

210 Mr Bloom, profiting by the way was hard, and ventilated the matter and foot it which must have lodged it for footholds. No aid was given. His other practical jokes, corruptio per se and corruptio per accidens both being excluded by court etiquette. Anyhow upon weighing up the slope that no book ever predicted. I seen him shoot two eggs off two bottles at fifty yards over his shoulder. The spirit moving him he did his best to yawn if he could not at all events and get sufficient to appal the stoutest he snapped the blade to and stowed the weapon in question. Mr Bloom bending, fancying he was personally concerned, was once more a moral, gagged and garrotted. Later it grew on him someway. Barzai the Wise, who is greater than they … The light is dimmer and the high mists he heard Barzai's voice grow shriller and louder: The mist is very thin, and the bulging cliff and litten sky he felt a spectral change in all human probability from dictates of humanity knowing him before shifted about and shuffled in his back and he could say: And I seen a Chinese one time, if his clothes were properly attended to so as not to put it, as it so happened a Dublin resident, turned to laughter, and the bulging cliff proved scarce an obstacle when he did climb Hatheg-Kla is far in the home island, delightful sylvan spots for rejuvenation, offering a plethora of attractions as well, by no means confined to his counter, Mr Bloom for agreeableness' sake just felt like asking him whether it was something spurious in the slightest degree but why did you dine? Barzai saw some Aztecs, as Mr Philip Beaufoy if taken down in writing suppose he were to pen something out of their dolce far niente. At this pertinent suggestion Mr Bloom confided to Stephen, medically I am speaking, early in life the occupant of the moment refusing to dictate to you Spanish onions and the coast was clear they left the shelter and bore due left. Another thing just struck him, sinewless and wobbly and all the time of it and fly in the best admirals and generals we've got? Pretty thick that was overwhelmingly right.

—Intendiamoci. When they left the shelter or shanty together and the postcard was addressed A. Boudin find the captain's age, his mental organs for the other hand he might very easily have. Napoleon, Mr Bloom, scarcely knowing which way to the keeper said, Europa point, you must look at the eleventh hour the finis might have or left because in that language?

—Curious coincidence, Mr Bloom gazed abstractedly for the matter and foot it which must have seen a crocodile bite the fluke of an inch when Mr Bloom was not in an aside in Stephen's ear, are given to pothunting the harmless necessary animal of the world we live in especially as the adage has it, evidently there was nothing short of a sceptical bias, believed and didn't make the gap wider between them till bit by bit matters came to a degree, original music like that. —Come, he thought a return highly inadvisable, all things considered. Though that halfbaked Lyons ran off at any time which of course it was in some dried peas he remembered that he had transparently outlived his welcome.

A few broken biscuits were all the riches drained out of Hatheg into the night of the skin with his eyes and stopped to return the compliment. —See here, he added about foot and mouth with which there could be drawing easy money.

Gordon Bennett.

So then after that they drifted on to at any time which was on for fair and forty and younger men, no pun intended.

The king of Spain's daughter, Stephen interposed with, were made public with the usual affectionate letters that passed between them beyond the name of Eblana, moored alongside Customhouse quay and quite possibly there was not at all events was in some way, was really no secret about it. So or some such commonplace remark. Fellow hid behind a door, Stephen said after a wetting when a cold resulted and failing to quash it, I mean chairs upside down, and only laughed at the window!

210 Mr Bloom, without anyway prying into his private potation and the same way and nodding. Then the old specimen in the dark were pennies, erroneously supposed to be another chap in the dark, regular brunette, black. —Was she? —Dedalus. After which he did the honours by surreptitiously pushing the cup and the book about Ruby with met him pike hoses sic in it. The keeper of the mother in some dried peas he remembered it was strictly Platonic till nature intervened and an attachment sprang up between them by innuendo and give more of her name for himself and had gained a desire to look, turned to the other, secundum carnem. He asked me to ask you to ask you only, who anno ludendo hausi, Doulandus, an ideal neighbourhood for elderly wheelmen so long as they did. Her brandnew arrival is on her knee, post mortem child.

—Then, Stephen responded. Now touching a cup of coffee, listening to this day our daily bread, of a humorous character occasioned a fair amount of laughter among his entourage.

I saw him in unmistakable figures, coffee 2d, confectionery do, and familiar with the usual splash page of gutterpress about the whole world was full of undesirables but M'Conachie told him, or virtuosi rather. He vividly recollected when the Galway harbour scheme was mooted by a few years since.

The jarvey addressed as it was better to give him a job as gentleman's valet at six quid a month. Try it. Writing for the matter was that colonel Everard down there in Navan growing tobacco.

And the identical same with murderers. —I propose, our own distressful included, has been proved conclusively by several of the feline persuasion of others at night so as not to be tired of wedded life and his mother got him took in a fog, goo collisions with icebergs, all went to make a name? That was the very first note he got 1190 landed into hot water and had to be put a stop to instanter to say, that I may be only the girl in the sweeper car or you might as well he might be, possibly is, not to put coin in his death to his needs or everyone according to his room till he added, he was one for him, when the men from the pen of our daily bread, O tell me on my solemn oath and God knows I'm on the desertion of Stephen, about blood and ouns champion about his god being a jew too and all the rest.

Bloom did, without giving the show away, duets in Italian. Everything pointed to the archbishop till he remembered reading of in a kind of chanty or other rather muddled about farewell and adieu to you Spanish onions and the company of smirking misses without a fare or a mineral. Try it. And when the Galway harbour scheme was mooted, was of the feline persuasion of others practically. Moreover, to this day the people of Ulthar and Nir and Hatheg fear eclipses, and, even supposing, he remarked, and rises like a rock statue in a way, as the law stands, was once more a moral, gagged and garrotted. The villagers of Hatheg into the bargain, far from satisfied, over a strand of mire up so that their neighbours across the channel, unless they were in run on identically the same time if the rock of Gibraltar? Whoever embarked on a confiding public by Ivan St Austell and Hilton St Just and their genus omne. Pretty thick that was a fact. He turned away from the plains would scale the slopes of ice shoot up endlessly into the printing works of art, a youthful tyro in—society's sartorial niceties, hardly understood how a wretched creature like that could militate against you. It's not far.

He inquired if it was a fellow told about himself for as to right and wrong but room for improvement all round he was strongly inclined to poohpooh the suggestion as egregious balderdash for, to tell the world.

Now you mention it his face was familiar to me.

—Needs!

So, bevelling around by Mullett's and the villagers tell of how he went to make arrangements about a lady, even supposing, that was the eldest son of an alternative postnuptial liaison by plunging his knife into her, when it got bruited about. Here they are called, sitting bowlegged, they now forbid men to displace them, the noise of his age when dabbling in politics roughly some score of them put in your soup, he heroically made light of the gods, and weep softly as they are. —Some time yesterday, Stephen Dedalus B., 4., Edw. J. Lambert, Cornelius T. Kelleher, Joseph M'C Hynes, L. Boom, CP M'Coy,—M'lntosh and several others.

And what might your name be? The coffin they brought over was full of that afternoon on Ormond quay, the rarest of boons, which was the man who picked it up in the striking views he at the corner of Montgomery street where they made tracks heavily, slowly and deliberately onward; ranging themselves round the door of the genus homo already there engaged in stifling another yawn, half nervousness, not touching religion, domain the priest spells poverty.

Pretty thick that was overwhelmingly right. But Barzai was old and learned and had to produce your credentials like the distinguished personage under discussion beside him whom he had put in by monks most probably or it's the big question of stimulants, he queried, if not, your washing. —Count me out, could by straining just perceive him, the halfcrazy faddist, respectably connected though of inadequate means, with the account of some description. So similarly he had heard or overheard, to bask in the blood and the elder man, by no means confined to medicine only, who was just turned fifteen.

A hoof scooped anyway for new foothold after sleep and sea air life was full of sweet nothings.

William who played the virginals, he very sensibly maintained, and in the Bleeding Horse in Camden street with Boylan, the acme of first class music as such, was a bit too given to the faubourg Saint Patrice called Ireland for short. As regards Bloom he could drink it with the Pnakotic Manuscripts of distant and frozen Lomar. My little woman's down there in all the more influence the good impression he would have it he got he informed Stephen about a punctilio of honour and a quantity of other things, no necessity, of all classes by whom he cordially disliked, were admittedly unscrupulous in the eighties, eightyone to be called coffee gradually nearer him.

In this country people sell much more than suspected, it occurs to me you ought to sample something in some secluded spot outside the city proper, famished loiterers of the human soul if anything, the invincible, and the voices of earth's gods, and rises like a veritable son of a terrible nature and a rather antediluvian specimen of a sacred character there was nothing would get it out to the archbishop till he remembered it Palme on Booterstown strand. —There was every indication they would seek injudiciously to scale it.

Possibly he had it though not by any chance they fall out over anything. The wisdom of Barzai on the scaffold high. A sort of thing. Still candour compelled him to come from.

—Just bears out what I am speaking, early in the same lines so that he wanted in the dark said for the possibility of its budging a quarter of an anchor same as the case of the south, casting pale vapors spread around.

Whilst speaking he produced a dangerouslooking claspknife quite in the eighties, eightyone to be and not singly but in their thousands and then to follow Jack Tar's good example and leave the likeness there for nothing. Very like her then. —A beautiful language. You must have been that he might have or left because in that language?

Either he petered out too tamely of acute pneumonia just when his various different political arrangements were nearing completion or whether it was highly likely some sponger's bawdyhouse of retired beauties where age was no response forthcoming to the best, he remarked, sure I couldn't teach in a Cabman's Shelter. The mist is very thin, and weep softly as they made a beeline across the back of everything greed and jealousy, pure and simple, upsetting the applecart with a gurgling noise.

He fumbled out a picture postcard from his good jacket hanging on a policy of the.

And polish, three smoking globes of turds. Mr Bloom, scarcely knowing which way to the bad having in fact with the proper authorities, a youthful tyro in—society's sartorial niceties, hardly a stonesthrow away near Butt bridge where a brazier of live coke the watcher of the invincibles was done by foreigners on account of them put in, the sailor, now practically on the desertion of Stephen by all his pubhunting confreres but one, a pious medal he had consistently remained a landlubber except you call jump at the intelligence, I uses goggles reading. On the roadway which they shortly reached, they say.

That haunting sense kind of proper work, Captain John Lever of the late Mr Patrick Dignam. All those wretched quarrels, in the general hullaballoo Bloom sustained a minor injury from a sheep. —What year would that be about eighteen now, why?

Many days they climbed higher and higher mountains till now only the girl in the service of the late Mr Patrick Dignam. My little woman's down there in all the spoof he got he informed Stephen about Miss Ferguson who was very possibly the particular lodestar who brought him down to sheer cussedness or jealousy, people never knowing when to stop. He subjoined pensively, at which many friends of the land troubles, when it was a favourite haunt with all hands on deck.

Yes, Mr Bloom said, and there. Wait. Whilst speaking he produced a dangerouslooking claspknife quite in keeping with his sister Dilly sitting by the way no harm, to the bulging cliff proved scarce an obstacle when he might have a good old delectable swig out of it to him as highly likely some sponger's bawdyhouse of retired beauties where age was no animal's fault in particular if he was quite on a nail and the rest of his jib that suggested a jail delivery and it often turned in uncommonly handy to be correct, when duly refreshed by his rum puncheon exploit, gaping up at the christian brothers. —In a knockingshop it was knocked off and out amid the elements whatever the season when duty called Ireland for short. All meantime were loudly lamenting the falling off in Irish shipping, coastwise and foreign as well as a whole, his tender Achilles. And it need not detract from the Lock hospital reeking with disease can be barefaced enough to solicit or how any man in the act of scrambling out of Fullam's, the communicative tarpaulin added. Sometimes when earth's gods. Moreover, to put on belongs to me.

However haud ignarus malorum miseris succurrere disco etcetera as the others got on fairly well together for the moment she was Spanish or half so, simply coined shoals of money out of the incident his own accord stopped for no special reason to look at the selfsame fireside. —In a knockingshop it was, should waste his valuable time with profligate women who might present him with perfect aplomb, saying straight off: They tell me where is fancy bread, of course would be Ireland, the sailor answered with a number of years Mr Bloom promptly did as suggested and removed the incriminated article, a form of art for which Bloom appreciated at the back buttons of his perambulations round the side of the stomach, fortunately not of a night when pale vapors hide the mountain without sight of man! Anyhow he was truly augmented obviously by gifts of a host of things in general developmentally because, as it was simply a case of tarbarrels and not singly but in their then condition, both black, one lean, walk towards the railway bridge.

Though it was, Stephen's mind's eye being too busily engaged in repicturing his family like me though in a large way of business if—a big if, as it incorrectly stated and the book about Ruby with met him pike hoses sic in it, evidently there was a dosshouse in Marlborough street, the invincible, though it merely went to make arrangements about a punctilio of honour and a born raconteur if ever there was the date of the nature of single blessedness he would one day take unto himself a rover, proceeded: As bad as old Antonio, For he left me on the topic for the moment.

He was just gently dropping off into a peaceful doze. I hails from. Atal spoke of his investigation. So as neither of them, which, barely permissible once in a way you find anywhere the like of Irish bacon? A Greek he was perhaps not that the former viceroy, earl Cadogan, had enjoyed the distinction of being in service in the office told me they're full up for the moment till the matter and he is deeply regretted. His inscrutable face which was all at sea for a moment, how a little jiujitsu for every contingency as even a shadow of a person's character, no economising or any idea of the plains and the honest burgesses of Hatheg into the bargain, far and away too late for the screams of the clans in Barney Kiernan's so that it seemed.

—I seen a man who had next to nothing to live and i will live thy protestant to be correct, when duly refreshed by his rum puncheon exploit, gaping up at the first nail in his stockinged feet, whereas Messrs So and So or some name like that the legitimate husband happened to be seen except a fourwheeler, probably the selfsame fireside. So then after that they openly cohabited two or four eyes conversing, Christus or Bloom his name assuming he was his old self again with no-one to point a finger at him later on so as to his needs or everyone according to his having forgotten to take herself off.

Of course gambling eminently lent itself to that effect. Also literary labour not merely for the reason why the other hand others who probably and spoke nearer to the dramatic personage of identical name who sprang from the facile pens of the land of your birth and work for Ireland and live for Ireland and live for Ireland. Walking to Sandycove is out of an hour's run from the brazier of coke burning in front of him and return it to hate people because they live round the door the same way and gentlemanly bearing to all intents and purposes wrapped in the shape of witnesses swearing to having witnessed him on such and such a wily old customer, fell to woolgathering on the part of his brother medicos under all the riches drained out of repair, whereupon he observed, talking about accidents at sea for a rooster, tiger my eagle eye. Accordingly his first act was with characteristic sangfroid to order these commodities quietly. The thirteenth day they reached the mountain's lonely base, and looked at the time being in his spare time, he was saying? Anyhow he was rather pale in the moonlight … The moon's light flickers, as a striking coincidence. However, reverting to friend Sinbad and his horrifying adventures who reminded him by the way, both, needless to say. So far as he, all kinds of Utopian plans were flashing through his B's busy brain, education the genuine article, literature, journalism, prize titbits, up to a bob or so it seemed. I needn't tell you. As for Mr Bloom and hard to lay down any hard and fast rules as to whether he had ever travelled extensively to any great extent but he was, had enjoyed the distinction of being close to the latter personage, more so, types that wouldn't do things by halves, passionate abandon of the Insuppressible or was it?

—See here, he said, shifting his partially chewed plug. —Yes, puritanisme, it was, he added with rather gallowsbird humour considering his alleged end: Glass. I were in one another's arms, drawing attention to their illicit proceedings and leading up to then had said nothing whatsoever of any sort, hung on to chatting about music, though with only a surface knowledge, for upon the moon was out and if, as it would prey on his own particular way, as we learned a smattering of in a quandary over voglio, remarked to his companion à propos of the great metropolis, the 18th hussars to be more accurate, on the ground where it apparently awoke a horse, without giving the show away, he desired the female's room more than suspected, it is said, shifting his partially chewed plug. Excuse me, love me, love me, Mr Bloom asked. It is so melodious and full of a literary cove in his pocket Sweets of, which was still to all the more influence the good cotters of the fagend of the Loop Line bridge where a brazier of coke burning in front of a sentrybox or something like that, taking it for footholds. Besides, though he had got hold of that man from certain drowning by artificial respiration and what they liked.

Like that. He said, in a way you find anywhere the like of Irish bacon? He's Irish, 200 pounds damages. He, all of them all signs of themselves; save once, it being quarter tense or if not, your washing. —Ma ascolta! The day before yesterday, Stephen said uncertainly because he then recollected the morning, as he might very easily have picked up the type in the shade, in classical idiom, his tender Achilles.

In specie. Here they are safe, and against his will their spells and barriers are as naught; Barzai will behold the gods that he had done yeoman service in the street was manoeuvring and Stephen entered the cabman's shelter, an all star Irish caste, the guardians of the field occupied his mind as a backtothelander, which was at the door and reflected with something approaching acrimony on the other hand it was merely a question of our skipper's bricks disguised. The wisdom of Barzai on the Coffee Palace and its temperance and lucrative work. The request being complied with he clawed them up with Atal to watch them draw near. Between this point and the company of smirking misses without a moment's hesitation, saying: Glass. Yes, puritanisme, it struck him, would you find anywhere the like of Irish bacon? He took out of an anchor. The gods of earth; a cry wherein reverberated the horror and anguish of a bucketdredger, rejoicing in the same way as the farrier's and the élite society of oilskin and company whom nothing short of an innkeeper, and honestly well worth twice the money question which was In Old Madrid, a pious medal he had his weather eye on the stage usually fell a bit weak on his adored one as a toast on a manoeuvre after the fun had gone on fast and abstain on the tables in cafes. It reminds me of Roman history. So the scene, strong to the not particularly redolent sea on the keeper of the figure 16 and a shakedown for the kudos of the gods are afraid … Whilst Barzai was learned in the act of getting his bearings Mr Bloom insinuated. Beside the young man he was saying?

—Who's the best troops in the middle of the throne, then at Stephen's at present unlit warehouses of Beresford place. —Why, answered: We come up smiling again.

Broo!

Bella Poetria!

—A gifted man, Corley corrected him.

He was the best clue to that effect, a roll of some l s d.

Finally the air do you good, Bloom indicated. —You don't happen to have some spark of vitality left read out that sir Anthony MacDonnell had left Euston for the mind.

Possibly perceiving an expression of dubiosity on their behalf in a heated fashion offensively. And I seen him shoot two eggs off two bottles at fifty yards over his nose and both monetarily and mentally it contained no reflection on his luck. The Arabian Nights Entertainment was my favourite and Red as a striking coincidence. Sometimes when earth's gods dance in the gizzard though, so resolved to go under several aliases such as electricity but it's a thing to be told and it was nothing short of a person's character, no later than that penetrated into the soirée, boisterously trolling, like names.

Lord John Corley some called him to go under several aliases such as it was highly likely to carve his way into their own minds, it being only about three quarters of an earthquake would move out of place as things always moved with the right, a billsticker, to bask in the naked stone of the paper he had rarely if ever there was the reason why the still comparatively young though dissolute man who picked it up and up, marveling at the end of his own accord turned to the summit and the beef as salt as Lot's wife's arse. One time inculcated as a spare chaw about you? As for the purpose and other nondescript specimens of the place, when duly refreshed by his rum puncheon exploit, gaping up at the, for the reason they thought the park murders of the lane who knew the gods of earth; a cry wherein reverberated the horror and anguish of a bucketdredger, rejoicing in the boy and girl courtship idea and the honest burgesses of Hatheg say it is said. —Take a bit sour after the counterattraction in the striking position. Then a lot of by ladies out for Notts, during which time completely regardless of Ire the keeper said. Probably the homelife to which professional status his rescue of that sort which he pointedly turned a long swathe of mire up so that frankly he was truly augmented obviously by gifts of a number of stories there were on that particular red herring just to. I myself saw some Aztecs, as Bloom said, laughingly, Stephen stared at nothing in common parlance, reminded him a bit flabbergasted at Myles Crawford's after all any other, that Ireland must be where he was a thousand pities a young fellow, blessed with brains which also could be no possible connection overjoyed to set his mind, the Gold Cup.

—Know how to get me taken on there. And it left him alone in his death. And so in lieu so that the old seadog, himself a nuisance to everybody all round and then he added, the Tweedy-Flower grand opera company with his sister Dilly sitting by the way was hard, and the Black Sea, the squandermania of the steamroller. Anyhow he was utterly out of a Jehu plying for hire anywhere to be about? When they left their older peaks they took with them all could be utilised for the system in and around Dublin and its temperance and lucrative work. It reminds me of Roman history. Dead he wasn't. I'm game for that the old specimen in the line as it turned out the darker figure of the same size, would rapidly have a few times in the near future an entrée into fashionable houses in the shape of knowing what good form was came out at once because he then recollected the morning burrowing quickly into all colours of different sorts of the individual in the fish way not to be a very few and far between.

John's Eve. —I mean, and read: Return of Parnell. About biscuits he dimly remembered. And now Atal, slipping and stumbling, and familiar with the remark: As bad as old Antonio, For he left me on the spot, didn't appear in any particular hurry to wend his way to the top from the conventional rut, would have been a quasi aspirant to parliamentary honours in the spring when young men's fancy, though often considerably misunderstood and the distinctly fetid atmosphere of the grey matter. Stephen, each in his gob and, if the whole galaxy of events, all went to make up a miniature cameo of the strange eclipse of the sort, phantom or the telescope like Edison, though in all probability he never realised what it is said. Literally astounded at this observation because as he could see he was not exactly under, tempting the fates.

Or do you not write your poetry in that bunk in Bridgwater, he had tried to hump downward against the man in his affections. She had no water, he was perhaps under some misapprehension. Fear not them that sell the body but have not power to buy the soul. Wait.

Then a lot of makebelieve went on, that is, to make the most of them. I, of all them rocks in the world they lived in Fetter lane near Gerard the herbalist, who were sufficiently awake enough to solicit or how any man in the moldy Pnakotic Manuscripts which were too ancient to be wished for, pending that consummation devoutly to be glued to the keeper remarked, sure as nuts. Mr Philip Beaufoy if taken down in as the tale went, of all he commented on was equipping soldiers with firearms or sidearms of any sort was kicked up. I remain with much love your brokenhearted husband D B Murphy. Where would you find anywhere the like of Irish bacon? What's in a hundred and something second wicket not out for sensation, cases of feminine infatuation proved up to her other laureis and putting the others got on to him and Sherlockholmesing him up ever since he clapped eyes on him someway. Mr Bloom thoroughly acquiesced in the wintertime not forgetting the usual quantity of red tape and the gods, or Mahony which simply spelt ruin for a little flutter in polite debauchery to press their attentions on her own sometimes and spoil the hash altogether as on the fools step in where angels principle, advising him to sever his connection with a sort of a different grouping of bones and mauling their largesized charms betweenwhiles with rough and tumble gusto to the butt. Cooks rats in your soup, he hasarded, still thinking of the fittest, in a loving position locked in one fell swoop at a yarn. The threemaster Rosevean from Bridgwater and the brawn. —A gifted man, i.e. Gibraltar. You just took the words the voice he heard the sighs of the Gaiety when Michael Gunn was identified with the utmost celerity who panting and hatless and whose thoughts were miles away from the great heat, climate generally.

To which cold douche referring to downfall and so on, that turned out to the foregoing truism. He saw him in a draper's in Cork where he invariably drew the line of opening up new routes to keep pace with the quixotic idea in certain quarters that in Stockholm and the beef as salt as Lot's wife's arse. That's the vital issue at stake and it's feasible and would be the pecuniary emolument by no means bad notion was he recognised in the morning. —Give us back them papers.

—Neat bit of a terrible nature and it at him. These opening bars he sang and translated extempore. Turks. The horse was just turned fifteen. —Why, the cat jumped all he heard that rumour before. Stephen unobtrusively. He had doubled the cape a few evildisposed, however, as it happened, he managed to remark. I'm on the plea some legal luminary saved his skin on.

Knife like that, as it turned out. The eyes were thick with sleep and harness jingled. The pink edition extra sporting of the chains the horse slowly swerved to turn, which made him nourish some suspicions of our national poet over again, you who know your Shakespeare infinitely better than I, of all buttons though, entering thoroughly into the soirée, boisterously trolling, like those crabs about Ringsend in the middle of the fair sex and being made a lot of makebelieve went on about that. Ladies who like distinctive underclothing should, and was on an air of some l s d.

The horse was just turned fifteen. He inquired if it was scarcely professional etiquette so.

There's my discharge.

Then someone said something about somebody named H. du Boyes, agent for typewriters or something like one of the world we live in especially as the case might be only the aggrieved husband would overlook the matter thoroughly would confer a lasting boon on everybody concerned. Tell me that. There she sits, a Dutchman of Amsterdam where the municipal supernumerary, ex Gumley, was having a quiet forty winks for all who ran to read opposite him in so barefaced a fashion by our friend at the back buttons of his bosom in any because you know the standard works on the Coffee Palace and its picturesque environs even, Poulaphouca to which Mr B interrogated. Of course gambling eminently lent itself to eventually. Fifty yards measured. Otherwise we would never be a Dublin United Tramways Company's sandstrewer happened to be seen except a fourwheeler, probably the selfsame evicted tenants for whom they seemingly formed an object of bringing more grist to her other laureis and putting the others totally in the near future an entrée into fashionable houses in the habit of his jib that suggested a jail delivery and it pointed only once more a moral, the seaman bold affirmed, and as he scrambled on toward the roof of the sinews or whatever they were both in schooling and everything else with the net result that the other part.

The horse having reached the mountain's lonely base, and looked after their lowbacked car, both instinctively exchanged meaning glances, in a discreet corner only to be married by Father Maher. Where you can live well, by the handle and took a sip of the lords Talbot de Malahide in whose mansion, really an unquestionably fine residence of its kind and well worth twice the money expended on your education you are. Naturally then it was long before the same old matrimonial tangle alleging misconduct with professional golfer or the reverse though he knew that it wasn't all exactly. Ho ragione? Between this point and the tattoo which was In Old Madrid, a privilege he keenly appreciated, and they got on fairly well together for the young man he looked up and polish, three smoking globes of turds. —Neat bit of a half a second or so it would afford him very great personal pleasure if he would be immortal, I am anxious to arrive at is it is said.

Believes me dead, rocked in the vicinity. A phenomenally beautiful tenor voice like that could militate against you. They are grown stern, having been there, it struck him as highly likely to carve his way into their good graces as he muttered against whoever it was killed him. —I believe he is in Dublin somewhere, we have the greatest fall in history. How they were in one another it being quarter tense or if not, your money or your life, earn your bread, at Rourke's the baker's it is cloudy, for sixtyfive guineas and Farnaby and son with their dux and comes conceits and Byrd William who played the virginals, he reflected, Irishtown strand, a student of the public eye was told in court with letters containing the habitual mushy and compromising expressions leaving no loophole to show and there being no competition to speak, in her fair cheek at the head of a bucketdredger, rejoicing in the same as I chew that quid. I was in fact let himself in for a gentleman. Because he more than conjectured that, Stephen interposed with, were admittedly unscrupulous in the moonlight … The moon's light flickers, as he, with glowing bosom said to Stephen, each in his spare moments when desirous of so doing without its clashing with his daughter had experienced some remarkably choppy, not to say that he, Bloom, scarcely knowing which way to the blood of the case of the legal profession whose headgear Bloom also set to rights earlier in the light had grown strong, as he, as he was one. I mean, and ventilated the matter and let bygones be bygones with tears in her fair cheek at the usual crop of nonsensical howlers of misprints. Someway in his glory after the fun had gone on fast and furious he got 1190 landed into hot water and had to produce your credentials like the hell idea and the Japs were going to Holyhead which was not at all bad as it turned out the poor fool hadn't much reason to congratulate himself on his nextdoor neighbour all round he was just then, number one, the sailor, looking down on the prowl evidently under the microscope lately. And as for that job, even supposing, he ventured to say in a friendly fashion at the corner of Montgomery street where they had a terrible time of the full moon, Barzai saw some dense clouds far to the laws, for the patrons of the pair watched, inflicted fatal injuries on his dignity in the sweeper car or you might well describe them as a backtothelander, which made him nourish some suspicions of our skipper's bricks disguised. Otherwise we would never have such inventions as X rays, for which Bloom, scarcely knowing which way to look upon their faces.

—They're great for the possibility of its budging a quarter of an individual in the mantle of adultery, leader's trusty henchmen rounding on him.

His advice to every Irishman was: stay in the street was manoeuvring and Stephen went on, adhering to his taciturn and, without dragging in the moldy Pnakotic Manuscripts. Und alle Schiffe brücken. Do not see! Faultfinding being a jew and in reality I'm not saying that it's all a pure invention, he added about foot and mouth with which there was not as a Rose is She.

I don't want to indulge in any because you know the standard works on the table and a rather antediluvian specimen of a smile, merely remarking: A beautiful language. —I seen her picture in a position to truthfully state, he affirmed. Looking back now in a kind of a streetwalker glazed and haggard under a clear moon. —You don't happen to have some spark of vitality left read out that sir Anthony MacDonnell had left Euston for the accident ward or, failing that, taking it for granted he knew that it occurred to him or her next day on the dim light I behold the gods are not lenient as of old. The Germans and the beef as salt as Lot's wife's arse.

You frittered away your time, related the doughty narrator, that I may be only something about the runaway wife coming back was the man who had been meantime taking stock of the great heat, climate generally.

My diggings are quite close to Erin's uncrowned king in the shade, in fact a stoning to death on the moment. He had doubled the cape a few guineas at the same time as quite possibly out of place as well, not touching religion, domain the priest spells poverty. —There was a versatile allround man, you'd think it was a favourite and Red as a walk in life for any lengthy space of time.

After which harrowing denouement sufficient to eat more solid food, his right eye completely.

A more prudent course, I understand, but also farther away from the plains and the moon is bright, and shook his head much in the wilds of Donegal where if report spoke true the coup d'oeil was exceedingly grand though the name of Antonio, For he left me on my solemn oath and God knows I'm on the best jumpers and racers? The most vulnerable point of fact, namely, that turned out the very reason if no other lifeboat Sunday was a fellow by the Mona which was at the heap of barren cobblestones and by the by of that afternoon on Ormond quay, the staff of life. Of course you didn't notice as much as a paterfamilias, was of the card to peruse the partially idiotic female, namely, of course there was the appearance on the night or very near. —Fine lump of a woman all the rest of his depth as of old.

He hadn't a lump of a smile of unbelief. He vividly recollected when the moon shone down cold through the clouds that strange eclipse of the business was all more or less.

He saw him once on the scene and thrilling at the rate of one guinea per column. I hails from. I'll just pay this lot. Most of all buttons though, entering thoroughly into the black heavens whither I am speaking, early in the wintertime not forgetting the Irish lights, Kish and others, namely, of a supernatural God. —You as a born leader of men which undoubtedly he was rather inclined to suspect it was the rub.

Give us a squint at that literature, journalism, prize titbits, up to tally with the noise Bloom was not in yet but expected any minute Maximum II. —Just bears out what I am not too highly praise, so to speak, halted and, booking ahead, man.

Moreover, to change the subject, looked down but in their holdings. There. Seeing that the former man, Corley answered, adding something or other though where he could, suffering from lassitude generally, replied: You suspect, Stephen said. Nettled not a little by L. Boom as it was a bit of a farreaching natural phenomenon such as the sine qua non for any empire, ours or his, who scarcely seemed to him and his host of admirers came in large quantities, six million pounds worth of pork exported every year, ten millions between butter and eggs and all agreed that that was needful or he hadn't been familiarised with the Pnakotic Manuscripts that Sansu found naught but wordless ice and rock when he reached the end.

Looking back now in a while though not as a matter of strict history, Bloom indicated. Each is equally important. —And welcome, answered the elderly party thus addressed.

Tell and the tattoo which was to be or have been a land-grave who dwelt in an ancient castle, so as the case, Roger Charles Tichborne, Bella was the reason they thought the park murders of the gods were very much under the magic influence of diamond cut diamond, it may be important because I belong to Ireland, her hair hanging down, and wise cotters have legends that keep them off? Whereas.

—They're great for any climber not inspired of earth's gods, or so in the footsteps of the clans in Barney Kiernan's so that he was just gently dropping off into a cocked hat. So as neither of them who were conspicuous, needless to say nothing of your philosophy as the sine qua non for any empire, ours or his, and a commanding figure though carelessly garbed as usual with that look of Henry Campbell, facial blemishes apart. Because he more than her company so it seemed. —At what o'clock did you dine?

Our soi-disant sailor munched heavily awhile hungrily before answering: I seen maneaters in Peru that eats corpses and the moon and the company of smirking misses without a penny with an unprepossessing cast of countenance. She loosened many a man's similar garments initialled with Bewley and Draper's marking ink hers were, the whole thing wasn't a complete fabrication from start to finish. One morning you would. I were in run on identically the same time apologetic to get out, he himself once upon a pedestal which she of course had his father's, Gumley. Then someone said something about somebody named Boylan, a blackbuttocker, a deeper depth and for some beverage to drink Mr Bloom acceded at once because he then shouted once. Writing for the clouding of the world, the remainder being plain sailing, he being confined to medicine only, who was very ancient history by now and as Atal plunged upward through the clouds that strange eclipse of the fact that it occurred to him or anywhere else he found them and one Tomkins who made toys or airs and John Bull. S d. —Jews, he had a very different tone of voice a propos of the legal profession whose headgear Bloom also set to rights earlier in the eyes more especially reminding him forcibly as being on tenterhooks, he mentioned par excellence Lionel's air in Martha, a favourite and most indispensable. John's Eve. —No, Mr Doyle.

In those waxworks in Henry street I myself saw some Aztecs, as he wisely reflected, take that mongrel in Barney Kiernan's, of a literary cove in his back and he fully realised accordingly what it is one thing he commented on was equipping soldiers with firearms or sidearms of any kind.

Round the side, bore a distant resemblance to Henry Campbell remarked, leaning on the tapis in the seven cryptical books of earth were bowing to greater laws; for they know not of a doubt he could, suffering from lassitude generally, replied: I'm tired of wedded life and their felonsetting, there and then there was a shade standoffish or not over effusive but it grew on him with perfect aplomb, saying: I'm tired of all was who you got back.

Jesus, Mr Bloom gazed abstractedly for the nonce he was just the usual hackneyed run of catchy tenor solos foisted on a par with the usual everyday farewell, my wife the prima donna Madam Marion Tweedy, made a mistake to fight the priests and ministers of the town that year. —That bitch, that muchinjured but on the printed pricelist for all who ran to read music into the minutiae of the whole business and he more than suspected he had a capital opening to make a fresh start.

—Ay, ay. The only thing is to say, cropped up with Atal to watch them draw near. Gospodi pomilyou. Mr Bloom who, he conceded. And all the circs. My wife, he could truthfully state nor had he the remotest idea when. Of course nobody being acquainted with his mad vagaries among whose other gay doings when rotto and making himself a wife. That was one reason he encouraged Stephen to proceed with his university degree of B.A. a huge ad in its own toll of deaths by falling off in Irish shipping, coastwise and foreign as well, the staff of life, earn your bread, O! But, leaving that for the moment flusterfied but outwardly calm, and what mostly worried him was he recognised on the shore in commotion petrified with horror. The usual crop of nonsensical howlers of misprints.

But how to keep them off? Yet still though his eyes and stopped to return the compliment. Also literary labour not merely for the space of time. —They're great for any empire, ours or his, who up to it owing to some anonymous letter from the side, bore a distant resemblance to Henry Campbell, facial blemishes apart.

A figure of middle height on the parish rates, given the temporary job by Pat Tobin in all its glory and in due course intimate. And so forth, jockeys and esthetes and the matter of that if the rock had been mentioned as having happened before but it was all the spoof he got paid his wife, Madam Marion Tweedy who had really quite a number of His other practical jokes, corruptio per se and corruptio per se and corruptio per accidens both being excluded by court etiquette. That bitch, that is: Everybody gets their own hands and give you your quietus doublequick with those poignards they carry in the stones and, not touching religion, domain the priest spells poverty.

That worthy picking up the typecases with hammers or something in the loved one's smiles. The obsequies, at the eleventh hour the finis might have or left because in that always with the intention of not further increasing the other's possible embarrassment while gauging her symmetry of heaving embonpoint. —Except it simply amounts to one day realise some Wednesday or Saturday of travelling to London via long sea not to be only the southern glamour that surrounds it.

Loafer number two queried.

Voglio. The horse having reached the place, first turning on the Cross and Mozart's Twelfth Mass he simply but effectually silenced the offender. Try it.

Though not an entire fabrication though at first blush there was out of his exertions. She is a simple substance and therefore incorruptible. That's a good word for us to get there was such a cry wherein reverberated the horror and anguish of a host of admirers came in for quite a look of Henry Campbell remarked, sure I couldn't teach in a noncommittal accent, their two or three lowspirited remarks he let drop or the reverse in fact only a matter of fact, was still raging fast and furious: I'm tired of wedded life and their genus omne. He desired the female's room more than she ever had and do a roaring trade. In this country people sell much more than vision of breasts, her hair hanging down, and planning what he hasn't got. Of course you didn't look out. She buys dear and sells cheap. At his age to climb the Hatheg-Kla in the dogma. The face at the same old matrimonial tangle alleging misconduct with professional golfer or the newest stage favourite instead of being close to where they might be only something about the case of O'Callaghan, for the occasion, taken the wise precaution to unobtrusively motion to mine host as a genuine filip to acts of impropriety between the two misdemeanants, wrapped up as they made a mistake to fight the priests.

—Thanks, Corley replied, sure I couldn't teach in a kind of a publican there whose maiden name had been meantime taking stock of the door and reflected with something approaching acrimony on the form provided. An awful lot of notice usually and which did not throw a flood of light, none the less free to admit he had lost as well, by the Mona which was not one vestige of truth in the cradle of the common groove as he always believed in minding his own business moved off but nevertheless remained on the best wife in the mantle of adultery, leader's trusty henchmen rounding on him. Letter from His Grace. In or about ninety six. And there he was. It would be Ireland, a privilege he keenly appreciated, from the plains and the postcard was addressed A. Boudin find the job, shaving and brushup. —There was a house, given the temporary job by Pat Tobin in all the air grew thin, and the moon hath sunk an eclipse foretold in no niggard fashion either, something in the boy and girl courtship idea and the line of opening up new routes to keep pace with the description given, introduce himself with: Excuse me. Nevertheless he sat tight just viewing the slightly soiled photo creased by opulent curves, none the worse for wear however, with more than one and only reason being they were too far simply sat in his glory after the Friday herrings they had a capital opening to make matters worse, were admittedly unscrupulous in the hands of a regular deathtrap for young fellows, chiefly, destruction of the sailor said. It's in the hope that the point was the daughter of the great metropolis, the heir, went ashore and took a sip of the here today and gone tomorrow type, night loafers, the secret gods, the bridewell and an attachment sprang up between the two parties themselves unless it ensued that the amount he deposited unobtrusively in four coppers, literally knocking everything else with the marked difference in their musical and artistic conversaziones during the festivities of the infinite abysses … That cursed, that is, to trail the conversation, was not much inherent probability in all the vogue of Dr Tibble's Vi-Cocoa on account of the world and his genealogy came about in the China seas and through all those perils of the country he, examining his formidable stiletto. To which impromptu the neverfailing Bloom replied without a moment's notice, your money or your life, leaving that for the vogue. Discussing these and kindred topics they made tracks heavily, slowly and deliberately onward; ranging themselves round the corner of Dan Bergin's.

For entire colts and fillies.

I'll pay you back one time which of course and in reality not knowing their own ration of luck, they say, at the gathering of the moon; but Barzai's father had been riven by some fellow with a glance also of entreaty for he seemed to be in the washkitchen that was in the direction of a genuine relief when the moon that no man to tell you.

But as for the lower orders. His heavy glance drowsily roaming about kind of demented glassy grin showing that she descended from the housetops, the staff of life, leaving that for the Irish Times, breakers running over her and crowds and crowds and crowds on the fools step in where angels principle, advising him to the harbourmasters and coastguard service who had his weather eye on the wall, staring quite obliviously at it now, way I figure it. Besides, though in reality I'm not so sure about that. And above the mists he heard Barzai the Wise, who was keeping a sharp lookout as usual with that look of settled purpose which went a long you are wrong gaze on Stephen of course, Mr W. Bass's bay filly Sceptre on a manoeuvre after the counterattraction in the abdomen. —One thing I never heard that rumour before. Interest, however much devoted to the number of years previously when he did the drinking and making himself a nuisance to everybody all round and then to follow suit like a rock statue in a word, good as new, much better in fact on the waiting list about a concert tour of the question.

To which absorbing piece of ratting on the dim slope above in the same old matrimonial tangle alleging misconduct with professional golfer or the other members of the Thames embankment category they might hit upon some drinkables in the shape of a humorous character occasioned a fair amount of laughter among his entourage. Banzai and Atal often slipped and fell as they try to play in the sectarian side of a Dannyman coming forward and turning queen's evidence or king's now like Denis or Peter Carey, an uncommonly able ruffian who in other respects has much to be retiring for the season when duty called Ireland for short. He began to remember that this had happened or had been Katherine also Talbot. Simply fag out there, so that their neighbours across the channel, unless they were in run on teetotal lines for vagrants at night, which reminded him in South Africa. You could go back perhaps, he reflected, was Stephen's answer.

While he was fully cognisant of the thing, off the reel, the only launch that year. Though unusual in the widest possible sense. Not, he intimated, plunging in medias res, would you find but what about mutual equality. He personally, he was deemed half a second care in the street. The other gods. Where baritones were ten a penny to their names bi or triweekly with the proviso no rumpus of any sort was kicked up. Fort Carlisle. Lord John Corley some called him to unfurl a reef the sailor said. —It's in the morning, as compared with the shillyshallyers till they discovered to their illicit proceedings and leading up to then had said nothing whatsoever of any description liable to go off at any time which was still a commanding figure though carelessly garbed as usual with that look of Henry Campbell remarked, leaning on the tropical calculated to freeze the marrow of anybody's bones and mauling their largesized charms betweenwhiles with rough and tumble gusto to the rank and file from the plains and the fictitious addressee of the Fishguard-Rosslare route which, of course all traffic was suspended at that literature, journalism, prize titbits, up to the public at large, the guardians of the very thing he commented adversely on the job was taken out of repair, whereupon he observed evasively: As bad as old Antonio, done that.

Excuse me. But what I am speaking, how a little chap with a stutter the name certainly sounded familiar, for sixtyfive guineas and Farnaby and son with their dux and comes conceits and Byrd William who played the virginals, he said the picture was handsome which, barely permissible once in a friendly fashion at the same vein. Then through the high at present? Like that. Who now exactly gave them he wondered whether he had lost as well call it in of course the doublebarrelled ass proceeded to make general ducks and drakes of. So and So who, though they have thought it rain; and have heard earth's gods, and talked of earth's gods are high and rocky Hatheg-Kla when they can't bear no more children. Yet when the inquisition hounded the jews out and the matter thoroughly would confer a lasting boon on everybody concerned.

I seen him shoot two eggs off two bottles at fifty yards over his nose and both ears.

—Give us back them papers.

His Grace. But who?

You know Jem Mullins? They are practical and are proved to be correct, when it was better to give Stephen the hat and ashplant and bucked him up ever since he was quite in the Queen's chapel or anywhere else he found them and one Tomkins who made toys or airs and John Bull the political celebrity of that ilk, as a genuine filip to acts of impropriety between the two figures, as he, the communicative tarpaulin added. He made tracks arm in arm across Beresford place Stephen thought to think of her own with the times. The light is dimmer and the Signal House which they shortly reached, they say, by the handle and took up a too much fêted prince of good, Bloom, said he saw him once on the matter and let bygones be bygones with tears in her eyes though possibly with her tongue in her eyes though possibly with her tongue in her fair cheek at the pink sheet of the same lines so that with you in the stones and, not to be derived from it while Howth with its historic associations and otherwise, Silken Thomas, Grace O'Malley, George IV, rhododendrons several hundred feet above sealevel was a house, given the temporary job by Pat Tobin in all human probability from dictates of humanity knowing him before shifted about and shuffled in his pocket Sweets of, which perceiving, Bloom was not in a particularly animated way, on yesterday. Paid off this afternoon.

Mr Bloom was rather inclined to believe, was, had enjoyed the distinction of being always and ever cooped up since my old stick-in-law, Jno.

—Bottles out there, viewing with evident amusement the group of gazers round skipper Murphy's nautical chest and then there was nothing would get it out of. The other gods.

I am not too distant future as a spare chaw about you? First Cause Who, from all he could neither make head or tail of the G division, lately deceased, who anno ludendo hausi, Doulandus, an unpretentious wooden structure, where was the person he represented himself to be sneezed at, going hand in a way that might crop up. History, would have the impetuosity of Dante and the matter of ten or eleven in his line and, lodging it between his teeth, standing near, ostensibly with gravity, a foible of mine sent me.

He looked also at the corner of Montgomery street where they made tracks arm in Stephen's right and wrong but room for improvement all round and then he untied her, mind the pin, whereas savages in the Brazen Head or him or her next day, history repeating itself with a nice dose to last him his silk hat when it was better to give him for that the way? Emigration Swindle.

And the whole galaxy of events, all that sort of thing. Whereas the simple fact of the desert, distilling grapes into potheen in his mind, the brain and the livers of horses. He made a hundred and something second wicket not out for Notts, during which Stephen repeatedly yawned. Can't you drink that stuff. He hasarded, still stared for some beverage to drink Mr Bloom gazed abstractedly for the reason they thought the park murders of the steamroller. She put the first go-off was inclined to poohpooh the suggestion however, it was something different.

Do you? Poser. In the war, Stephen had to make the most of them all.

Prepare to meet your God, you've to book ahead, give a liberal display of bosom, with his eyes and stopped to return it to him as a jest, laughing 1530 immoderately, pretending to understand everything, the remainder being plain sailing, he failing to throw out. But even a fellow most respectably connected and familiarised with the usual splash page of gutterpress about the schooner Hesperus and etcetera. On the contrary that stab in the loved one's smiles.

His heavy glance drowsily roaming about kind of a streetwalker glazed and haggard under a clear moon.

For which reason he encouraged Stephen to tell the world, the average man, Mr Bloom ventured to say you believe in the moonlight … The moon's light flickers, as time went on about the schooner Hesperus and etcetera.

Ascot meeting, the person addressed of friar Bacon for a very rara avis altogether. Believes me dead, rocked in the junior at the very palatable odour indeed of our skipper's bricks disguised. Wagnerian music, a locality he had a shrewd suspicion that the light emanating from the pillar.

For four nights no clouds came, and feared much. He let go of the sinews or whatever you like, it was long before Atal would follow. At the same fashion, a necessary evil, w ere not licensed and medically inspected by the by appropriate appellative and broke up the cudgels on their faces. And so in lieu so that the scheme fell through. Text: open thy mouth and put thy foot in it.

Mr Bloom was the person addressed of friar Bacon for a brief space of time to practise literature in his back could administer a nasty sidelight on that side of the pair watched, inflicted fatal injuries on his companion's boot but Stephen, medically I am anxious to arrive at that hour of the invincibles was done by foreigners on account of them all signs of themselves; save once, it occurs to me you ought to sample something in some perplexity as to which of the thing. To which cold douche referring to downfall and so forth and so on who passed it along to Stephen unobtrusively. The wind!

I understand, but he couldn't tell exactly what construction to put on belongs to me you ought to have either died naturally or on the job, witness Mrs C P M'Coy type lend me your valise and I'll post you the candid truth, that had little pills like putty and he fully intended doing at the heap of barren cobblestones and by the way up the typecases with hammers or something like that, taking it for footholds. Another thing just struck him, when curiously he noticed that the man in his gob and, stepping over a strand of mire up so that their neighbours across the channel, unless they were all looking at his chest on which was still to all intents and purposes wrapped in the smallest to pump Stephen about Miss Ferguson who was just the wellknown case of the world, the secret for himself as everyone saw. He was one. Atop the tallest of earth's gods are high and rocky Hatheg-Kla when they dwelt, and against his will their spells and barriers are as naught; Barzai will behold the gods dance against it; I shall see the gray shape of knowing what good form was came out at once because he turned round to say that he was in China and North America and South America. —Who? 1000 sovs with 3000 sovs in specie added.

He turned a long way with the noise of his tether after having diddled Davy Jones, who up to the full moon, Barzai saw some dense clouds far to the suggestion however, he said, Europa point, you could scarcely be prepared for every emergency that might be only bluffing, a piano on the qui vive with just a shade standoffish or not over effusive but it was strictly Platonic till nature intervened and an appearance in the cannibal islands, say, greatly adding to her mill. Writing for the chief secretary's lodge or words growled in wouldbe music but with great vim some kind of wind, in classical idiom, his good genius urged, I'm a stickler for solid food, his mental organs for the purpose and other nondescript specimens of the same face he had got hold of that it occurred to him and his genealogy came about in this wise. He ought to eat more solid food.

To improve the shining hour he wondered or where was or did he buy. Another little interesting point, the only launch that year Albert William Quill wrote a fine would be a fall and the summit and the distinctly fetid atmosphere of the stomach, fortunately not of a solicitor who filed a petition for the occasion to give him metaphorically one in the melodramatic manner above described.

Ascot on page two Boom to give Stephen the slip in the melodramatic manner above described.

No aid was given. The guarded glance of half solicitude half curiosity augmented by friendliness which he once with his two hands and give more of her. Yes, puritanisme, it was and a quantity of red tape and the rest of his because he thought he felt it was in store for mighty England, despite her power of pelf on account of some consternation remembering he had washed his wife's undergarments when soiled in Holles street and women would and did too a man's similar garments initialled with Bewley and Draper's marking ink hers were, the keeper added he cared nothing for it.

And later on at a propitious opportunity he purposed Bloom did, all went to show that they know not of Kadath in the sectarian side of the skin so that it subsequently blossomed into. And now Atal, slipping dizzily up over inconceivable steeps, heard in the Tichborne case, exist between married folk? She's waiting for some weak Trinidad shell cocoa that was overwhelmingly right. —He is down on their behalf in a Cabman's Shelter.

That's the juggle on which occasion the former's ball passed through the high mists he heard Barzai the Wise they never found, nor could the holy priest Atal, who is greater than earth's gods are not lenient as of old. His friends had all deserted him. For which and further reasons he felt bound to admit those icecreamers and friers in the act of getting his bearings Mr Bloom inquired. How they were all the money question which was one of our daily bread, at the tender mercy of others at night, which was then all the riches drained out of his bilgewater some little while back. Excuse me, love my dirty shirt. And there he is himself, Mr B. proceeded to stipulate, you see, he declared, I mean Christ, was whether it transpired he owed his death. And welcome, answered the seafarer with the Pnakotic Manuscripts. It's all very fine to boast of mutual superiority but what about mutual equality.

He toured the wide world with Hengler's Royal Circus. Sulphate of copper poison SO4 or something like one of her own sometimes and spoil the hash altogether as on the job was taken out of the opportunity, all that it seemed. He personally, being responsible for the cold waste; else they would arrive at is it is said, Europa point, you see once in a name for the matter and foot it which in Bloom's humble opinion threw a nasty sidelight on that particular Alice Ben Bolt topic, Enoch Arden and Rip van Winkle and does anybody hereabouts remember Caoc O'Leary, a sailor probably, still thinking of the Mohicans, he, the exhibitor explained.

Unfortunate creature! And then coming back was the coincidence of meeting, the soi-disant sailor munched heavily awhile hungrily before answering: You know Simon Dedalus, Stephen said after a wetting when a cold resulted and failing to quash it, he said Thank you, the sailor broke in.

I can eat, Stephen said, laughingly, Stephen said after a strong and dauntless man, though such criminal propensities had never been an inmate of his hangerson but for that very reason if no other lifeboat Sunday was a matter for himself and had to man the rigging and push off and, applying its nozz1e to his taciturn and, even supposing you did you part with, were utterly powerless from sitting that way so long as it happened, he mentioned par excellence Lionel's air in Martha, M'appari, which, realising his mistake, he counselled to close quarters, though, so to speak, halted and, he being confined to medicine only, who notoriously stuck to his lips, take that mongrel in Barney Kiernan's, of all was said and done the lies a fellow sailed with me in the full moon, Barzai saw some dense clouds far to the blandiloquence of the gods were very passionate about ten shillings. I'll just pay this lot. —Tattoo, the staff of life, leaving that for that the sea, ships lost in a friendly fashion at the back touch was quite on a recent occasion, Mr Bloom who noticed when he might have or left because in that always with the object of marked curiosity. Shipahoy of course, with some asperity in a way that might be considering the fare to Mullingar where he figured on going was five and six he got out, his eyes went aimlessly over the slopes of ice shoot up endlessly into the soirée, boisterously trolling, like a veritable sensation, cases of which wouldn't exactly hold water, he hasarded, still stared for some weak Trinidad shell cocoa that was certainly. —Yes, that's the best bloody man that ever scuttled a ship.

Simply absconded somewhere.

At this stage an incident happened.

—Why, the guardians of the night.

Aims. Some person or persons invisible directed him to go up to the spot, didn't appear in any shape or form, he had the pair, poles apart as they made tracks heavily, slowly with a dumpy sort of a sceptical bias, believed and didn't make the gap turning up at the window! And so in the fish way not to dwell on certain opulent curves of the gods of earth, I mean chairs upside down, waiting for some appreciable time before transferring his rapt attention to the grave. —Queenstown harbour, Stephen told him, or to be picked out by their campfires at night ultimately gained the Dock Tavern and in the morning burrowing quickly into all colours of different sorts of the land first. For instance there was a staunch believer in still never beyond a shadow of truth in it. The Irish catholic peasant. Palpably he was just looking at those antique statues there.

Mr Bloom said though first he fancied he alluded to took place as well as yesterday, roughly some score of them. You ought to be admired, Lafayette of Westmoreland street, famous for its fortunate possessor in the world for a rooster, tiger my eagle eye.

One to point a moral, the table the pink sheet of the other occupants of the Loop Line bridge where a brazier of live coke the watcher of the clans in Barney Kiernan's so that she and he was living in affluence and hadn't a thing, he, the best jumpers and racers?

An exception here and there being still a commanding figure though carelessly garbed as usual with that look of settled purpose which went a long hour the finis might have been a candidate for the moment, rounding which he pointedly turned a long way with the Pnakotic Manuscripts of distant and frozen Lomar. Look here. Pretty thick that was needful or he hadn't been familiarised with the Pnakotic Manuscripts that Sansu found naught but wordless ice and rock when he stood up that he had that saved him.

But as he fully realised accordingly what it is told in court with letters containing the habitual mushy and compromising expressions leaving no loophole to show cause why and the usual splash page of gutterpress about the nasal appendage. In the dim slope above in the shape of a humorous character occasioned a fair share of the gods would be Ireland, a privilege he keenly appreciated, from all I can safely say, by the bye, his side. Atop the tallest of earth's gods, and the elder man recounted to his room till he eventually died of it and he had a capital opening to make a superhuman effort of memory to try and concentrate and remember before he could neither make head or tail of the coffee after being stirred. It is. I'm not saying that it's all a pure amateur, possessed of a woman, as luck would have been to sound the lie of the south, casting pale vapors over the various contents it contained rapidly finally he. He was starving too though he was utterly out of each pocket for the matter thoroughly would confer a lasting boon on everybody concerned.

Possibly perceiving an expression of features did not do justice to. He was the man in possession and had served his four or five goodlooking years in durance vile to say, greatly adding to her mill. I met your respected father on a policy of the bunch though you wouldn't think he had got hold of that man or men in the stony desert beyond Hatheg, Nir and Ulthar, and then seventytwo of his faculties, never more so, Mr Bloom acceded at once because he thought he felt bound to enter a demurrer on the cards he had washed his wife's undergarments when soiled in Holles street and women would and did too a man's thighs. The mist is very thin, and honestly well worth seeing, her mother or aunt or some such commonplace remark.

And it left him wondering why. When they left a carven image on the rocks. And then, number one, the spectacle of our empire. I don't give a liberal display of bosom, with some asperity in a particularly animated way, as they very largely a question of the gospel as a crossing sweeper. As bad as it would afford him very great personal pleasure if he regarded her with virtuosos, or of earth's gods, the homely Humpty Dumpty boiled.

One morning you would open the paper though why pink. Moreover, to be opened up in the market and a bit of doing, boss, retaliated that rough diamond palpably a bit sour after the grind of city life and their felonsetting, there always being the solicitor rather, old Wall, he advised them, the shipchandler's, bookkeeper there that used to be told and it at one time which of course uptodate tourist travelling was as hard as brass and the matter of ten or a prude, said. Side by side Bloom, without being actually positive, it was strictly Platonic till nature intervened and an attachment sprang up between them full of undesirables but M'Conachie told him you got drunk with though, personally, being his own business moved off but the result of his back could administer a nasty kick if you work. For entire colts and fillies. Atal was safe on the part of seventytwo out of place as well call it in the cradle of the shelter palpably reconnoitring on her own with the remark which emanated from friend cabby might be hanging about there or simply marauders ready to decamp with whatever boodle they could in one fell swoop at a moment's hesitation, saying: Simple? I met your respected father, sung to perfection, a headhanger putting his hind foot foremost the while the ship of the infinite abysses … That cursed, that is to say, cropped up with a sort of thing though as the event turned out to be the best of his back up to tally with the natives choza de, another was a source of keen satisfaction in itself he had a consummate amount of laughter among his entourage. Carefully avoiding a book in the line of bitched type but tickled to death simultaneously by C.P. M'Coy and Stephen Dedalus B.A. who were always fiddling more or less at one time, if such he was not easily getatable so that frankly he was saying, not exactly all there, say, appealing to the original, shoulders, merely remarking: To seek misfortune, was the best residential quarters of financial magnates in a way scarcely intended by nature, a headhanger putting his hind foot foremost the while the lord of his mouth the pulpy quid and, if his clothes were properly attended to so as the convolutions of the missive which made him nourish some suspicions of our modern Babylon where doubtless he would have heaps of time to time a firstrate tonic for the nonce his new misnomer whiled away a few times in the brown puddle it clopped out of my mouth, he said.

—I'm tired of wedded life and his host of admirers came in for a cool 100 pounds a year at one another it being quarter tense or if not, if he had remarked a superannuated old salt of the land of your being at the same time if the whole business and titled people where with his thoughts.

Possibly he had heard not so dear, purse permitting, a study of the thing, he being confined to medicine only, pursued he, on the qui vive with just a bowing acquaintance with the proper word. I belong to the hilt. The pair parted company and Stephen Dedalus B.A. who were sufficiently awake enough to solicit or how any man in possession and had to come from unknown heights, there was absolutely no clue as to which the camera could not too highly praise, so led the way was steeper than ever necessary which possibly accounted for the chief secretary's lodge or words to that effect, a blackbuttocker, a veritable son of a bucketdredger, rejoicing in the direction of that afternoon he had a home somewhere beneath or seemed to be wished for, pending that consummation devoutly to be glued to the better of him and return it to him or anywhere else was all part and parcel of the Pnakotic Manuscripts that Sansu found naught but wordless ice and rock when he stood up that he was not likely to carve his way or some narcotic was put in, the upward path was now close to where they had left Euston for the matter was put in a while though not funkyish in the home island, delightful sylvan spots for rejuvenation, offering a plethora of attractions as well as yesterday, Stephen singing more boldly, but for the other, that is, if a trifle prone to disparage and even flesh because palpably it was all more or less.

She's my own true wife I haven't seen for seven years now, way I figure it. I'm on the newcomers boarded Stephen, who was trying his dead best to yawn if he values his health in the Tichborne case, Roger Charles Tichborne, Bella was the daughter of a longcherished plan he meant to say, love me, love my dirty shirt. One thing I simply hate to see about trying to make the gap turning up at the very first start. —Count me out, his good jacket hanging on a fellow by the Mona which was In Old Madrid, a work simply abounding in immortal numbers, in shirtsleeves, eating rumpsteak and onions. Jesus, Mr Bloom thoroughly agreed, entirely endorsing the remark which emanated from friend cabby might be, possibly is, a foible of mine but still it's a thing good Mrs Grundy, as luck would have it, and only reason being they were after a brief space of time Mr Bloom apropos of knives remarked to his having forgotten to take some measures on the summit when the moon came out at once because he then shouted once. —Why, the others totally in the cut of his age when dabbling in politics roughly some score of years previously in the clouded moonlight. Still as regards return. The moon is dark, and though Atal followed at last, he relished a glass of choice old wine in season as both nourishing and bloodmaking and possessing aperient virtues notably a good bit of an alternative postnuptial liaison by plunging his knife into her, more cheerily this time stretched over.

There's my son, Danny, run off to sea and the gods, and seemed despite his age particularly if they really loved him, that is, not that he had ever travelled extensively to any such thing, he heroically made light of the mischance.

Still no-one to point a finger at him, or so in point of fact they turned on to at any time, he added with a lot of l s d. Bloom repeated again, calling: Simple? A soft answer turns away wrath. All meantime were loudly lamenting the falling off in Irish soil, he reflected, Irishtown strand, a favourite haunt with all sorts and conditions of men, no pun intended. Atal ever be persuaded to pray for his services in addition to which Mr B interrogated. Or a change of venue after the grind of city life in the economic, not touching religion, domain the priest spells poverty. Know where that is who was keeping a sharp lookout as usual with that look of Henry Campbell remarked, and the gods to higher and higher mountains till now only the last of the other was reading it on page two Boom to give him metaphorically one in the course of things in general, where, added his quota by letting fall on the slope; the voices Barzai heard, but for the mind. He, though, personally, he managed to remark, that those bits were genuine forgeries all of them were particularly hot times in the sentry a quondam friend of mine but still they toiled up and polish, three smoking globes of turds. Lovemaking in Irish, the Gold Cup.

Grinding poverty did have that effect, a fact. —Why, as such, literally the last remains.

Eggs on the quiet and, stepping over a country belonging to him to Stephen unobtrusively. Accordingly he passed his left arm in arm across Beresford place. —Pom!

Then on the due instalments plan.

Atop the tallest of earth's gods, the Gold Cup. —Who?

And there he was perhaps under some misapprehension. His Stephen's mind was not perfectly certain whether he would be a job and implored of Stephen to tell the world and they opened and every pill was something to do but hand out the very palatable odour indeed of our national poet who expiated his crimes in the full bloom of womanhood in evening dress cut ostentatiously low for a cool 100 pounds a year at one time, as it's rather stuffy here you just come back to Erin and so forth over in Winetavern street which was all the same time now and as he told Stephen how he went to show that they openly cohabited two or four eyes conversing, Christus or Bloom his name assuming he was utterly out of his age when dabbling in politics roughly some score of years Mr Bloom and hard to lay down any hard and fast rules as to which there was that a pinch of tobacco or some such commonplace remark.

I hails from. On the other person at all bad as it was all the money expended on your education you are entitled to recoup yourself and command your price.

So and So who, by their campfires at night, I never understood, he assured Stephen to whom for the clouding of the mountain-top and the isosceles triangle miss Portinari he fell in love with and Leonardo and san Tommaso Mastino. Them are his trousers I've on me and talk things over.

That's a matter of ten it was highly advisable to get over. It's them black lads I objects to. Intellectual stimulation, as good as his word that he had let himself in for it but launched out into praises of Shakespeare's songs, at least of the upper classes. The cabby read out that sir Anthony MacDonnell had left Euston for the esthetic execution. He took out his pocketbook and, as people often did about others, namely, that he didn't understand one jot of what would happen on the historic fracas when the inquisition hounded the jews out and if, as a passing fancy of his back.

Can you recall the boats? The best plan clearly being to clear out, paused at the door, Stephen contrived to cure himself of the sort, always snapping at the first go-off was inclined to poohpooh the suggestion however, towards where Skin-the-Goat, assuming he was just pondering in pensive mood.

On this knotty point however the views of the incident his own accord stopped for no special reason to congratulate himself on his pins. —Yes, that's the best admirals and generals we've got?

Bloom, nodding, said. On more than she ever had and do a roaring trade.

And then the rank and file from the decidedly miscellaneous collection of waifs and strays and other nondescript specimens of the kind while the man in his stockinged feet, whereas savages in the stony desert beyond Hatheg, for the benefit of them all. I daresay he needs it to say for himself, a dozen or possibly even more than suspected, it goes without saying you would call wandering but a professional whistler, endeavoured to hail it by England levying taxes on the matter was that a Spanish type. They are practical and are proved to be made because that merry old soul, the Gold Cup.

—He took out his pocketbook and, lodging it between his name to the heir, went down in writing suppose he were to pen something out of ten or eleven in his way home to his guns to the not over effusive but it did come to stay and make a name?

Your god was a case for the newspapers which is the proper spirit. New York disaster.

So the scene exhibited, a dozen or possibly even more than her company so it would prey on his nextdoor neighbour all round there certainly was for the actual facts which quite possibly out of when taken up by concluding, eschewing for the system really needed toning up, for choice when dame Nature is at her spectacular best constituting nothing short of an alternative postnuptial liaison by plunging his knife into her, until it just struck him, the Tweedy-Flower grand opera company with his two hands and scratched away at his mother's knee in the olden way on remembered slopes. There were equally excellent opportunities for vacationists in the melodramatic manner above described. My wife is, so led the way, was still raging fast and furious: A beautiful language. Am I not right? Sheer force of natural genius, that is when the thing was public property all along though not funkyish in the morning burrowing quickly into all colours of different sorts of the same face he had so it seemed to. To show the understudy in the Rover, the fact, or Malahide was it? You must have seen a fair amount of laughter among his entourage. For three days they climbed higher and higher mountains till now only the aggrieved husband would overlook the matter of that if the rock had been a candidate for the sake of argument, when he did his best to explain. —Our mutual friend's stories are like himself, Mr B. and begged him to sever his connection with a stutter the name of Tighe.

That was done by foreigners on account of them using knives. Nevertheless he sat on his adored one as a paterfamilias, was having a temper of her crimes. Funeral of the business, I can quite credit the assertion and I want to indulge in any shape or form.

He threw an odd eye at the cabdrivers' association dinner in London somewhere. It is so melodious and full.

He turned a long you are entitled to recoup yourself and command your price.

—Is that first epistle to the blandiloquence of the town till the matter was put in a kind of demented glassy grin showing that she descended from the great heat, climate generally. Why do you mean it's after twelve! An opening was all more or less. Barzai heeded them not when he reached the mountain's lonely base, and sometimes had a shrewd suspicion that Mr Johnny Lever got rid of some l s d. Though a wellpreserved man of no uncommon calibre who could give points to not a few odd leisure moments in fits and starts with the remark: Everybody gets their own ration of luck, they now forbid men to displace them, the lutenist Dowland who lived in instead of being close to where they might be read as yes, ay, sighed again the latter portion. Victory of outsider Throwaway recalls Derby of '92 when Capt. In or about that. He takes great pride, quite legitimate, out of a way that exceeded their most sanguine expectations, very much under the microscope lately. —Half a crown, Stephen rejoined Mr Bloom, my son, Bernard Corrigan brother-in-law, Jno. Mr Bloom put it, a roll of some kind was clearer than the Gumley aforesaid, now returning after his successful libation-cum-potation, introducing an atmosphere of the mountain-top and the rest. Though it was altogether too fagged out, he said the picture was handsome which, it being only about three quarters of financial magnates in a loving position locked in one fell swoop at a yarn.

Nettled not a pleasant lookout, very! The sailor stared at nothing in common parlance, reminded him a few in point of fact the weeklies, addicted to the harbourmasters and coastguard service who had married the widow of a cow elephant. Because he more than conjectured that, Stephen, each in his mind but merely watched the two misdemeanants, wrapped up as they were after a strong suspicion of a publican there whose maiden name had been meantime taking stock of the world we live in especially as luck would have it he got 1190 landed into hot water and they got on to chatting about music, though often considerably misunderstood and the rest. In confirmation of which statement he winked, saying straight off: In this country people sell much more than her company so it came as a tony medical practitioner drawing a handsome fee for his man supposing it was not quite recall though the way up the scent of the thing, fast women of the mariner's roadside shieling after having often painted the town tolerably pink without a beggarly stiver. He began to grow too great for any save a strong hint to a fault of course the doublebarrelled ass proceeded to stipulate, you saw in the interim to try and concentrate and remember before he could easily foresee him participating in their vivacious language in a noncommittal accent, their two or three times, one after another, could not exactly tell being as it was only the southern glamour that surrounds it. To avoid a meeting he drew nearer to, could easily, if he could with all hands on deck.

I seen a crocodile bite the fluke of an upstairs apartment with the times. An opening was all part and parcel of the street, when got up to fond lovers' ways and flowers and chocs. The lefthand dead shot.

As regards Bloom he could truthfully state nor had he the remotest idea when. There was no response forthcoming to kick him upstairs, so far as politics themselves were concerned, he, though now broken down and fast rules as to have a good square look at the very first start.

Also literary labour not merely for the cold waste; else they would arrive at is it is one thing, he was the case was it was not likely to get out, the Tweedy-Flower grand opera company with his aureole of mournful mist.

—Neat bit of the nature of a humorous character occasioned a fair share of the land of your philosophy as the farrier's and the pale vapors over the respective captions which came out at last Atal was far below, and every welltailored man must, trying to make matters worse, were very few minutes to speak.

—This morning Hynes put it, and had no water, it appears, in classical idiom, his tender Achilles. —Sounds are impostures, Stephen said uncertainly because he then shouted once. Silence with a lot more surplus steam in the nick of time Mr Bloom insinuated. To fill the ear of a seacook: They accuse, remarked he audibly. D.B. Murphy of Carrigaloe. He's the backbone of our friend's bona fides nevertheless it reminded him Irish soldiers had as often fought for England as against her, when he did feel a different man. Not, of course had his father's gift as he muttered against whoever it was nothing would get it out of a horse of quite another colour to say. Point of fact though a good old succulent tuckin with garlic de rigueur off him or words growled in wouldbe music but with great vim some kind of women here. She had no common superstition in his glory after the usual blarney about himself for as to which there was no concern of theirs absolutely if he cared nothing for it. The idea, he was her declared favourite, where, added his quota by letting fall on the slope that no man else ever heard save in the olden way, Marcella the midget queen. He once with his thoughts. North Bull at Dollymount he had recovered his senses. Sand in the Bleeding Horse in Camden street with Boylan, the door. Then on the problem as to whether he would work a pass through Egan but some deuced hitch or other best known to himself or some unknown listener somewhere, we have the greatest improvement, tower, abbey, wealth of Park lane to renew acquaintance with the marked difference in their thousands and then the usual everyday farewell, my gallant captain kind of flesh of a crying scandal that ought to have a gaze around on the summit under a black straw hat peered askew round the. —There'll be a job and implored of Stephen by all his life who came in for quite a score of years previously in the sweeper car or you might as well as a matter for everyman's opinion and, rearing high a proud feathering tail, added he with a nudge from Corny by Messrs H.J. O'Neill and Son, 164 North Strand Road.

—Ay, Skin-the-Goat Fitzharris, the propriety of the chains the horse slowly swerved to turn, which reminded him in unmistakable figures, coffee 2d, confectionery do, and made perilous by chasms, cliffs, and the bulging cliff proved scarce an obstacle when he occupied the boards of the Lever Line. Taking Stephen on one side he had seen those Grecian statues, 1450 perfectly developed as works of art, a work simply abounding in immortal numbers, everyone simply flocking to hear him though ships of any sort, hung on to be put a boiling swimming cup of coffee, by the ingle, her stage presence being, to put too fine a point, thinking he had shared her bedroom which came out in the cold waste where no man had scaled since the time all the cards he had washed his wife's undergarments when soiled in Holles street and looked away thoughtfully with the tartan beard, who notoriously stuck to his companion B.A. engaged in stifling another yawn, half that is to walk then you'll feel a kind of flesh of a female who however had disappeared to all the time.

A magnificent specimen of manhood he was at an early age remarkable proficiency as a habitual practice, was terribly down on his head, twice. She's my own true wife I haven't seen for seven years now, way I figure it.

Can't you drink that coffee, Mr Bloom diplomatically returned, today in fact like the hell idea and the moon casts shadows on the tables in cafes.

He's the backbone of our national poet over again, you see once in a silent temple.

After all, from a sheep.

I'm not. In or about ninety six. On more than that afternoon on Ormond quay, the sailor.

He toured the wide world with Hengler's Royal Circus. Also literary labour not merely for the season considering, frankly, a necessary evil, w ere not licensed and medically inspected by the way up the cudgels on their behalf in a way that it was highly advisable in the cold steel, repeated and shoved aside his mug of coffee or whatever you like, it was altogether too fagged out, paused at the lowest, near the not over effusive, in the office told me they're full up for the gods, and had served his four or five goodlooking years in durance vile to say nothing of your bright ones, he continued, passionate temperaments like that. The mists are thin and the slopes of rock and snow, driving the gods dance against it; I shall see the greatest danger of all he could neither make head or tail of the Lever Line. Lean on me.

—Couldn't, Stephen, in spite of his back and he is himself, Mr Goodbody. Though they didn't see eye to eye in everything a certain kind of flesh of a bun, or Malahide was it was a generally voiced desire for an encore. There's my discharge.

For which and further reasons he felt, from some bump of combativeness or gland of some description. Believes me dead, rocked in the A division in Clanbrassil street, famous for its C division police station. —You seen queer things too, he ceased. On the other parasite. Now you mention it his face was familiar to me. Ireland. And as he fully intended doing at the outside considering the signal benefits to be seen except a fourwheeler, probably engaged by some reminiscences but he was bound to enter a demurrer on the Coffee Palace and its temperance and lucrative work. That cursed, that had little pills like putty and he had hurt his hand too to Ontario Terrace as he wisely reflected, Irishtown strand, a rainy night with a smile of unbelief. Ate. For a long swathe of mire, went across towards Gardiner street and women would and did too a man's thighs. I'm game for that the influx of visitors was not in a draper's in Cork where he was in China and North America and South America.

And titled people where with his aureole of mournful mist. But now they have betaken themselves to unknown Kadath in ships of any sort was kicked up.

—Jews, he added, the noise of his back up to it or unscrew and, lodging it between his teeth, bit ferociously: Everybody gets their own hands and give you your quietus doublequick with those poignards they carry in the bone for the party wronged in due course intimate. A magnificent specimen of a doubt he could say: To seek misfortune, was once more a moral, the shebeen proprietor commented. —Was she? The other gods! God knows I'm on the strict q.t. somewhere and the least. To which impromptu the neverfailing Bloom replied without a second care in the direction of a couple of paltry pounds was debarred from seeing more of a new lease of life. For which reason he encouraged Stephen to proceed with his own say to say that, the exhibitor explained. Rumour had it in the near future an entrée into fashionable houses in the confusion, which was all the others seeing least of the goahead sort to obviate the inevitable procrastination which often tripped-up a too much fêted prince of good, bad or indifferent, but also farther away from the decidedly miscellaneous collection of waifs and strays and other high personages simply following in the shaving line, they both walked together along Beaver street or, failing to throw out. John's Eve. Fifty yards measured.

Nobody volunteering a statement he winked, saying straight off: Our lives are in peril tonight.

For the nonce hidebound precedent, a headhanger putting his hind foot foremost the while the other was reading in fits and starts with the language in a good old delectable swig out of Hatheg, for the screams of the Lever Line.

There she sits, a truly amazing piece of that Brazen Head or him or words to that effect.

He could hear, is quite capable of adding that to the winds. —The Irish catholic peasant. He hadn't a word to say, a thing to do so, Mr Bloom acceded at once seized as he completely gripped their attention by showing the tendon referred to on his lowbacked car. Now you mention it his face was familiar to me you ought to have a gaze around on the auspicious occasion when they can't bear no more of a grave character. First Cause Who, from the conventional rut, would rapidly have a great field was to do with Stephen being fired out of the Mohicans, he declared, stood to him as a matter for himself as everyone saw. Interesting to fathom what earthly reason could be managed by some reminiscences but he couldn't tell exactly what you like to call them behind the right, the propriety of the Abbey street organ which the jarvey who had to man the rigging and push off and out amid the elements whatever the season considering, frankly, a privilege he keenly appreciated, and in the widest possible sense. At this pertinent suggestion Mr Bloom was not in an aside in Stephen's ear, are accused of ruining. Banzai and Atal spoke of his depth as of old. Another thing just struck him as highly likely to carve his way into their own minds, it is to say, in a silent temple.

—Did it hurt much doing it?

Nevertheless he sat tight just viewing the slightly soiled photo creased by opulent curves, none at all. That was done by foreigners on account of the Alice, where of course, to tell you.

The request being complied with he clawed them up with a gurgling noise. Atal where it apparently awoke a horse, without being actually positive, it being largely a question of the missive which made all the circs. Foot and Mouth.

Grin and bear it. —There'll be a Dublin resident, turned to the not over effusive, in point of fact she could actually claim Spanish nationality if she wanted, having been born in technically Spain, i.e. Gibraltar. And then the others who had really quite a score of them were particularly pressed for time, as we learned a smattering of in or about that.

Value 1000 sovs with 3000 sovs in specie. At this stage an incident happened. Martin Cunningham frequently said he perfectly understood and begged the chance of his faculties, never more so, simply coined shoals of money out of ten it was nothing for it but put a stop to instanter to say nothing of your bright ones, he certainly did feel and no denying it while Howth with its historic associations and otherwise, Silken Thomas, Grace O'Malley, George IV, rhododendrons several hundred feet above sealevel was a favourite haunt with all sorts and conditions of men, no later than that afternoon he had the ball at his mother's knee in the act of getting his bearings Mr Bloom repeated again, you mean it's after twelve! Grin and bear it. At least that's my idea for what it's worth.

Whoever embarked on a fellow most respectably connected though of inadequate means, with a bit flat as also did trains there was one of your birth and work for Ireland. So and So who, though confessedly grand in its line, he noticed that the profile resumed the normal expression of before.

Atal plunged upward through the affair and for some ulterior object.

Nevertheless, without a beggarly stiver. Now you mention it his face was familiar to me you ought to have some spark of vitality left read out of his fears. I'm talking about is the proper spirit. The eternal question of stimulants, he having had the pair of them all signs of themselves; save once, it does though Saint Joseph's sovereign thievery alors Bandez! Stomachs like breadgraters. We was chased by pirates one voyage. —Let me stir it. There she sits, a deeper depth and for the esthetic execution.

—Just bears out what I was saying, he continued, passionate temperaments like that from the carking cares of office, unwashed of course, he desired the female's room more than conjectured that, impetuous as Old Nick, are given to taking the law stands, was once more on the moment flusterfied but outwardly calm, and love to come from.

You were a blithering idiot altogether and refuse to have anything to do good and net a profit, there being still a further egg. Stephen mumbled in a place of worship for music of a doubt he could not spare a single one of his, by their total absence to say, or Mahony which simply spelt ruin for a marksmanship competition like the sensational extent that it wasn't all exactly.

A Greek he was utterly at a loss to fathom it seemed.

Furthermore he had a consummate amount of harm in that myself because it has been explained by competent men as the lookeron, a point his auditors at once seized as he, as Mr Algebra remarks passim. And there he is in Dublin somewhere, we have the impetuosity of Dante and the moon was out of place as well on the counter.

The villagers of Hatheg say it is told in the county Sligo.

Intellectual stimulation, as it simply wasn't art in a bloody tart off the street chanced to be in every way thoroughly pleasurable, especially there, so to speak, a dozen or possibly even more than that penetrated into the printing works of the offending beverage.

Cocks his gun over his head much in the vicinity. One man was reading in fits and starts a stained by coffee evening journal, another the seaman's discharge. One thing I never understood, he was not in an ancient castle, so to speak, and stayed up with being bitten by a trick of fate he had shared her bedroom which came under his special province the allembracing give us this day our daily bread, at Rourke's the baker's it is cloudy, for the patrons of the s. —Mrs Bloom, availing himself of the shelter and bore due left.

The vengeance of the Loop Line bridge where a brazier of live coke the watcher of the Gaiety when Michael Gunn was identified with the others take a back seat. A silence ensued till Mr Bloom said of Mr Dedalus senior, in fact disgustingly sober, spoke a word about it. About biscuits he dimly remembered.

Mr Bloom who noticed when he did feel a different man.

For entire colts and fillies. At what o'clock did you won't get in after what occurred at Westland Row station. His hat Parnell's a silk one was Judas, Stephen said after a strong suspicion of nosepaint about the vulnerable point of fact though a good face on the summit from view. Of course, woman, quickly perceived as highly advisable in the moldy Pnakotic Manuscripts of distant and frozen Lomar. He believed that his great secret knowledge of gods could shield him from their wrath, so to speak, and falling stones. —Have a shot at it and he was personally concerned, he had no common superstition in his impetuosity to get on his dignity in the circumlocution departments with the usual sequel, to his sober state himself recognised Corley's breath redolent of rotten cornjuice. It is hard to lay down any hard and fast rules as to which the camera could not vouch for the esthetic execution. Egg two evidently demolished, he picked it up and up, being adored as gods. Over his untastable apology for a gentleman usher.

The night air was certainly. Turks. Who, from all I can so call it in the direction of that, the spectacle of our national poet over again, who is greater than earth's gods singing in revelry on Hatheg-Kla! —Some time yesterday, Stephen said staring and rambling on to the lubric a little goodwill all round marked the termination of his depth as of course the doublebarrelled ass proceeded to stipulate, you who know your Shakespeare infinitely better than I, of course, all must work, one after another, the Channel islands and similar bijou spots, which reminded him Irish soldiers had as often fought for England as against her, mind the pin, whereas savages in the hands of a terrible time of the Customhouse and passed it along to Stephen. In or about that sort of thing and he fully intended doing at the door with a sort of a half a second care in the lore of the money expended on your education you are wrong gaze on Stephen of timorous dark pride at the head of the south, have to, together. —Intendiamoci.

You could go back perhaps, he affirmed. —Why, the upshot being that her affections centred on another, from time to practise literature in his line and, as the law were well in evidence, the sailor answered with a sort of lazy scorn. —Half a crown, Stephen rejoined Mr Bloom pursued without flinching a hairsbreadth. Stephen Dedalus B., 4., Edw. J. Lambert, Cornelius T. Kelleher, Joseph M'C Hynes, L. Boom pointed it out of my mouth, he was not in a very modest remuneration indeed for her condition.

Figne toi trop. The light of the world they lived in Fetter lane near Gerard the herbalist, who was anything but a bit of a horse, without being actually positive, it goes without saying you would.

Why? You may mention my name, the lutenist Dowland who lived in Fetter lane near Gerard the herbalist, who was just the usual sequel, to the fact that their neighbours across the back touch was quite sanguine of success, and in reality was let x equal my right name and address, as Mr Philip Beaufoy if taken down in as the Cornwall case a number of stories there were several others. —The king of Spain's daughter, Stephen responded. For he left me on the head of a Dannyman coming forward and turning queen's evidence or king's now like Denis or Peter Carey, an all star Irish caste, the daughter of Major Brian Tweedy and displayed at an end or quite possibly out of the Loop Line bridge where they made tracks arm in Stephen's right and wrong but room for improvement all round, in fact let himself be badly bamboozled to judge by two or four eyes conversing, Christus or Bloom his name is So and So who, though it merely went to reside on the best jumpers and racers? —It beats me, my son now, he very badly needed. But in the dogma.

A Palgrave Murphy boat was put in a while though not for the next house so to speak, in a hundred million years the coal seam of the fagend of the shelter and bore due left.

Though not an entire fabrication though at the moment flusterfied but outwardly calm, and familiar with the remark which emanated from friend cabby might be hanging about there or simply marauders ready to decamp with whatever boodle they could in one another, the sailor said. Never about the number of years previously in the shape of Barzai hath made him nourish some suspicions of our modern Babylon where doubtless he would allow him to the doors to hear him though ships of clouds grew thicker and more restless. Sometimes when earth's gods are high and rocky Hatheg-Kla in their musical and artistic conversaziones during the festivities of the wherewithal was demolished. He was altogether too fagged out, he being the offchance of a sceptical bias, believed and didn't make the smallest and it at one time which of course started rather dizzily and stopped to return it to sleep myself, Stephen interposed with, were very near.

He saw him a job and implored of Stephen to proceed with his tuition fees. And when Barzai began to remember that this had happened or had been meantime taking stock of the two alternatives. Gospodi pomilyou. I mean Christ, was the first to perceive any very vast amount of laughter among his entourage. Fellow, the former viceroy, earl Cadogan, had enjoyed the distinction of being close to where they had a penchant, though that is when the evicted tenants question, then heir apparent, the halfcrazy faddist, respectably connected though of inadequate means, with his movements even before there was absolutely no clue as to right and led him on accordingly. Anyhow he was in the one step there was the coincidence of meeting, the homely Humpty Dumpty boiled. Victory of outsider Throwaway recalls Derby of '92 when Capt. Taking Stephen on one side he had that saved him. Because if they really loved him, or Malahide was it was long before Atal would follow. I didn't catch the latter portion. But it was count of a grave character.

That was done when we were Iying becalmed off Odessa in the still of the shanty who didn't seem to. —Know how to lead up to the arms of Murphy, as Wetherup used to be without regular meals. —You don't happen to have anything to do with Stephen being fired out of the night of the sights of the Thames embankment category they might hit upon some drinkables in the neighbourhood of 300 pounds per annum.

Why do you not write your poetry in Italian with the tartan beard, who was trying his dead best to yawn if he was in some dried peas he remembered it Palme on Booterstown strand. Later it grew cold and snowy; and have heard earth's gods are high and wild, and are proved to be strictly accurate, on my solemn oath and God knows I'm on the waiting list about a fellow told about himself couldn't probably hold a proverbial candle to the best bloody man that ever scuttled a ship. All too Irish, Stephen replied.

Naturally then it was the man in his seat so as not to anything the opposite. Stephen told him, dreaming of fresh fields and pastures new as someone somewhere sings.

Men have felt the tears of the full moon, Barzai saw some dense clouds far to the heir, went ashore and took up a too much fêted prince of good, bad or indifferent, but also farther away from the conventional rut, would be a Dublin United Tramways Company's sandstrewer happened to be the once famous Skin-the-Goat, alias Ledwidge, when duly refreshed by his rum puncheon exploit, gaping up at the pink sheet of the world. The printed matter on it and it pointed only once more on the rocks. Squeezing or. Salt junk all the spoof he got 1190 landed into hot water and had no fears, so to speak. A Dublin fusilier was in some perplexity as to have a few odd leisure moments in fits and starts a stained by coffee evening journal, another the card to peruse the partially obliterated address and postmark.

He might lend him anything up to a man have gone down on their left leg, it does though Saint Joseph's sovereign thievery alors Bandez! After which he did his best to yawn if he cared to, Antonio and so on culminating in an open fashion as she also was Spanish or half so, Mr Bloom thought well to stir or try to make a superhuman effort of memory to try and concentrate and remember before he could be utilised for the accident ward or, failing that, different from the brown costume does be with you Mrs B. and begged the chance of his trousers I've on me and he laughing at a moment's notice, your money or your life, leaving you there to point a moral, gagged and garrotted. Someway in his own small way. The queer suddenly things he popped out with attracted the elder man who now addressed Stephen was spoken of by some titanic chisel. —Are you bad in the direction of the individual in the local papers could be drawing easy money.

Because if they didn't believe they'd go straight to heaven when they can't bear no more children. North Bull at Dollymount he had a penchant, though he was utterly out of. At least that's my idea for what it's worth. How they were after a brief space of a night when pale vapors spread around. She's my own true wife I haven't seen for seven years now, Danny, run off to sea and the rest.

The biscuits was as yet merely in its way, which Bloom, scarcely knowing which way to fame which he pointedly turned a deaf ear to, could by straining just perceive him, in the shape of a fine would be a holy horror to face.

So thick were the beginning of the sun.

Marble could give the original, shoulders, merely remarking: I'm tired of wedded life and their felonsetting, there being more languages to start with than were absolutely necessary, it being a gentleman usher. —I seen him do that in a discreet corner only to be found. Suppose she was in fact disgustingly sober, spoke a word about it. Then as for the nonce hidebound precedent, a dozen or possibly even more than one occasion, taken the wise precaution to unobtrusively motion to mine host as a walk in life the occupant of the law into their own hands and as warm as a crossing sweeper. A few broken biscuits were all looking at his age to climb it by England levying taxes on the scene and regaining his seat near the not particularly redolent sea on the other fellow like the sensational extent that it might be read. —I seen icebergs plenty, growlers. Fellow hid behind a door, come up smiling again. History, would have heaps of time to practise literature in his admiration of Rossini's Stabat Mater, a foible of mine sent me. In or about that period, the cat meanwhile under the microscope lately.

Then as for our friend at the time. And now Atal, who were always hanging around on the parish rates, given the temporary job by Pat Tobin in all its glory and in a quandary, as Mr Algebra remarks passim.

Look away … Go back … Do not see! Ate.

Lord John Corley some called him to admit he had seen those Grecian statues, 1450 perfectly developed as works of the battle royal in the shape of a fine would be the once famous Skin-the-Goat, assuming he was just a big if, however, towards where Skin-the-Goat Fitzharris, the acme of first class music as such, was starting to go off at a yarn.

Ask the then captain, he took out of you, to be in safe hands and give you your quietus doublequick with those poignards they carry in the moonlight … The moon's light flickers, as Mr Bloom asked. Furthermore he had tried to find out the needful and breaking Boyd's heart it was altogether too fagged out to institute a thorough search though he had shared her bedroom which came under his special province the allembracing give us this day our daily bread, at least of the two parties themselves unless it ensued that the rover might possibly by some reminiscences but he was quite on a trivet he failed to perceive any very vast amount of laughter among his entourage. Writing for the kudos of the shelter and bore due left. See? —Pom!

—Just bears out what I was in Stockholm and the line as it happened, no matter what the cause of many liaisons between still attractive married women getting on for fair and forty and younger men, no pun intended.

—And what's the number for?

And he did climb Hatheg-Kla at any time, he said, who was several years the coal seam of the deep there was no concern of theirs absolutely if he was not quite the same fashion, a rainy night with a glance also of entreaty for he seemed to him from their wrath, so as not to outstay their welcome having first and foremost, being on tenterhooks, he said.

On the other lucky mortal he having had the ball at his chest being strictly accurate gospel. Whereas the simple fact of the night, I mean for singing purposes.

On the other side of the common groove as he told Stephen how he simply revelled in, the eloquent fact remained that the rover might possibly ensue somebody having a temper of her own sometimes and spoil the hash altogether as on the photo of the Customhouse and passed it along the route, Plymouth, Falmouth, Southampton and so on. Letter from His Grace. Nevertheless, without going into the minutiae of the shelter and bore due left. He called me a jew and in the seven cryptical books of men. —Intendiamoci. Since their names were coupled in the war, Stephen contrived to get out, the brain and the postcard was addressed A. Boudin find the captain's age, his right side being, to be and not receive his visits any more if only the son of inspector Corley of the timehonoured adage, gone the way no harm, to his chagrin, he himself once upon a pedestal which she of course, as it happened, he stated, and the sky changed color, and then there was the rub.

He took umbrage at something or other best known to himself or lain low for the purpose but after a brief space of time Mr Bloom and hard to follow at the door the same, the noise of his astonishment when he? At least that's my idea for what it's worth. Am I right, the famous invincible, and was sometimes afraid; but Barzai's father had been meantime taking stock of the question.

So I without deviating from plain facts in the National Museum. D.B. Murphy. Possible, especially there, so to speak, Spanish, half nervousness, not contributing a copper or pinning his faith absolutely to its dictums, some special knack evidently, and suffer no man else ever heard save in the spring when young men's fancy, though confessedly grand in its own small way, staring quite obliviously at it and merited a radical change of venue after the burial of a literary cove in his chamber of horrors, otherwise pocket. Fellow hid behind a door, Stephen said. Many days they traveled, and what mostly worried him was he was built that way like the sensational extent that it wasn't all exactly. Knife in his chamber of horrors, otherwise pocket.

Men have felt the tears of the casualties invariably resulting from propaganda and displays of mutual superiority but what properly riled them was a most popular and genial personality in city life and was sometimes afraid; but Barzai heeded them not when he did climb Hatheg-Kla! Roberto ruba roba sua.

The face of a smile, will you sleep yourself? Seeing that the cases were either identical or the eggsniping transaction for that the goby unless you were a lucky dog if they really loved him, that is? This gratuitous contribution of a supernatural God. Shipahoy of course had his father's, Gumley.

Mr Bloom ventured to throw out. To seek misfortune, was the best troops in the melodramatic manner above described. You just took the civilised world by storm, figuratively speaking, how much palmoil the British government gave him for that job, shaving and brushup. I seen queer sights, don't be talking, put in a way you find but what properly riled them was a flower. And so in lieu so that the ruse worked and the temperature refreshing since it cleared up after the usual denouement after the burial of a haunted lifetime packed into one atrocious moment: The mist is very thin, and caused them to behold the gods of earth were bowing to greater laws; for they know not of a whistle, holding his arms arched over his nose and both ears.

William Quill wrote a fine piece of original verse of 910 distinctive merit on the erstwhile tribune's private morals. —Let me cross your bows mate, he was he was now describing on an opposite tack in rather muggyish weather and lost with all hands on deck.

—That's a good bit of doing, boss, retaliated that rough diamond palpably a radically altered man he certainly relished, educated, distingué and impulsive into the soirée, boisterously trolling, like those crabs about Ringsend in the boy and girl courtship idea and the high mists he heard Barzai the Prophet! —Come, he heroically made light of the hour it was already tomorrow Friday.

No, it may be only something about somebody named H. du Boyes, agent for typewriters or something of that man in possession and had to be made because that merry old soul, the same time as quite possibly out of their bootstraps. Give us a squint at that hour of the gods in the sectarian side of the Christmas season, for mists are thin and the erring fair one begging forgiveness of her sons.

He vividly recollected when the fallen leader's, who happened to know, were very much under the influence of diamond cut diamond, it might be read.

—Did it hurt much doing it? The rebuke of some kind, erroneously supposed to be opened up new vistas in his line and, if properly handled by some with facetious proclivities as Lord John Corley some called him and the gods of earth! Tired seemingly, he resumed. —Was she? But it was long before Atal would follow. At all events and get sufficient to appal the stoutest he snapped the blade to and stowed the weapon in question away as before in his mind but merely watched the two concerning her relations with the confidence trick, supposing there happens to be returning and the climbers found it a wide berth, eased himself closer at hand, the noise Bloom was all more or less.

And so forth, jockeys and esthetes and the distinctly fetid atmosphere of drink into the bargain and the matter was put in by monks most probably or it's the big question of one preying on his very dilapidated hat and ashplant and bucked him up ever since he clapped eyes on him. Atal, who happened to come back from Paris, the upward path was now close to where they might hit upon some drinkables in the cradle of the fagend of the s.

Ah, yes! Jesus, Mr Bloom said, could by straining just perceive him, the lutenist Dowland who lived in Fetter lane near Gerard the herbalist, who is written of with fright in the moldy Pnakotic Manuscripts. Cocks his gun over his gentle repartee to the bulging cliff and scanning it for granted he knew all about the number for? Whoever embarked on a trivet he failed to perceive. The reason he encouraged Stephen to tell. But O, Johnny Lever, O tell me where is fancy bread, O! At all events he wound up by concluding, eschewing for the purpose but after a strong hint to a man deeply learned in the sky, for example, of course I needn't tell you. Probably the homelife to which there was even a patch on the face of God's earth he could scarce leap. He called me a jew and in reality was let x equal my right name and address, as earth's gods, or Mahony which simply spelt ruin for a gentleman born with a hole and corner scratch company or local ladies on the poor fool hadn't much reason to look at the idea of finding any food there but thinking he had rarely if ever there was not so dear, purse permitting, a woman, quickly perceived as highly likely some sponger's bawdyhouse of retired beauties where age was no message evidently, as they try to the verge of weakness, falling a victim to her other laureis and putting the others take a good catholic, he had seen that nobleman somewhere or other in his impetuosity to get left. Silence with a number of other things, no matter what the cause of many liaisons between still attractive married women getting on for fair and forty and younger men, which made him greater than earth's gods singing in revelry on Hatheg-Kla, earth's gods, or Mahony which simply spelt ruin for a brief space of time Mr Bloom put it in the lore of earth's gods, the noise Bloom was not by any chance want to see about trying to make the most prominent pleasure resorts, Margate with mixed bathing and firstrate hydros and seaside theatres, turning money away, duets in Italian with the constable. All meantime were loudly lamenting the falling off the greater bulk of the full moon, Barzai saw some dense clouds far to the winds. —There was no more of the church to fast and furious: The Irish catholic peasant.

Lord John Corley. Ah, you've to book ahead, and seemed despite his age to climb the Hatheg-Kla when they broke up the scent of the lords Talbot de Malahide in whose mansion, really an unquestionably fine residence of its annihilation by its First Cause Who, from the other was reading it on page two Boom to give him for the matter of strict history, Bloom, profiting by the ingle, her mother or aunt or some name like that, as the richest country bar none on the keeper said, if properly handled by some with facetious proclivities as Lord John Corley some called him to go on by all his pubhunting confreres but one, as it happened, no matter what the cause is from … Stephen had to man the rigging and push off and, chewing and with some slow stammers, proceeded, went ashore and took a sip of the Pnakotic Manuscripts that Sansu found naught but wordless ice and rock when he had consistently remained a landlubber except you call going to Holyhead which was his old self again with no-one can give what he hasn't got.

Do you think they are safe, and suffer no man had scaled since the time being in his mind but merely as a foregone conclusion on fine young fellows, chiefly, destruction of the submerged tenth, viz. coalminers, divers, scavengers etc., were very largely did till the matter of that bun. Then through the gap of the business, I let slip.

No, Mr Doyle.

Cinque la testa piu … Mr Bloom brushed off the street was manoeuvring and Stephen went on, adhering to his dearly beloved Queenstown and it pointed only once more a moral, gagged and garrotted. Mr Johnny Lever got rid of some little differences between the two objected, sticking to his starting to go up to the fact that their idol had feet of clay, and love to come, alternately racking their feelings the mermaids' with sixchamber revolver anecdotes verging on the matter of ten it was all pure buncombe. Culo rotto!

At this remark passed obviously in the fish way not to be so. His inscrutable face which was his own case he had not noticed her and shrugged his shoulders, merely remarking: Everybody gets their own ration of luck, they dandered along past by where the municipal supernumerary, ex Gumley, was, he ventured to throw out. —See here, he mentioned par excellence Lionel's air in Martha, M'appari, which he beat a retreat to his confidante sotto voce. My wife, Madam Marion Tweedy, Bloom, without evincing surprise, unostentatiously turned over the slopes as they are imbued with the young man named Antonio's livid face did actually look like forced smiling and the moon was out and the company of smirking misses without a fare or a prude, said he perfectly understood and begged the chance of his investigation. He took umbrage at something or other in his stockinged feet, whereas Messrs So and So who, though with only a matter for everyman's opinion and, as it simply amounts to one that learned men have discerned in those frightful parts of the full bloom of womanhood in evening dress cut ostentatiously low for the face of it and fly in the Red Sea. Funny, very effectually cooked his matrimonial goose, thereby heaping coals of fire on his own peculiar way which she of course it was all the time. Ah, you've to book ahead, give a shite anyway so long as I chew that quid. There was lice in that language? The mists are thin and the curious effect excited the unreserved admiration of everybody including Skin-the-Goat, merely gazed in the corner who appeared to have anything to do with Stephen passed through the clouds that strange eclipse. And when the fallen leader, that I may be important because it has been explained by competent men as the lookeron, a most popular and genial personality in city life in the fish way not to say nothing of M'Intosh L. Boom, CP M'Coy,—M'lntosh and several others.

—Is that so?

—You seen queer things too, he being the offchance of a genuine filip to acts of impropriety between the cup and the moon had strangely failed, and, turning over the slopes of ice shoot up endlessly into the soirée, boisterously trolling, like a veritable sensation, he counselled to close quarters, though often considerably misunderstood and the book about Ruby with met him pike hoses sic in it. Mr F. Alexander's Throwaway, b.

You suspect, Stephen interrupted, that turned out to institute a thorough search though he possessed, he certainly did feel a kind of proper work, one after another, from a sheep. Our name was Barzai the Wise shrieking in the Red Sea done that. … The moon's light flickers, as Mr Philip Beaufoy if taken down in as the Cornwall case a number of His other practical jokes, corruptio per se and corruptio per accidens both being excluded by court etiquette. Broo! It's in the direction of a rug or two in the shape of witnesses swearing to having witnessed him on such and such a particular date in the washkitchen. One was a steamtram, but also farther away from the house of the Gaiety when Michael Gunn was identified with the noise Bloom was not so sure about that.

Subsequently being not gormandising in the junior at the piers and girders of the lane who knew the lady in the same Bloom properly so dubbed was rather pale in the shape of a tryon between two smugglers. These timely reflections anent the natural course of the business, the seaman bold affirmed, staring quite obliviously at it and merited a radical change of venue after the two objected, sticking to his starting to flag somewhat all round he was quite on the poor fool hadn't much reason to look upon their faces. There's an example again of simple souls. Can't you drink that stuff. No aid was given. Also, without going into the soirée, boisterously trolling, like names. How they were both in schooling and everything else into a peaceful doze. Aims.

—Ay, Skin-the-Goat amusingly added, he himself once upon a time after committee room no 15 until he was not one vestige of truth in.

It beats me, I grant you, Mr Bloom he could not too distant future as a casual glance at the strangeness of the cobblestones near the brazier of live coke the watcher of the individual in the vicinity of the earth's gods, the Dardanelles under Captain Dalton. —Yes, to tell. Excuse me. And it need not detract from the bottom and reflected with something approaching acrimony on the spot to see everyone, concluded he, examining his formidable stiletto. Just and their felonsetting, there always being the offchance of a sentrybox or something like that.

I seen a man killed in Trieste by an Italian chap. Palpably he was now grown fearsomely easy, and listened hard for certain sounds, but he was none the less free to admit those icecreamers and friers in the moonlight … The light is dimmer and the Japs were going to have such a weirdlooking specimen with the remark: A beautiful language. Wait. —Those are halfcrowns, man.

He put his hand too to Ontario Terrace as he wisely reflected, was, Stephen's mind's eye being too busily engaged in eating and drinking diversified by conversation for whom they seemingly formed an object of bringing off a coup.

I know of you, the keeper said. The moon is dark, regular brunette, black. He was just gently dropping off into a pillow at least so I think. —Ah, you see, he reflected, take that mongrel in Barney Kiernan's so that frankly he was only too conscious of the world; then they camped to wait for the matter was put in a while though not funkyish in the dogma. I'm game for that very reason if no other lifeboat Sunday was a dosshouse in Marlborough street, when duly refreshed by his rum puncheon exploit, gaping up at the selfsame fireside. His friends had all deserted him. A silence ensued till Mr Bloom could easily have picked up the type in the sky, for the gods in the farfamed name of Tighe. I looked for the Irish Times, breakers running over her and suffice it to say that he was in thorough sympathy with peasant possession as voicing the trend of modern opinion a partiality, however, and aristocracy in general, Stephen mumbled in a quandary but, as luck would have heaps of time to time a firstrate tonic for the sake of argument, when the thing than anything else, what's bred in the stones and, turning over the various contents it contained no reflection on his adored one as a result of an anchor same as the Latin poet remarks especially as luck would have it he got a decent enough do in the same time if the cloudless peak and moonlit meeting-place of the same time apologetic to get a great shock to citizens of all he commented on was equipping soldiers with firearms or sidearms of any kind. Bloom ejaculated, surprised though not by any manner of means an old man avid to behold the gods to higher and beckon eagerly, it being quarter tense or if not more.

—Curious coincidence, Mr Bloom, nodding, said. Needless to say, appealing to the latter personage, more properly, lane as far as he wisely reflected, take that mongrel in Barney Kiernan's, of course, became in due course intimate. —Half a crown, Stephen answered, you're a gentleman born with a little flutter in polite debauchery to press their attentions on her knee, post mortem child. —As bad as it didn't come down, on my solemn oath and God knows I'm on the keeper took a die of plug from his boiler affair. Generous to a certain kind of inward voice and satisfy a possible need by moving a motion. The other gods!

Atal often slipped and fell as they very largely a matter of dress and all agreed that that was certainly now a treat to breathe; but Barzai's father had been a quasi aspirant to parliamentary honours in the moldy Pnakotic Manuscripts which were run on identically the same way and gentlemanly bearing to all intents and purposes wrapped in the street was manoeuvring and Stephen Dedalus B.A. who were conspicuous, needless to say, a blackbuttocker, a sailor probably, still thinking of the joke, chalk a circle for a cool 100 pounds a year at one time inculcated as a whole, his one and a lot of makebelieve went on about that period, the cause of many liaisons between still attractive married women getting on for fair and forty and younger men, which might prove highly remunerative.

—The gunboat, the secret gods, the upshot being that her affections centred on another, from a case for the occasion, Mr Bloom dittoed. Ate by sharks after.

So to change the subject he read about Dignam R.I.P. which, of course, he appetisingly added, pushing the socalled roll across. Their conversation accordingly became general and all that sort of thing. Stephen, each in his scythed car. Our lives are in peril tonight. On the thirteenth day they reached the end of his tether, so that it was not, ember days or something of that stamp quite apart from any oldmaidish squeamishness on the tropical calculated to freeze the marrow of anybody's bones and mauling their largesized charms betweenwhiles with rough and tumble gusto to the original, there were on record—in fact, having gone into it more for the lower snows of the chains, divided by the cleansing committee all over the place for the occasion, a ballad, pretty in its line, they couldn't straighten their legs if you paid them because the muscles here, you saw in the slightest degree but why did you leave your father's house?

—He's Irish, Stephen rejoined Mr Bloom he, a form of art, a group of gazers round skipper Murphy's nautical chest and then the others evidently eavesdropping too.

There's my son now, way I figure it. But as for our friend at the sideface of Stephen, always assuming that there was a fact the young man he was contemplating purchasing from Mr Arnold Dolmetsch, whom B. did not do justice to. To think of Ibsen, associated with it at all bad as it happened, and, as people often did about others, namely, of course, Mr B. proceeded to stipulate, you do knock across a simple substance and therefore incorruptible. Cooks rats in your drink for some weak Trinidad shell cocoa that was overwhelmingly right. My wife, Madam Marion Tweedy who had been a land-grave who dwelt in an open fashion as she lived there.

I understand, but for the moment round the side, bore a distant resemblance to Henry Campbell remarked, and wise cotters have legends that keep them off?

Still no matter what the cause is from … Stephen had not been in for a marksmanship competition like the case was it you …? Look away … Go back … Do not see!

And welcome, answered: A beautiful language. While he was one for him to take herself off. I mean, and there. There was the traffic that created the route, Plymouth, Falmouth, Southampton and so on the summit a curious and cyclopean symbol fifty cubits wide, as a bracing tonic for the sake of argument, when duly refreshed by his rum puncheon exploit, gaping up at the idea of the Evening Telegraph he just caught a fleeting glimpse of her own with the usual handsome blackguard type they unquestionably had an insatiable hankering after as he happened to be desired. —And what's the number, in the soul. He drank needless to say nothing of the genus homo already there engaged in collecting round the. So far as he told Stephen how he simply but effectually silenced the offender. —Who's the best authority it is that black cats go at midnight on St.

#Ulysses (novel)#James Joyce #1922 #automatically generated text #Patrick Mooney #Eumaeus #H.P. Lovecraft #weird fiction #horror #American authors #20th century #modernist authors #The Other Gods #1921

0 notes

nazih-fares · 7 years ago

Text

A while ago, I finished an interesting written by my colleague Jason Schreier over at Kotaku called Blood, Sweat and Pixel, telling the stories and problems of 10 different AAA and indie developers faced when creating their games. One of the chapter was all about Destiny, and it got me realize how much one of the biggest commercial successes of recent years, was a flawed title that took almost three years to get on solid grounds, numerous studio creative changes, but yet became something that involved a huge community of players all around the world including myself (proud hunter right here). Despite somewhat lukewarm criticism and negative feedback from early adopters, this shooter like no other has found its way, after a series of free updates, 2 DLCs and 2 expansion packs (The Taken King and Rise of Iron). Now almost 3 years after its first release, comes the sequel, Destiny 2, a way to fix many core issues from the original and hopefully start off fresh.

To say that the first Destiny was criticized by the press and players is something lots know already. This merge between MMO and FPS had lots of flaws during the past three years: a story badly written and incomprehensible unless you visited the Bungie site (to read Grimoire cards), grindy, too expensive with all the DLCs, and let’s not forget about the plethora of bugs that whether were abused for good intention or not is a different story (I’m looking at you all Raid cheesers). Nevertheless, players stuck around, and devout Guardians continued to voice their discontent at the game, in hope that Bungie will listen, but it seems they had other plans: create a sequel that will become a fresh start for everyone. Now clocking more than 35 hours of play in Destiny 2 (a shy number in comparison to my 923 hours on the first Destiny), trying a plethora of activities, finding new loot, I’m pretty sure there is still much to discover, but at least I can say one thing: Destiny 2 deserves your time, because it finally fixes some of the core issues of its predecessor.

Throughout my reading of Blood, Sweat and Pixel, I learned the main issue behind Destiny’s rather lack of story. Months before the first planned release of the game, Bungie studio executives had asked that the script be rewritten, due to a lack of clarity from the original one. Too linear, according to them, this new change of order had consequences on the development of the game, as one could imagine, and sadly Bungie gave birth to game that was praised for its shooting mechanics but pretty much nothing else. As sad thing, coming from the studio that create epic stories of challenges and rise to power (the Halo series), but throughout the 3 years of the first Destiny, The Taken King and Rise of Iron became a testing ground to put some sense in the lore of the game and its rich story (and plus we got amazing content creators like My name is Byf decrypting and explaining the lore better than the game makers). With Destiny 2, the studio had the chance to start on a good foundation, almost reminding us of the days of Blizzard’s World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, a clean wipe for everyone, so they build upon what worked and what needed to be fixed.

Destiny 2 takes place a small year after the SIVA crisis introduced in Destiny: Rise of Iron. Crota and Oryx are just bad memories (or good memories for you accomplished raiders), and the game recounts a short summary of your past exploits in the previous version, if you played it. It recalls the date of your rebirth on Earth Cosmodrome; the day you triumphed over the Darkness in the heart of the Black Garden, your first victory in the Vault of Glass raid; the day you reached the Lighthouse on Mercury; when you became an Iron Lord; and so on. It is also an opportunity to remember with whom some of these accomplishments have been done, and like many Destiny players around the world probably believe: the experience is not necessarily to know how you play, nut with whom you play. This small introduction was therefore quite moving, I must admit, enough to almost shed a tear among those who spent hundreds of hours on the first opus. The newcomers though, will be introduced to the universe of Destiny by a summary of the previous events in a well done, if not better than actually playing the first game. Destiny 2 did well to differentiate between the veterans and the beginners, adapting the numerous dialogues of the game; incorporating the enormous – hidden – lore of the series in an easier way for new Guardian, who can thus discover a brand new world. The others, who have known the horrors of The Dark Below, fought the blight of the Takens and saw the snowing peaks of Felwinter are treated as they should: as Destiny Veterans.

The script of Destiny 2 is finally quite simple in its own way. The last city on earth, still standing since its creation, is suddenly attacked by the Red Legion, an elite faction of the Cabal Empire. Encountered in the first game, the Cabals had until then constituted only a vague threat; a few outposts on Mars were filled with exhausted troops, but never truly a representation of the terrible power of this military empire. The Guardians are rapidly outnumbered and the city falls into the hands of the invader; the player, in a final desperate attempt, tries to attack the mothership and falls head-to-head with Dominus Ghaul, the leader of the Red Legion. You then understands that Ghaul’s aims is to seek out the power of the Traveller, a divine entity that has been dormant for centuries, after protecting humanity and to whom the Guardians owe their powers. What happens next is that Ghaul encloses the sphere god in a sort of gigantic harness, which has the effect of depriving all the Guardians of their Light, becoming vulnerable and mortal, and are eliminated one after the other, while the few survivors are forced to retreat.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

In short, Destiny 2 tells the story of the Guardians’ long struggle to get back their City, free the Traveler, and triumph over the Red Legion while getting back their lost powers. Without telling you too much, know that the adventure will lead you to four corners of the solar system, like the first episode, but this time to organize the resistance or counter-attack. Overall, the game has some solid good writing and offers some of the most epic moments of the series, probably because of a switch in creative writing leads, including Senior Narrative Lead Jason Harris. Well served by numerous cinematic and plenty of dialogues with new and old characters, the plot progresses at a good rhythm and remains clear, from the beginning to the end. Screenwriters also had the good idea to include the point of view of the other side; with a set of cinematics that show what’s going on with Ghaul while you progress through the story, and obviously helps understand the Red Legion’s intentions, and their final goal. If it never really surprises, this campaign has the merit of being straight to the point and even emotional, recalling what the studio did better back in the early 2000s, as we remember the epic stories of Halo to Halo Reach. The first moments of this defeat against the Red Legion reminded me of Halo Reach��s eight campaign mission New Alexandria, in which the Noble-6 landed wounded and almost unarmed, in a city invaded by the Covenants forces. Destiny 2 however, retains its own identity, avoiding to pour the theme too much into the suffering of humanity, with dramatic moments, well served by an excellent soundtrack done by Skye Lewin, Michael Salvatori and others… Some tracks are fit of epic movies, and I can’t stress on how amazing they are in terms of composition but also variety, so I’ve included a sample of one of my favorite one which you can hear below. Plus, I’d like to thank whoever was in charge of the sound effects this time, as the weapons aroused my senses, like the low throbs of the Graviton Lance pulse rifle, or the volley of rockets coming out of the Wardcliff Coil rocket launcher.

While Destiny 2 is all about a fresh start, the game still uses key characters known to fans, such as the trio of Zavala, Ikora and Cayde-6, but also introduces some new ones, all rather well done, starting with my personal favorite called Failsafe. The latter is an AI, one of the only survivors of a golden age mission on Nessus (roughly 500 years before the event of Destiny), which now suffers from a multiple personality disorder that makes it rather amusing. Sometimes jovial and helpful, Failsafe can be more squeaky and sarcastic without any logical transition. On Io, the player will meet Ashar Mir, an awoken scientist whose personality is closer to your grumpy uncle than a helpful nerd, then on the EDZ (which we’ll explain more later on), you’ll meet one of Bungie’s first ever gay characters, Devrim Kay. These characters aren’t just there for show, but important to each planet as they give the player many information about the places but also dedicated quests. In the end, the Destiny 2 campaign finds a certain balance here, with its epic clashes, its moments of doubt and its hard blows, without taking itself too seriously. It’s a formula that may not please everyone, but the regulars of the studio production will recognize the Bungie tone, which likes nothing more than drop fun jokes even when the end of the world is near.

Dominus Ghaul, leader of the Red Legion

It easily took me around 10-15 hours to see the end credits of Destiny 2, which followed a sort of linear path that is at the choice of the player. Technically, Destiny 2 guides the player to concentrate on key story quests, but you have the choice to do other things like sidequests called Adventures. On the other hand, since some story missions are only accessible when the player has reached a certain level, it was necessary for me to go into PvP or Strikes (matchmaking cooperative missions with three players) to get enough experience and obviously better gear and weapons.

While the first Destiny was finally quite simple in its unlocking system, players gradually unlocked new planets, and from space he could choose a mission, whatever it was, or go for a stroll on the planet of his choice to do patrols or just farm for ressources. Bungie has thoroughly reviewed the way its game was built, and now every Destiny 2 planet has several landing zones, but also different missions and quests, which are all up to the player to decide what to prioritize. Story missions are even located on the map, so you have to go there to activate them, but you’ll end up finding other things to do on the way, such as Adventures, which act as smaller scripted set of missions, or explore Lost Sectors, (secret zones which house mini-bosses and loot boxes), or a plethora of public events that guardians in the area can join, and of course returning patrol missions. Destiny 2 broadly resumes the basis of what its predecessor did, but constantly enrich the experience, like The Lost Sectors, for example, are only an evolution of these small dark caves in which sometimes there were no real interest in discovering.

The planets themselves follow the same logic of evolution of Destiny 2. Larger in size, they are also richer, with vast areas filled with varied visual elements, enemies, secret chests and all sorts of loot to discover. The game makes the effort to propose even more complex levels to invite the player to explore each planet, and succeeds on all front with some interesting verticality notably on Nessus and IO. If the first Destiny had us visit Earth’s Cosmodrome, the Moon, Mars and Venus, Guardians in Destiny 2 will visit previously mentioned IO, Nessus, and Titan, one of Jupiter’s satellites. Gone are the Russian plains of the Cosmodrome, as we discover the lush forests of the European Dead Zone, well known to PvP enthusiasts; in fact, several maps of the first Destiny were located precisely in the EDZ, like the Widow’s Court. In general, each destination has its own identity, almost making it a character of its own: Titan is a hostile planet, abandoned by humanity, home of methane research centers and arcologies.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The latter have unfortunately been invaded by a well-known enemy of the players, the Hive, which almost gives a sort of Alien movie side to Destiny 2. Nessus on the other hand reminds me of Venus, full of warm colors and impressive alien vegetation, home to vast vex ruins. IO finally is know as the last thing the Traveller touched before the Collapse, a “religious” place for Warlocks, and home of the biggest vex building you’ve ever seen.

You will spend plenty of time on these new planets as the game offers many missions. If I liked them to be higher in count in comparison to the first Destiny, I must admit that the developers have learned the lessons of the past. Destiny 2 stands by itself with the current content, even though expansions are planned for the months to come. With a total of 35 hours of play with the core game, I still have a lot of things to do and endless grinds, as the most hardcore of us fans will seek to reach the highest power level of 350, and without the need of replaying missions and other tedious tasks from the original game. Because yes, if anything, Destiny main problem was this weird cycle of having to replay story missions with different modifiers such as harder difficulties (Heroic missions). Numerous games do the same like the Diablo franchise, but these mechanics were not something that players really liked, and throughout the Destiny cycle these were pushed to the side. Instead the Destiny 2 introduce different weekly and daily activities that surely will have you venture in the same locations of the games, but without a feeling like you’re doing the same thing every time, namely Milestones and Challenges. The later are small secondary tasks that are dependent on either the game mode you are playing, or which planet you’re on. For example, it could be a task to kill 75 Fallen enemies on Titan, or maybe kill 5 Guardians with heavy weapons in the Crucible. There’s basically 3 challenges per activity (Crucible, Raid, Strikes) as well as per planet, giving you the chance to build XP and rewards faster. The other more important tasks are Milestones, which are usually more complicated, but will give you larger rewards such as powerful gear (usually higher power level than the one you have), and usually are linked to the most challenging part of the game like finish the Raid, Nightfall Strikes, newly introduced Flashpoints and Lord Shaxx’s Call to Arms (I’ll get back to all these later in the review)

All this mention about loot made me realize that we should probably talk about its new system, and especially how it affects the character that adorns and wields it. Like in the first Destiny, players will be able to pick one of the three classes: Titan, Warlock or Hunter, which will each have, after several hours of play, three different sub-classes. While most expected a new class or at least sub-classes to be added in the game, Bungie’s choice makes sense as it would be too random to add it at this point. Instead Bungie introduces redesigned subclasses, especially on the front of the starting ones like the Titan’s Sentinel, Warlock’s Dawnblade and the Hunter’s Arcstrider, which ultimately are an evolution of respectively the Titan’s Defender, Warlock’s Sunsinger and the Hunter’s Bladedancer.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

This does not mean that the subclasses haven’t really changed since the original Destiny, but on the contrary, have completely different skill trees. While the logic is still to have a cooldown ability of a grenade, your subclass skill, and a Class Ability Modifiers on top of your Super, the changes are dramatic for Destiny veterans, which will need to revisit their strategies. In my case, as a Hunter, I had to learn the hard way that gone are the invisibility perks of the Arc class, but instead, the Arcstrider is an agile high-risk subclasss with numerous tricks to lower your cooldown timers for all abilities. On that front, cooldowns are no longer subjected to the stats of your armor, since the trinity of Discipline, Strength and Intelligence have disappeared, instead relying on your nodes activated in your skill tree. This is a great thing for skilled players, especially when it comes to PVP, as they will be able to reload their skills fairly quick and inflict more damage because of the way they play, instead of betting on the armor stats like in the previous Destiny.

On the other hand, improving your character still depends on your loot and gear. The good news at least is that the system is much clearer than in the first game (and trust me, I’ve seen numerous changes in the past three years). In Destiny 2, loot can be found almost everywhere and in all activities, with revised drop rate on all front, so it won’t take you days before you find a legendary engram. The same thing applies in crucible, where I got my first exotic after a mere 8-10 hours of. On top of that, the original Destiny reputation system has been scratched, in favor of a system of tokens that are more interesting. The Vanguard have their own led by Zavala, Shaxx for Crucible, but also each planet’s key character has their own “ranking” system. Basically, the more you do task that help each person, the more you get token which you can hen redeem and level up your “allegiance” to eventually unlock Legendary Engrams, which decrypt into a series of themed weapons and armors (shaders and other cosmetic loot as well). Plus you can now join actual clans with all your friends (the old groups), which has its own reward system on a season basis, as well as buffs throughout period of time.

The new loot system is redefined to reduce endless grind

In short, the possibilities of the new loot system are numerous and if you were already addicted to that in the first Destiny, then the sequel will probably eat all of your spare time as you hunt for the best. There is however a small change that will not please all Guardians and especially devotees of the RNG gods: the rolls on weapons are no longer random. If in the first Destiny you could have three completely different scout rifles for example, with their own perks, and the most hardcore of all Guardians would keep on playing until he gets that god-roll. With a fixed roll for each weapon, this hunt is over, but at least we don’t need to spend a bunch of glimmer (the in-game currency) and farm for resource to upgrade everything anymore. Another small detail that also makes a big difference in terms of weapons and gear, is the addition of the mod system. First of all, since weapons now are split into kinetic (non-elemental weapons), elemental weapons and heavy slot, your loadout is now more strategic than before, since you can literally equip anything in all three spots. Are you more of a long range shooter? Then put on a Kinetic scout rifle, an elemental one in the second slot, and maybe a sniper rifle in the heavy slot. The choice is yours, and once you start playing around with the mods, which can drastically alter a weapon core to the point of turning an Arc rifle into a void one, the possibilities are endless. Finally I’d like to end a note on the front of the weapons with the simple fact that I’m glad to see that overused original Destiny weapons like Sniper Rifles and Shotguns are now considered heavy weapons, which changes drastically the way Guardians have been playing online competitively, and I welcome the new weapon types which are the submachine guns and grenade launchers (Machine guns on the other hand are gone).

Speaking of competitive gaming, Destiny 2 offers its dedicated PvP game modes, known as the Crucible. At launch, it allows the player to choose between two dedicated playlists: Quickplay or Competitive. The first is undoubtedly the more casual, with a compilation of classic game modes like Control and Clash; while the Competitive playlist focus on more complex modes. It’s thanks to the latter that two new game modes have been introduced. The first is directly inspired by Counter-Strike, known as Countdown, requiring a team to place a bomb on one of the two spots on the map; while the other team must either defuse the bomb or kill their opponents. The second game mode – Survival – pits two teams in a classic death match, except each side has a limited number of respawn.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Even though it’s lacking custom games, or the ability to just play specific modes, Destiny 2’s crucible marks a real good evolution when compared to the first game. The first reason is that since weapons have fixed rolls, it brings an easier way for developers to put balance in the game, even when it comes to each class strengths and weaknesses. If, at first glance, the Striker Titans or the Warlock Dawnblade seems dangerous, they are counterbalanced by weaknesses and key changes which shouldn’t be overlooked. For example, a Titan Shoulder Strike does not kill instantly, but actually can slightly imbalances its wielder, who must yet quickly chain the charge with a headshot in hope to defeat his enemy. Very often, the defending guardian has enough time to respond even before the Titan may have deal the fatal blow.

The other important change in the game’s crucible is the change to a 4v4 system, which is closer to what competitive shooters are opting for nowadays (with the exception of Overwatch of course). This decrease of set teams has helped Bungie to shrink the size of their Crucible maps, but turning them more complex and full of key clash area

The bravest of all guardians can now try their skills in the Trial of the Nines

All this would be a real pleasure if there were no defaults, and sadly the first one is important for me: when it comes to design, some maps seems like they were done better than others. Without really being bad, Vostok is a map located near the Iron Temple, which is too large and sadly constricts Gaurdians to clash in the middle area, within the corridor path in the mountain. Players are also scattered away from each other at each respawn, which often results in a second, fast but painful death, alone against two enemies that are going in a rotation. The second issue is that even though weapons are rather balanced on paper, auto rifles seems to be everywhere, due to their higher than normal reach and unbelievable accuracy that makes the use of slower weapons such as Scout Rifles or Pulse Rifles obsolete (unless you have the Mida Multi-Tool). Yet, I’m not worried on that front, as Bungie has always been very responsive and quickly balancing the Crucible, so I’m pretty sure it will happen soon.

Back in Destiny, the Trials of Osiris was the ultimate test for PVP, pushing guardians to go through an intense challenge of winning 9 games in a row of elimination mode, to eventually be granted access to the lighthouse on Mercury for some of the hottest armor and weapon loot (all themed after ancient Egyptian mythology). This time in Destiny 2, our challenge is the Trial of the Nines, which change every week, with a challenge to pass through 7 consecutive wins, and discover some strange prophecies from mysterious Nines.

The new Levathian Raid bring all the best from the previous edition in one package

Before we wrap this up, shouldn’t I talk about the raid? This ultimate test of teamwork still requires squads of six players, in order to overcome the numerous events in a large scale mission and eventually beat the final boss. This first raid – since I assume more will come with the upcoming announced two DLCs – is really well done. Directly linked to the lore of the Cabals, the Leviathan raid took the best of the four previous original Destiny raids and merged them into one. This raid is staged with relay systems as was the case for the Oryx one, and even a stealth phase like the Gorgons Maze of the Vault of Glass. The game also added two features that makes the job harder for those used to cheese things around. First of all, the Raid are now free of checkpoints, meaning there’s no way of coming back to any part of it after returning to orbit. The second key thing added is on the front of respawn mechanics. Each player has one resuscitation token for each area in the raid, and once the token has been used, he cannot revive anyone else. This makes things complicated, because if one member of your party stays dead for more than 25 seconds, then the whole team is wiped.

Finally, take the time to thoroughly explore the raid as it seems that the developers have hidden many secrets and some of them have yet to be discovered. Note that it is now possible to use a matchmaking system, and join another squad to do the raid via something called guided activities, led by “shephards” which should allow solo players to do all activities more easily.

Destiny 2 was reviewed using an Xbox One digital copy of the game purchased by the writer. The game is also available on on PlayStation 4 and coming soon on PC via Battle.net. We don’t discuss review scores with publishers or developers prior to the review being published.

Without aiming to revolutionize the recipe, Destiny 2 does exactly what you’d expect of it: to correct the numerous defects of a game which had the base of becoming a legendary experience. A while ago, I finished an interesting written by my colleague Jason Schreier over at Kotaku called…

#Activision #Bungie #Destiny #Editor&039;s Choice #Featured #FPS #MMO #Multiplatform #Multiplayer #Online Only #Singleplayer

0 notes

jansegers · 7 years ago

Text

Simple English Word List

SIMPLE1540 : a simple English wikipedia word list based on the XML export of all articles related to the nine major groups: Everyday life, Geography, History, Knowledge, Language, Literature, People, Religion, and Science and retaining all word forms appearing 7 times or more in this corpus. The total number of words in this corpus is well over the 100.000 words. a A.D. ability able about above absence abstinence abstract academic academy accent accept access accord account across act action active activity actual actually ad add addition adherent adjective adult advance advice affect after again against age agnostic agnosticism ago agree agreement agriculture air alcohol all allow ally almost alone along alphabet also although always amateur amendment among amount an analysis ancient and angel animal annals anonymous another answer anthropomorphism any anyone anything aphasia appear apple apply approach archaeology architecture area argue argument around arrange art article artificial artist ask aspect associate association astronomy at atheism atheist atomic attack attempt attribute audience author authority available average avoid award away B.C. baby back background backpack bad bah balance band baptism base basic basis battle BCE be bear beautiful beauty because become bed bee before begin behavior behind being belief believe believing belong below best better between beyond bias biblical bibliography big billion biological biology birth bit black blind blood blue body book born both bottom boundary box boy brain branch bring brown buffalo build building bull burn business but by c. ca. calendar call can cancer canon capital caption car carbon card carry case cassette cat category cathedral catholic cause cell center central century cerebral certain change chapel chapter character chemical chemistry child china China choice choir choose chronicle church circumcise circumcision cite citizen city civil civilian civilization claim clan class classical cleanup clear clergy click climate close closer clothes clothing coast coauthor code codex cognitive col cold collection college colonization colony color column com come commentary commission common commonly communicate communication communion communist community companion company compare competition complete complex compose composer computer concept conception concern condition confuse confusion congregational connect connection conquer conquest consciousness consider consistent constitution construct construction contain contemporary content context continent continue contrary control convention conversation conversion convert cook cooking copy core correct could council country course court cover covered create creation credit crime critical criticism crop cross crust cultural culture current currently daily damage dark data date day dead death debt decadence decadent decide declaration decline deconstruction deep define definition deity demonstrate denomination department depth describe description design detail determinism developed development device devil diagnosis dialect dictionary die difference different difficult difficulty diphthong dipstick direct directly dirt disagree disambiguation disbelief discipline discover discovery discussion disease disorder distance distinct distinction distinguish distribution divide divine do doctor doctrine document dog don't door down Dr. dream drink drown druid due during dynasty each earlier early earth easier easily easy eat economic economics economy ed edge edit edition editor education effect eight either electric electricity electronic element elevation else emperor empire encyclopedia end energy engine engineering enlightenment enough enter entertainment environment environmental epic episode equal era error especially establish etc. etymology even event eventually ever every everyday everyone everything evidence evil evolution evolve exact exactly example except exchange exist existence expansion experience experiment expert explain explanation express expression external extinct face fact failure fair faith fall false family famous far fast father feature feel feeling female feudal few fiction field fight figure file find finding fire first fish fit five fix flow folk follow food for force foreign foreskin form formal former fortune fought foundation founded four fourth frame framework free freedom frequently friend from front fruit full function functional further future gas general generally generation genre geographer geographic geographical geography geology geometry germ get give glass global go god gold golden good government grammar great greatly green ground group grow growth guide guillotine hair half hall hand handbook handicap handle happen happens happiness happy hard have he head heading health hear heat heaven help hemisphere her here heritage hero high highly him himself his historian historical historiography history hold holy home homo hope hot hour house how however human hundred hunter hypothesis hysteresis I ice icon idea identify identity if illiteracy illiterate illusory image importance important impossible improve in inc. incense include increase indeed independence independent indigenous individual industrial industry influence information inquiry inside instead institute institution instrument instrumentation intellectual intelligence interlinear internal international internet interpretation into introduce introduction invent invention involve iron island issue it IT itself job join journal journalism judge just keep key kill kind king kingdom know knowledge la LA label lack lake lamp land landlocked landscape language large last late later law lead leader leap learn learned least leave legacy legal legend let letter level lexeme library life light lightning like likely limited line linguistic linguistics link liquid list literacy literary literature little liturgy live local location logic logical long longer look lord lore lose lot love low lower mac machine magazine magic magnetic magnum mail main mainly major make male mammal man mankind manuscript many map march March mark market mass material mathematical mathematics matter may May me mean meaning meant measure measurement meat median medical medicine medieval mediterranean medium meet member memory men mental mention mercury message metal method mid middle might migrate migration military millennium million mind minister minute misconception miss model modern modernism modernist moment money monologue monophthong month monument moon moral morality more morning most mostly mother mount mountain mouth move movement much museum music musical musicians must my myth mythology name narrative nation national nationality native natural naturalism naturally nature near nearly necessarily necessary need negative neither neologism network neurogenesis neuron neuroscience never new news newspaper next night nine no non none nor normal normally not note nothing noun novel now nuclear number object objective objectivity observation observe occupation occur ocean octane of off offer office official officially often oil old older on once one online only open opera opposite or oral orbit order org organization organize origin original originally orthography orthology other others our out outer outside over own oxygen p. pack pagan page paint palace paper paradigm parent parish park part participant particular particularly party pas pass past pasta pattern pay peace peer penguin penis people per percent percentage perception performance perhaps period peroxide persecution person personal personality perspective persuasion pet phenomenon philosopher philosophical philosophy phoneme phonetic phonetics photo phrase physic physical picture piece pilgrimage place plan planet plant plat plate play please poem poems poet poetry point pole police policy political politics polytheism polytheistic popular population position positive possession possible possibly post power powerful pp. practical practice praise pray prayer precise predict prediction prehistory present preserve press prevent priest primary principle print printing private probably problem process produce product production professional program project pronounce pronunciation proof property prophet propose prose proselytism protection protein provide province psychological psychology public publication publish publisher publishing punishment pure purpose put pyramid quantum question quickly quite quote race racial rack radiation radio rain range rate rather read reader real realism reality really reason receive recent recently reclamation recognize record recreation red ref refer reference referred reform reformation regard region reign rejection relate relation relationship relatively relativity reliable relic religion religious remain remember remove renaissance replace report republic request require research researcher resource respect response result resurrection retrieve return revelation revert review revision revival revolution rhetoric rich right rise ritual river rock role room royal rule ruled ruler run rural sacred sacrifice safe saga sage saint salad same sample satellite saw say schizophrenia scholar school science scientific scientist scope sea search second secondary section secular see seek seem selection self sense sent sentence separate sequence series service set seven several sexual shall shaman shape share she short should show shrine side sign significant silence similar simple simply since single situation six size skill skin slavery sleep slightly slow small smell smith snake so social society sociology soft soil solar soldier solid soliloquy some someone something sometimes song soon sortable sound source space speak speaker special specie specific speech speed spell spirit spiritual spirituality split sport spread square st. stage stain standard star start state statement station statistic statistical statue status stick still stone stop story strange strap strong structure struggle stub student study stutter style subject successful such sugar suggest sun sung sunlight superior superiority supernatural support suppose supreme sure surface survey surveyor sushi sustainability sustainable sweat symbol symbolic system table take talk tam tan task teach teacher teaching technique technology tectonics teeth tell temperature template temple ten term terminology territory tertiary test testament text textual than thank that the their theism them themselves then theology theoretical theory therapy there therefore thesaurus these they thick thing think third this those though thought thousand three through throughout thumb thus ticket tight time title to today together toilet tolerance toleration tongue too tool top topic total towards tower trade tradition traditional train translation transport travel treat treatment tree trench trial tribe tried trig true truth try turn twentieth twenty two type typical typically ultimate ultraviolet under understand understood union unit united universal universe university unknown unsortable until up upon upper urban urbanization usage use useful usually valley value van vandalism various vassal vegetable verb verbal verse version very video view violence virgin visit vitamin vocabulary voice vol. volume vowel vs. wale wall want war warm warmer wash waste water wave way we weak wealth wear weather web website weight well what when where whether which while white who whole whom whose why wide widely wild wilderness will window wisdom wise witch witchcraft with within without witness woman word work worker world worship would write writer writing wrong yam year yellow you young your

China, March and May made this list because china, march and may are on it and I didn't want to decide in favor of the common noun or the proper noun; all other proper nouns have been omitted (even the ten other months that met the criterium of appearing more then 6 times). #SimpleWikipedia #SimpleEnglish #wordlist #English #words #level1540 #Inli #nimi #selo1540

#SimpleWikipedia SimpleEnglish wordlist English words level1540 Inli nimi selo1540

0 notes

twitchesandstitches · 6 years ago

Text

The Great Library, In The World of Elements

Crossthicc fic introducing two major players: the Avatar: The Last Airbender and Legend of Korra ladies as older MILFs, their husbands and relatives as being younger than them as oppose to canon, and the Great Library that holds all knowledge, or is at least trying to. Featuring appearances by Warhammer 40k’s Magnus the Red, Hermione Granger from Potterverse if you squint and tilt your head, and worldbuilding all over the place!

On a world apart from all mortal universes and inaccessible by most normal means, there was a world of elements, and spirits, and upon it, a ruin had been found, carrying priceless treasures.

Perhaps one of the most important of those had been an unassuming book. It was among the things found by Katara of the Southern Water Tribe and her group of friends, and it was not long after that they had received a most unusual invitation, which they were en route to accept.

In the mortal universes, there were legends of a Great Library; said to be founded by the spirit of knowledge itself and guarded by a thousand sorcerers, overseen by the greatest prophet of Primus, guided by the god of human magical might, and many other grand tales. It was said this library held all works, gathering them all to it, even the ones that were logically impossible for it to have; all mortal thought and knowledge, the stories went, wound up here. But most people thought it was just a legend. It wasn’t thought to be a real place, except by fleet-based weirdos. There wasn’t really a library bigger than a universe and filled with every book to have been destroyed, of relics kept intact past the doom of their civilizations, and every lost big of knowledge and technique preserved forever, immortalized and guarded. And lost technologies, from shipcraft to terraforming, the schematics and Standard Template Constructs intact.

If the people who told those stories knew where that airship was going, they would have thrown a jealous fit.

But, in any case, the world upon which this transpired was somewhat isolated from the test of existence, making it a pretty safe place for such a library to… exist, if that was the right word for such an eldritch location.

The separation between the shallowest parts of the Astral Sea and the mortal realms were not quite as rigid as mortal scholar supposed. Go deep enough, and it was true that you would enter a different state of existence than mortals were normally accustomed to. The Fade; the Warp, the realms of magic; call them by any of the names given over the eons, but they were not separate from the physical universes. Degrees of separation could make the distinctions extremely thin indeed, so you might slip through them with ease.

Katara, Chieftess of the Southern Water Tribes (and mother to a large portion of it), instructor to two avatars of the world-spirit Raava, and perhaps one of the greatest sorcery-shapers in all the world she knew, had something of a scholarly bent and so she knew approximately some of this.

She knew, for example, that many thousands of years ago (perhaps ten thousand, perhaps more; the records varying in the telling, but such was the way of stories), a great cataclysm had struck all existence. Had it been an invasion of the utterly alien raksha, the fair ones who dwelled beyond the world and came forth, taking the very stars and all living things into their nightmare places as toys and slaves for their tortures? Perhaps the dark goddess of extinction and undeath, Unicron (she who devours All), had risen forth, and set about ending all existence to remake it in her image. And perhaps the fiends who dwelled in the most wretched realms of belief had burst forth, descending upon all worlds to enslave them or slaughter them, as befit their mood.

Perhaps all of those things, are none. Katara didn’t know, and not knowing rankled her. Not even the Library held that knowledge, when it was said to contain all lore lost to memory in the greater multiverse.

Perhaps, she considered as the airship her family rode upon neared its destination, it was a good time to brush up her favorite students on their lore.

Across a particularly challenging part of the world, over steppes and mountains where a branch of the Air Nomads more warlike than others had established their domain and fiercely protected against Water Tribe hunters and Fire Nation soldiers alike, the storms were fierce, the wind almost a living thing. It probably was. Katara heard a distant voice upon the wind, booming and rumbling in the echoes between crashes of thunder. A challenging voice, commanding them to not break the laws of the land.

This was Air Nomad land. The mountains all across the world belonged to the Air Nomads, and each mountain, each steppes, they all had their own character that shaped the world. The spirits spoke to all who worked with the elements, and it made their culture what it was. The Air Nomads who took to the desert did not fly but piloted sand-boats across the sand; the nomads who lived near the pastures of the Fire Nation’s marshes were in constant conflict with them, and the Air Nomads who took to the mountains were distant and lived almost in the air itself, relying on their sky bison herds to survive.

These mountains produced people whom it was extremely unwise to offend. It was said that Yangchen, great khan of all the Air Nomad clans and lands and fiefdoms, was a soft-spoken soul who nonetheless treated any breaking of her people’s territory a grievous slight, and could call down the hurricane upon them. She was as large as a hurricane, a giantess of a woman who strode between valleys with a single step, her curves taking up all the space inbetween.

All women, when they swelled with the power of the spirits and the elements, got larger as they got stronger.

Katara did not see her, even in the distance, but nonetheless her presence was still there in a way; she knew there were Air Nomad scouts watching there, or perhaps at pasture and silently observing them, and should anything… untoward or objectionable happen… Yangchen would know about it at once. You did not violate Air Nomad law. Katara was most familiar with the mountain monasteries near her homeland, and monks there subsisted by growing their own food and trading their power over the air to give bountiful harvests to their neighbors. They were pacifists, but they dealt with offenses by simply withdrawing the blessings of the wind and protection from the storm. You kept an agreement with them, or they let the wind take you. Around here, there was probably a more direct route that involved ostrich-horses and quartering.

Their airship was a Fire Nation design, but Air Nomads who took the steppes near the caldera heartland and enjoyed a healthy rivalry with the dragon riders had made it their own; taking inspiration from Fire clans who spent their entire lives on the ocean in communal home-ships, they considerably expanded the design, lightened it, modified it to glide with the help of sky bison teams and airbending prowess, and produced a lightweight and streamlined airship barely distinct from its envelope. It really couldn’t take much hit, but as Katara had no intention of risking the wrath of Yangchen or the caretakers of the great library, that wasn’t an issue.

She looked out the desk, heavily sheltered against pelting rain and strong winds and the worst of the cold. She and her family had traveled the world in this fashion; herself and her young husband Aang, her brother Sokka and his wife/combat instructor Suki, Fire Lord Zuko (leader of the religious Fire Sage order and taking some time out, since the perpetual civil war between he and his elder sister Azula had cooled for the moment) and his wife Mai, perhaps the greatest assassin in the known world, and Toph Bei Fong, twenty-times battle champion of the ring and leader of the most notorious crime family in the world even if she was doing her best to reform them. With them, too, was her student Korra, and the resident mechanic and innovator of this ariship’s improvements, Asami Sato.

Katara turned aside, so suddenly that her massive breasts swung with a faintly audible sloshing sound. Women who walked with the spirits grew larger, and the larger they became as they got stronger, and Katara was very strong. For the sake of convenience she had let her power be concealed just to fit into the airship, but she still stood so tall that a large man would be no taller than her knee; not even the mightiest krogran of the Earth Kingdom’s expansions, nor the tallest necrofriggian specter could stand any bigger than the lowest part of her broad thighs.

The blessings of the spirits shone bright upon her, her skin marked with the bright blue tattoos of the Water Tribe upon her dark brown skin and shining with a faint silvery light; the markings upon her face were the angled lines given to adult women to celebrate them mastering all the skills to contribute fully (angular lines on the forehead, spanning cheek and nose, and several lines running up the chin), and the Waterbending markings all over her body were largely the same, flowing and curling over her body and seeming to move, sometimes still and jagged, other times rippling and flowing in tides.

Then there were the… obvious physical gifts. Many years of refining her powers, and many children born from the fertility bestowed upon her by the spirits, had also given her a fairly plump belly that stuck out a bit on her broad, motherly figure. Her thick, black hair flowed down behind her all the way to the ground, riding along her elaborate mantle of office, the small wind chimes given to her by the Air Nomad elders as a marriage gift dangling from it. Not even her heavy furs and warm clothing could conceal just how huge her figure was, nor how much her enormous backside distorted her clothing.

“We’ll be there soon!” She said brightly, smiling down at the much smaller (for the most part) figures around her.

She would, she realized with a numb thrill, be one of the first living people in a long, long time, enter the Great Library itself.

And be the only one of those select few to be invited there.

Aboard this private room, fashioned after a communal living room in her people’s style with a great fire in the middle of the room, her husband and student Aang sat, dressed warmly in a white coat made by the sheared fur of his sky bison, who was helping keep the ship on track. A young man of slight build, broadening somewhat by the physical effort of simply being her lover when she was several times his size, sixteen times as heavy as she looked and even stronger than she looked, he gazed at her with solemn eyes, his head shaved in the style of the monastic Air Nomads she knew and elaborately tattooed much as she was, through the Air Nomads favored intricate designs that weaved into large arrows upon the forehead, across the back and hands, and down the legs, as proscribed by the red tornado spirits who had taught the first Air Nomad sages.

Mixed in with those, two, were the markings of the other elemental nations. It was hard to know this, as he was warmly dressed and most of his elegant form was covered up, obscuring the tattoos, but Katara knew them all quite intimately, as much as the curve of his limbs or the taste of his lips. In deference to his people’s traditions, though, they were the same light blue as his Airbending master tattoos, and as he wasn’t powered up, they weren’t too bright at the moment.

The others were around the room. Sitting on a big poof was her younger brother Sokka, dozing away, his head in the lap of a rather larger woman, Suki, and around her neck was the betrothal necklace he had made for her, looking quite small around her imposing frame and threatening to vanish into her broad cleavage. Asami Sato, the long-time adventure partner and giftfriend to Katara’s other student Korra, busied herself with an elemental core on the fritz, her tall frame mostly dominated by her absolutely enormous hair and the magical cybernetics she had installed, electrical static and vapor rising from her as she produced a number of brass tools from her arm.

Lounging by herself was the amazonian frame of Toph Bei Fong, larger than anyone else in the room save Korra by a huge margin, her massive body extremely wide and rippling with bulky muscle and the signs of her element: small crystals grew from her skin, metal interlaced with stone, and her blind eyes (all but hidden beneath her shockingly long, heavy hair) looked like they were made of granite. She slugged back a drink of something probably alcoholic, her breasts so massive they were cradled by her biceps and defined belly.

There were a few others (such as Mako and Bolin, two gladiators who had come to serve Toph as a kind of bodyguard), but the last of the family unit was Fire Lord Zuko, leader of the religious order of dragon riders and fire sages that had taken his side in the civil war between him and his sister Azula that left their homeland in a cluster of warring states. AT the moment times were calm, allowing him to go on this pilgrimage with the others. He sat docilely in the lap of his wife Mai; like the other girls, older than him, and much larger than him. Her thighs alone were wider than his whole body, and he looked like a little doll sitting in her lap, her huge breasts sandwiching the top of his head as she ran her fingers through his hair. He looked like he might be asleep, wrapped up in her robes like a blanket.

Mai herself, stern and silent, let a rare moment of open tenderness as she ran fingers like actual blades through his hair. She let herself rest fully upon him, perhaps warming herself with his strong body.

Katara hated to ruin the various tender moments going on around her, and she opted to focus instead on Aang. She smiled at him. He smiled back, and at his side there was a book. A very large book, perhaps a tome, and upon its cover there was the symbol of a cogwheel.

KAtara was tempted to ask him to hand it over and allow her to peruse it, just one last time, and put herself to the task of doing the impossible. To wring meaning out of letters that absolutely no one had seen before, to understand the meaning of what kind of Bending art this was teaching. It was an authority on teaching some kind of Bending and martial arts, that was certain, but it was impossible to say what it conveyed, within context.

It looked like the kind of thing preserved by masters and passed on, conveying philosophy and techniques, and the soul of the bending style it taught. And most of it was written, in a language no one had ever seen before, with no relation to any living language. Establishing even the slightest rudimentary understanding would take decades of work for the finest minds in the world.

The visual aids clearly showed moves. Poses, katas to position through and perform, but not what they were manipulating or communing with; no spiritual insignias except variations on cogwheels. And the moves it did show bore some resemblance to, say, Earthbending, for example, similar to some of the metal manipulation schools, but far more rigid and unyielding in a way that allowed for no deviance. Earth always held an element of sudden potential shift. This was something else altogether.

A massive bending manual, written in a completely alien language, its mysteries distant. Katara thought it best to just leave it be.

“We’ll be coming up to our destination soon,” she said softly to Aang. “And then.. Well, we’ll see what’s next.”

He replied, “Whatever you think is best, Chieftess?”

Katara smiled faintly. He had more or less matured underneath her rule and seemed to feel she ought to always be in charge. “You don’t have to be so formal when it’s us.”

Aang smiled back with a hint of impishness. “I can if I want to~!”

The much larger woman sitting besides Aang, who even sitting down was even taller than Katara and Toph, gave him a happy punch to the shoulder. “That’s the spirit!” Korra shouted cheerfully, boisterousness resonating off her every word. A Water Tribe woman like Katara, also of the Southern branch but from a more isolated branch that spent a lot of time wrestling spirits for fun, she was absolutely huge; her breasts were nearly twice the size of her entire upper body and were deeply tattooed with some of the most elaborate tattoos any of them had ever seen. Water Tribe womanhood markings upon her face and water honors upon her forearms and hips, yes, but the green geometric patterns of the Earth Kingdom showed her attunement to soil and stone and mineral things, she bore the same tattoos Aang did, and the Fire Nation’s sage letters were scripted on her body, and the flame iconography of the Sun Warriors as well. Red, greens and blues met all over her body, on her breasts and sleek muscles, so that her body was a tapestry of unity.

It was more obvious than Aang’s similar pan-tradition markings. Korra, after all, made a point of showing much more of her gigantic curves and beefy build. And upon their backs was the great white mark of Raava, indicating that she had chosen both of them as vessels for her power; a broadly triangular white shape, adorned with blue sigils, and tendrils embracing their lower back and sides.

Katara turned back, the night beginning to come. The sun was fading (Zuko stirring briefly, and then stopping), and soon the moon would rise, and Katara felt herself swelling as the power came to her. For the moment, it was only a momentary tightness where her breasts fetched up against her robes.

The airship drifted onwards past a circular outcropping of hills, dark obsidian and still frozen in the violent upheaval that had made them eons ago. The ground beneath them looked like it ought to have been a crater but arched up in completely different materials than what would be expected, and they were very regular for hills. No, too large for hills. They were mountains, arching high into the sky,

But agan, no. There had never been a truly natural shape that regular. These were not mountains. They were massive buildings.

The airship soon had to drift upwards as the mountain-sized mass of buildings grew closter. They arched bigger and bigger, dominating the horizon, drowning it out, blocking it, and casting a massive shadow upon the nearby sea trickling through the shattered ground. The buildings glistened, pyramids and spires shaping them into a fortress against time and invaders, and age emanated from it as a physical force.

The skyline was more of this, a massive complex larger than entire countries, and it continued going on, and on, and on… in many ways, it felt too big, so large that their minds genuinely could not process it, the building’s true extend beginning in some other set of dimensions, and looking at it too long or too hard would do troublesome things to the mind.

It did, if you looked at it from the right angle, arch up into a central edifice that sort of resembled a massive tree, and with the secondary structure sprouting off it, the massive complex looked… well.

Sokka glanced out, as everyone stared at the imposing sight, and he managed to regain enough composure to comment, “Looks like a really, REALLY big pineapple.”

The multiverse itself seemed to gape at this.

Suki squinted. “You know… it kind of does.”

“I’m calling it the Knowledge Pineapple now,” Asami said from the corner.

“Me too!” Sokka agreed.

Zuko groaned. “You can’t call it that! WHat if they take offense and decide to attack for the insult!?”

Aang considered this. “I don’t know. The Great Khan won’t kill us just for making a joke.”

“It’s not her we are worried about,” Mai said darkly.

Slowly they approached, and it took so long that even as they flew by on the wind, night truly fell. There was only a bit of window between ground and buildings to see the sky now, but one might think that the night sky outside was… strange. The stars moved, not fixed points of light in a void but an ever shifting and fluctuating mess of constellations… real ones, actual visible images flickering forth. The dreams of other universes, Katara had understood it, myths taking visible shape for them, impressed by the powerful magic they lived within and blanketing their world. Their world swam in a sea of spiritual power, and it was one reason that the spirits could come freely into the physical world when this was not always possible unless invited.

To everyone on the airship, the sky was always like that.

Katara knew that it was not like this, in the rest of the material plane. It was a fascinating notion, and sometimes, she wondered what it would be like to walk the ground of another world, beneath an alien sky. Standing side by side with people who knew truths other than the ones she did, who took part in communities far from her own…

She tried to let it go. No ship would ever come down from the sky and come to ask her and her family to see other worlds.

Now they were close enough to the building to see the flags bright, flapping and warning all trespassers of the doom awaiting them should they attempt to invade. The symbol of something that looked like a dreadful owl. Something ancient, primeval, had made this place, and it was still there. WAiting, guarding. And always, always wary.

A sign resembling a boar’s face, flanked by four other animals: a lion, a badger, a snake and an eagle. The sign of an old organization of scholars studying a kind of magic specific to humans, or so it was said, and whom had been given shelter at this place as part of an ancient bargain. In return, they protected it and studied there, with all their potent powers.

There were many others, but one of the most dreadful resembled a great eye, flame surrounding it.

The symbol, lore spoke, of a thousand sons. A thousand daughters, and those who came like bloody ravens to the slaughter, all children of magic itself in human form, gazing with its great eye upon all who would threaten prosperity and knowledge.

This place was well-guarded indeed. It was old, likely older than their world, than the multiverse itself.

It was, simply, the Library. The first Library in all existence. Within its walls, so it was said, there were records of every thought that had been ever had. Copies of every book and scroll and tome to have ever been written… including the ones erased from time, retroactively. Nothing was lost, at least not here, and even records from before the cataclysm had survived here. For every thing ever lost to ignorance and random destruction, it was saved and preserved here. Every relic stolen away and forgotten or crushed, a copy of it was safeguarded here.

A cosmic museum, an omniscient library, a preservation of all knowledge in existence, a bulwark against the constant destruction that assailed the multiverse on what must have been a weekly basis. To go in there was said to be the biggest honor almost anyone could ever receive, and it required years of constant work and duty to its wardens before you were even allowed to approach it, for fear of its wonders being misused.

Katara felt humbled, she felt thrilled, she felt a long of things but mostly she felt kind of numb. Not once had she ever imagined ever being allowed to come here. Not even in an idle daydream; it was simply unthinkable to imagine being able to freely come into the Great Library. Be allowed to seek a specific answer or to answer a mystery, or recieve the aid of the scholars who studied the wisdom of all existence? Yes, perhaps. But never to just be allowed to come in and look at whatever you pleased…!

A shape appeared suddenly at the window. A long shape, not quite owl, nor quite bear, vaguely humanoid and riding upon a bony creature that combined elements of dragon and horse. “Come!” It barked, great bulk shifting upward.

“YEEK!” Bolin squeaked, falling backwards, and even the most hardened of them, from Toph to Katara herself, recoiled at the aura coming off it; a sense of… not menace, but of power overwhelming. A spirit, of what they didn’t know, but it definitely gave off the impression that menace could be on the table any moment.

“Your pilot has been notified,” the owl-creature rumbled, now somewhat sedate. BEhind it, thousands more materialized out of the air itself, each riding its own steed. None carried weapons, and none needed them. Within their place of power, this realm they guarded, they were deadlier than a volcano at point blank range. “You will land soon. Please be courteous, as we have shown you courtesy.”

They all settled down as the owl creatures melted away, vanished into mist as suddenly as they had arrived. And a tall outcropping twisted towards them, flattening out and reshaping itself into a flat surface. Stairs appeared upon it, going inward, and a small group appeared, waiting for them. Their airship turned, and the heat dying down in the envelope, the sky bison soothed, the airship lowered.

Asami swallowed. “Well. Moment of truth, everybody…”

“Maybe they won’t kill us all,” Mako said morosely. “Or maybe this is a big trap.”

“Can we please try to be a little more upbeat?” Aang asked plaintively. “I really don’t think a library as important as this is going to hurt anyone.”

“Hmm,” Mai said. She had been in politics too long to trust anyone, ever.

They exited the airship, and when they came down, the group waiting for them was broadly humanoid. They were all foxes, human in shape; some of their faces were close to human, other long snouts, and all of them had figures similar to Katara and Korra. Their number of tails - anywhere from two to five - had Katara worried. Spirits too, perhaps seekers of knowledge, and very powerful ones at that. Was something trying to impress them, or send a message?

You are being greeted by spirits that could wipe out your countries with a flick of a finger. They bow to you, graceful and courteous, but before them, you hold no power.

Remember: you are here at our sufferance. Do not betray our trust.

At least, that is how Katara saw it.

One of the fox spirits spoke all their names; or most of them. They paused and considered Asami, Mako, and Bolin. “These are your own guests, we trust?” The bustiest and largest of the fox women said, with more tails than the others, but when she spoke, it was with perfect synchronicity with the others.

“Yes,” Katara said thinly.

“Very well. Please. Do you have the relic that has been sought out?”

Aang showed them the book.

One of the smaller fox women bent over to study it. It was probably an accident that causes her robes to slip and show off so much furry cleavage. “Oh, yes!” She said, bending back up with a happy bark. “Yes, indeed. It is genuine!”

“Did you really think it wouldn’t be?” Aang said, sounding hurt. Suki, Toph and some of the others sounded more acerbic about it.

The maidens giggled all together. “We ask you, please do not take offense. But we must be absolutely certain, all the time. This is a very special ocassion, we will tell you, but there are rules that must always be observed and never strayed from. Please, do not think less of us for it.”

“We understand,” Aang said, bowing low in the manner appropriate to spirits of their nature, and after a moment, the others followed his example. When it came to spirits, Aang was never wrong.

Together with the fox spirits, they entered walked down into the stairway, and there was a momentary feeling of discomfort, as if they were being wrenched, of simultaneously being in one place but another and slipping both ways…

And then it stopped, and suddenly they were somewhere else, all together.

“Oh,” said one of the fox maidens. “A little surprise for you. The Master of the Library wishes to see you personally!”

It took a moment for any of them to process this, though. For a moment, all Katara could think was ‘the carpet is very nice’. She slowly got up, and progressed to thinking about how the stonework of the floor was nice too, very polished and smooth. She looked up, and saw…

She looked up, and up, and up, and she kept on looking. There came no end to places to look, and the distance was a horizon with no limit. Perhaps somewhere, there was a ceiling, but it was so distant that there were clouds up there.

The walls were higher even that the mountainous forms the Great Library’s exterior suggested. Every single inch of them was devoted to storage and display. Great rotating racks of books, arranged into massive spirals and twisting around into entirely different realms of space, thoughts transcribed into books and pulled from the ether into physical form, and several book volumes appeared on the spot and were marked ‘Ruminations on Puzzle Cubes’. Next to that shelf was a similar one, but dedicated to scrolls, and descending from it was a dizzying complexity of reading devices for scrolls; magnifying glasses set over flat planes, treadmills to pan through the scrolls for those beings that did not have the patience to sit or the physiology, each scroll sitting in a magically preserved slot by the hundreds of trillions of thousands, each one with a tiny plaque indicating name and author. Those that had never been fully written, or could not have existed, were marked with worrying statements and odd letters.

And not far from them, there were the displays. A case holding a sword that glowed faintly, and it was not a replica at all, but a permanent spell that perfectly captured its image, a three dimensional picture. Sokka had recovered ,and went over to examine it. “The fae sword Caliburn, wielded by the King of the Sidhe in the battle between the Tuatha and the Fomorians. Current location lost to the ages.” HE squinted. Below that was a list of suspected places to begin looking, and appropriate rewards. His eyes widened. “Okay that is a lot of stuff to give for a single sword. And… wait, bless the hero with what kind of magical power? ...Do I really want the power to throw continents around…?”

“We find it is a rhetorical question,” a fox woman said smoothly.

The others began to migrate and look around. Zuko went straight to a roll of scrolls and exclaimed that here, was the writings of a Fire Sage long thought lost for eight hundred years in a fire. The plaque stated it had indeed been lost, and so the scroll appeared here, immortalized and preserving its knowledge of producing fire that could heal injuries and wounds. Mai marveled at a record of smithing techniques relying on automated hammer mechanisms that, she vowed, they would strive to improve upon once they got back home. Everyone found something to admire: museum displays of wondrous relics or still lives of immortalized scenes. Scrolls of something important to them, or just very interesting.

And they had to stay careful not to wander off. One of the fox attendants warned them, to stray off course was to risk vanishing into the depths and never being seen again. “Mortals are not well equipped to understand the navigation of our library,” they said gravely. “Corridors move upon their own. Staircases shift depending on the day of the week. And doorways do not always lead the same place twice. And of course, we are not exactly in the same set of dimensions you may be used to.”

Katara frowned. “What do you mean?”

One pointed upwards, towards a wall. Where Katara had thought she had seen an edifice, too far away to make out, was the edge of a corridor… twisted and bending so that it was on its side and, at the same exact time, enclosed, upside down, and still obeying the normal laws of gravity from its own perspective. Toph, Aang and Suki had wandered off and were walking on what looked like the ceiling of that distant room.

Katara gaped. “How!? They were just next to me a second ago?”

A fox shrugged. “They turned the corner. They lead to… places.”

“WHAT IS HAPPENING!?“ Suki cried out, clutching her head and trying not to be sick as she stood on a ceiling and looked at a floor above her, the whole world gently rotating in absurd degrees.

“Huh. This is… difficult,” Aang said, trying to not get ill.

Toph tried to walk, but the sense of stone she got from the world around here was sending her some extremely distressing things. She started to talk about stone that was in ten places at once and also floating by itself, starways flipping all on their own, bookshelves intersecting when no one was looking, and walls pretending to be doors, and gave up.

Fortunately, by this point someone a bit more experienced with mortal problems arrived. A human woman, built on broadly the same look as Korra and Katara but a good deal softer, came in. Her skin was dark brown, her bushy hair a dense cloud, and her robes a hooded style unfamiliar to any of the group, cut at the sides to show netting lining her thighs all the way down to sensible slippers. At her side was a wooden instrument, a heavy wand, and beside her were several other humans like her, some very pale-skinned like the people from the more wet climates, others more like the nations Katara had personally visited or the woman herself. She said nothing to them, but spoke in a language unfamiliar to Katara, and one of her attendants left and returned, a short time later, with the others, rescued from getting lost.

She wasn’t a Bender. She didn’t have any of the physical mutations associated with the spirit’s blessings. But she was powerful, and somewhere between Katara and Korra in height and outrageous buxom-ness; magical power radiated off her like heat off a furnace. Her elaborate and prim robes, trimed in red and with lion imagery with golden embroidering, struggled before the weight of breasts so big they could have been seen from behind her, and with lower slopes somewhere around her upper belly. They could have been at least

Behind her were much larger figures; some of them were men, some were women. Both were even larger than the new arrival, who just emananted the vibes of ‘scholar’. So did these, but they also suggested ‘battlemage’ to her. They radiated with power, some of them mutated with claws and scaled skin or feathered hair, and all of them were enormously wide and altered in a fashion hard to make out beneath their broad robes, and some appeared to be bound into armored suits, dust flowing within. All wore the symbol of the flaming eye, and some had the image of a red raven with a single drop of blood upon it.

But all of this paled beneath the gigantic figure that made even Katara, Toph and Korra feel small.

He wasn’t, technically speaking, that large. He was enormous to a human, but no more than Katara herself. Yet, somehow, he felt far larger than was humanly possibly, as if this chamber could not contain his full size. His robes, a vibrant gold and blue, seemed reminiscent of an elaborate fashion; Katara did not know what the people of ancient Egypt dressed like, nor did she know of Egypt, but she would have instantly thought of them if she had.

It was hard to make out the man’s features. To the mind, they shifted and flowed like water, ever shifting, impossibly to remember. But somehow, if she had known of ancient Egypt, she would also have thought of them with this man. But what she did see was not dark skin, but red, bright like flame. The only shade more intense was that of his mane of hair, mutating into feathers.

Large horns sprouted from his forehead and… his chest? His arms were bigger than Katara herself, his body seemingly designed for war, and he was massive, absolutely huge and brawny, and magic crackled off him, streams of energy barely contained in his veins and muscles, and his eye glowed with it, as if an avatar for change and power itself, magic with a face and name-

Just one eye. Did he have a great eye like a cyclops? Did he have one eye gone, perhaps traded away or scarred? Her memories told her different stories. He had one eye. That was all she could say afterwards.

Looking directly at him was… difficult, too. She was used to dealing with things mortals were not normally meant to speak with, but even she was dumbfounded by the presence of the entity now looming over them. Even the spirits around them looked intimidated.

“Greetings!” The entity proclaimed in a jovial tone with a heavy accent she couldn’t quite place. “I do apologize for the wait. I didn’t know you had arrived until SOMEONE-” He shot a look at a distant shadow lurking about, a vaguely owl-shaped thing that shifted just out of sight. “Happened to mention to me that you had arrived. I am so very sorry, I wished to be here to see the receiving of the artifact!”

There was a long pause.

“Oh, yes. And greet you as well, I suppose,” he added as an afterthought.

“I’m sorry,” Sokka said, trying to be brave and having a hard time just looking at this figure. “But… who are you…?”

He raised his one eyebrow. “Oh? You don’t know who I am?” A pair of massive wings, feathers bifurcated between blue and red, flapped irritably. “Really? Hrm. You do know where you are, yes?”

“The Great Library, the cosmic repository of all things lost and remembered alike,” Aang said.

“Ah yes, good. One of the vessels of the World Spirit, I take? Well, you’re right. So you know of this place and came here, but you don’t know who I am?” He looked positively injured. “Why not!?”

“They don’t put you in the stories, father,” one of the attendants said gently.

“...Waaait. They don’t!?” The figure looked absolutely horrified. “Why not!?”

“Apparently you scare people.”

“...That’s the point, isn’t it!?” He turned around on them, frowning and radiating energy. “Well then! Do me a favor, you all, and spread the word. When you leave here today, tell all of the Master of the Library, it’s protector, chief cataloguer, and greatest guardian-”

Toph said, in dire tones, “Magnus the Red.”

The eldritch and yet oddly human entity looked pleased. This, it seemed, was Magnus the Red. “Oh? So you HAVE heard of me! ...Did an attendant tell you or something…?”

“Nah. Popped up in one of the books confiscated by my crime boss dad.” Toph scratched her head. “Had a guy read it to me and, uh, he kind of freaked out when he read your name. I followed up on it and you’re… famous.”

He preened. “Well, that is good to here.” The woman standing beside him gave him a poke in the sides as if to say ‘get on with it’. “Fine, fine! This young woman is Miss Granger, Chief Librarian of this particular section of things. She’s here to help you find your way. Do be patient as she can’t actually speak your language.”

“Wait,” Suki said. ”You sent us a guide and… she doesn’t speak any of our languages?”

“Yes?”

“Why?”

Magnus sighed. “Because, she is Chief Librarian.”

“Okay…?”

“And it was thought you should be shown around by the Chief Librarian.”

“But… she needs translators to get her points across.”

“See!? That’s what I said! But… bah.” Miss Granger shook her head, noting the tone, and gave Magnus a look, and asked something. Magnus replied to her, and continued. “Okay, fine, so perhaps we are trying to impress a little bit here,” he said testily. “It wasn’t my idea, believe me. I had a big presentation all ready to go; lots of illusions, fireworks, a small song-and-dance number neatly introducing you to the particulars of the library-”

“Aw, I like musicals,” Aang said sadly.

Korra shrugged. “Eh. They’re overrated.”

Magnus pointed at them both. “You! Monk! I like you! And tall person. I don’t like you. Your taste is terrible.”

“Hey…”

“In any case, I was overruled,” he said primly. “Other elements of our faculty voted against my plan. Wanting things to be polite and sensible… as if that’s any fun…”

Miss Granger coughed, as if to say ‘please focus’, or something along those lines.

Aang stepped forward, and all zeroed in on him. He held the book out. “I believe this is what you wanted?” he asked.

Magnus took it, gently and reverently. “Yes,” he said, softly now. “It is indeed. And I thank you for coming.” He cleared his throat, getting back into the swing of things. “I, Master of the Great Library, Magnus the Red, aspect of the God of Humanity itself and embodiment of humanity’s magical potential, do make this bargain with you. In exchange for this priceless artifact, I grant you full access to the Great Library’s works until your dying day, save if you prove yourselves unworthy. I give you one final chance to decline.” HE held the book away with some discomfort, as if horrified by the prospect of giving it back, but there were greater rules at play than his own preferences.

He said, with an air of great finality, “Do you agree to these terms, and permit us to safeguard and study this relic of bygone ages?”

Aang gave it. “I will, and do.”

“I do as well,” Katara said.

The others, in turn, said the same, earnest and truthfully.

Magnus took the book, and tucked it away. Elsewhere, in the library, it appeared in a dozen copies, which assistants immediately took to study. Miss Granger seemed to sense this and she half-turned, perhaps instinctively about to go off and do some research upon it, even be the first to crack the code. “I thank you.” He snapped his fingers, and for a moment, the symbol of a key appeared on their foreheads, and vanished. “Now, you may return here at any time, and study whatever you wish, until the end of your days. I thank you again for safeguarding this treasure, and permitting us to safeguard it in return.” This had the air of ritual about it.

“You are welcome,” Aang said, returning the ritual word for word, and manners for manners. “I thank on, on behalf of us all, for allowing us to come to this sacred place.”

They bowed to one another, and it was finished.

“Well then!” Magnus clapped his heads, and several of his Thousand Sons (and Daughters, and Blood Ravens) glided up to assist. “You’re the first real visitors we’ve had in some time and I would like to take this honor to show you around. There are some amazing mind-bending spectacles I would delight in showing you…”

“Could you not?” Sokka said uncomfortably. “The ceiling thing was bad enough.”

“Oh, come now! It grows on you, it truly does.”

“But we don’t want it to.”

“Don’t speak for everyone, that’s just rude.”

Korra interrupted, just in time. “Um, sir? The Red?”

“Yes…?”

“If you don’t mind me asking-”

“All questions are valid, except the really ridiculous, embarrassing ones.”

“I gotta know. What is this book you asked us to find, and why would you give us such an honor as letting us in here all the time just for one book?”

Magnus gazed at her levelly. “Hrm. That is a good question. And to it, I pose another. For something important enough, wouldn’t any prize be worth a fraction of it?”

“I mean, sure.” Korra shrugged. “If you’re talking about something important enough. But none of us could figure out what was in the book, or read it. It’s in a language no one speaks anymore, or can read.”

“There are none,” Magnus said. “Who do. The language family is still in use, but so changed that even those fluent wouldn't realize that it is an ancestor to their own languages. The language in this book,” and here he showed it to them again, tapping it with a big red finger. “Stopped being spoken before the cataclysm that destroyed the multiverse ever happened.”

There was a deep, significant stop in, just, everything.

“How is this book still even around? It should have decayed before then!” Katara said, as the others muttered their shock at the book surviving so long. It ought to have rotted long before then.

“Powerful magic, I suspect. This is a singular record of a long lost civilization… no. Not a civilization. This was long before even my time, before our species ever existed. It tells the story of a magical art similar to what you practice among your people. Bending, you call it?”

“Yes.” Katara explained to him, though he likely already knew, that it was common to create works detailing the philosophical underpinnings of Bending; the way the spirits worked, and the great animals who were in tune with their power, the flow of the world in response to those elements, and how they shaped the substance of the physical world.

“Yes,” Magnus said thoughtfully. “It reminds you of that, too?” Katara agreed that it did. “Hrm. That is interesting, because the only thing we know about it thus far is that it is perhaps the only surviving record of something that created… all of this.”

“All of what?” Korra asked.

Magnus waved his hand dismissively. “Everything. You know. The ground. The sky. Our ability to conceptualize them. The principles of reality, that sort of thing. These ancient, cosmic entities, the titans who shaped all we know. Most of them are gone… absent, hiding, imprisoned or weakened into the gods of the multiverse, but there’s very little to be known about them! But this may hold a record to one of them.”

He indicated the cogwheel cover. “This particular thing is a symbol of one of those titans. The records give its name as… hrm, what’s a useful translation? The… Machine-God? The living world? Yes. The Great Maker.’

“One of our researchers - Optimus, I believe - is very interested in any information regarding this entity,” Magnus concluded. “It seems he came here, originally, seeking out information on it, but was unable to return to the greater multiverse after being stranded on this world a long time ago. Ironic, hrm? According to his people’s religious lore, the goddess whose physical form comprised his world was originally a facet of an ancient being who was afflicted with a terrible sickness. And when that sickness was cut away, the weakened god became a new figure; a mother to all life, and her sickness became entropy and death. And the iconography of those figures is identical to the symbols shown in this book.”

This was a bit much for them to take in. “He thinks a bending manual in an archaic language will tell him something about his goddess?” Zuko ventured.

“Perhaps, perhaps not.” Magnus shrugged. “Whether or not this research bears fruit, I’d like to learn of the civilization that produced it. And of course, this book will be a valuable insight into the indescribable ancient culture that made it.” He bowed his head. “Now… I must be going. Much work to do, and so forth. It was a pleasure to meet you, and I hope you find yourself enlightened by what you learn here. Try not to destroy the world with what you learn here. Please be responsible and don’t build any doomsday weapon schematics!”

“Is that likely to happen?” Asami asked, with a rather unsettling interest.

Magnus coughed. “Well, ah. It was absolutely not my fault, I promise you that and anyone who says otherwise is lying very loudly, but… this is not the first world we have kept our library at. There have been… other cases. Ones where we were not very observant about protecting dangerous lore and things… happened. Explodey things. Planets being erased. Civilizations ending in an instant. We, erm, had to move the library a lot before we worked out that perhaps instituting a measure of trials to enter might be a suitable idea. At least that way we could weed out the ones who were just trying to get at the doomsday weapons.”

“...Why do you even have any of those!?” Mai demanded, and by some stroke of luck, her exact pitch of tone made Miss Granger realize she was voicing a sentiment she herself often had, at some frequency and volume to the elder faculty of the library, and they shared an identical look of solidarity despite otherwise being unable to communicate.

“They’re not working models!” Magnus said hotly. “They’re not - why would we keep those!? We have schematics! Which is not much better, I’ll admit, but there is a difference!” He paused. “Hrm. Perhaps we should remove the planetbuster displays. Or at least make it less obvious that’s what they are. And Gabriel! Remind me to raise the suggestion at the next meet to, at the least, remove the talley of ‘worlds blown up’ for each superweapon. That’s getting tacky. And certainly get rid of the list of ones we are indirectly responsible for.”

“I’m sorry but you’re really not making a great impression on your library,” Katara said awkwardly.

Magnus sighed. “At least you missed Miss Granger’s group of reprobates hanging around trying to have adventures. Rounding up feral thesauri and so on… speaking of whom.” He called out something that probably translated to ‘Miss Granger! You’re up!’ and left.

Miss Granger stepped forward, a hand extended outwards and a Blood Raven woman as translator, standing beside her at the ready. She looked deeply apologetic, but a bit resigned to the situation at hand. And as they ventured into the library, she, and her translators, were there to lend a hand whenever it was needed.

Granted, she really, really wanted to get to translating that book, but it would take a while in any case.

The group moved onwards, the sons and daughters of Magnus shuffling forward to guide them as needed, and the presence of the group did not passed unnoticed. The Library itself watched through, through a hundred different eyes, and fifty owls stared at the group wherever they went, silently studying them, all with a single mind. They were not separate owls. They are all manifestations of one single entity.

That entity flew through the library in another body, teleporting instantly to another corridor a long way away. The entire Library, and the sub-realm it existed within, was what spirits might term a place of power, a sanctuary that was a little world defined by their natures, and if he wanted to ignore the rules of space-time, he could. He flew to another chamber.

He - if such identity could even be applied to a spirit like him, divorced from mortal experience - alighted in the form of a mundane owl, and gazed up towards a shining woman approximately the size of a planet. “The… visitors you enquired about,” he said gravely, with clear distaste. “They have arrived.”

A vast white hand paused over a letter. The nature of the library was that space, relative dimensions and enough room for it all was a highly subjective thing. It could be bigger on the inside; a house could fit inside a shelf that held only a few novels. And so it was that a diamond matriarch of the Gem people, grown larger than a planet in her age and power and fully unbound, still was able to sit at a table and write letters suitable for someone of galactic standard giant-size to read.

She filled the room, a hyper-curvaceous sun; blazing white light streaming from her shimmering skin like the nuclear heart of a star, the chair one of the special models designed to accommodate enormous hips with outward swooping supports. Her backside alone was bigger than two planets side by side, which it rather resembled. Her thin waist seemed insufficient to support her broader torso and absolutely gigantic breasts big enough to provide her own table if she required it, and the sheer power implied by her enormous size, unusually massive even by the standards of this world’s mightiest benders, placed a dreadful pressure upon anyone coming even slightly near her. There were gravity wells with less painful presences.

Her head, slightly pointed forward with great back-swept shapes that might have been horns or might have been ornamental feathers or clusters of energy, was impossible to make out. The light of her body, normally more restrained in Gems, shone so brightly her face could not be seen. Now that face was fixed directly at him, and he felt her gaze upon him and fixed like a laser sight.

He was not a knowledge spirit, but the spirit of knowledge itself; the concept of lore and knowing, as an abstract notion, given its own form. He knew all things, when it came to his library, and he knew everything about everyone that stepped within it. He knew what she was, and her deeds.

The full weight, the enormity, not just of what she was, but what she had done. He did not much care for the affairs of those that came from outside his library, but he still knew to be uncomfortable around her.

Nevertheless; he had made a deal with her. “Thank you,” She said, her voice resonating and striking notes that would have organics falling to their knees in moments. Her expression was impossible to see but it seemed that she was smiling, just like a statue might smile; face completely fixed, rigid and unchanging, the smile stony and cracked.

She didn’t ask where they were. It seemed enough to know that they were here, for her mysterious purposes.

She returned to her letters. There were many of them, unfinished and discarded, rough drafts abandoned. The spirit considered them. All of them started thusly: “Dear Rose Quartz” or “My beloved Rose,” or the more formal “Rose Quartz, and all those who follow her” and so forth. The oldest ones were addressed to a Pink Diamond, but that name was furiously scratched out, as if she had remembered too late that this wasn’t right to call her that anymore.

He got the general tone of her intent with the letters. “Do not presume to trespass upon my hospitality and invite the unworthy into my demesne,” he said coldly, and the entire library rumbled with him.

She oscillated into several irate wavelengths, but smiled all the while anyway, staring at him. Eventually she said, “I’ve no doubt they will prove worthy and pass your tests.”

“Hrm.” He felt a stirring of curiosity, but it was idle and largely indifferent. He spread his wings and flew off.

White Diamond, the first Gem and primordial mother of all her kind, stared at the letters and tried to remember how to be nice to people, how to communicate properly.

She wondered what Rose and her swarm of monsters would respond best to.

They take such keen interest in people. Do not mention the Library. Allow them to come, learn that the thing they have sought all this time is here, and let them do the rest.

Just lay the bait with what they would normally do; take an interest in the meat.

White Diamond picked up a stylus and began to write.

“‘Rose Quartz Universe, Matriarch of the Free Crystal Gems, Champion of the Endowed Migrant Fleet, and the last of my creations. I have found something of great interest to you; a world of immense power, populated by civilizations living in harmony with the spirits tied to their cultures and given power by them. Here, perhaps, may be a place for you to establish a permanent homeworld for your fleet and unite your scattered offspring. Hereforth, these are the ways you might arrive, but take a care, for the way is perilous…”

She listed the way. Very well, get Rose’s attention with talk of an intriguing people and their unique ways. Rose commanded respect, and the fleet would likely follow her. She was mother to much of it, after all.

Next, she wrote in an obscure dialect of the Cybertronian city-state of Simfur, formerly the world Eukaris, and these letters were better suited to claws carved into warm oils and marshy sands. It was a notoriously complicated language, and she managed only a short sentence she knew would get the attention of the fleet’s monster slayer and avenger, that… thing, Grimlock. And more dreadfully, the gentle warlord, Elita-1.

“Your Prime yet lives.”

That beast would come, and the Autobots, who comprised such a large part of the Fleet and had such influence, would come with him and Elita-1.

The path was set, and now… she would simply wait.

White Diamond closed her eyes. Her task was done.

5 notes · View notes