#also random but in the leak image you reblogged

[angryborzois]

REN REN REN REN REN REN REN REN REN REN

I overslept this morning but forget that HE'S BACK. AFTER 1185 DAYS. (forget that's he's immediately boxing ppl)

BROOFDSJFKJDSKF I DIDNT EVEN KNOW UNTIL I CHECKED YOUR POST BUT HOLY SHIT AHDKFJ DAMN HES ACTUALLY UNSEALED I NEVER THOUGHT IT WOULD HAPPEN

[freckliedan]

Wait you reblogged something about dnp getting outed before the height of the careers? Did I miss something lol when were they outed

oh my god. i love that this is not something everyone knows anymore. but it's also absolutely fucking insane to me that this knowledge could potentially be lost. it's the biggest piece of context necessary for understanding them.

they were outed in 2011 on a smaller scale and again in 2012 on a massive scale, both times by the same video.

on september 17th of 2011 there was a platform wide glitch on youtube where, at random, a bunch of videos that had been uploaded and listed as private were suddenly unprivatized.

one of the videos that was unprivatized was a deeply earnest private message to dan that phil uploaded on february 13th of 2010, because dan was in india with his family and it was their first valentine's day together. there are a lot of intimate details about their early relationship in this video.

it gets called the vday or valentine's day video by phannies because it was titled ":3".

it was only up for a couple hours, but there are posts from phannies within that span. they reached out to people asking that it not be circulated with a poor cover story (that it was a prank they thought better of because it would be too mean).

people did not publicly circulate it for a period of time, but on halloween of 2012 it got posted publicly and got spread everywhere immediately. that's the second and more major outing.

in the years of like, 2013 thru the end of tatinof era at least but likely longer than that? if it got posted anywhere publicly it would get copyright struck by phil and removed. i don't have a definitive end date but the copyright strikes aren't still happening.

the leak is absolutely what lead to the peak era of dan and phil's closeting. understanding their need for control and how momentous it is that they trust us with anything requires knowledge of this context, imo.

i don't reccomend watching it. i haven't in some time.

i am open about the fact that i did watch it as a teenager in november of 2012, back when it was still circulating on tumblr. when i returned a couple weeks later to rewatch it, the entire blog i'd originally seen it on had been nuked for copyright infringement, and that wasn't uncommon for the era.

it was a really bad time in the phandom. dan briefly made a "customer service" sideblog & vehemently shut down people speculating on his sexuality/relationship with phil.

all of the archival information we have on dan and phil—the dailybooths, the formsprings, the old tweets, the videos they've taken off their channels, liveshows, vyous, etc? so much of that information was saved despite dan and phil trying to eradicate it in the immediate aftermath of the leak.

it's incredible that we still have it all, and even more incredible that images from phannie archives have made it into their videos several times from 2019 onward. their relationship with us has changed so drastically since 2012, in ways beyond what we could've imagined at the time.

yes, they were outed. that's the context for everything.

[solavelyan]

intro.

It's a Dragon Age sideblog! My main blog is @bogunicorn, and I go by Bog (or any type of nickname you can wring out of "bog unicorn"). If you're looking for more info about me as a person, that'll all be over on my main.

This blog and my main are both 18+. Please do not follow me if you're under 18. I don't keep close track of my followers, but I do check out blogs that follow me because of the spambots, and I block minors on sight.

eta oct 2023: given The Bullshit happening at bioware following their mass layoffs and their leveraging of the next game against former employees' requests for proper severance pay, please assume that none of my posts or words are an implicit or explicit endorsement of the company itself. i mean, they already weren't, i just want you to imagine that all of my reblogs have an invisible "EA/BW execs fall off a cliff challenge" tacked onto them.

regarding the veilguard.

Yeah yeah yeah, who ever had "Bog sees one (1) trailer with Solas's face in it and rethinks their Veilguard policy on this blog" on their bingo card is one square closer to a line, okay? So, there will be SOME Veilguard posting here. However, I am personally sticking to looking at official sources only for my Veilguard info, or people or blogs directly quoting official sources. I will not be seeking our nor acknowledging any leaks, and will be generally avoiding any in-depth speculation or theories or whatnot, even ones that come from Veilguard promo. All of my Veilguard posts (including images of Solas or Varric that are from anytime after The Missing) will be tagged #datv, and anything I think might contain any kind of spoilers will be tagged #datv spoilers. It's mostly just gifs, shitposts, and pretty fanart of the new companions and stuff. For my own sake, I'm really making an effort not to pre-plan my new character or romance or speculate on what specifically the Inquisitor has been doing, and am doing my best to go in with a very open mind while still being excited, and I've found that sticking to what's officially shared in promotional material is about the speed I want to go here. My "no DA4 chatter" policy for this blog was because too much intense speculation and headcanoning and Fandom Anxiety (you know what I mean) gives me a lot of anxiety. I always also hesitant to engage with it too publicly out of respect for the laid-off developers and not wanting to be supportive of Bioware. However, as Mary Kirby herself feels comfortable getting ~hype~ for this game even with all of the context around it, I'm not going to be precious and defensive on their behalf about the whole thing and letting myself be excited. I'm very consistent with my tags, especially game-specific and spoilery ones, so this blog is still a safe spot for anyone who wants to go in 100% blind.

Still might blacklist the fandom entirely when the game launches if people are annoying, though.

what to expect here.

Gifsets, fanart, jokey jokes, and sometimes (reblogged) meta posts.

My own Dragon Age thoughts, feelings, theories, random whatevers. My original posts of all kinds are tagged #bog post.

A general positivity toward queer shit, weird shit, horny shit, and kinky shit.

My fanfic and my OCs. I don't post fic too often, at least not in the last few months, but I have a ton of OCs (roster TBA). I write notes and profiles and little ideas for them as a hobby even when I'm not actively writing fic. Anything relating to my own writing will be tagged #bogfic, anything involving my characters tagged #my ocs and then #character name (oc).

Generally, I'm a multishipper at heart and can find something to love about any given ship, PC choice, character, or type of storyline. Chances are if I'm spending my time talking about something or speculating on it, it's because I'm having fun or enjoying myself.

Commentary on fandom trends and behaviors (and, sometimes, common sense reminders not to be a dick to each other about fake stuff).

To get blocked if you put rude or annoying shit in my mentions, including using any of my posts to character bash or otherwise go off-topic in order to air your personal grievances underneath my stuff. I don't care if you don't like Solas, or if you have strong opinions about Anders vs. Fenris, or if you think "supporting" the mages/Templars/Chantry is good/bad, or if you feel like your personal favorite character/PC option/romance isn't represented by my posts and you feel your specific criticism is the exception. Do not cite the deep magic to me, witch, I was there when it was written (like 8+ years and two US presidents ago). Mind your manners and blacklist or scroll if you need to.

what not to expect.

Untagged Veilguard spoilers, or in-depth Veilguard speculation or guesses. All my Veilguard posts with potential spoilers will be tagged #datv spoilers.

Consistent character bashing or character hate. I simply do not spend a majority of my online time thinking about stuff I hate.

Anonymous asks. Anon is always turned off, both here, on my main, and on my AO3.

Real world politics and news, or general (as in, not-DA-specific) Disk Horse. Honestly, probably not even that much Dragon Age Discourse, either.

Equating in-game choices or fandom opinions with real life politics and morality. I don't "support" any group in Thedas because Thedas is fake. My politics and activism are for real people, not Wizard Politics or whatever.

Egg or cheese jokes.

the tag system (tm).

#timeless posts - Anything reblogged from the depths of @bogunicorn in the last 10 years. Usually queued.

#bog post - Any and all of my original posts.

#bogfic - Anything involving my writing or my OCs.

#my ocs - My OCs. Often accompanied by #[character name] (oc).

#spicy bog - Ye olde horny tag.

#bogcrit, #[character name] critical, #dragon age critical, #[game] critical, #fandom bs - These are my Complaining Tags. If you never want to see anything truly critical or negative, just blacklist #bogcrit. If you want to avoid grousing or critique of a specific character, the games in general, individual games, or the fandom itself, blacklist whatever listed tag is relevant to you.

#fic, #art - Fanfic and fanart that I didn't make.

#meta - Meta or speculation posts.

#da au - Any kind of alternate universe post.

#ask meme - Blanket tag for any put-it-in-the-tags posts, as well as actual ask memes.

Characters are tagged by their full names. Origins and Inquisition PCs are tagged #the warden or #the inquisitor, as well as by surname. Hawke is always just #hawke. I don't specify gender in my character tags, this system is already complicated enough.

Ships are tagged #[character] x [character] in alphabetical order, with the PCs just using their surnames. I also use the more portmanteaus (like Solavellan, Fenhawke, Adoribull, etc) because that's what people are inclined to click/search, but I would still slap "lavellan x solas" on a Solavellan post just for consistency.

contact.

complain to my manager

send me an ask

read my fic

[thesmokingguns]

Vous parlez français?

Word Count: 2015

Summary/Request: “Younger Kelly has a girlfriend, and she discovers that he can speak in French, she thinks it’s incredibly sexy and he teases her about it. She gets frustrated and goes into their bedroom and starts to get herself off and he overhears her and goes in and goes down on her, while speaking french.”

A/N: I wrote this for @littlemisscare-all scare-all and she wanted the give a shout-out “this fic is dedicated to @that-80s-chick and @styles94bolan89 and all the members of the quack cult.”

You guys come up with the best ideas and I love the energy you bring! If you want to support me please like, reblog and message me or Buy me a coffee :)

Thank you for interacting with me and making writing fun!

Warning: Sexual content, dirty talk. Please be 18+

Tag List: @thenobodies-inc , @littlemisscare-all @agroupiewhore , @ayablackwood

“C’est bien ici. J'écris de la musique toute la journée et la joue la nuit.” (It’s fine here. I write music all day and play at night) Kelly was standing with his back to you as you walked into the apartment. Listening as he spoke French over the phone to someone you froze. The groceries that you held in your hand seemed to be forgotten as you set the things down to listen.

You loved when Kelly spoke French. Even though you had only found out about a week ago he was fluent you’d ask him to speak to you in the language, always dragging him into the bedroom or whatever space you could find after listening to him say everything in the other language. It drove you absolutely wild hearing him speak.

He entertained your fetish with his language, loving how a movement of his tongue and a few words you didn’t understand could turn you stupid. You had turned so helplessly horny at Kelly speaking the language, like he had turned on a switch in you that made you squeeze your thighs together so you didn’t leak out. He would watch with a twinkle in his eyes as you squirmed at his voice, waiting for you to pounce on him.

“Mon petit canard vient de rentrer. Je me rappellerai bientôt. Au revoir.” (my little duck just got home. I will call again soon. Goodbye.”)You bit your lip as you saw him turn to look at you, knowing you had been eavesdropping on the conversation you didn’t understand. “Are you going to stand there with our groceries or put them away?” He teased you knowing you had gotten caught up in listening agajn.

Pouting you moved into the kitchen with him, starting to put away the food from the grocery store run you had made. Your mind thinking back to the words you overheard and had no meaning other than making you very wet.

“Can you speak French well I put away the groceries? You can hand me stuff and tell me the word for it.” You asked your boyfriend. Kelly rolled his eyes at you, thinking that you had lost your mind, “C’mon, please. You know how much I like it.” Putting on your begging face you gave him your best pout to try to sway him to do your bidding.

“You want me to talk about the fruit you bought? If I say les pommes you’re going to get wet over the apples.” he teased but he also wasn’t wrong. You could already feel the way your belly was tightening in need. “How about you speak some french to me? Tu parles français? (You speak French?)” The way he was looking at you with amusement in his eyes didn't help the situation. Kelly could get mean when he was teasing you and you saw that was coming, “Pourquoi es-tu si excitée par mon français ?(Why do you get so turned on by my french?) Laisseriez-vous un homme au hasard vous baiser s'il parlait français ?( Would you let a random man fuck you if he was speaking French?)” he was reaching for his cigarettes on the counter chuckling at you.

“Don’t laugh at what turns me on. That’s so rude.” you arranged the fruit in the bowl, watching as he leaned against the counter. He seemed so at ease, so sure of himself, it was part of what turned you on.how confident Kelly was in who he was.

“Everything turns you on. I can’t even speak without you dragging me to the bedroom.” Shaking your head you gave him a look letting him know that he had annoyed you. But Kelly had turned away, his back to you cleaning up a few dishes in the sink so he didn’t see the look that you were giving him before you left the room.

You shut the door behind you, frustrated at Kelly teasing you. He didn’t do it to be a jackass but maybe he was right about you asking him to speak French so much when you couldn't say anything back to him.

Pulling off the dress you were wearing you tossed it in the hamper, climbing into bed in just your underwear you laid back. Horny and frustrated that your boyfriends wouldn’t indulge you. All you wanted was him to speak a little French to you. The way that he rolled out the words in such a deep tone. A groan of appreciation for the man's voice escaped your lips, your hand sliding over your stomach. Letting your hand slide over the mound covered in silky fabric. You had already gotten so wet that the panties you were wearing needed to be peeled off, the sticky wetness between your legs begging for you to touch it.

If Kelly wasn’t going to take care of you then you would have to take care of yourself. You lifted your butt off the bed, sliding the panties off your legs. Almost embarrassed as you laid back, bending your legs and spreading them. You rested your hand over yourself, running your middle finger over the slickness.Your other hand tugging a nipple taunt, a soft sigh of satisfaction escaping your lips.

Your left hand slid two fingers over your clit rubbing in counterclock motion, pressing against the ball of nerves as your hips pushed up needy for more.The groan of pleasure came out of your mouth again. Your right hand slid down over your body feeling the slickness of your pussy, asking to be filled. Two of your fingers slid into your greedy body, sliding into your wetness; another moan left the back of your throat as your head rolled back on the pillow.

Pants of pleasure were leaving your mouth as you worked your own body thinking of the way Kelly’s mouth looked as he talked. The way he puckered his lips, his tongue sliding to wet his lips to get more words out. The image of him making your body need him more, the slippery sweetness sliding around your fingers and down your ass and thighs as you thought of your boyfriend.

“Est-ce que tu es mauvais ici?” (Are you being bad in here?) the door opened and you blushed. Kelly had heard you moaning and had caught you in a vulnerable position. Your legs were spread wide, your hand spread over your clit as you two fingers stayed inside of your body, frozen in embarrassment that he had walked in on you.

Kelly licked his lips, taking in the sight of you spread out before him like his own personal buffet. Walking over to the bed slowly he shook his head at you making your blush deepen. He reached out a hand for you to give him something.

“Regarde toi! Je parle un peu français et tu te mouilles.” (look at you! I speak a little French and you get wet.” Kelly tsked at you, walking into the bedroom and kicking the door closed behind him.

The sight of him was just working you up more. You wanted him between your legs fucking you, whispering all sorts of things in your ear as his cock filled you. Bouncing on him with your juices flowing over his cock. Your hips bounced up at the idea of him between them working your body. It was like every part of your body wasn’t yours anymore, every inch wanted Kelly and was reacting to the idea.

“Donne- toi ta main.” (Give me your hand.) You looked confused, not sure what he was saying to you but loving how the words vibrated through your body. You could feel the way your pussy squeezed around your own fingers, your horny brain not letting you think. He held his hand out still and moved the hand off your clit to give it to him, “Non, l’autre.” His head moved to motion to the hand between your legs

A blush was on your face as you realized what he wanted. You slid out your two fingers from your core, strings of your cum attached from the tips of your fingers to the wetness of your mound. You watched Kelly, licking his lip as he grabbed your wrist, thinking you were moving too slow, bringing your hand to his mouth. His tongue darted out swiping over teh wetness of your fingers, giving a groan of satisfaction as he tasted you on your own fingers. He moved his mouth over them, sucking each digit clean of your wetness.

“Il est temps que mes doigts te remplissent.” (Time for my fingers to fill you) he shifted so he was between your legs, pushing your thighs a little further apart. You bucked up against him, watching the way a smile slid out on the side of his face. “Tu es une pute, mon petit canard.” (you are a whore, my little duck) the man spit on your pussy, his fingers using it as lubrication as he rubbed your clit. A strangled moan came out of your mouth.

Kelly’s fingers did things to you that you didn’t think was possible. The way they moved in a turning pattern inside of you, turning towards your belly button inside of you, curling and rubbing inside of you at the spot that had your legs shaking. He kept his eyes on your pussy, his fingers swirling inside of you well, his other hand rested on top of your stomach, his thumb lazily playing your clit in time with the movements of his fingers.

He kept pulling his fingers out, scissoring ner your entrance and watching the way your wetness was sticky strands around him. He loved seeing how wet and excited you got from him. As much as he teased you about liking him speaking French so much he loved knowing he could make your body react like this.

"Veux-tu que je te baise avec ma langue?” (do you want me to fuck you with my tongue?) His eyes were on you and you knew that he was asking you a question. You couldn’t respond between the strangled moans of pleasure and cried out. Luckily for you he took this as confirmation you did want his tongue to work for you.

Kelly wrapped his arms around your thighs, pulling you forward and licking his lips with wicked glee. Keeping your legs open and. It was hard not squeezing his head between your thighs and riding his face to have your orgasm. Kelly seemed to notice the way your legs were butterflying and slid his hands up to hold them up. His tongue sliding up, doing a lap around your drizzling cunt, kissing your clitoris like it was the start and finish line.

“Tu as le goût du paradis.” (you taste like heaven) He was hungrily licking you, his tongue dipping into your body, exploring the intimate part of you, lapping at your greedy little cunt as he purred out compliments in French.

You gripped his hair, hand sliding into the black locks and fisting your boyfriend's head. Pushing your hips up to get his tongue deeper into you, rolling your hips so that you could make his tongue explore all the hidden spots. You moaned loudly, pushing your thighs against his hands as your orgasm came through you. Kelly’s hands would leave bruises on your soft thighs from the pressure of holding you in place.

He looked up at you, eyes peeking out between your legs before sitting up, wiping your wetness from his mouth and chin with a Cheshire Cat-like grin splitting across his face.

“Vas-tu mieux maintenant, mon petit canard?” (all better now, my little duck) His wicked grin knowing he was just starting you all up again.

“You must still be hungry.” You said giving him a death look. Kelly kisses your inner thigh, sending you another one of his looks.

“J’ai toujours faim de toi.” (I am always hungry for you) You felt his mouth dip lower and gripped the sheets knowing you were in for a long afternoon.

[babysprouseisart]

My eyes are buening everytime i come across your blog...stop posing diagnostic for real people and take care of your obsession issues

Oh, damn what a vile person I am... ...except that I've never diagnosed anyone, it's not my prerogative, it's not my business and I'm nobody in this world to do it. 

If you saw on my feed something related to diagnoses and health - it most likely was not from my mouth, but I could have just kept someone's posts to myself, because in general I agree with the opinion, or almost everything. Sometimes I close my eyes to some phrases or expressions, do not take some little things into account. 

Also, if you use common sense and think abstractly, in general terms, you can draw certain conclusions about the state of a particular person. You don't have to be a professional. Even an inexperienced doctor or a simple person understands simple signs, cause a lot of this is taught even in school, especially first aid for any manifestations. 

And what's more, I understand perfectly well that it is wrong to draw conclusions without seeing a person nearby, without touching him/her, without being with him/her for some time. The Internet does not fully reflect reality, maybe even practically does not reflect the actual reality at all, and to believe pictures or random coincidences is wrong. But I also do not rule out the fact that there are hypotheses, assumptions, guesses, whatever they may be, and if you are afraid to assume or put forward theories, you think that this is utter nonsense and is the shame or the sin - this is on you. 

Just remember that many discoveries were based on the first assumptions, people did not touch, for example, the Moon or the Sun, did not see the location of the planets, did not see God or Allah, but still a lot of us believe, there are a thousand assumptions in religion, science, fiction and other things, and there is nothing wrong with this and with moderate speculation that does not harm people, phenomena, that are discussed, especially popular ones. Especially, when neither I nor the other people, whose posts I share, publish any materials about diagnoses, do not claim one hundred percent or share with the tags, do not leak anything personal, do not mock, nothing, just discuss the probabilities and the consequences of these probabilities.

I am an adequate person, I was never going to poke someone in the face with my guesses, I am just an independent observer, I look, read, take into account the objective and subjective side, weigh it, analyze, make mistakes, analyze again and draw my own conclusions, express my opinions, or just keep those posts that seemed to me personally correct in one way or another, purely theoretically, according to assumptions. Sometimes, I admit, I can take things on faith, frivolously, without understanding, and only then I think, consult and see what others think, discuss and form my opinion, decision, but nothing is perfect and nothing can be done perfectly, and we all have the right to make mistakes.

A little off topic, but the point is that in case if we do not take into account the mention of a particular diagnosis or whatever it was, I share what I think makes sense, even if half of it is speculation, if I think it is necessary to share something - I share. 

I am a very flexible person in this regard, today I think this way, tomorrow differently, depending on how much argument, facts I see. The more it seems to me that this is at least part of the truth the more is the the probability that I can agree, and I can not agree, if it seems to me too harsh or too vague. 

This is my blog, I publish or save what I think is acceptable in any way. And honestly, firstly, so much depends on perception, it's the Internet, how many people so many views, opinions, and secondly, not everything I can post, or do reblog is a reflection of my feelings, we all carry some kind of image on the Internet anyway, although I try to be fair and equitable. There are situations where people are clearly trying to assert something, are incredibly sure of it, but I often doubt and don't think the same as they do and would never have thought in the first place, although I take it calmly because I can imagine this situation and keep in mind a big IF, what means that in certain conditions if it turned out to be true I would accept this point of view. You can disagree with me or with the people I talk to, or from who I reblog posts. But, why come to so regularly if you are so infuriated? If you think it's your duty to poke me like a kitten in a poop and tell me I'm wrong? If you are not indifferent to the topic, agree or not, express an opinion, and not just like that. I don't understand this logic.

So, to come here, and unreasonably dust me with your poison without understanding anything, without knowing me as a person, making your own conclusions and believing that I am obsessed, is not worth it. You will still be rejected.

I don't care how poisonous your words are, I am a free person and I do what I want, how I want and where I want, except for the forbidden and violating the freedoms and rights of other people. 

I don't know, maybe when I grow up, because I'm only 17 years old, maybe I'll think very differently, speak differently or something, but I'm sure that I won't be like you, or one of a lot of people like you, like poisonous snake.

I'm sorry, but today is not your day. At least you were good at not being anonymous, thank you for that, I really appreciate it, so it will be easier for me to find you the next annoying time when I'm in a bad mood and will be going to block you. Do me a favor, go away, and don't come back here again without a good reason. Have a nice day, don't slip on your own bile on the way back!

[twigstarpikachutroll22]

Day 3 of #30daysofautismacceptance

April 3: Talk about special interests. Do you have any? What are they? How long have you had them? What does it feel like to have special interests? What does having special interests mean to you? Talk about your past special interests

What comes immediately to mind is Trolls. As one might know from a post a couple days ago...or just from a bunch of posts I reblog...or from my icon and blog header and all that. In any case, Trolls came out November 4th 2016, when I was in 7th grade, and I saw it a day later.

The special interest kicked in FAST. It was, like, all I could think about all day every day, all I wanted to talk about, everything could be associated with it for me. I would blurt out random quotes from it at random times. I would listen to the songs a jillion times over. I would scour the internet for anything and everything related to it that I could find. Read all the wiki pages and memorized all kinds of information. Played the few games on the website over and over until I had the routes of every level of the maze game memorized. Looked at all the screenshots and stuff on Google Image searches. Any clips that were available on YouTube I would watch over and over every day. And the parts of it that had just been completely unexpected and blown my mind in a way no other movie had before leaving me with no idea what to think? My brain would, like, short-circuit at the thought of them, but there were times when they’d somehow fascinate me because of all that and I’d sometimes take a moment by myself just to think about them and start to enjoy the shock they sent through me until I started to understand their meaning more and they became my absolute favorite parts for all that.

Eventually, it started leaking into my life in other ways. I didn’t like glitter until I after I saw Trolls, now I frickin’ love it. I already HAD loved music and singing, but that got taken to much higher levels and became much more important to me after seeing Trolls, and I got a bit less shy about singing in public. Trolls was also my inspiration for starting to throw big, crazy digital parties on a certain website I spent a lot of time on. And what made me more conscious of the importance of positivity, and though I was already a sunny person to begin with (albeit taken down a notch or three by some pretty bad experiences I’d had leading up to this), I like to think Trolls gave me a boost in that area too.

I could go on and on and on about all the ways this special interest changed my life. But this is kinda getting long already.

At this point, I can actually sorta feel the special interest winding down, which makes me really sad to think about. I don’t think about it nearly as much as I used to or spend nearly as much time listening to the songs or just doing anything related to it, and when I do it doesn’t feel as riveting as it used to. But I am still pumped for the sequel coming in...HOLY FRICK IS IT SERIOUSLY ONLY TWO WEEKS NOW?!?!?! NDKLFNSDIOBSDFIODB KDNFKAD FKANFORBGOURBGPISNFSN  FKSLDNGSGBSIOGSBIFO SBGOBGIORBGOIHFOUHROUWEFNSDKLBDSJLGBSDOFSBOGIRBFIONFIONGILNGIBGIOGBOIGBOIFNOGBOGBIOG--

Ahem. Ha ha, sorry, I just....AAH!!!!!!! Anyways, I’m still PSYCHED for that, and I hope it blows me away as much as the first did. Or at least something fairly close to that. And I do still get absolutely ecstatic anytime I see Trolls merch in a store or some little kid wearing a Trolls bag or carrying Trolls toys. And the general impact it’s had on my life has stuck with me. And actually, I think a certain ship from it might be something like a special interest for me now, just that specific aspect and not every single aspect.

Anyways, I should mention some past special interests of mine, right?

Well, I think ducks might’ve been my very first. There wasn’t really a specific reason, though I attributed it to the ducklings being cute, but when I was, like, three years old, and for some years after, I just LOVED ducks. So much. I had this great big collection of hundreds and hundreds of little toy ducks. All different colors, all different designs and, like, costumes, a range of sizes, we had enough to fill BIG plastic bins. I got excited every time I saw a duck. To this day I have a little soft spot for them.

And I was really fixated on the Geronimo Stilton series for some time in first or second grade. For some reason my overly dramatic and imaginative self ended up always pretending I was slowly turning into a mouse because I loved those books so much. I dunno what the heck, I was, like, literally seven years old, okay?

There was also a period of time where I really liked Ash from the movie adaptation of Fantastic Mr. Fox, and he was constantly on my mind. To the point where I mistook it for a crush, because my mom had said having a crush on someone was “really really really really liking him” and thinking about him all the time, and she never specified that it meant in a romantic way. Boy did THAT lead to some embarrassing memories...

Pokemon was a REEEALLY big special interest of mine starting the summer before third grade when I picked up Pokemon White. I can’t give specific examples of anything here, just that I was really really REALLY into this game, and into pokemon battles and pokemon in general. And for years after that I always carried two of those books in my backpack that were like a pokedex and had all the pokemon in ‘em with stats and facts and types and moves it could learn and everything. Because duh, what kind of pokemon trainer would I be if I didn’t always keep one of those on me? I had friends to share that special interest with. I remember one friend had all kinds of stats and facts memorized including what moves certain pokemon could learn and would tell them to me. Me and him actually had a ton of imaginary friends that were pokemon that could talk like humans and all had names and personalities and in some cases outfits and super awesome clubhouses and over-the-top backstories and all kinds of relationships with each other. We’d talk all the time about the stuff they’d get up to together, all the friendships and rivalries.

So, like...yeah, I think this is where I’m gonna end it. MAN I rambled on for a long time with this XD XD

In any case, special interests are AWESOMESAUCETASTIC. Do neurotypicals honestly NOT get this intensely into anything? This level of love/passion/obsession for anything? Because if so, then, like, I feel sorry for them. Really I do. That sounds sad. I wouldn’t trade having special interests for ANYTHING, man.

[jui-imouto-chan]

Part 10 of the Mostly Human AU

Level Select:

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9

Getting through to the last of the suggestions from @manadrite ‘s most recent comment (as of posting this)! I love having suggestions, keep ‘em coming!

Connor isn’t one to get terribly scared. He actually gets a thrill from scary situations.

His sense of self-preservation is startlingly low, for a being granted with immeasurable intelligence. At least, that’s what Hank claims.

Furthermore, Connor loves Horror. From movies to novels to images, he loves things made to be scary.

- Connor may or may not have had a weird crush on Slenderman for like a week. 

Maybe it was the towering height and the lack of a face, or maybe it was the slim fitting suit that made the creature so appealing to him.

Okay maybe Connor has a suit kink.

When he sees Gavin in an officer’s clothing and finds the man slightly attractive, it’s clear that he just straight (pfft) up has a uniform kink.

Connor will take this newfound information to the  g r a v e.

Connor goes to see a horror movie with Hank and the twins, and he’s ecstatic. 

He puts all of the pieces together detective style to figure out how the protagonists are either gonna die or solve the problem while Collin and Conan grip their seats a bit too tight and while Hank mutters flaws about the movie under his breath.

“This scene does not include a lap dance.” 

“What was that?” 

“Nothing!”

By the end of the movie, Collin and Conan had migrated to partially hide behind Connor, and Connor points this out to them.

They lie and say they were getting sleepy, and were dozing off on his seat.

Connor goes with it with a knowing smirk and a wink, mischief twinkling in his eyes.

Connor goes missing one day.

They try to give him a call when he they don’t see him that morning, but they receive no answer.

Hank and the twins storm through the house, upturning furniture and looking under the beds, in the closets, outside. He’s nowhere to be found.

They call up all of his friends, but nobody knows where he is.

The DCPD gets at least fifteen calls all at once reporting Connor missing.

While everyone is freaking out, Connor is actually, in fact, not missing.

He is out for a walk, Sumo at the vet’s for a check up and grooming, and he spots an animal shelter/pet shop. 

There are dogs and cats in cages by the windows, and Connor gravitates towards them without thought to anything else.

He enters the shop and, after talking with the person behind the counter for ten minutes, is surrounded by animals, all vying for his attention.

He’d never seen a cat before this, and honestly, he now holds cats to the same regard as dogs. 

It’s his first time seeing a lot of animals, all of them immensely cute. He giggles when a rabbit nibbles on his pointer finger.

The employee who allowed this to happen is melting against the counter, everything is too much. Too cute. 

The employee pulls out a camera and records, knowing the manager would love to use this as an ad. 

Connor already gave his consent for any media that his interaction might appear in, so it’s all gucci, even though Connor’s too preoccupied with the animals to even realize he’s being recorded.

Connor is there for a few hours, all of the time considered blissful to the android.

The video was sent to the editor as soon as the employee got clips of Connor interacting with each and every one of the animals. 

It's edited impressively quickly, yet still professionally; the editor accredited it to “passion”. 

When the ad goes up on all of the shelter/shop ‘s social media, with Connor tagged in the photo, everything halts.

Connor finally registers that his phone, being sat on by two guinea pigs, is ringing.

He answers it, and is disappointed when he's told to return home immediately by Hank. Hank sounds angry, distressed, and relieved all at once.

The employee reassures him, telling him that he can return whenever he’d like.

There’s an issue when Connor is on his way home, however, as he gets attacked. 

A man tries to mug him with a knife to his throat, pushing him into an alleyway, and while Connor manages to push him away, he doesn’t anticipate the man having accomplices.

He gets a few surprise stab wounds that go into some biocomponents, but their timers are set to at least an hour before he shuts down.

He defeats his attackers and sends Hank his location, telling him that he needs emergency care needs to be taken to Kamski as soon as possible.

His systems kick him into sleep mode against a cold alley wall to preserve thirium, which leaks copiously from his many wounds.

Connor wakes up to the ceiling of Kamski’s “operating” room, vaguely wondering if the past few months had been the equivalent of a dream, if he had imagined all of the friends he’d made and all of the things he’d experienced.

The thought...saddens Connor.

Luckily, a few minutes after he awakens, he hears Hank’s gruff voice and a plethora of footsteps approaching the room he’s in.

Connor goes to sit up, but winces in pain. His movement brings up a prompt, asking if he’d like to interface with the android equivalent of an IV, though it contains a liquid that promotes self-reparation at the cost of his mental capabilities being lowered until his wounds are healed.

TL;DR, it’s the closest Connor can get to pain killing medication.

He accepts the interface and he suddenly feels...oddly happy?

Everything is moving around the slightest bit and Connor can’t help but smile. Everything was great and he was having fun, sitting on the table. 

He giggles drunkenly.

His wounds are slowly closing themselves, and he scoots to the edge of the table while humming an unknown tune. He smiles triumphantly once his knees finally hang over the edge, he kicks them and rocks his head side to side.

When everyone enters the room, he’s surrounded by people and get-well gifts and he’s just so happy. He really doesn’t think of the consequences of his actions.

So that’s exactly why he thanks them all with hugs and kisses, skin tingly and buzzing while his chest feels warm and full.

The members of Jericho are frozen when he gives them all kisses to the cheek, and then all of them simultaneously slap a hand onto their cheek and stare at each other with pink faces. Daniel and Simon both duck their heads while Josh pulls his hood over his face and rugs on the drawstrings. North is suddenly more occupied with poking Markus’ red cheeks and teasing him as he shakes.

Hank tries to fight him off, but eventually relents, ruffling his hair bashfully. Conan and Collin both turn their heads as he approaches their cheeks, leading to him kissing both of them on the lips, though he just laughs good naturedly when they both nod at each other and go to opposite sides of the room, ears red.

Ralph and the Jerrys are surprisingly shy when Connor kisses them, but Ralph gives him a kiss on the cheek back, while the Jerrys all rub their necks and look away with silly grins.

Luther and Kara let Alice take their share of kisses, and she presses a kiss to Connor’s nose.

Rupert tries to escape Connor, but the brunette grabs his sleeve and gives him a kiss to the temple. Rupert immediately tries to flee the room, and Connor waves. Rupert hesitates before waving back and running away.

Connor goes to give Gavin a kiss, too, but the detective shoves a homemade cupcake in his mouth before he can. He still manages to give the guy a hug, though.

Kamski approaches, by Connor’s hug and kiss for him are stolen by Chloe, who had just snapped out of her shock at seeing Connor surrounded by a goddamn harem.

She growls at everyone in the room, sans Alice, Hank, Kara, and Luther.

Kamski is kinda concerned?? People don’t growl like that, wtf.

Also, he’s kinda upset that she’s keeping him from getting affection from his own creation but he’s not about to let his head get ripped off today

Chloe says that there’s too many people in the room, it’s getting late, and that Connor should get some more rest so that he can recover completely.

She tries to sound pleasant, but she really just sounds threatening af

Once she’s sufficiently scared the fuck out of everyone there and gotten them to leave, she puts her hands on Connor’s shoulders and tries to explain that nobody is allowed to touch him bc he’s too precious and, “nobody deserves you. This world doesn’t deserve you. The G-Man in the sky doesn’t even deserve you u pure boi.”

He doesn’t remember a word of this in the morning, but Chloe doesn’t know that.

He goes home in Hank’s car, Sumo already back from the vet and now laying across his lap, and finds out that Conan and Collin are at registration for their next year of college 

(lol idk if thats something u have to go do at college, im 15 and clueless)

Next Level: College Care Packages and Birthday Parties (suggested by @supposedlymatureadult )

X | Continue to Next Level

O | Save Progress and Quit to Main Menu

————————————— •

I think I got carried away with the kissing but I just really wanted Connor to be overly affectionate. At least I didn’t go down the sexual route.

Leave suggestions in the notes or in my ask, along with any questions, comments, and anything else!

Side note: If you want to receive notice of this AU but not the other random things I post/reblog (don’t worry I‘m not offended if that’s the case), I’m marking them all with #Jui’s Mostly Human AU in the tags, so you can follow that instead if that’s preferable!

[blackgoddessofsassiness]

How To Create A Website

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Because there are still many people that still find it difficult understand the intricate thought of starting tweaking their unique web log, we could be susceptible to errors and mistakes that would naturally make us start yet again, lengthening the task. But if you've got a help guide to follow, then there's really silly to make mistakes. Before I get to talk about earn money blogging, I would like to provide you with a short guide on the way to set up your site. First you'll need to visit or , and sign up with them for any free blog. Sign up is straightforward, you merely submit a questionaire plus you've got to verify you current email address. Once you confirm your email then you have your website up and running. Many internet marketers who use a Word Press hosted blog will realize that is automatically set on No Follow, not Do Follow. This implies that when anybody comments, search engines like google won't follow the link that's used in the comment. Consequently, there is no redirect for a own blog. The advantages of using a Do Follow weblog do understand. Step 3- Cut down your list round 2 - Choosing a blog topic is like picking out the American (blog) Idol. Well, it is just acceptable for you to eliminate many of the potential topics you have decided. Maybe you can help to conserve the rejects to get a future blog project. But in the meantime, determine what sort of blog you'd like to pursue. Other examples of blog topics you might choose are: photo blog, tutorial blog and also film review blog. After picking out the 'one' (blog topic) it time for one to eliminate the other lists you are trying to choose.

[oddchamp]

The Necromancer’s Waltz

Hi guys! I wrote a short fantasy story and I wanted to post it here. It’s kind of a big conglomerate of ideas I’ve had for the past few months, and I had a lot of fun writing it! The story follows Lymark, an orc woman who wants to figure out the reasons behind the strange events in her home town of Kilerth. It’s got about 15k words.

Please like if you read it and reblog if you enjoyed it!

In the north woods, there is town called Kilerth. The people were varied, and usually very neighborly. It was good town for lumber- surrounded by strong, hearty trees -so many people lived for the woods. So, of course, when something upset the woods, it upset the people.

Times were strange for the people of Kilerth. The very pines that surrounded the small civilization seemed to gently quiver with nervous energy. The people had become shifty-eyed and filled with distrust. They only left their homes if it was absolutely necessary. This of course, had the upside of less crime, but that in and of itself made the Militia more snappy and cross. The only sounds that drifted through the night air were those of a soft piano in the house of some hopeful soul.

All of this, seemed to be caused by the castle that kept appearing in the night sky.

In the middle of the night, on seemingly random nights, the towers of a massive, black castle would appear in the skyline. When it first happened, the people of the town asked each other if they had seen it- they all had, -but no one had answer as to how it had appeared. Then, it appeared again and again, and each time it did, something disappeared- a hunting dog, a beloved cat, always something living. Thus, the suspicions everyone had. Some people had learned to live like this, but others had had enough.

~

In this town was a small tavern called The Long Yarn. It was small and sleepy, perfect for the little town it existed in. On one night, it was nearly empty except for an orc woman and a human tavern keeper. The orc, tall and muscular, was named Lymark. Tonight, she wore an outfit akin to one she usually wore- a rough spun cotton shirt with a leather skirt, and matching leather gloves. The tan and slim tavern keeper wore a dress-shirt and black pants with an apron and a bowtie.

“It just doesn’t make sense,” muttered Lymark, half to herself, half to the tavern keeper one night. The tavern was a humble one, made of sturdy pine and only bragged four kinds of beverage and mediocre food.  “I’m no archaeologist, but I’m pretty sure that you can’t just build a castle that’s only there sometimes.”

“The word is architect, not archaeologist,” said the tavern keeper, whose name was Jax. “As for the castle, it could be enchanted.”

“Yeah, but the trees! Wouldn’t they get in the way?” She demanded, throwing a hand in the air. She took a harsh sip of her ale.  “Hell, you’d think we’d hear a giant castle being built, right? Or at least have some notice beforehand…”

Jax shook his head and clucked his tongue. “You really don’t understand magic, do you Lymark? If it’s powerful enough, things can just appear like that, you know.”

Lymark rolled her eyes. “Magic ain’t ever worked for me, pal. Only causes trouble. Makes you go daft if you use too much, I’ve heard.”

After that, the conversation faded into small talk, then to nothing at all. Eventually, Lymark headed to her small home, tucked into the corner of the village. It had been a tough day, a tough week, even. Hell, things had been tough since that damn castle had appeared. She ran the ill effects of the damn thing over and over in her mind as she walked home. It made her sick to her stomach, and the alcohol didn’t help.

As she was about to enter her home, she heard something. She stopped, and turned her head slowly towards the sound. She saw a figure gently leading a cow down the road that led into the woods, its bell clinking softly.

What the hell…? She thought, watching the figure disappear into the night. There weren’t any farms near the town, and farmers rarely took livestock into the woods, but never a whole living cow. Checking to make sure she still had her trusty dagger strapped to her thigh, she closed the door to her house, and followed the figure.

She stayed a good forty feet behind her target, stalking silently. The winter air made soft steam against her breath, so she was lucky the person didn’t turn around. The gap between closed as they came to a large clearing in the woods, until she was almost upon him. The cow seemed ever more hesitant to follow its leader, lowing urgently.

“C’mon,” said the gruff voice of its handler. “Jus’ a little more. Nothin’s gonna hurt ya.” For some odd reason, the voice sounded… Familiar.

He practically dragged the cow to near edge of the clearing. He looked around him, and Lymark ducked into the brush. Her heart pounded. She had only gotten a glimpse of the man’s face, but couldn’t believe her eyes.

After a stomach-wrenching moment, the man called out, “Alright, necromancer, Death Prince, what e’re you are, come on out! I’ve got something for ya.”

Like fog flowing in from the mountains, the silhouette of a castle faded into existence, and became real. It was huge, much too large for the clearing it was in, but it seemed to fit, against all logic. The spires at the top matched the ones Lymark had seen in the sky too many times. It was obsidian, gothic, and carved into its walls were images of skulls and pained grimaces.

The huge doors of the castle slowly creaked open, leaking purple light into the surrounding darkness. In the doors, slightly elevated with some stairs, stood a tall, ghoulish figure. It was clearly an elf, wearing fanciful robes of nobility, but they looked as if the color had been sucked out of them, leaving them in only varying shades of gray. He looked exhausted and solemn, as if, like the colors of his robes, life had been drained from his fragile frame. The whole scene radiated an instinctual need to run, to scream, to fight, but Lymark could only shudder helplessly.

“Ah, you again,” the elf droned. “Captain Derek Ripley of the Kilerth Militia. How is your son?”

What the hell?! Lymark thought. Why does this freak know the Captain of the Militia? Isn’t he supposed to protect us from this kind of thing?

“He- He’s fine,” the Captain stuttered out. He was trying not shake, Lymark could tell. “Listen, I- I brought you something-”

“I see. You’ve brought a cow,” interrupted the unimpressed elf. “What is your trouble this time?”

After a tense moment, Ripley choked out, “It’s my wife. She’s ill and bedridden. I’ve tried everything I can think of, no doctors can help her! Please, take this cow, and give my wife her life back.”

The elf furrowed his brow and grimaced deeper. “You equate the life of your wife to a cow?”

“Well-”

“This isn’t even your cow,” the elf hissed. “You do know I only take living things of equal value to work my magic, right? I’m not taking a stolen cow to bring a living woman back from the brink.”

“But she doesn’t have much time, necromancer! She’s hardly a cusp, I don’t have enough time to bring something worth as much as her,” he said, almost crying. “Please, just take this as upfront payment, I’ll, I’ll-”

“Relax, Ripley,” the elf said viciously. “I know of something that will be just as good to me as your wife is to you.”

The captain nodded, wringing his hands.

“Find me this man, and I will give your wife her health back. His name is Peter Sawdoor, and he was last seen headed towards Adventure’s-End Cave,” the elf said. He waved his hand, and a shorter figure made of light appeared beside him. He wore leather armor and had a short sword attached at his hip, next to a wand. Atop of this, he wore a robe a touch too big for him. It was odd, the figure looked… Like a kid?

“Oh…. Um, alright,” the captain said. He looked down at his feet and looked at the cow.

“Go home, and give the cow back.” Ordered the elf.

The elf slowly backed up, the doors swung closed behind him, and the castle faded from existence.

After a moment, the captain stomped his foot on the ground and cursed. He tugged harshly on the cow’s lead and muttered, “C’mon, you dumb animal!”

Just when Lymark thought the captain would turn around and see her, the cow broke free from the rope around her neck, and ran off into the woods. Captain Ripley cursed again, and ran after the cow at top speed.

Lymark stood up, somewhat dazed. She felt like she was dreaming, but the scene that had played out before her felt much too real. She turned around and stumbled back down the path to her village, and when she arrived home, locked the door behind her, shaking.

~

The next morning Lymark worked: making planks and other such things for sale. She worked out behind her house, sawing and cutting away. She even cut down the trees herself, to save herself some money.

She was usually very skillful, but today her work was less focused. Her mind kept drifting to the odd thing she had seen the night before. It had to be a dream, right? Or it should have been, for her sanitys’ sake. But no matter how she tried, she couldn’t come up with any plausible reason on why that would or wouldn’t have happened. She didn’t hallucinate, she didn’t sleepwalk, she hardly dreamed, and she would have noticed if something she ate was bad. But why wouldn’t that whole affair be real? She had heard of stranger things- people being chopped up and sewn together into a new person, crowns that could set people on fire -why shouldn’t a necromantic castle be allowed. As she thought, one thought persisted more than any other: Why here? Why Ripley? Why me?

As she considered this, examining her handiwork at the same time, she heard a something whistle past overhead. She turned her head and saw a crossbow volt smack and stick into her chimney. She looked at the direction from which the volt had come and saw a newly broken window in the tavern. She also heard a commotion from that direction as well. Brandishing a lumber axe, she ran over.

When Lymark entered The Long Yarn, she saw a human woman in a brilliant red cape and leather armor attempting to stab the tavern keeper with a long dagger. Poor Jax’s only defence was his crossbow, which he was using to keep the dagger out of his face. He was bent over the bar, facing upwards and, trying desperately to save his own life. Meanwhile, some rowdy folks who appeared to be the caped woman’s friends were cheering her on: a half elf woman in white and blue, a drow who looked like he was dragged out of a dumpster, and human wearing scale mail with a lizard crest.

The human made eye contact with her, and said under his breath, “Oh, shit.”

Jax looked up from his predicament and saw Lymark. “Help! Help me, please!” His grip on his crossbow slipped, and the dagger slammed into the bar, scratching the side of his face. Jax shoved the woman away from him, reaching around for another volt for his crossbow.

“Hey!” Lymark roared, gripping her axe in two hands. “Cut that out!”

The woman glanced up at her, and went bug-eyed. She cursed in a language Lymark didn’t understand, then snapped, “Junk, take care of her, would you?”

The drow snickered maniacally, and picked up a quarterstaff that he had laid on the table. “On it, Maggie!”

The drow jumped at Lymark with surprising speed and force, flinging himself through the air, mace in hand. It would have been an impressive hit if he had jumped two feet out of her way. He hit the ground with a tumble, then scrambled to his feet. He looked back at her with wide, twitching eyes. His pupils were dilated and he was shaking all over.

This guy’s whacked out beyond belief, Lymark thought with disgust.

Lymark hurried over to Jax, who had grabbed a cooking knife and was dueling “Maggie” with impressive grace. The orc woman smacked her over the head with the blunt end of her axe, dazing the woman. Jax looked up at her with an expression filled with gratitude beyond belief.

“Oh my Scalador, I am so sorry about all of this!” the man wearing chainmail exclaimed. “My friend Magmara over there got a little, ah, agitated with the quality of this establishment’s liquor-”

“Shut the hell up,” interrupted the half elf behind him. “She’s not buying your bullshit, Erithiack.”

“Let’s split!” the drow shrieked.

When the drow was about to scamper out of the tavern like a frightened opossum, Captain Ripley entered the Long Yarn. He surveyed the scene and scowled. His eyes had the same exasperated look from the night before.

Oh shit, thought Lymark. Did he see me last night? Don’t look guilty, don’t look guilty-

“What’s going on here?” the captain demanded.

Before anyone could say anything else, Jax said, “These hooligans came into my tavern, demanded drinks on discount for no other reason than not being able to afford my reasonably-priced beverages, and when I refused, attacked me!”

“Well, I’m not sure demanded is the right word,” said the human, who Lymark guessed was Erethiack, laughing nervously. “Also, only Magmara attacked him-”

“Yeah, you guys just watched and laughed,” Magmara spat. “The orc hit me with her axe!”

“...Because she was attacking Jax. I didn’t even use the sharp side,” Lymark explained.

“Hey, we’re not from ‘round here! We don’t know the legal code or whatever…” the drow interjected. “It’s not fair to prosecute someone who doesn’t know the law!”

Captain Ripley groaned rubbed his temples. “Listen, you four- the newcomers, not you, Jax ‘n’ Lymark, I trust you, -come with me. I’ll need to talk to you in m’ office.”

“Every town, it’s like this. I feel like a nanny or something,” Erethiack muttered. He forced a smile onto his face. “With pleasure, Officer!”

After the Captain left with the four hooligans, Jax touched the cut on his cheek and winced.

“You have bandages, right?” Lymark asked.

“Of course,” Jax said. He looked at the floor, then at Lymark. “Thank you. For saving me.”

Lymark nodded, and hefted her lumber axe over her shoulder. “I’ve always got your back, you know. In days like these, we need to stick together with trust and…” she realized the hypocrisy in her statement, and paused. “...All that good stuff. Anyways, I’ve better get back to my work. I’ll probably see you tonight.” She made her way to the door leading out.

“See you then,” Jax said, going back behind the bar, searching for the bandages he kept back there. When the orc woman had left, he muttered, “Be safe.”

~

After her aforementioned visit to the Long Yarn, Lymark sat on the edge of her large, leather bound bed; soaked in alcohol and pondering.

That necromancer… He appears if you bring him a living thing, or so it seems, she thought. Or maybe he only accepts it if you want something brought from the dead? It’s hard to tell. Her eyes fell upon a jasmine plant that sat in the far corner of the room. A human asking for her love had brought it, and, though she rejected him soundly, she had kept it. It smelled nice and painted the illusion of joy in her home. However, when she remembered the human man, she became somewhat uncomfortable. Oddly enough, she had gotten around the same time the castle first appeared.

A thought came stumbling to the forefront of her mind. One part of her didn’t like it, another despised it, but a third fancied it quite a bit. The first part warned, Curiosity killed the cat,to which the third replied, No one ever said what happened to the cat that died near a necromancer!

Before she could argue with herself anymore, she grabbed the plant by the earthen pot, armed herself with an axe and her trusty dagger, and set out.

~

After a long creep through the night, she reached the clearing. Her skin crawled, and her stomach tried to wrench itself in a knot and shove out its contents, but she didn’t let it. She looked around, scanning for anyone shadowing her. Unless she was as unobservant as Captain Ripley, she was alone. For now.

“Hey, elf necromancer!” she growled. “Come out! I’ve got some… Jasmine for you! It’s healthy and strong, and full of life!”

The castle slowly, almost hesitantly faded into existence. The doors opened, and the elf looked down at Lymark with not an unimpressed grimace, but a look filled with disturbed confusion. Had no one ever addressed him casually?

“Greetings…” he said, looking over Lymark carefully. “And you are?”

Lymark blinked at him. “I thought you would have already known my name,” she said, kind of dissapointed.

“What? Where did you get that idea?” the elf asked. Then, a look of realization dawned on him. “Oh, you’re that orc that was watching us last night. Look, I’m not psychic. I’m just a necromancer with a magic castle.”

“Yeah, about that,” Lymark said. “I’ll give you this plant in exchange for information. Specifically: who the hell are you, why are you in my town, and what made you think this is okay?!”

“Excuse me?” the elf asked, offended. “Listen, you’re not going to get anywhere with that tone, miss-”

“Take the goddamn plant and give me some answers!”

For a second, the elf’s eyes glowed purple, and smoke tumbled out of his mouth. Then, he closed his eyes, took a deep breath and was back to normal.

“Alright. Bring the jasmine over here.”

Lymark grinned with satisfaction. She marched over and held the plant up for him to take. As he did, their fingers met. Her vision blurred and her blood ran cold. However, as soon as the contact ceased and he held the jasmine, she was fine.

“Thank you,” the elf said with heartfelt sincerity. “It’s lovely. I’ll put it next to the nightshade, I think.”

“Alright, now,” Lymark growled, putting her hand on the axe strapped to her back. “Tell me everything.”

Noticing the orc’s new posture, the elf somehow became whiter than before. He swiftly pulled a stringed instrument- a lyre, perhaps something else, Lymark couldn’t tell, -from inside of his robes and played a short tune on it. Everything went dark.

~

Lymark regained consciousness, lying on her bed. She looked around. It was still dark out. The jasmine plant was gone. In its place was a small booklet, laying on the ground.

She swung her legs over the side of her bed and stood up. She was dizzy, and her head hurt awfully. However, it seemed she had gained something from the encounter, so that was satisfying. Plus, she didn’t die!

She crouched down and scooped up the booklet. It was titled: The Necromancers Waltz. Standing up, she flipped open the cover to the first page. The heading was First Movement: “Life Before Him.” Underneath were lines with dots on them. After a second, she realized it was musical score. She flipped past, confused. More music. Then, Second Movement: “Sacrifice and Budding Love.” Now agitated, she continued on, scanning the pages thoroughly. Third Movement: “Rejection.” Fourth Movement: “Now and Perhaps Fore’er.”

After the end of the fourth movement, there was no more. She looked at the inside covers, turned it upside down, both kinds of sideways, and even looked at each individual page through a candle’s light. Nothing, nothing, nothing! Her left eye was twitching, and her breathing was heavy.

“THIS MEANS NOTHING TO ME!”  Lymark roared.

The orc heard surprised yells from some surrounding houses, and soon saw candle lights in their windows. Her face flushed, and she sighed. She’d have to unravel more of this mystery the next morning. But, first: some apologies to her neighbors.

~

The next day, as Lymark was doing her usual woodwork, she heard a group of very irritating voices coming down the road. No. It can’t be… She walked around the side of her house and saw the four hooligans from the tavern strolling down the road casually, escorted by none other than Captain Ripley.

She ran over to the Captain, who greeted her with a calm, throaty, “Hello, Lymark.”

“Captain, what’s going on?” she asked. “I thought you were going to throw these four in prison.”

He nodded. “I did. For a night,” he smiled. “Now, they’re doing a bit of ah, community service.”

“That being…?”

“That being capturing a fugitive,” he answered. “They’re skilled adventurers, so they’ll be handling this themselves. I’m paying them with not keeping them in jail any longer.”

Skilled. Really, now? She thought. Her eyes narrowed. “What kind of fugitive?”

The captain hesitated. “You know. The kind who need to be put in jail.”

“You sure this isn’t a personal matter, Captain Ripley? One that begins and ends somewhere hidden, like, oh, in the woods, perhaps?” She started the phrase casually, and ended loud and bug-eyed.

It was the captain’s turn to narrow his eyes. “I’ve got some free advice for ya: Don’t dig your ugly snout where it doesn’t belong, orc.”

Lymark stopped walking, stunned and fuming. She wouldn’t let her anger get the better of her, not twice in one day. The group of five continued on their way, soon out of town.

That bastard! I’ll skin him, use that skin as a gods-damn curtain so that any other corrupt law authority can see what I’m soooooo unafraid of doing- she thought before the train of thought was interrupted by an unexpected sound: music, gentle piano music from the house next door to hers. It was so soft, so lovely, that for a moment, Lymark forgot what she was so angry about.

A thought struck her: That person can play music. That means they probably read music. The score!

Lymark rushed back into her house. She was glad she hadn’t ripped the little booklet to shreds, though she was tempted. Perhaps, when the music was played aloud, everything would become clear!

She marched over to the home where the piano music still played. She knocked on the door, gently but loud enough to be heard over the music. She heard the person inside slam down on the keys, grumble to themself, and she heard the piano bench scoot backwards. After a few seconds, the door was opened by a grumpy wood elf in a hefty, wool sweater, gold-rimmed, round glasses, and a skirt that split down the sides.

“Hello, neighbor. Need something?” She said in a surprisingly high voice. She had a queer little accent, too.

“No. I mean, er, yes,” Lymark said. “I heard you playing piano-”

“You bothered?” she asked. For such a little thing, she sure was intimidating.

“Well, actually, I was wondering: You can play music, right?” she asked. Gods, why am I so flustered?

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I?” she said. “Been playing since I was just over twenty, wouldn’t have it any other way.” she added with a touch of pride.

Lymark grinned. “Great! I would be very grateful if you played this piece for me.” She held up the booklet.

The wood elf took the booklet and looked it over, flipping through the pages nonchalantly. “The Necromancers Waltz, huh? Some title,” she said, somewhat impressed. She looked back up at Lymark. “You write this yourself?”

“No.”

“Who did? There’s no name on here…”

“I don’t know,” Lymark said. When the elf’s eyes widened, she quickly added. “I got it from my uh, late, er grandfather.” The elf’s eyebrow raised, and she tilted her head to the side. “He used to play it often when I was a child. It would be nice to hear it again. Now that he’s moved, um, on.”

“How sentimental,” was all the elf said.

There was a tense moment. The two women stared at each other. The elf’s eyes drilled into Lymark’s very soul, and seemed to read her thoughts, or at least make them go blank. Oh sweet gods, she thought. Can she tell how much bullshit I just told her? Shit, shit, shit-

“How’s this: For such a… Tragic occasion, I’ll play it for free,” the elf said. “This time. Next time, it’ll be ten gold pieces- and for four movements that’s a steal.”

“Oh! Sure, that sounds great,” Lymark agreed.

“Come on in, then,” the elf said, smiling.

Lymark followed the elf inside. Her house was small, quaint, and filled with forest plants. As far as furniture went, she had a rocking chair, a cotton-bound couch with an end table covered in little knick-knacks. Ivy crawled all over the walls, even on the piano, but only the outside and never touching the keys. It much more pleasing to the eye than that damned jasmine plant, at least to Lymark.

“So, what’s your name, neighbor?” asked the elf.

“Lymark, how about you?”

“Svettle.” She sat down at the piano and opened the booklet. “First Movement: ‘Life Before Him.’”

Svettle cracked her knuckles, took a deep breath, and placed her hands gingerly on the keys. She glanced back at Lymark, who stared at her in eager anticipation. She pursed her lips, and began the song.

At first, everything was normal, it was a lilting tune with a simple melody and little harmony. Then, halfway through the first movement, Svettle began to shake. She looked like she wanted to stop playing, but couldn’t, for some reason. At first, Lymark was worried that the poor thing was having an anxiety attack. This belief was swept aside when the elf’s eyes began to glow purple and her back arched, yet she continued to play. The only time she stopped was when she moved into the next movement: “Sacrifice and Budding Love.”

This movement was much more exciting, with a more speedy tempo. The volume alternated rapidly between loud and aggressive, which accompanied staccato notes, high and unafraid; and soft, almost unwilling to be heard legato notes. The elf hummed along with what she was playing, and sang some wordless tunes. It was haunting, and Lymark could only sit there, terrified.

The third movement was the kicker. As Lymark listened, she felt like she was being held hostage with cold, dead hands grasping at her limbs and legs. The song felt like a real ballroom waltz, and it had real lyrics. In some language or another. It sounded something like this:

“Wmyl sy syry kazm eryzzh vorv haflq, ph vyir,

xe dajyv haf pary zmil zmy paal

yaf vixxdyv py pary zmil zmy wzirw, ph dajy

alv ouddyv ph myiv pary zmil xe zfly

bfz smyl xe wmasyv ph myirz, ph eyz,

haf wtarlyv py vorv zfrlyv py isih

lyjyr siw zmyry xe pary warrh wuqmz

zmil ph kracyl myirz al zmiz vih

nas xe mijy oivyv vorv vuyv, ph wsyyz

mh eulc wcul miw oivyv za qrih

iw xe rawy orap zmy qrijy, xe zmafqmz

pyrmiew haf'dd ducy py kyzzyr zmiz sih”

In the short break thereafter, the music became louder and more aggressive, with the elf nearly standing up in her seat to hit the keys hard enough. Then, the volume died down, and the words continued:

“Om, ph dajy

dilty oar'yr suzm py

om, ph wsyyz

lyjyr dyijy py

uo haf wzih kh ph wuvy

f'dd cyye haf wioy vorv waflv

oar uo haf tafdv wyy

haf'v kh wzrulqw ao oizy sy vory kaflv.”

The music rose and became a cacophony before stopping abruptly. Svettle was breathing heavily. The color was drained from her features and her whole body was shaking, practically convulsing. And yet one movement remained.

The last one was the shortest. It was less than a minute long, and only had one line of lyrics, sung over and over, in a voice choked with sorrow:

“Xe sudd oulv haf. Saal ylafqm, xe sudd oulv haf.”

With that, the purple glow faded from Svettle’s eyes, and she collapsed onto her piano with a resounding BANG.

No longer stuck, Lymark jumped to her feet and gently shook the the elf. When no response came, she crouched down and tried to listen to her breathing. Svettle was breathing, but it was short and raspy. Though this was good news, the whole affair- the nonsensical lyrics, the glowing eyes, everything -had shaken Lymark to the core.

Lymark picked up the booklet off of the piano, scowling. Worst of all, Lymark had gained nothing from hearing the music played, aside from the knowledge that this necromancer was messed up in the head.

Before she could ponder the situation any more, Lymark felt a sharp, metal point touch the side of her neck. She slowly looked down at Svettle, who was awake, eyes full of fury, and hand full of a long, sharp rapier. Her color was coming back, but she still trembled. For a moment, neither of them spoke, once again staring at each other.

“What… The fuck… Was that?” the elf demanded.

Lymark, very calmly, said, “I have no idea.”

“Bullshit!” Svettle shrieked. “That music is cursed beyond belief! Did that… That stuff happen to your grandfather when he played it? Did it? Did it?”

“No-”

“BULLSHIT!”

“Listen, I may have told a little lie before,” Lymark said gently. When Svettle began to shake more violently, she continued. “Don’t! Interrupt. Me. Thank you. This is not from my grandfather. You know the weird castle that keeps appearing in the woods? It is controlled by a necromancer. I tried to get some answers from him- why he’s here and all that -and all he did was give me this booklet. I can’t read music, so I thought if I got someone to play it, that would, I don’t know, solve the riddle or something.”

Svettle looked over Lymark, as if trying to judge whether or not the orc was completely insane. Slowly, she lowered the rapier and stood up.

“Lymark. I can’t condemn you for this, as much as I would like to,” she said with ragged breaths. “Because I would have done the exact same gods-damn thing.”

“R- really?” Lymark asked, surprised.

Svettle grinned. “Are you kidding? You found a mysterious, disappearing castle in the woods, you got only a little evidence, you followed it!” She paused, looking around the room. “Ah, there it is.” She crawled on top of her couch, reached over the back, and pulled from behind it a belt with holster for her rapier.

“What are you doing…?” Lymark asked as the elf searched around her cramped home for something else.

“I’m gonna help you,” she called from another room. “This is exciting! I’ve wondered what was up with that castle since it started showing up, but I’ve never been brave enough to actually investigate.” She returned with a violin strapped to her back, holding the bow in her hand.

“Um, what’s the violin for,” the orc asked. “I’m not objecting to help, I’m glad for it, but why the violin?”

Svettle looked at her with a mischievous glint her eyes. “This is my battle violin.”

Lymark opened her mouth to say something, then closed it. I’m not even going to ask, she thought, shaking her head.

“Where’re your weapons?” the elf asked.

“Oh, at my house,” she answered. “Listen, I wouldn’t act like we’re heading immediately into some big battle. We don’t even have more information than what I told you.”

The elf giggled. “I wouldn’t be so sure. I believe I sang in some odd language as I played, correct?” Lymark nodded. “Then, we just need to find someone who can translate it!”

“That might be quite a search,” the orc said. “I know this is a small town, but I don’t want to just asking everyone in the village if they can understand creepy nonsense-words.”

“Well, who do we know that knows everyone in town?” the elf asked. Her eyes brightened. “Captain Ripley! Let’s ask-”

“You have no idea how much we can’t do that,” Lymark interrupted seriously. “I think he’s involved with the necromancer. They make… deals with each other. I tried to ask him about it, but he didn’t want to talk.”

Svettle’s eyebrows raised. “Truly? Well, then, someone else.”

“How about Jax, the tavern keeper?”

~

Jax looked at the two quizzically. “A linguist? I don’t think we have anyone like that in town. At least, that I know about.” Svettle sighed and Lymark banged a fist on the table with a curse.

“I guess we can just ask around,” the elf offered. “Always been an option.”

Lymark shook her head. “No, we’ll attract attention from Ripley if we do that.”

Jax’s eyebrows raised. “You think the Captain’s up to no good, too?” He leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially, “Don’t know if you knew this, but he let these four criminals that attacked me just walk out of town!”

Svettle gasped. “How scandalous!”

“I know,” Jax said, shaking his head. He rubbed the bandage on his face and cursed. “World’s a wicked place, nowadays. Can I offer you two any drinks? Ease your mind at all?”

“Ale sounds great,” Lymark answered, sitting down and leaning onto the bar.

“Got any brandy?” asked Svettle, who rarely came to the Long Yarn.

Jax gritted his teeth. “Maybe in the back? I’ll check.”

After the tavern keeper had left the room, Lymark looked at Svettle and whispered. “Probably not. Times are hard, you know?” The elf nodded sagely.

Jax returned with a guilty look and empty hands. “No such luck. How’s a nice red wine sound?”

“That sounds... Just fine,” Svettle answered, a little disappointed.

In no time, the two drinks were on the counter. Lymark casually gulped down a few mouthfuls of ale and placed the flagon back down on the bar with a whump. Svettle took a small sip and almost immediately scrunched up her face. She muttered something in Elvish and grimaced, but kept the glass in her hand.

“Sorry again about the whole linguist thing,”Jax apologized. “If I could, I would just make one appear, you know?” He wiggled his fingers his doors at the entrance to the Long Yarn. “Like, bam! Linguist!”

Just then, the door opened, and in walked a redheaded dwarf with a small briefcase in his hand. He definitely wasn’t from around Kilerth. He noticed the three staring at him, nodded to them, and sat down at a table. The three looked at each other.

“You don’t think-” Lymark whispered.

“There’s no way,” Svettle argued, just as quiet.

“Castles appear and disappear with a little magic,” the orc countered.

They both looked at Jax, who shrugged helplessly.

The tavern keeper walked around the bar, and up to the dwarf. Svettle, with her elven senses, could hear the conversation with ease. Lymark had to “subtly” lean over.

“Hello, good sir! Welcome to the Long Yarn,” Jax began with his tavern keeper charm. “Can I get you anything to drink?”

The dwarf didn’t seem to notice him at first, as he was examining some papers from his briefcase. Then, he looked up at him with an odd look. He answered, “Oh, just some water for now.”

When Jax came back, he hissed, “Did you hear that? Water! What kind of dwarf…”

“It doesn’t matter,” Svettle objected. “What was he reading?”

“What was he- I don’t know, I didn’t look!” Jax growled. “Usually, it’s none of my business.”

“Listen,” Lymark ordered. “You get him his water, I’ll chat him up-”

“No, no you won’t,” Svettle hissed. “He’s a tiny little thing, not from around here. For all we know, this is the first place he’s been to since he got here. Imagine how he’d feel if a huge orc woman started asking him a bunch of questions.”

“I’ll just look at his papers,” Jax muttered, already walking back to the dwarf.

“Ah, thank you,” the dwarf said once the tavern keeper arrived.

“No problem!” Jax said. He stood over the dwarf awkwardly for moment. “So, where do you come from? We don’t get a lot of new patrons here, if you catch my drift.”

“Oh, I’m from down south,” he answered. “I’m a traveling teacher, following the winds of fate, you see.” He motioned at his papers.

Svettle and Lymark both looked at each other with wide eyes.

“Really?” Jax asked. “What do you teach?”

The dwarf seemed delighted that someone was listening to him. “Oh, well, many topics! History, mathematics, culture of different areas- my personal favorite, you know, -and some languages.”

Lymark grinned wide at Svettle, who giggled maniacally. When she caught a sharp glance from Jax, she took a sip from her wine innocently. Her face scrunched up, and when Jax looked away, she spat it back into the glass. She repeated her earlier Elvish phrase with more feeling and pounded her fist on her leg several times, rapidly.

“The aftertaste is the worst part,” she groaned.

“Is that what you’re saying,” Lymark asked. “In Elvish?”

Svettle shook her head. “I’m saying the Elvish word for ‘sour’,” she explained. She looked to the side and her eyes widened. “Shit, he’s coming back.”

Jax, unaware of the harsh criticism, returned with a grin. “I told Mr. Shocktop that I think you’d be very interested in his services. He said he’ll talk to you when he’s done with his work over there.”

“That’s the dwarf’s name?” Svettle asked. “Shocktop?”

The tavern keeper shrugged. “The one he gave me, at least.”

Svettle grinned. “You could say his appearance was a shocking development!”

Lymark, mid-sip, nearly spat out her drink. She snickered and rolled her eyes. “I guess this will really put a top on this whole mystery, eh?” Svettle and Jax just stared at her quizzically. “No? Nothing? Damn.”

“What mystery?” Jax asked. “About the whereabouts of a linguist?”

“Yeah, let’s go with that,” Lymark grumbled.

~

A few drinks, more poor puns, and some price negotiations later, Lymark, Svettle, and Shocktop, were in the elf’s living room. It was now evening, with darkness approaching fast.

“If you want me to translate some lyrics, you could just give them to me,” the dwarf offered.

Lymark shook her head. “It doesn’t work like that,” she explained. “Now, get ready, things are about to get pretty intense.”

“O- oh. I’m ready…?” Shocktop said, nervously and clearly not ready. He pulled out a small piece of parchment, some ink, and a feather quill and looked at Svettle expectantly.

“I think I’ll just skip to the third movement, ‘n’ save us some time,” she announced. “Alright: Movement Three: Rejection.”

Svettle’s fingers danced atop the keys, playing the first few notes. Almost immediately, her eyes began to glow and her body shook. Then, she sang, just as before. For just a moment, Shocktop did nothing but watch in horror, then he scrambled to write down the words.

Just as before, the song ended, and Svettle regained control. This time, she only shook and breathed heavily, but stayed conscience. She turned to look at the dwarf and panted out, “Whaddya think ‘a that shit?”

“That was… Incredible,” the dwarf said with awe, but no fear. “Simply incredible! I’ve never seen anything like it!”

“Do you know what the words mean?” Lymark demanded. “It’s kind of important.”

“Yes, yes of course,” he said. “It goes something like this:

“When were both pretty and young, my dear,

I loved you more than the moon

You dazzled me more than the stars, my love,

And filled my head more than a tune.”

“Is that it?” Lymark asked.

“No, no,” Shocktop said, face a little red. “It just feels a little… Uncomfortable to say this out loud. I’ll continue:

“But when I showed you my heart, my pet,

You scorned me and turned me away,

Never was there a more sorry sight,

Than my broken heart on that day.

“Now I have faded and died, my sweet,

My pink skin has turned to gray,

But as I rose from the grave, I thought,

‘Perhaps you’ll like me better that way,’

“Oh, my love,

Dance for’er with me,

Oh, my sweet,

Never leave me,

If you stay by my side,

I’ll keep you safe and sound

If you could see you’d know,

By strings of fate we’re bound.”

He stopped and looked at the two women. “That’s it.”

Svettle shuddered. “That’s insanely creepy!”

“I can’t believe it,” Lymark muttered. “Absolutely unbelievable.”

“What? What is it?” the elf asked eagerly.

Lymark took a deep breath, and clasped her large, rough hands together. “This means nothing to me. At all.”

Shocktop put the translated lyrics in his briefcase. “I am going to need that payment,” he said, running a hand through his bright, red hair. “Though, I am curious. What’s all this about?”

“A grand mystery!” Svettle exclaimed, a little weary.

“Nothing,” Lymark grumbled at the same time. “Damn it, Svettle!”

The elf laughed sheepishly, then broke into a coughing fit. “S- sorry! I’m just excited. Even if this hasn’t gotten us anywhere, it’s still fun!”

“Mysterious indeed,” Shocktop mused.

“Listen, we’re just investigating some strange happenings in town,” Lymark explained. She reached into one of her pants pockets and pulled out a small lump of gold coins. “This should do it, right?”

Shocktop took the coins and nodded. He scooted off of the couch and smiled warmly. “Well, have a good evening, ladies,” he glanced out of the window at the night sky and stopped. “Odd…”

“What?” Svettle and Lymark asked at the same time.

“Oh, nothing,” the dwarf shook his head. “I guess I just didn’t notice your local castle earlier. Odd color choice, black…”

Lymark cursed under her breath. “Svettle, follow me,” she barked, grabbing her axe from its position; leaning on the elf’s end table. Without further hesitation, she ran out the door and sprinted towards the forest.

Svettle soon caught up, violin bow in hand. “Where are we goin’?” she asked. Lymark only nodded her head at the castle. The elf grinned manically. “Back to the source! I like it!”

Soon, the two were in the woods, still running top speed. When the clearing was almost in sight, Lymark came to a halt with shocking grace. Svettle, however, nearly twisted her ankle and slammed into a tree. The orc silently creeped forward, and signalled to her companion to do the same thing.

Before they even reached the clearing, they heard yelling. When they arrived to a scene where Captain Ripley was yelling at the necromancer, red in the face. The necromancer simply watched him with a completely uninvested expression.

“... I told you I was getting ‘im! You knew I almost had ‘im, but you did it anyways!” the captain yelled. “What happened to our deal, you bastard?!”

The necromancer gazed at Ripley, not reacting at all. Then, he took a deep breath and let it through his nose. “I think you must have misunderstood our deal. I never said anything about keeping your wife alive until you had brought me Peter. If you wanted that, you should have just-”

“Don’t give me that shit! You robbed me,” the captain seethed. He was shaking like an enraged leaf. “Now she’s dead! I had to watch ‘er die…” Tears streamed down his face.

“What’s happening?” Svettle whispered.

“The captain made a deal with the necromancer,” Lymark explained quietly. “To save his wife, he’d bring some human to him.” Suddenly the orc’s eyes widened. “The guy in the song! Shit, why didn’t I figure that before?”

“Oh, so it wasn’t just some random ballad,” Svettle said sagely.

Captain Ripley stiffened. “Someone’s here,” he growled. He wiped his eyes and pulled from something from his right pocket, keeping it in his fist.

“Don’t do something you’d regret,” the necromancer warned. “I still need you.”

The captain didn’t heed this warning. Lymark swiftly ducked into the brush, but Svettle wasn’t quite fast enough. Grinning horribly, Ripley stalked up to the brush. Lymark dug her hand into her pants and removed her hidden dagger. Svettle took her violin off her back. All they had to do was wait.

Just his shadow was upon them, Captain Ripley screamed in agony. Not daring to come up from the brush, Lymark watched the shadow. There was now the shadow of a crossbow volt embedded in its shoulder.

The captain cursed gripped the volt in his right hand, preparing to rip it out. Lymark now looked up at him and saw, glinting in the purple light of the castle, a set of brass knuckles on his right hand.

She also saw the slim figure of Jax, the tavern keeper sprinting full speed at his back. He chucked his crossbow at the ground and from inside his shirt pulled a chain. When he was no more than a foot behind the captain, he dexterously brought the arm holding the chain back, whipped it forward so it went around Ripley’s neck, and grabbed the other end of the chain with his free hand. Jax tugged on the chain, strangling him.

“I CRAVE JUSTICE!” he cried, wrapping the chain around a second time.

Meanwhile, Lymark and Svettle were creeping around to the castle’s doors. As far as they could tell, the necromancer was thoroughly distracted- and perhaps, entertained -by the two humans fighting. However, as soon as Lymark put her foot on the first step to the castle, his head whipped around to look at them.

The necromancer pulled his lyre from his robes, just as before. This time, however, Svettle put her battle violin between her chin and shoulder and put the bow to the strings.

“You wanna have a music-duel?” she challenged, grinning. “A score to settle scores?”

Amused, the necromancer smirked back. “Since it’s so nice to have a challenger, sure.” His eyes glinted purple. “I’ll go easy on you.”

“That won’t be at all necessary,” Svettle chided, bringing her bow across the strings in a high shriek. “Let’s do this!”

The necromancer began with a soft, lilting tune. Svettle combated this with peppy, uplifting ditty. For a moment, the two songs seemed to clash, hurting all the onlookers’- including Jax and Captain Ripley -ears. Then, the two melodies melted together into one aggressive, warsong harmony. Caught up in the excitement, Svettle danced as she played, leaping about sporadically. Shockingly enough, this didn’t disrupt her playing. Not skipping a beat, the necromancer kept his eyes locked on her, and swayed backward and forward to the tempo.

Lymark watched, enraptured. Then, as Svettle jumped past her, the elf growled, “Castle!”

Oh, right, the orc thought. Almost forgot.

She took her axe in one hand and a dagger in the other, and dashed to the necromancer’s side. She almost passed him when from the floor of the castle a ghostly hand extended and grabbed her ankle. Her entire body froze up and her heart pounded in her chest. It hurt to breathe and her limbs burned. Svettle noticed this, but kept playing her violin, and even increased her intensity. On the other hand, the necromancer was distracted, glancing between both of his opponents. It was hard to tell in the odd light, but Lymark could almost see sweat trickle down his face.

Things weren’t going too well for Jax, either. He was engaged in a brutal fist fight with Captain Ripley, who had managed to wrestle free from his chains. As a tavern keeper, Jax was not trained in combat and had a hard time dodging the captain’s swipes to his stomach and jaw. He did have the advantage of being able to take some steps back and still hit Ripley with the chain, using it like a whip.

“You shouldn’t ‘a gotten involved, Jax,” Ripley panted, and spat out some blood. “I always liked you, but I guess some things aren’t meant to last!”

“Is- is that what government is?” the tavern keeper demanded. “You only get what you want if those in power like you? Though, I guess I wasn’t getting justice either way without a gods-damn fight!” With that, Jax slammed his fist, with the chain wrapped around it, into the captain’s jugular.

Suddenly, the necromancer lifted his lyre above his head and shouted, “Stop!”

A wave of force echoed off of him in all directions, knocking Lymark, Svettle, and Jax off their feet. Captain Ripley stared at him in awe, trembling.

“I don’t have the patience for this,” the necromancer spat. “Derek, do what you must with these three. If you want your wife back, bring her with you when you bring me Peter.”

The necromancer then closed the doors to the castle, and it evaporated into the night. Lymark and Svettle fell from where the top of the entry stairs were, limp as ragdolls.

~

The next morning, Jax, Svettle, and Lymark were in the town jail. They sat in a cramped, dark, wet cell together. They didn’t say much to each other. It was more embarrassing than anything else. Other than themselves, in the jail were Captain Ripley and one of his deputies, as the jail doubled as a base for law enforcement operations. They were in the front of the jail, talking to each other.

“I gotta ask,” Svettle said. “Why were you in the forest, Jax?”

“I wanted revenge,” he answered, rubbing one of his many bruises. “The bastard let some bitch who almost killed me walk free. When I saw him walking into the woods alone, I knew it was my chance.” He looked at Svettle and Lymark. “Why were you in the woods?”

“We’ve been investigating the castle,” Lymark explained. “I actually talked to the necromancer before. I asked him why he was here, and he gave me a music book. I asked Svettle to play it, and when she did, she started yelling a bunch of garbled nonsense. That’s why we need a linguist.”

Jax nodded with understanding. “Alright. Why’d you attack the necro-whatever?”

“He’s upsetting the balance of life and death,” Svettle said. “At least, that’s what my goal with that was.”

“I just don’t like him,” Lymark grumbled. “Seemed like an asshole.”

Jax nodded again. “Fuck him.”

“Yeah, fuck him,” Svettle agreed.

“Right?” Lymark said.

“You keep quiet back there!” the deputy yelled. “I’m not afraid to beat you!”

For a few minutes, the jail was silent. Then, the front door opened.

“Oh!” Captain Ripley exclaimed. “You’re back. Did you get him?”

“Yeah,” said the voice of the caped woman from the tavern. “He’s at the other end of town with Erethiack and Antefantas.”

“Where’s your garbage-drow?”

“Where’s-” the woman stopped abruptly. “Damn it! We’ll find him later.”

“Of course,” Ripley said. “Let’s go. Deputy?”

“Yessir,” the deputy piped up.

“You stay here. I’ll be back in a half hour.”

“Yessir.”

Ripley and the woman- Lymark remembered her name was Magmara, -left, and the jail was once again silent.

The three in the cell looked at each other with new intensity. Svettle pounded her fist on her leg. “Wish I had my violin,” she muttered.

“My axe would be great,” Lymark added.

“My crossbow is still in the woods,” Jax groaned. “I probably broke it when I threw it on the ground.”

“You need some better weapons, my man,” Svettle chided.

“And combat training,” Jax agreed.

“Shut up!” the deputy yelled. “If there’s a prison riot you’re all getting whipped!”

Lymark rolled her eyes. “This is stupid,” she grumbled. “Not like I haven’t been whipped before.”

Svettle and Jax stared at her. They looked at each other and silently agreed not to ask.

The front door opened again. The deputy started to say something, but was interrupted with a SMACK . Lymark saw his head and shoulders fall into view, unconscious. Soft footsteps approached the cell with confidence. Creating these footsteps was Shocktop, the linguist dwarf. In his hands were his briefcase and a brick.

“Shocktop!” Svettle exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”

“I saw what happened in the woods,” he explained. “I have no idea what’s going on in this town, but I honestly didn’t have plans to stay here more than a week anyways. So, I decided to help you.” He chuckled. “Also, you paid me much more than we agreed, so I thought I’d beat karma to it!”

“Thanks,” Lymark said, shocked. “So, are you gonna let us out of this cell, or what?”

The dwarf nodded. “In good time.” He walked over to the unconscious deputy’s belt and pulled the key ring off of it. There were only three keys on it, but he got the correct one in the lock on the first try. “Hah! Alright, where are all your weapons?”

Stretching as he exited the cell, Jax said, “In the room adjacent to the other cell.”

Just as before, the dwarf unlocked the door with ease. He held the door open for Svettle and Lymark. In the small closet, there were not only their weapons, but clubs, batons and crossbows. After arming herself, Lymark tossed a crossbow and a club to Jax.

“I’ll train you later,” she said with a wink. They grinned at each other.

Svettle grinned, too, tuning her violin. “The muse strikes me!” she exclaimed. She began an up-paced tune and sang out, “Free from my cage, I’ll fly like an ea-”

“Quiet!” Shocktop snapped. “I only hit the guard with a brick, I didn’t use magic on him!”

“Alright,” the elf grumbled, shaken from her groove. “But as soon as I have a free moment, I’m writin’ a ballad.”

“We should go stop Ripley,” Lymark interjected. “Who knows what might happen when the necromancer gets his lover or whatever back.”

“You all do what you want,” Shocktop said. “I’m leaving town. Good luck!” He ran out of the jail. The group heard a pony whinny and saw him ride by down the road, not looking back.

“What grand dwarf,” Jax commented.

“What an utter psychopath,” Lymark said at the same time.

“Come on, let’s get going, too,” Svettle urged. “We have stop Ridley!”

~

The three didn’t bother sneaking about, they just ran. They arrived to a see the castle- somehow much more terrifying at daytime - with Captain Ripley, three of the four hooligans, Peter Sawdoor- or at least who Lymark thought was him, he had a bag over his head and was held fast by Magmara -and the corpse of Ripley’s wife in front of it. The doors were closed, and Ripley was pacing.

“What’s going on?” Peter asked. Lymark noticed something odd; his shirt and cloak were torn where his heart was on both sides, but the skin was unharmed. “Why do I smell rotting flesh?”

“Shut up!” Ripley snapped. He looked back at the castle. “Why isn’t he opening up? I brought the damn guy.”

“Maybe he’s nervous?” Erethiack said. “You did say he was equal in value to him to your wife, or something.”

“Who are you guys talking about?” Peter demanded. “Wait a second. Are you guys with Sebastian?”

The four of them looked at him quizzically. “Who’s Sebastian?” asked the half elf, who Lymark could only infer was Antefantas.

“Nevermind,” the captive said.

Unnoticed by the group of five, Lymark, Svettle and Jax watched from the woods.

“Should we do something?” Jax asked.

“I have an idea,” Svettle said. “We take the human guy hostage-”

“Which human guy?” Lymark asked. “The one in chain mail or the captive?”

“The one with the bag on his head. We take ‘im hostage and demand that the necromancer leave the town, or we’ll kill his lover. Then, once he leaves, we let the him go and run for our lives, grab our valuables and leave town,” Svettle elaborated.

“I don’t know about that last part, but I’m on board with the hostage bit,” Jax said.

“Same here,” Lymark agreed. “Let’s do this.”

Just after she said it, Lymark jumped out of the woods. She smacked Magmara away from Peter with a brutal punch to the face, and held him in a choke hold. With a knife held up to her new, screaming hostages throat, she commanded, “Everyone drop your weapons or the human gets it!” Svettle and Jax, somewhat surprised, appeared by her side.

“Son of a bitch!” Captain Ripley screamed. “How the hell did you assholes get out of jail?! Did the deputy let you out?”

“In short, Lymark isn’t careful with her money but makes up for it by making friends with utter maniacs,” Svettle explained.

“What the hell’s happening?!” Peter yelped. “Who are you? Let me g-” Lymark tightened her grip around his neck.

“Listen,” Captain Ripley said, shaking with rage. “You’re making a huge mistake right now. You’re outnumbered, outmaneuvered, and out planned!”

“Yeah, but I’ve got your hostage, and if he dies, then, well, all of your hard work will mean nothing,” Lymark retorted.

The captain cursed under his breath. “Well, we’re giving him to a necromancer-” Peter began to squirm in Lymark’s grasp, “-so he can just revive him if you kill him!”

“You wanna test that?” Jax growled. “We’ll call you on your bluff, Derek Ripley.”

“Uh, I think we’re gonna get going,” Antefantas said nervously. “We did our half of the deal.”

“You assholes aren’t going anywhere!” Ripley screamed. “So help me, I will have you all executed!”

Magmara, hunched over, spat out blood and said, “Watch your tongue. Say something else and this goes from four on three to six on one.”

“Seven on one!” shouted someone from in the trees. “Or possibly four on three on one!” Junk, the gross, whacked-out drow appeared from the forest. Erethiack face-palmed.

“Where were you? Antefantas asked.

“Gettin’ my fix, not that it’s any business ‘a yours,” he answered. “Anyways, who’s side are we on? Or is it just a huge everyman-for-himself type thing?” He looked around. “Are we even fighting?”

“Good question,” Jax muttered.

“Necromancer!” Ripley yelled, his voice hoarse. “I brought your boyfriend or whatever!” Peter weakly kicked at Lymarks legs, probably light headed. She lifted him upwards and he stopped kicking.

Just then, the doors to the castle flung open. The necromancer appeared in a much more decadent outfit than any he had been seen in before. It was mostly black armor but it was paired with an ermine cape and he had a saber with a gold hilt attached to his hip. At first he was smiling with genuine joy, but his expression quickly turned to horror, then rage.

“What is this?” he demanded. “I thought you dealt with these three!”

“Hey!” Lymark yelled. “Listen, you need to leave Kilerth’s woods, or we’ll kill this guy!”

The necromancer’s eyes glowed bright purple. “RELEASE HIM OR FACE HORRORS UNKNOWN TO ALL MEN!” he commanded, his voice reverberating several times over.

“Actually, keep me with you,” choked Peter. “I’ll fight alongside you as long as you don’t let him anywhere near me.”

“You got any weapons?” Lymark whispered.

“Nah, the fire mage has mine,” he replied. “Sorry.”

Lymark glanced around. She noticed Magmara had two swords and a new wand on her belt. “Fire, huh,” she muttered.

Before Lymark could do anything else, the necromancer, eyes still glowing, rushed at her his sword drawn. Svettle jumped in the way and parried his blow with her rapier.

“Do you want to duel with music again, violinist?” he hissed, tauntingly.

“Nope!” She replied with a grin. “This time I’ll just stab you!”

Jax took this opportunity to attack Captain Ripley. He smacked the captain upside the head, and then continued to beat him savagely. The hooligans did nothing to help either side.

Instead, most attention was focused on the intense swordplay between Svettle and the necromancer. She stabbed and parried, while he hacked and slashed. Lymark dropped Peter on the ground and took out her axe to start swiping at him. Realizing his situation, the necromancer jumped out from in between his two opponents. He slashed the air above him, summoning a black version of his own sword. With this, he attacked with one arm and used the other to parry blows, alternating between which hand did which.

Meanwhile, Jax was still beating Ripley with his club. The captain was now unresisting and just taking swipe after swipe, a glassy look in his eyes. Jax just kept hitting him over and over, until blood leaked from the captains scalp and bruised lips. The captain made no move to take advantage of this pause, he just stood there swaying. Then, he fell over.

“Just use the crossbow,” he croaked. “End it all. It’d be easier to meet my wife in death than to deal with this shit world for another damn minute.”

Jax stared at him, full of indecision. Then, a quarterstaff slammed into his skull, crushing his brain. The tavern keeper looked up in horror at Junk, spattered with blood.

“Why?” Jax asked, shaking. “Why would you do that? I was just going to leave him for the wolves!”

The drow shrugged. “I dunno. I just kinda hate his ugly fuckin’ face, you know?” He laughed maniacally. “Or I guess the one he had before I smashed it! Blam!” He laughed again.

At the same time, Lymark jumped behind the necromancer and tried to swipe at his shoulder. Her axe connected, but only cut through soft fur into hard, metal armor. The bounce back almost knocked the axe out of her hands. She then narrowly dodged Svettle’s rapier as it passed the necromancer’s shoulder.  In that moment, the necromancer saw Peter on the ground as he managed to pull the bag off of his head with bound hands. Their eyes met, and Lymark saw him mouth, Oh, shit. In a scramble, Peter shoved himself off the ground and ran away, trying to untie his hands with his teeth.

The necromancer raised a sword-filled hand and yelled, “Raise!”

A dark energy surrounded Peter as he was raised high into the air. He managed to twist himself around to face the necromancer. He screamed, his voice hoarse, “Stop this, Sebastian! I thought you stood for what was fair and good!”

“I don’t care anymore,” the necromancer growled. “Ever since I was turned into... This, I can’t care! You’re the only thing I ever think about, Peter!”

Lymark went for a swipe at the necromancer’s neck. He ducked and slashed back at her with the hand he wasn’t using for magic. She dodged to the side, but still received a bad scratch on her arm. In the same moment, Svettle tried to stab through the back of his neck, but his movement towards Lymark put her a couple inches short. Her weight thrown forward, she toppled in that direction on top of him. Thus distracted, his levitation spell faltered and Peter fell, screaming to the ground.

The necromancer ran at an extremely high speed- even for an elf, -and caught him out of the air. From this perspective, it became eery how tall and skinny the necromancer was compared to his much stouter “lover”. With the same speed, the he dashed into his castle, the doors slamming behind him. This time, however, the castle didn’t disappear.

“...And by this prayer, may Captain Derek Ripley of the Kilerth Militia be protected from necromancy and other threats to his eternal rest by the iron scales and fiery fangs of Scalador, the Cosmic Lizard. Hiss hiss, Amen,” Erethiack finished. He was surrounded by his three comrades and Jax  as they gazed at Captain Ripley’s corpse.

“Jax, why didn’t you help us with the necromancer?” Svettle demanded.

“I was a little busy,” he said, motioning at the small gathering.

“This is why we have a cleric,” Magmara said sagely. “Also, Junk kills a lot of people.”

“It was the least he could do,” Erethiack defended. “After partaking in the man’s murder, he should at least pay his respects.”

Svettle rolled her eyes. “Alright, fine. But we should go after the necromancer! He’s got that poor kid with him.”

“Yeah, seriously,” Lymark agreed. “When I was choking him, he said he’d fight with me if I kept him away from that guy.”

“Really? Damn,” Jax said, shaking his head. “What’s your plan for getting in the castle?”

“... Try the door?” Svettle said.

The trio walked up to the double doors. They were massive and looked immobile, almost as if they were parts of the wall. For knobs, they had open-mouthed skulls with rings going from one mandible to the other. Svettle tugged on handles, but had no luck.

From the forest floor, Junk yelled, unnecessarily loud, “This looks like a job for Junk!”

“Nah, you’re good,” Lymark called back, pulling lock-picking tools from her pocket.

“Uh, Lymark?” Jax asked as the orc worked on the lock. “How long have you had those?”

“Oh, these? A long time,” she answered. “Ah! There we go.” The door unlatched with a clunk.

“Are you guys gonna want any help at all?” Magmara asked. “We’re free since Ripley’s dead.” The trio looked at each other. They all looked back and shrugged in indifference. “Alright, then. C’mon guys, we’re hunting a necromancer!” The other three hooligans cheered in approval.

Thus the storming of the Castle of the Necromancer began.

~

The group walked in a loose block, with Lymark by herself at the front, Jax and Svettle together behind her, Erethiack, Antefantas and Magmara behind them, and Junk in the back. They had passed through a throne room, and were now in a hallway with a door at the end.

The castle’s insides were as grandiose as its outsides, black and reflective. Everything, in fact, was either black or white. The rugs, the tile, the walls, the ceilings, even the paintings. It made the elements of the party members stick out: Lymark’s green skin, Magmara’s red cape, Antefantas’s blue headband and Svettle’s gold glasses.

When Lymark looked too closely at the walls, they seemed to write and pulse, as if it living thing, unlike its owner. “Creepy,” she muttered.

Suddenly, Erethiack sped up to be walking side by side with her. “Are you gonna fix that, or…?” he said, looking her up and down.

“Fix what?”

“Your cut. It looks bad,” he said. “You’re just kind of… Letting it bleed?”

Lymark looked down at her arm, dripping with blood. “Oh. Ah, I’ve had worse. I’ll bandage it up or something later,” she said nonchalantly. “Why do you care?”

“I mean, I can help,” he said. He glanced back at his friends. “Also, I feel bad for my companions’ behavior. I feel like I should make up for it, somehow.”

“I get that,” Lymark agreed, nodding. “Why do you travel with them, anyways? It feels like they need you more than you need them.”

“You wanna know the truth?” he asked. “I like having Junk around. He makes me feel like I have a better grip on things by comparison.” He shuddered. “He used to be different, you know? He was training to become a monk, before. I guess we’re all like that, though. Magmara’s part of a prestigious family, but wants to run around and fight people. Antefantas was raised by a witch; she’s not good with people. ”

“Then what’s wrong with you?”

Erethiack bit his lip. “I’m just. Awful? I don’t know, there’s something that dances at the edge of my memory. Something terrible.” He looked at Lymark. She just stared at him, passively.

“Hey, guys,” Junk called from the back of the group. “I found somethin’!”

Lymark, being taller than everyone else, could see over their heads at what he had found. He had pulled up one of the rugs and found a trap door. He tugged on the handle, and it popped up. He giggled maniacally, rubbing his hands together. “It’s the bastards treasure room! Let’s rob ‘im blind!”

“Focus, garbage drow,” Svettle snapped. “We can steal his stuff after we kill him.”

He scowled. “You can’t tell me what to do!”

“Junk,” Magmara said in a warning voice. She put her hand on one of the knives in her belt.

“Hold on,” Lymark said. “There might  be some value in at least looking in there. We don’t know this guys weaknesses, and there might be something in there. Either way, we should-”

Antefantas ran up to the trapdoor, shoved Junk out of the way and jumped down into the room.

“-Be careful,” Lymark finished with a sigh. She looked at Erethiack who was grimacing. “You guys really are lunatics.”

Suddenly, a small book was thrown onto the floor from the trap door. Magmara picked it up. “It’s the necromancer’s journal,” she announced.

Antefantas reappeared from the trapdoor and shrugged. “Couldn’t find any treasure,” she said. “Just a bunch of plants and animals and stuff.” Strangely, her pack seemed to jingle more than before. Junk glared at her but didn’t say anything.

“Was there a jasmine plant?” Lymark asked.

“Yeah, why?”

That’s where he keeps the things he takes from people, Lymark thought. Good to know.

“Nothing,” she answered. “Magmara, did you find anything?”

“Actually, yes,” she responded. “It says here that his body and soul were fused with something called ‘Necratium’, which made him rise from the dead and turn evil. Or at least, that’s the jist of it. There’s a lot of flowery nonsense and over description.” She closed the book. “The Necratium must be what’s keeping him alive and what gives him his powers. If we can somehow separate it from him, we should be able to defeat him.”

“I think I’ve heard of that,” Svettle said. “A while back, there was a group of adventurers who were sent out to find Necratium and never returned.”

Just then, soft music began playing from somewhere else in the castle. The group looked at each other. Lymark and Svettle, without waiting for anyone else, ran off to follow the sound. Jax Shrugged at the hooligans and followed suit, and they followed after.

The music was coming from behind two giant, grand doors, made of solid obsidian with skulls, eyes and disembodied hands carved into it. Golden light leaked through them, contrasting the purple and black light everywhere else in the castle. Lymark scowled and with massive effort, tugged one of the doors open. Behind them was a kind of a sight both horrifying and beautiful.

It was a ballroom, golden like morning light. The floor was smooth and had the image of a golden rose held in a gloved hand, and the ceiling held a chandelier that was almost like a hand itself, holding candles that cast light more bright than what should have been possible. Dancing in the ballroom, however, were ghosts. They glowed a spectral blue, and were all nobility. However, they all still had wounds from how they died: arrows in hearts and heads, cut throats, some heads weren’t attached to necks, and one ghost was even burnt up. The music was also played by a ghost symphony at the far end of the room. They danced in pairs, but moved in a ring around a single pair. That pair was Sebastian the necromancer and Peter Sawdoor, gently swaying in each others’ arms. The human was now dressed in a fancy outfit that was useless in battle, while the necromancer was still in armor and had his sword. Peter also had a glazed look in eyes.

“What the hell…?” Jax muttered.

“Now this is an aesthetic I can get behind!” Magmara exclaimed. “Fuck, that looks cool.”

“Eh, the color needs work,” Antefantas said, unimpressed. “Make the ghosts red instead of blue and we’ve got a deal.”

“You know,” Lymark said to Svettle. “I was gonna remark on you saying I made friends with maniacs, but I changed my mind.”

Suddenly, the necromancer looked up and saw the group of seven. He scowled and gently pushed Peter off of him. He drew his sword and the ghosts evaporated, stopping the music. “Don’t you know how to leave someone alone?” he demanded.

“How about you leave our town alone?” Lymark countered. “And not kidnap humans?”

Peter, coming to, said, “Ugh, that’d be nice.” He looked down at his clothes and looked back at the necromancer with a glare. “Why? Why the clothes? You know I’m like, fifteen, right?”

“Oh, gross,” Jax muttered.

“Don’t elves age like, really slowly? I have no idea how old you are,” he continued.

“Are we gonna fight, or what?” Junk yelled from behind the group.

The necromancer unsheathed his sword and summoned the shadowy version of it. “Yes, yes we are!”

Svettle, as per usual, pulled out her battle violin. But this time, she just dragged the bow across the strings in a sharp, painful note. Then, four, long curling strands of leather came from the bow that then lit themselves on fire. The bow was now a flaming whip.

“Could you have done that this entire time?” Lymark demanded.

“Well, it’s kind of a once a day thing,” Svettle answered. “En guard!”

Magic, Lymark thought, grabbing her axe. Why not just rely on a blade?

A crossbow volt flew by her face as she thought that. It barely grazed the necromancer’s face as well and embedded itself in the far wall. She heard Jax curse and prepare another volt. Meanwhile, Svettle was attacking the necromancer with reckless abandon. She actually got in a few good hits, burning his face and scratching his armor. Lymark noticed that the necromancer didn’t quite bleed as much as he oozed a strange, viscous black liquid from his wounds. She also saw Peter creeping around the side wall, towards Magmara, who was also making her way towards him. Antefantas and Junk ran at the necromancer as well.

Just as Lymark was about to join the fray, the necromancer laughed maniacally and yelled, “Seven against one is hardly fair! Let’s even up the odds, shall we?”

Ghosts, ten of them, rose from the floor. These were obviously meant for fighting, wearing armor of all kinds. There was one group outside the ten- about three ghosts -that were only there for a second. When the necromancer had looked at them, he lost the little color he had in his face and a quick look of guilt flashed across his features.

Svettle took advantage of this quick moment of vulnerability by lashing at his face with her whip, striking him with ease. The necromancer made a quick, upward motion with his right hand, and two of the ghosts grabbed the violinist by the arms and threw her against a wall. For the moment, Svettle was out of commision. The necromancer gripped both of his swords and stalked his way over to Magmara and Peter, who were having a heated argument.

“The coin!” the Peter yelled. “The big bronze one, with the eye on it!”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Magmara growled. “I gave you back everything I took!”

Antefantas, Lymark and Jax all noticed that the two didn’t see the necromancer. Unfortunately, Antefantas was helping Erethiack and Junk fight against five of the ghosts. The other five were trailing the necromancer as back-up. Jax fired his crossbow at him from behind, but it stopped in the chest of a spirit, and fell to the floor. Lymark ran at the necromancer in a full frontal assault. She brought her axe down diagonally at his neck, and he parried with the dark saber.

“I don’t understand you,” he growled. “I gave you what you wanted! You wanted information, I gave it to you! And yet you attack me, you try to stop me from getting the things I want, what is wrong with you?!”

As she made another swipe, Lymark retorted, seething with rage, “You came to my town, my woods, and acted like you owned the place!” She raised the axe over her head, and the necromancer barely dodged the strike. “Your damn castle scared everyone half to death- and when I asked for some answers, you knocked me out and gave me some cryptic ass music sheet!” The necromancer tried to hide behind a ghost, but the orc jumped to the side and smacked the flat of her axe against the back of his head, sending him stumbling forward. “Not only that, but you kidnapped some poor kid, claiming to be his lover! I attacked you, necromancer, because you’re a monster!” The necromancer only stared at her, his eyes going in and out of focus. Lymark noticed the castle was swaying as if had gotten hit on the head, too. The gold walls began to leak black ooze, and the floor was filled with the same liquid. The walls groaned, and sounded like actual human voices. Then, it all stopped. The necromancer collapsed on his back, breathing raspy breaths.

Peter walked over to him, looking him over with something almost like pity. “You never could take a hit, Sebastian.”

“Heh, you’re right,” the necromancer said with a cough.

“Why?” the human asked. “Why did you bring me back? I should have died.”

“Don’t say that about yourself,” Sebastian protested.

“No, I mean, I literally should have died,” Peter insisted. “That’s what happens when you get stabbed with a spear. You die.” He looked at his hands. “You could have brought back someone like Marlburg or Korockus, or Pippin. At least they could have done something useful.”

“I don’t mean to interrupt the moment,” Lymark said flatly. “But I have some questions for this guy, too.”

“Go right ahead,” Peter relented with a nod.

“Okay, necromancer,” the orc said. “First of all: why Kilerth? It’s not like we have a lot to offer a magician.”

The necromancer coughed again. “When my castle is not in this realm, it floats through the Aether. One day- if you can call it that there, -I felt a strong, painful cry of anguish from this realm. I came to the source, and it was just some heartbroken human, bemoaning that he had been rejected by someone he loved. Since then, I decided to stay around to see if anything exciting happened.”

“What do you do with the things people offer you?”

“I keep them here,” he answered. “I like having living things around, it makes me feel less… dead.”

“Are we done?” Peter asked. “I kind of want to leave.”

Lymark looked at him. She felt a deep sympathy for him, the poor kid. “I’m done if you are.”

Jax aimed his crossbow at the necromancer’s head. “Should I…?”

“Why not?” Peter asked. He turned around and muttered. “Just get it over with.”

The necromancer looked at the crossbow with despair, then lifted his head to look at Peter. “My pet, I only did this because I love you. Why can’t you just love me back?”

The scene was silent for a moment. The hooligans, who had nothing to contribute to the affair glanced between the two. Svettle groaned from the wall she had been thrown against, “Did we win?”

Jax pulled the trigger. Thunk.

“Yeah,” Lymark answered.

~

After the group of seven left the castle, it melted into the black ooze. The ooze evaporated almost as soon as it had appeared. Something that had also disappeared were the bodies of Mr. and Mrs. Ripley.

“Well, shit,” Magmara said once it had been brought up.

“Let’s hope it was those wolves you were talking about,” Junk said to Jax.

“Yeah, we can hope,” Jax agreed. “I’m… I’m gonna check on my bar.”

“I’ll come with,” Lymark  said.

“I’m in,” Svettle said.

The general party agreement was the same, so they followed Jax back into town. Various people had come out of their houses to look at the procession. It was the most people Lymark had seen on the street since the castle had appeared. They mostly looked concerned, but went inside after the group had past. Magmara waved at some of them, and some of them waved back. While they walked, Lymark thought she heard a short piano tune, accompanied by soft singing: “I’ll find you someday, my love…”

“What the hell?” Jax muttered when they arrived. “The lock’s broken.” When he opened the door, he saw the deputy sitting at the bar, bottle of whiskey in hand, head in his arms on the table, sobbing.

The deputy looked up. His face red, he slurred, “You! You made me lose mah job!”

Jax looked back at the group. “I… What?”

“You got out of prison, and now I’m gonna lose mah job!” He started to sob again. “When Ripley gets back he’s gonna fire me!”

Erethiack pushed his way to the front of the group. “Let me talk to him.” The cleric made his way over to the deputy, and put his arm around him. He said something to him in a soft, kind voice, barely above a whisper. The deputy nodded. Erethiack said another thing, motioning at Junk with his hand. The deputy looked at him with wide eyes. He continued his soft talk and then grinned widely at the deputy, who nodded quickly.

As this happened, the rest of the group entered The Long Yarn. The other three hooligans sat at a table, while Lymark, Svettle and Peter sat at the bar. Jax pulled an apron from behind the bar and put it on.

“Glad you can keep a secret, deputy,” Erethiack said with a grin. He winked at Jax, then sat with his friends.

The deputy clumsily dropped a small bag of coins of the table. “Have a safe evenin’, everyone,” he said, somewhat spacy. He then exited the bar, stumbling as he went.

“You think he’ll come back?” Svettle asked.

Lymark shrugged. “Only time will tell.”

“Well,” Jax said, leaning on the bar. “Can I get you three somethin’ to drink?”

“Ale,” the orc answered without hesitation.

“Whatever that deputy was drinking,” Svettle said. “I need to be that drunk right now.”

“Water’s fine,” Peter piped up.

“Coming right up,” the tavern keeper quipped.

As Jax got the drinks, Antefantas walked up to Peter. She placed something in his hand, nodded, and walked away. Peter looked at it, then whipped his head to look back her. Lymark nonchalantly glanced at the object. It was large, bronze coin with an eye on one side and a portal on the other. The human looked at it with a strange expression of determination.

“What’s that?” she asked. “Never seen currency like that before.”

Peter looked up at her with a start, as if startled out of a daydream. “Oh, it’s nothing. Just… Oh, fuck it. It’s a magic coin that allows me to teleport to faraway places.”

Lymark nodded. “Sounds like fun,” she said. “Why didn’t you use that to get away from those guys?” She motioned at the four hooligans.

“Well, when I use it, it takes a pretty big physical toll on me,” he answered. He shoved the coin his pocket. “The farther I go, the worse it gets.”

Jax placed down the drinks. The three patrons thanked him. The tavern keeper reached under the bar again and pulled a wine bottle from under it. He had an expression that Lymark had learned to read, and it said, I usually don’t drink on the job, but I kind of want to die right now. He pulled the cork out with teeth and drank straight from the bottle. He then slammed the bottle down on the bar and sighed.

“Is that the same kind you gave me yesterday?” Svettle asked.

“And me?” Magmara called from the table.

Jax nodded. “It’s my favourite. Why?”

The elf’s jaw dropped a little. Then she shook her head and muttered, “No reason. Just wondering.”

Pretending to ignore what just happened, Lymark said to Peter, “Do you have any place to go? From what I heard, it sounds like you’re all alone.”

“What?” Peter looked up at her, a little shocked. “Well, no. But I can find somewhere…”

“You can stay with me for a while, if you want,” Lymark offered.

“No, I couldn’t ask that of you,” Peter said, shaking his head. He looked at the bar. “You already saved me today, too.”

“You’re not asking it of me,” she retorted. “I’m offering it.”

“But, how could I ever pay you?” he insisted. “I mean, I have money, but not a lot. I don’t have any skills besides questing, and I’m not even very good at that-”

“You can pay me by telling me about you and the necromancer,” she said, looking him in the eyes.

Peter looked her over, then said, “Alright.” He sat up straight and sighed. “It all started about a year ago. I joined a group of four adventurers- Marlburg, Korockus, Pippin, and Sebastian -on a quest. We were employed by some rich guy to find something called Necratium. They told us that we couldn’t touch it under any circumstances, but they didn’t tell us why. I’ll get to that later, though. Somewhere along the way, I saved Sebastian’s life. I think that no had ever done something like that for him before, because he fell in love with me. I brushed him off, because I think he’s too old for me- you know how it is with elves -and didn’t think anything of it. Anyways, we got to the Necratium, but it was guarded by these creatures made of vines. At one point, Sebastian made a dive for it, wrapping himself around the box it was in as he did. He landed face-first, and didn’t see one of the creatures come up behind him. It jabbed right through his heart, killing him almost instantly. This was bad enough, but the monster overshot and pierced the Necratium as well, smearing it on the inside of his wound as it retracted the vine. When we were burying him, we find out why we couldn’t touch the Necratium: it was the solidified consciousness of a long-dead necromancer.” He paused, taking a sip of his water. His face was flushed and his eyes looked watery. “I was just putting the first bit of dirt on him when his eyes opened. He rose from his grave, changed- taller, paler, and dead-eyed. He said he was a vessel for- like I said before, -an ancient necromancer, and was going to raise the vengeful dead of the land and ruin the lands of those had wronged him. We eventually managed to stop him and bring back Sebastian, but he was too far gone. He tried to kidnap me, like today, but failed. We knew we couldn’t kill him, so we just fled.”

He rubbed his eyes and sighed, his hands shaking. “We didn’t- rather, I didn’t see him again for almost a year. In the between time, we got other jobs and grew in fame, no one ever guessing our past failure. The last one was a harder one- we had to go to Adventure’s-End Cave and get back a legendary sword that belonged to a royal family in the area. If you couldn’t guess by the name, Adventure’s-End is a death trap. The sword was guarded by a group of automatons, which quickly killed all four of us.” The human briefly covered his whole face, with his hands, then continued. “I saw the Afterlife. It was beautiful, full of green hills and flowers and sparkling lakes. I never wanted to leave, though I guess that’s the point. But then, I was suddenly back. For a brief moment, I saw his- Sebastian’s -face and heard him say, ‘I can’t lose you.’ Then, I was back, looking up at Magmara’s little group, outside Adventure’s-End. How they managed to escape the automatons, I’ll never guess.” He fell silent, staring at the bar.

Lymark sat there silently, soaking in what she had heard. Then, she gently patted his back and said, “You’re one brave kid.” He only nodded, shaking as he blinked back tears. The orc took a deep breath and said. “Let’s celebrate what we’ve survived!”

~

Lymark awoke the next morning with a burning headache a little memory of what happened the night before. She recalled a long, odd lecture about Erethiack’s religion; giving Jax some vague, drunken advice about fighting; and many, many terrible puns.

Among these memories, however, there was no explanation for why she awoke half-naked and curled around Svettle.

For a few minutes, she lied in bed, wondering how she would get about rising without waking up the elf. She also wondered why they were in her own house, rather than Svettle’s. The orc’s house was such a mess-

Peter. Fuck, I forgot about him, she thought. I should check on him.

Lymark gingerly uncurled herself and stood up. Upon standing, she found that most of her body hurt as much as her head, much to her dismay. She hadn’t drunk this much since her first pay in Kilerth, and probably wouldn’t again for a long time.

She walked into the living room of her small house, and found a note on the front door. In nearly illegible handwriting, it said,

“Dear Lymark and Svettle,

Thank you for your hospitality. It was nice to sleep somewhere that I didn’t have to worry about being pick-pocketed. However, I must finish the quest that I started, even if I have to go alone. If I survive and successfully bring the sword back its rightful owner, I will visit you again within two week’s time. If not, then you may have to assume the worst.

Thanks again for everything,

Peter Sawdoor.”

Lymark read the note several times over to process what it had said. She looked on the back. Nothing else was written there. “Well, I’ll be damned,” she muttered.

“Why? What’s wrong,” Svettle’s sleepy voice asked from behind her.

Lymark looked back at her. She was wearing one of the orc’s shirts and didn’t have her glasses. “Oh. Good mornin’,” Lymark said, trying to be casual.

“Morning,” the elf replied. “What’s the note? ‘N’ where’s the lil’ human?”

“He left,” the orc answered. “He wanted to finish some quest he started.”

Svettle nodded. “I heard you guys talking about that. Something with a sword?” Lymark nodded. “Yeah, thought so.”

There was a brief, awkward silence between them. At least, it was awkward for Lymark. Then, Svettle turned around and murmured, “I need my glasses.”

While the elf was in the other room, Lymark stood in place, thinking. Most of her thoughts were in the form of How?’s and Why?’s but a few were She looks really cute with her hair all messed up like that.

When Svettle returned, fully clothed and bespectacled, she asked, “Did you really mean what you said last night?”

“Uh,” Lymark looked around the room, trying to remember. “What do you mean…?”

The elf smirked and began to braid her hair as she spoke. “Well, you called me beautiful, and a genius, and a wonderful musician, and all sorts of other nice things…”

The orc’s face felt warm. She rubbed the back of her neck and tried to speak. “Well, I mean, uh, erm-”

Svettle giggled, covering her mouth. “I’ll let you think about it,” she said. She walked past the orc and opened the front door. She was about to leave when she turned her head and said, “I almost forgot something.” She got on her tip-toes and kissed Lymark quickly on the lips. “Good bye, neighbor.” She winked, waved, and walked out the door and closed it behind her without another word.

Lymark stared at the door, mouth slightly agape. Then she smiled and said to herself, “Maybe magic is good for something.”

[cowboylikedean]

Anonymous Said:

What I was trying to say yesterday with the asks that didn’t go through…it makes me sad that haylories feel the need to devalue H&Ts other relationships (another sign of tinhatting. Larries are fond of this too). Take their most recent relationships/flings/whatever. Haylories were crying “PR!!!!” For both hiddleswift and hendall. Taylor was on a break and so was harry. Why would they need PR? And both looked pretty happy with those ppl, so haylories find excuses for why they were happy. “Well harry and Kendall were always drunk on that yacht”. “Tom is an actor, he pretends for a living and Taylor was acting too”. And they ignore the similarities between haylors relationship, and harry and Taylor’s other relationships, which is again cherry picking their proofs. Harry and Taylor share clothes/accessories = it’s true love! Harry and Kendall share clothes/accessories = it doesn’t mean anything, harry does that all the time OR (my favourite) it’s a coincidence and they probably had the same hat before. Taylor and harry go on public outings holding hands, and Taylor meets Harry’s family = true love! Taylor and tom go on public outings holding hands and Taylor meets toms family = PR!obviously!! It makes me sad. I saw on a confession blog someone said about Larries that they’re not actually fans of the real Harry and the real Louis, but fans of the fictional relationship THEY’VE created, and I think haylories have gone down that path too. I don’t have hope that they’ll ever be supportive of Taylor and harry end up with other people. They’ll both be married to others with kids and haylories will still be sitting here crying “PR!”

~this is a very long reply sorry i got carried away~ I agree on all of this. It’s really frustrating. 

Particularly because it leaves no room for ambiguity. This is what bugs me about all tinhatters... this idea of All Or Nothing. To them, it’s not possible that hiddleswift and hendall were real and Harry and Taylor will always mean a lot to each other. By their actions, hiddleswift and hendall seem to cancel out the love and connection Taylor and Harry have to these people.... Which is ridiculous. That’s not how people work. Just because someone matters doesn’t mean someone else doesn’t. Like shit.. my parents divorced when I was 6. My mom remarried when I was almost 18. My parents aren’t in love with each other and they’ll never be together again (thank god), but the matter deeply to each other. My dad is still a very important person in my mother’s life, not just as the father of the three children they share but also as her first husband and a relationship she saw lasting forever. A wirlwind that lasted 14 years total and started with an accidental meeting that turned into a first date because neither wanted to say goodbye. The fact that my parents’ history matters enough to my mom that it is one of her favorite things that she can say that through all of it, the fights and bullshit of the downfall of their relationship and aftermath, they have come to a point where they’re friends doesn’t negate her relationship with her current husband. My mother’s current marriage to her husband doesn’t mean that her relationship with my father isn’t or cannot be one of mutual trust, love, care, compassion, and friendship as it is. The same goes for Harry and Taylor. Any relationships they get in don’t negate their love and care for each other. 

It takes me back.. last year this time, Harry was getting off the yacht.. actually that was a year ago today (thanks facebook lookback lol). Taylor was dating Calvin. We all knew this. They didn't call tayvin PR because they weren't this bad in early 2015 when tayvin started... but New Years Eve 2015/2016 when we got the first photos of the yacht, haylories stood with others who hate hendall because it challenges their view of Harry and his personal life calling it PR. This was the beginning of haylories actually using larries to back them up. During this five day period of yachtgate, I saw several haylories reblogging larries with their illogical reasons why the yacht was a PR stunt... 

Things like: “why are they standing where they know the paps can see them” (ridiculous - it’s a yacht. There’s not that much room. Also, I know they’re great photos.. but it’s not like the paps were on a little boat right next to the yacht... it’s called long lens cameras... the same kind that caught Taylor in Hawaii.) or “that’s too much PDA for it to be a normal vacation” (lololol they’re on vacation?????) to “why is Jeff also on the yacht? why are they signing papers? see? It’s about business.” (Jeff is Harry’s best friend??? and like we don’t know what the papers were (harries who tell you otherwise are full of shit too) and also it’s none of our business???) or “the only reason ellen would be on the yacht is because it’s PR” (??? i still to this day don’t know why ellen was on that yacht other than a personal reason like happening to be in St. Barts and being invited to chill. how does this even make sense) 

And like don’t get me wrong, I participated in some of that shit... but I also never seriously used the phrase “PR stunt.” I always saw it as a vacation fling that was made Extra and Over The Top by paps, fans, and our good friends the media and general public. The haylories literally and seriously saw it as a PR stunt. 

PR for what? Well I’ve only ever gotten the answer about PR for Kendall... the newest season of KUWTK was coming up and they needed hype... But what about Harry? Nothing. The harries have chimed in and said it was “to distance Harry from 1d and the 1d image” which makes no sense.. but haylories have offered nothing.

Same with hiddleswift. Haylories and others who believe it was PR talk about what PR Tom could need or get from it... putting his name in the forefront of people’s minds while the Bond considerations were happening for instance. Promo for the filming of Thor for instance... But there’s nothing that Taylor was promoing. Nothing she could have been promoing. It was bad press for her and contrary to the saying, some press is bad press.... So wtf was the PR angle? 

And then this leads me to......... 1. I have always said it’s really sad seeing haylor stans of all people accuse a ship of being PR. We all know what it’s like to see that happen and literally... Hunters and foxes much??? like not to be That Taylor Stan but like... IKP isn’t just talking about the media and the GP. It’s talking about fans who accused PR stunt and used that as an excuse to be invasive and nasty too. OOTW refers to “couldn’t take the heat.” That heat is all of it. The fans too. We should know more than anyone why that shit is harmful and we shouldn’t do it.

but 2. You refer to a confessions blog that says that the larries aren’t fans of Louis and Harry but rather the fictional relationship between them that they created... And like.. I’ll take that a step further and say what many others have said as of late... the larries are actively against Louis and Harry. They fling personal insults at Louis and his family. They yell negative things about potential Big Moves for Harry’s career. They’re nasty and they work against them as people and professionals. The same is true here. 

I have no idea what happened between hiddleswift, but I think it would be foolish to rule out the idea that the bad press and negative fan reaction wasn’t a part of it. If it got to haylor, who’s to say it wouldn’t get to hiddleswift? Either way, it wasn’t nice and the stuff people were saying about her was nasty. 2015 was a tough year for this fandom, and I’ll be the first to admit that some of the things we all as people who didn’t like tayvin said and did were not okay. It was heartbreaking to see that carry over to summer 2016 with even nastier stuff being said for less. Seriously... I remember there were some fans that took photos on their phones of the yellow dress before the paps showed up and people were saying how she’d called them. I saw people say that say that she’d instructed random strangers to take photos of her. That is ridiculous! 

And then as for hendall.. When the Anne iCloud leak happened, these people fed, contributed to, and used for their own beliefs the larries’ posts (again) about how this leak was a fake done for PR reasons to push the narrative that hendall was dating. They opted for harassing Anne, Harry, and family and making fun of them... saving the photos that their legal team was trying hard to get off the internet and reposting them with long explanations about why that photo was “obviously fake.” Speculating stuff about how it’s “weird” to have so many pictures of your son and his vacation girlfriend. Posting about how why would Harry have taken photos with Anne’s camera. Making mountains out of molehills. It was obvious that Anne, Harry, and family were hurting and frustrated by the whole thing... and the haylories were fucking awful!

It’s just clear to me that Taylor and Harry and their personal wellbeings don’t mean that much to these people. The Idea of Haylor as an Established Romantic Relationship means a lot to these people... but Taylor Swift and Harry Styles as people... not so much.

[baehkhun]

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[youinmyhoodnowson]

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Examine that your e-mail tackle is appropriate, for when you want to reset your password in future. That is the place you want to place your chosen weblog title aka the URL you will type to get to your web site. No matter topic you decide, you should like it, and naturally interested by it. Merely add what you’ve discovered about that particular matter up to now 3, 6 or 12 months since you first wrote the publish. Come up with a very good subject and name for your blog or website. So, you've got all the pieces lined and your first blog submit is dwell. And little doubt a very good trying and quick loading blog will entice visitors and as said: “the first impression is the final impression”. A focus on weblog posts. This is the perfect place for bloggers who like the idea of “reblogging” posts. Longer posts get better results when it comes to Google rankings and social shares. Native Guide: Google also affords a platform “Google Guide” to popularize a specific place an individual visits. Create Native Focusing on Content.

You now have a podcast episode that’s able to be uploaded to iTunes, SoundCloud, or anyplace else and promoted alongside the remainder of your content material! You'll be able to set your content apart with gorgeous images and video. You may both get the free model or selected a price level based mostly on the number of internet sites you’ll be utilizing the plugin on. Are there any good free themes? Perhaps you're the subsequent JK Rowling, however should you don’t put out your stuff out there, we will never know it. Test us out anytime for marketing suggestions and a free subscription to our cutting edge publication. Free area name. They provide free area title registration with our account. Be at liberty to tell us what blog you began and how you discovered utilizing this information together with how we could improve it to make the processing of getting started simpler. So, you need to begin a weblog, but you do not know how to start a blog? I know some enterprise owners which have had nice success on Pinterest. Article directories will be a fantastic useful resource for articles to submit on your blog.

When you’re choosing a WordPress theme to get a new weblog online, they will nearly all the time have a sidebar on the suitable side (some circumstances it’s on the left). It’s quicker, more powerful, and more customizable than anything on the market. WordPress is free, simple to use, very powerful, and highly regarded. It's also possible to easily change the feel and appear of your blog through using WordPress Themes. Create a title for your weblog which is brief and memorable (three phrases, we’d say). As an example, let’s say you want to begin a blog for brand new homeowners. So long as you possibly can handle a laptop computer and have a number of dollars for internet hosting fees, nothing can stop you from having a nice webpage or blog. Jetpack is an all-in-one plugin that offers your weblog options like stats, related posts, seo, social sharing, protection, backups, pace, and email list administration. How To Create a Magnetic Blog In 4 Easy Steps! So, you have a website. You're now able to get into website marketing than it, correct? Well, now could be a great time. You probably have a very great deal of questions on how to start and what to do, try not to fret, this short article will help. Listed below are some tips that may help you begin with your internet marketing.

If you're intent on starting a blog, let's get set on doing this correctly. I'm going to outline these simple steps below that may have your individual blog working within about 30 minutes. Of course the treatment depends on how well you can follow directions. If you were to ask me to start out your site from scratch, I can do it within about 8 minutes flat. It's super easy once you understand. It's like mowing the lawn. once you know you'll always be able to better of how to start a blog a bicycle and ride. If you want to discover ways to create a blog, the first thing would be to choose a niche on your blog. Of course, your website could possibly be about your daily rants or raves or what you love to discuss. However, choosing a specific niche will help you keep your site as organized as you can. There are all sorts of niches that you can choose from. Some of the more popular niches include blogs on cooking, baking, beauty, pregnancy etc among others. When you choose to write down about something, it should be something that you are truly enthusiastic about. When you are really considering a subject, you won't ever uses up things to share with you and say on your blog post and, additionally, you will be capable of provide your website readers with lots of useful information and advice. This definitely is the foremost method to create a group of followers for the blog as well. 2. Blog Posts - The main part of your blog post page is to begin to see the article. It's the soul of the article. In fact, your blog post could possibly survive (in rare occasions) with just that. All the things that the blogger would like to convey switches into blogs that are posted every once in awhile. It is mostly a consistent update of messages, photos, videos, and stuff like that to do's. Fresh content articles are desirable to readers. Since bloggers are known to provide up-to-date information, it is advisable to meet that. Follow these 3 core principles and you may never exhaust blogging ideas... 1. Listen to audio everyday - This can be inspiring, motivational, or information based audio. A excellent time to achieve this is replace the air within your car with empowering audio. Tony Robbins is one kind of the best, but there are lots of great audio that will assist you take your lifetime to another level. Every successful person will explain the same. If you need to improve your life and business you have to first improve yourself.

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How To Start A WordPress Blog On Bluehost

You’ll be asked how to start a WordPress blog on Bluehost and to supply a bit of details about your demographics (age, location, etc…), however after that you can get going earning profits through surveys. Then scroll all the way down to the part with the package data. Then level the name to your weblog. You may purchase a website name through the corporate to fix this difficulty, however you’re still not in whole control of the weblog as a whole, so it solely plugs the leak. By using a running a blog platform, you may write on a weblog like writing in Microsoft Word. You won't begin a weblog and earn money immediately. Learning how to start a blog that makes cash is not difficult. There are some ways that you would be able to generate profits utilizing numerous instruments, and the Internet presents a variety of lucrative concepts that can assist you complement your earnings. Think you are the last word Fashionista? Give it some thought: if you already know that Individual A all the time posts about night time-out makeup strategies, and you want going out, and Person B posts random makeup stuff, which website you will visit first? Email nonetheless works. You wish to how to start a blog make it really easy for individuals to hitch your email listing that they barely give it some thought.

Examine that your e-mail deal with is appropriate, for when you'll want to reset your password in future. That is the place you need to place your chosen weblog title aka the URL you will type to get to your web site. Whatever matter you pick, it is advisable like it, and naturally interested by it. Simply add what you’ve discovered about that individual matter previously three, 6 or 12 months since you first wrote the post. Give you a great subject and identify on your blog or webpage. So, you have got all the things lined and your first blog publish is reside. And no doubt a very good wanting and fast loading weblog will attract guests and as said: “the first impression is the last impression”. A concentrate on blog posts. This is the perfect place for bloggers who like the thought of “reblogging” posts. Longer posts get higher outcomes in terms of Google rankings and social shares. Native Guide: Google also presents a platform “Google Guide” to popularize a selected place a person visits. Create Local Targeting Content.

You now have a podcast episode that’s ready to be uploaded to iTunes, SoundCloud, or wherever else and promoted alongside the remainder of your content material! You possibly can set your content material apart with gorgeous images and video. You can both get the free version or chose a value point based mostly on the quantity of internet sites you’ll be utilizing the plugin on. Are there any good free themes? Possibly you're the subsequent JK Rowling, however should you don’t put out your stuff on the market, we won't ever know it. Check us out anytime for marketing tips and a free subscription to our cutting edge e-newsletter. Free domain identify. They offer free area identify registration with our account. Be happy to tell us what weblog you started and the way you found utilizing this guide together with how we might improve it to make the processing of getting started simpler. So, you need to start out a weblog, however you have no idea how to start a blog? I know some business house owners that have had great success on Pinterest. Article directories will be an excellent useful resource for articles to publish on your blog.

When you’re choosing a WordPress theme to get a brand new blog on-line, they are going to almost always have a sidebar on the correct facet (some circumstances it’s on the left). It’s sooner, extra powerful, and more customizable than something out there. WordPress is free, easy to use, very highly effective, and very popular. You can even easily change the feel and appear of your weblog by way of the usage of WordPress Themes. Create a title in your blog which is brief and memorable (three phrases, we’d say). As an illustration, let’s say you want to begin a weblog for new homeowners. So long as you can handle a laptop and have a few dollars for internet hosting charges, nothing can stop you from having a pleasant website or weblog. Jetpack is an all-in-one plugin that gives your weblog options like stats, related posts, search engine marketing, social sharing, safety, backups, velocity, and e-mail listing administration. Start Your Blog Now - Don't Wait!

To be perfectly honest, there isn't any shortcut to constructing a successful blog. Setting up a blog is not hard, and fast, but to restore popular and in a position to earn good income, there's just no cutting corners. For beginners though, there is certainly just one way of making the method faster, and that is by preventing any mistakes that lengthen the time scale in success and learning to take up a weblog properly. One method to automate your site is usually to schedule your site posts beforehand. You could take a seat once a month for only a few hours and write out all your blog post posts for your month. As you are writing each post, you'd just schedule when you'll like it to be published on the site. You can schedule blog posts as far into the future as you'd like. Some "purists" keep their blogs advertisement free, though the lure of income is very strong which is an easy task to monetize your blog without having to be too pushy, so many people get it done. Blogs have evolved from being personal diaries to using niche-driven content of some sort and other. Some blogs, much like the Huffington Post, have changed into mega blogs that cover in essence with multiple authors and guest bloggers, however the foundation your site continues to be same. You find something you happen to be excited about and complete your website with regular posts regarding that subject. To put it simply, you have to find your niche. "What sort of blogger do you need to be?" is an important question that you need to ask before commencing your blog. There are different types of bloggers on the web and they talk about almost any topic available; bloggers who speak about fashion, technology, sports, music, movies, food, traveling or perhaps regarding day-to-day lives. A variety of writers found their niche by writing the things they love and the things they are thinking about and you can too. In order to increase your odds of penetrating a segment of the online market, you'll want to fully define your niche. This means, you'll want to focus your time and attention on catering to a specific population group who share exactly the same interests and shop around on a unique topic. For example, if you are planning to develop a blog about recipes, you ought to seriously consider positioning it strategically by defining the crowd you cater to. Instead of general recipes, you might like to give attention to 5-minute, simple, no-fuss breakfast ideas for busy moms. You get the idea of how to start a WordPress blog on Bluehost.