#boneripper is RIGHT THERE

[queer-folk-abroad]

Grey Seer Thanquol doesn’t loosen up and relax enough.

posts like these are such a vivid reminder that other people's taste in and relationship to fictional characters is just, totally foreign to me.

[lunarlagomorph]

also im so excited for the point bump in my league because it isnt much but its enough that i can run one big thing so im switching to:

1x Thanqoul on Boneripper 1x Skabbik (+ Plaguepack) 1x Plague Priest 1x Clan Rats

I know it doesnt sound like much but thanqoul is so nuts he can shred through everything with the right support

Plus i'm having him take skitterleap so he can keep the priests out of danger and i can do gnawhole shenanigans too

Other loadout im going to try is switching in verminking for thanqoul and turning the clan rats to stormvermin but i think the original list is going to be a winner

[weeping-gospels]

The iconic duo Thanquol and Boneripper

Oh. Them.

Boneripper couldn’t fit through the door so Thanquol thought it would be better if he made an entrance himself. And by that I mean he let his damned brainless hunk put a hole through my wall so he could walk in.

Then started demanding all these things and claiming he was The Horned One’s favorite right paw rat or whatever.

Not a fun time. Construction was a bitch.

[mishidraws]

nehrim update:

-To elaborate on my last thing, Kim thinks you’re an angel sent from heaven to deliver him from slavery. Like, not in so many words, but it’s obvious how grateful and happy he is to be in the Order, and how much he’s thankful to you for making that happen. He sees his time in Sildren as a trial set by the gods. He also attributes the good things that happen to him to acts of god. And now he’s working for an organization that aims to kill the gods. I wonder how he feels about that, as someone who is devout?

-Anyway that’s why I think he’s headed for a bad end

-And therefore, to maximize the amount of time I have with him and for no other reason, I decided to keep sidequesting instead of going to Waverock.

-other than that my main complaint about Kim is that I can’t play dress-up with him and even if I could, I���d feel too guilty to actually do it. In my long career as a TES player I have been searching the internet over for a cute male mage companion mod I can dress up in all of AlienSlof’s horniest outfits. Finally, I’ve found one! But he’s too pure and wholesome for me to be comfortable doing that to him!

-WELP

-It was at this point that I noticed that I wasn’t able to teleport! So I guess I have to go to Waverock after all :(

-listen: I’ve sunk hundreds of hours in Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim, and I did not get anywhere in any of those games by doing the main quest. In fact, I didn’t get anywhere in any of those games at all! I never finished a single one! I came closest to finishing the main quest of Oblivion but I had fiddled with my install so much that I had rendered it unplayable and ended up giving up on it right before Martin led the charge against the Great Gate at Bruma.

-My point is ignoring the main quest is a hard habit to break, even when the main quest is the most interesting thing in this game.

-Nehrim is so big and there’s so much to explore!

-That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

-Now... where even is the road to Waverock?

-This took a stupidly long time to find

-This path is certainly narrow and railroady, which is for the best, really. I have a pathological need to stray from the beaten path that can only be curbed by preventative measures like FFXIII-esque corridors and a moratorium on teleportation.

-Why does this boneripper have a bouquet in its inventory?

-Oh shit, the whisper forest is for levels 24 to 28 and I’m only level 23!

-Eh, it’s probably fine, I have the mod that automatically awards you a +5 stat increase regardless of how few times you leveled up associated skills and I recently maxed out speed.

-Beautiful, scenic wave- hey wait up Kim, I was gonna find a merchant to pawn off all my loot first!

-Seriously the kid’s way too eager. It’s all so big and new. You never have to tell him twice, or find him things to - dammit.

-Serious Stan Rogers vibes here.

-So we’re agreed First Mate Christian hired those guys to kidnap the captain, right?

-Funny thing though, when I went in there to rescue him the thugs just stood around and let me talk to Captain Bligh and it was only having a conversation in which he didn’t even acknowledge the situation he was in that they attacked me. bit of a delayed reaction there, game.

-nah, all you need is a bit of PR. And a song

-/proceeds to filk a long-ass song about salvagers. more on that tomorrow, when my parents are out of the house and I don’t have to inflict my very rudimentary guitar skills on anyone but those who consent to click my soundcloud link

-Can’t call Christian out on his bullshit, so I’m not feeling too good about just waiting in the cargo hold while they sail to Arktwend. Miraculously nothing happened though

-tomorrow: a song!

[jhara-ivez]

Dry wind played with Meran's mane and tried to tear the hood off my head, so I bravely pulled the cloth tighter around my head, covering my nose and mouth to keep the sand out of my airways.

I saw the snow on the peaks of the mountains on the left where the path led up to the Golden Forest, and remembered frozen corpses and angel wings. Thankfully we followed the wide paths through the thicket until once more the ocean of fire spread before us.

The sand shimmered and danced off the dunes in the distance, calling to me like a mother would call her child. Searing heat made the air flutter and shy away, playfully almost. Further east - only more dunes, cacti, more sand, more stone. More warmth. And then, the powder desert. Once more my destination.

The sun burned mercilessly down from above, although it was not even noon. We would still manage to get a bit further before the heat would force us to rest.

So I made Meran step down the dune, slowly, because with every step the loose sand rolled down from above and if we didn't pay attention, we would fall and the masses of sand would bury us. One wrong step was all it took.

But we came down undamaged and trotted for a good two hours, at Merans own pace, through the seemingly inanimate surroundings until old pyrean buildings appeared in front of us. It must have been palaces or temples. Their bronze facades shone in the light of the sun, while the sand had swallowed them up and buried them underneath. You couldn't enter them any more, and maybe that was better.

I sat down in the shade of one of these ruins and was amazed when Meran let himself fall into the sand next to me. The heavy head was bedded on my leg so that I had no other choice but to stroke his long nose. At some point he closed his eyes with relish, I followed his example.

We had two or three hours of rest ahead of us, and I think my stallion was also quite happy about it. His well-being was the most important thing at the moment anyway. If he broke down I was lost. Horses were adapted to the steppe, not the desert. Their thin legs broke more easily in an unexpected fall and they needed more water, so I mixed the amount I had had with goat butter. A very old trick I had learned early on the streets of Ostian. I had to be attentive, keep a close eye on his movements and the suppleness of his skin, and rest when necessary.

Midday in the desert was the worst time, even the wind was afraid of it. You couldn't feel a single breeze anymore. Those who came from a colder country did not understand what that meant - when nothing moved anymore, when everything seemed dead.  

It was bizarre.

Nothing was distracting, nothing was irritating, nothing was disturbing. It was a very concentrated experience. A little deadly in the long run perhaps....

The whole environmentfelt so familiar that I almost forgot. But all I needed to do was take a look east towards the sea to remember corpses, black stones, hunted eyes and the extinction of mankind.

I groaned and loosened the shesh, pulled down my hood and shook out my hair. Here in the shade, no sunburn was going to strike me...

Meran immediately sipped the water when I provided it. Afterwards I felt his legs for swellings. Soft sand was exhausting for the tendons.

I caressed Meran's cheeks in circular movements and tried to suppress my environment by concentrating on his breath and the direction of growth of his fur. White hairs formed the blaze that stretched from his forehead to his nostrils, with a vortex right in the middle between his big eyes. Above, mane hair in a colour reminiscent of dried blood that fell like a veil over his red eyelashes. The area around the nostrils was velvety and fine, grey and pink in places where the blood vessels sat close to the skin. His long tactile hair trembled slightly as I touched the corners of the stallion's mouth.

He made a soft, benevolent sound. I leaned my forehead against his.

"Watch out, little brother', I said.

He pointed his ears in my direction.

"It’s the last stone. After that... everything will be alright.”

He blinked and pulled his head up.

Sad. I was able to deceive everyone but him. Even myself.

We went on. Above me pale blue sky.

The wind came back. It was accompanying us, if we wanted it or not. Sometimes it was gentle, sometimes it jumped up on us like a feral animal. We fought our way over rocks and sand hills and finally we went through the dunes over an exposed, old paved way, which probably somebody had built here in the past.

After a while a first small collection of date palms came into sight, then a next one at some distance. Birds in the sky showed me the way out of the open plain. The ground changed. Dry grass and buckthorn plants alternated with gnarled trees until the cry of a bird rang in the beginning of green vegetation. The wind carried sea salt with it.

I deeply inhaled the air enriched with humidity. The date palm fronds contrasted picturesquely with the rust-red rocks. Apricots, almonds and figs grew wild and chaotic, and in between orchids and bromeliads fought for the sunbeams which were not caught by the fanned and serrated leaves of the monstera and philodendrons. A huge blue butterfly settled on my hand. Its thin body with the filament-like feelers tickled a little as it opened and folded the delicate wings. I shook my hand briefly, and then watched it take off again.

We followed a river that ate its dry bed through loamy soil, further towards the sea. Fruit trees and palm trees provided the surroundings with vibrant spots. Insects buzzed around us, mainly mosquitoes and brakes. Big locusts fled with big leaps from Meran's sharp hooves.

A Steppe Crusher pulled through the high grass in front of the building and raised its head when it noticed us. Its horn was still small, barely the size of my palm. But I wouldn't underestimate it. The animal snorted angrily, Meran hesitated briefly but then dared to take a few steps forward again. The thick skinned animal let us approach at about fifteen meters before it disappeared through the thicket...

After a few minutes a building made from light clay appeared in front of us. The abandoned Kasbah.The sea sparkled behind it.

He disappeared.

Water and sand were unstable elements, constantly restless, always and never the same. The wind transformed the water into waves and the dunes into frozen waves of a turbulent sea.

Sea and desert shimmered in a thousand colours at sunrise and sunset. And at night the gigantic starry sky arched over both of them, stretching into a dizzying depth.

Sea and desert were one, but never in one and the same way. Water and sand were soft and caressing, tingling and supple, rough and repellent, stirring and wild.

Movement and constant change. At the same time everything remained the same.

I wanted nothing more than to adapt. The world around me might fall apart, but I would remain the same. Stable. Neutral.

However, my gaze was erratic. I moved between reality and unreality, my thoughts running in a state of eternal lethargy, without beginning, without end.

I messed up. Both times.

The last sound of the birds accompanied us as we trotted along the beach. The reddish sky soon gave way to the endless sea of stars and the constant chirping of the insects in the nearby tangle of plants drowned out the whispering of the waves rolling on the sand.

I'm an idiot. That's all I am now. An idiot.

Meran started to climb up the steep hills like a mountain goat. Stones and rocks were hardly a problem for him.

I, however, felt the weakness crawling back, felt how my fingers began to tingle and a tremble crawling up my back, nesting itself between my shoulder blades.

Sirius would have said that I lost it completely by now. To fall for someone so badly – surely it meant I lost it. But Jespar was gone. He wasn't sitting next to me in the tavern, he wasn't there talking to me when I needed it. He was gone and my body felt so heavy I wasn't sure to ever move again. But I did. Even when small things brought him back to me - only to lose him again a thousand times a day. Each time more painful than the last. There were no words for that thick, black mass that was dripping somewhere in my chest area.

Who would have wanted something fucked up like this?

I wiped my face.

Pathetic.

I took a deep breath of the night air and fought against the pain that pounded dully in my head.

Sand passed by. Darker. Stonier. Desert.

Nothing. No people, no wind, nothing. Around us only treeless, barren stones. Wideness and silence. Unimpeded desolation stretched from one side of the sky to the other.

Rocky corridors, bizarre mountains, quartz crystals and rock walls storming the sky. Dust filled basins. On the flank side everything was black. A black-grey landscape of ruins.

Rejecting. Unapproachable.

I looked around me, turned the stallion on the spot in all directions, but all I saw were grey, torn sand plains. Meran turned his head to me as if he was asking where to go now. I didn't know.

All directions looked the same. Substance, caught somewhere between liquid and solid.

And it was silent. Dead.

Not metaphorically, but extremely real. Desert... It wasn't just the barren, dried out, poorly overgrown land. Desert meant loneliness. It was the home of the dead, the place of wild animals and magic, where life had no meaning.  

The pool of blood was burned into my memory. No pulse. Blood, fire, plants and water.

Rage.

…

I was the idiot left to keep on. I was keeping on yet here I was, stilled in place in the middle of the desert on top of a hill amidst darkness and stone with no direction whatsoever. But pain was a reminder. I wasn't asleep. It was alright.

One of the stones began to move, a big dark shadow. I didn't flinch. I froze.

Boneripper ? They came out at night.

No.

My inner restlessness spread out to Meran, whose flanks trembled. Frustrated I stared into darkness. Whatever it was, it snorted. When it took a step forward, sand and pebbles sprang up. Large and massive, it moved closer to us, but did not make any sudden or hectic movements. Slowly I recognized contours.

Horns, a strange shield at the back of its neck...kind of a bony frill, a pointed snout that looked like a beak. It carried its head close to the ground. Herbivore, it shot through my head.

I relaxed. Meran pointed his ears at the strange creature.

For a long time we just stood there. It was when my stallions muscles relaxed completely that I felt a sudden wave of safety flooding my body. It was peaceful. Nothing would try to attack while it was around. It was peaceful because it didn't have to fear.

We were allowed to stay.

I was allowed to stay.