#game is pool of radiance

[drow-apologist]

you have 0 pp

[vintagerpg]

Once upon a time, SSI made a series of Dungeons & Dragons videogames collectively referred to as “Gold Box” games because their boxes were, well, gold. They were a mix of 3D exploration and top-down tactical combat with good graphics for the era (and they generally hold up pretty good today). The first, Pool of Radiance (1988), set in Forgotten Realms, was a big hit. Lots of people explored the pixelated ruins of Sokol Keep and the curiously named city of Phlan, and get warm, nostalgic memories at the mention of the name.

This is FRC1: Ruins of Adventure (1988), a squarebound D&D adventure boasting the same cover painting by Clyde Caldwell as the Pool of Radiance computer game. It sort of bills itself as a companion to the videogame, a way to translate its action to the tabletop, but apparently SSI actually fashioned the videogame out of the tabletop adventure framework (which does adhere in curious regular ways to the computing constraints of the videogame, with maps on 16x16 grids—they feel fine in the game but weirdly claustrophobic in the book). There’s a bit more in the book, too: a Zhent outpost, several lairs of monstrous humanoids I don’t remember from the game and a thri-keen settlement that definitely wasn’t there. There’s lots of background material and lore, too, of course, it being a Forgotten Realms product. And because it is such a loyal reconstruction (or progenitor), it functions as a pretty thorough tip book for the videogame too.

Is it good though? I dunno! It’s weird, for sure. It is kind of nice to see a D&D product that isn’t obviously panicking about how videogames are going to destroy the tabletop industry, at least? And it is a nice way to revisit the game without having to figure out how to make it run on a modern machine. Ruins of Adventure is a terrible name, though.

[dndhistory]

Let's Play Pool of Radiance (1988) - Part 22

This episode we finally start Pool of Radiance's Endgame! We take Stojanow Gate to get access to Valjevo Castle where the perfidious Cadorna ran to and where the Boss Tyranthraxus rules! We move into the castle, and navigate through the maze... only to get a bit lost!

The musical score in this episode was gently provided by Gorgon's Alter, taken with their permission from the album "Celestial Witchcraft".

Support independent artists and get it at Bandcamp: 

Opening Music "Life" by MORSCHT, taken with their permission from the album "a sacrifice of myself unto myself".

 Support independent artists and get it at Bandcamp:

https://morscht.bandcamp.com

Pool of Radiance was the first Gold Box game and the first game set in the Forgotten Realms. It used the rules of first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Find out more about the history of Dungeons and Dragons at The History of DnD Instagram, Twitter, Bluesky, Tumblr and Website! 

https://www.instagram.com/thehistoryofdnd

https://twitter.com/thehistoryofdnd

https://bsky.app/profile/dndhistory.bsky.social

https://www.tumblr.com/blog/dndhistory

https://dndhistory.org/

Title Card created by Raquel studio: https://www.instagram.com/raquelg_studio/

[derkastellan]

Quick tour of the Gold Box games (Part 1)

So, given how much time I spent on the Gold Box games lately, I wanted to share some notes on the games, maybe also some relevant bits.

Pool of Radiance

Overall style: Mega Dungeon and Sandbox.

Overland Map: Traverse on grid, random and hidden locations

Quirk: Extensive level scaling which ups the challenge, especially in the beginning.

How does it fit in the line: This is probably the hardest title until the very end of the series. You find your bearings with the engine, its quirks, how the spells work, you have to sort out effective combat tactics. And then you're set. It's a great intro to both the Gold Box line and AD&D, but it surely does not tutorialize you. At. All.

Variety: You get the feeling of visiting many varied locations, some quests/sites have a different feel, some missions bypass the focus on combat. They crammed a lot into this one. Due to the limitations of the early engine you still feel like you battled a lot of the same enemies, over and over, and in waves. Still, many challenging set piece encounters that break the mold.

Notable NPC: Cadorna the Traitor.

What I think: See this article.

What can we learn from it: Healthy mix of environments. All missions lead to the end goal, but not all derive from the same big bad. Good, explorable individual locations. How to vary the same enemies into evolving encounters that keep challenging you. And it really did a good one on backtracking - more of that would have done the series good.

What it could have done better: Give a tutorial or intro to the game, or guide you at the start. Maybe. Sometimes figuring stuff out the hard way is also very rewarding.

Curse of the Azure Bonds

Overall style: Separate locations, spanning multiple maps each (episodic).

Overland Map: Point crawl. Mid-game, additional optional locations become available to explore.

Quirk: Cameo by Elminster... if you happen to know him.

How does it fit in the line: Curse of the Azure Bonds feels like a sequel. It is not as tight as POR, nor as focused. It evolves the engine somewhat. You get a bit of a feel for the politics / conflicts south of the Moon Sea.

Variety: Yes, there are many varied locations, but to me most of them don't have much flair. Dracandros' tower and the thieves' guild / sewers at the beginning seem most memorable in terms of dungeon design. Definitely a lot more variety in enemies. It has a damn beholder - probably one of the most complex monsters in the whole line.

Notable NPC: Dragonbait, the saurial paladin whose emotions you can smell. (Nacacia, my ass!) He's on the cover, too.

What I think: COTAB feels a bit weak compared to POR. It starts a trend in Gold Box games' dungeon design - you can enter a lot of rooms in a non-linear way, but most of them feature just unrewarding combat you may skip. And you want to skip lots of it, really. Most of the game I don't remember, having played it one week ago. In POR, set piece encounter rooms often featured some reward - a clue, a story, a piece of gear, needed money and XP. You often had to do many of them, anyway, might as well tie them up in a good way. Not in COTAB - they just feel so skippable! And while you may spend your sweet time exploring optional stuff and could do the middle part in any order, the game rubs a recommended order in your face, so it narrowly escapes feeling linear after all. (The illusion wears thin but holds, I guess.)

What can we learn from it: COTAB tries its best to keep the point crawl lively by tying stories to each leg of the journey, and tries to avoid being too repetitive by making routes previously traversed safe.

What it could have done better: While it works for COTAB, the idea of "the GM can do things to me" bonds is... highly questionable. The party suffers "consequences" for things they never intended to do and had no chance to avoid - and for example gets banished from a whole country. In the context of a CRPG that's no big deal. But in your campaign, this could suck big time.

Gateway to the Savage Frontier

Overall style: Separate locations, spanning typically a single map each (episodic).

Overland Map: Huge map. And yet almost completely unused except for conveying amount of travel needed - there's only one location you visit which isn't a city and it is in the most obvious place imaginable.

Quirk: We're the heroes, and we're gonna walk into every house in town. Oh look! We surprised some spies!

How does it fit in the line: As a game Gateway seems considerably less complex, it feels almost like a tutorial to the other games. You spend considerably less time on each location, making each feel even less memorable than COTAB locations. Given the restrictions of character import/export you should play Gateway right after COTAB. Could of course be considered its own line.

Variety: Quite a bit, it reuses a lot of stuff all over. You don't spend enough time anywhere to let it bore you, anyway.

Notable NPC: Krevish, the harmless-looking fighter. He actually has quite some useful stuff to say over the course of the game.

What I think: This is the tutorial for gold box games you never got. The game is easier, features difficulty controls. It is actually fun in its own way but also rather simple - it's essentially a MacGuffin hunt with some clues, and if you fail to decipher the clues, you can traverse the map and ask a friend. A super quirky sage friend.

What can we learn from it: Gateway, by virtue of having a big map, helps us envision the sheer size of the frontier. Different regions of the map have matching encounter tables - something you quickly learn if you travel through the Troll Moors...

What it could have done better: Gateway should have utilized that map better, placing locations in the wilderness you need to look for. Instead it opted to place practically all its crawling in cities - and adding some "cities" / "dungeons" off the world map on islands. In comparison, POR's overland map was smaller and more condensed, and yet there was plenty of original content to discover, including randomly placed monster lairs. What seems bizarre are all these city maps that double as explorable dungeons, so you get attacked by barbarians or stirges on your way to the inn.

Secret of the Silver Blades

Overall style: Mega Dungeon all the way.

Overland Map: None. Instead you have a central teleport hub you can use to avoid traversing the huge ass dungeon over and over. Only Gold Box title without an overland map, and it shows.

Quirk: Enormous plot convenience with a wishing well oracle that can generate riddle answers for money and has teleporters wherever you need them to break the game into manageable chunks.

How does it fit in the line: Even at the time, I read a review of the game that was rather dismissive and biased me against it. It is, in a sense, the most linear of the games. On the other hand, it broke the mold in making all these maps that were not simple 16 x 16 grids but huge-ass sprawling and branching dungeons to explore and map out by hand.

Variety: The game sends you through a sequence of locations - ruins, mine, dungeon, glacier/frost giant village, boss castle. Each area is themed. It sticks to its themes well, and yet that makes it feel less varied, somehow.

Notable NPC: Vala, the original plate mail bikini girl. To complement her picture (eyes up here, buddy!) you get a combat icon that shows a lot of mid riff. No wonder she takes way more damage than my (overleveled) party!

What I think: This game shows the importance of imagination in early computer RPGs. It might have fared better and distracted better from its linearity if these locations featured in a modern remake in third person or 3D style. But by lacking any overland map and you returning to this village for resupplying the game feels smaller than it is. It actually took me the most time to beat due to its sheer size. And it still feels like you're nowhere, getting nowhere. They tried to break the mold on this one, but psychologically they failed. You need to manage your players' perceptions, too.

What can we learn from it: Most people probably would get bored of the same Mega Dungeon sooner or later, no matter how much variety you contrive for it. (Leaving "Diablo" aside, an entirely different gameplay experience.) It's not that they failed to try for variety, they really tried, it's just the psychology of the whole thing. Which tells us that in RPGs, the setting matters a lot. If you feel cramped into this tiny nowhere psychologically, the actual total size of the combat maps doesn't matter much. The story feels terribly local and limited through the way it is told. The game itself is massive.

What it could have done better: Lots, actually! - Combining size with lots of random encounters is rather tiresome! I kept lowering the difficulty to finish combats faster and since the manual said it lowered the likelihood of encounters. - The game treats giants as regular encounters, making you wade through hill, fire, frost, and cloud giants like they are a nuisance. By the end, even three Ancient Red Dragons at once become a mere blip on the difficulty curve. This shows us rather neatly why even AD&D 2e did a rebalancing there. If ancient dragons feel like somewhat challenging enemies, then it reduces the sense of adventure. - The game massively relies on a particular sort of enemies in mid- and end-game: Monsters with flesh-to-stone gazes. If you don't have mirrors, this is basically a save-or-die encounter and winning initiative is extremely important. If you have mirrors and equip them in time, it trivializes a lot of encounters instead. It's rather satisfying to turn a medusa to stone, though. (The Gold Box games do not consider the penalties, I think, for fighting while averting your gaze.) Most sought item in the game: Reflective magic silver shield - total: 1. Save-or-die needed to go away and won't be missed. 5e does this much better. - Iron golems suck big time.

[figurasretro]

pool of radiance ruins of myth drannor

[kaira-diaries]

Backstabber: part two

warning: || mentions of trauma/violence || fluff ||mentions of smut || yearning angst || mentions of anxiety/panic attack ||

pairing: fem!reader x In-ho

wc: 9.7k

a/n: ok ok i know the gif is Mr. Sunshine but rn for the story we're just going to pretend it's not. Was severely hungover while writing this but alas! we got it done. This has been a long time coming & happy reading! (also, is college kicking anyone else's ass already?)

summary: after the events of the games y/n finds herself trying to get back to normalcy and move past the pain of it all, but finds herself back at square one because of a certain someone (wink wink)

-> read part one here <-

-> masterlist <-

𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔

The city glowed in a kaleidoscope of colors, each hue of the rainbow shimmering like liquid fire against the slick pavement. Neon signs pulsed with life, their reflections stretching and warping in the puddles that pooled on the streets. The rainfall tapped rhythmically against the windshield as the rivulets of water distorted the view outside. Through the blurred glass, the vibrant lights fractured into streaks, painting the dark skyline in smudged prisms of gold, crimson, and indigo.

Your heart swelled with a deep, comforting joy as you drove through the city.

The evening had been perfect—your father was more vibrant and full of life than you’d ever seen, his laughter echoing in your mind like a melody. Your mother’s eyes sparkled with a youthful radiance, her smile brighter than it had been in years, carrying you back to the carefree days of your childhood. For the first time in what felt like forever, everything felt right.

When you returned home from the games a year ago, you and Mina made a quiet, resolute decision to sever ties with the relentless chaos of city life. Together, you retreated to the countryside, finding solace in a small, sunlit apartment nestled among rolling hills and whispering trees. The reason was undeniable: the city was haunted. Every corner, every shadow seemed to echo with memories of him—his laughter, his absence, the pain he left behind. It was suffocating, an endless maze of reminders too overwhelming to bear.

So, you both sought a fresh start in a place neither of you had ever called home. The countryside offered a fragile peace, with its golden fields swaying in the breeze and its nights bathed in quiet starlight. Yet, no matter how far you ran, the games had marked you. Their weight lingered in the quiet moments, carving scars so deep you often wondered if they’d ever fade. They had changed you in ways you couldn’t fully articulate, reshaping your very soul, leaving you to navigate a new life that felt as unfamiliar as the land beneath your feet.

Yes, the city haunted you more than you cared to admit, its streets brimming with ghosts of a life you couldn’t outrun. Yet, no matter how heavy the weight of its memories, you couldn’t—wouldn’t—keep away from your parents. They had been your anchor, their concern cutting through your walls with relentless questions about In-ho. What had happened to him? Where had he gone? Were you okay? You could only muster a half-truth, your voice steady but hollow: “He’s okay. We just broke it off. It’s what’s best—so he could focus on his business.” It wasn’t much, but it was enough. The way their eyes lingered on you, filled with implicit understanding, told you they knew better. Yet, the quiet pain etched into your face kept them from prying further.

Now, behind the wheel, your grip tightened on the steering wheel as you approached a red light, the tension in your shoulders mounting as you flinched. A black sedan pulled up too close to your rear bumper, its sleek frame barely visible in your rain-speckled mirror. Your stomach tightened, a chill crawling up your spine, familiar yet unwelcome. You sighed, a long, unsteady exhale, the weight of recognition settling over you. You knew this feeling. You knew him.

As the light flickered green, you pressed on, refusing to look back, your foot steady on the gas. The city’s glow blurred in the corners of your vision, but you didn’t spare an ounce of energy on the creeping dread that clung to you like a shadow. Not tonight. Not now. You moved forward, letting the rhythm of the rain and the hum of the engine carry you through the labyrinth of streets, your focus on the road ahead and nothing else.

You were nearing the edge of the city when your eyes caught sight of the gallery, its elegant facade proudly displaying your name in bold, polished letters. It should have felt like triumph, like validation, but all it brought was a fragile kind of grounding, tethering you to the moment before your thoughts spiraled. It was Mina who had believed in you when you couldn’t believe in yourself, who pushed you to pick up the brush again, to pour your fractured soul into something tangible. Without her, you doubted you would’ve had the strength to confront the canvas.

Growing up, you’d been told over and over that art was a pipe dream, a risky gamble that only fools and dreamers dared chase. But after coming so close to death, what was left to fear? You found the courage—or perhaps the desperation—to create again. Yet, no amount of bravery could erase the color red from your world.

Red.

The very thought of it was a visceral wound, one that tore through you without warning. It wasn’t just a color—it was a specter of guilt, a reminder of lives lost in the cruelest ways. You had seen it splattered across your skin, warm and unrelenting, as innocent eyes stared back at you, lifeless and unblinking. Red was not paint; it was blood. It was screams. It was nightmares.

Now, it was banished. Banished from your paintings, your wardrobe, your home—your entire existence. The sight of it made your stomach twist and your chest ache, the weight of memory crashing over you like a tidal wave. The gallery was proof of your survival, but the absence of red was proof of your scars, the kind that no brushstroke could ever cover.

The breeze wove through your long hair like a gentle whisper as you cracked a window. It was cool and invigorating as you left the city’s glow behind. The hum of your car faded into the rhythm of nature, and the road ahead curved through rolling hills cloaked in darkness. The earth seemed to rise and fall around you, cradling you in its quiet embrace as you drew closer to home.

Above, the night sky stretched endlessly, a masterpiece painted in shades of inky black and deep indigo. The moon hung low and luminous, its surface dappled with grey and white, casting a soft silver light over the landscape. Wisps of clouds drifted lazily across its face, their edges glowing faintly as if kissed by moonlight. Far in the distance, the horizon blurred into a dreamy collage of shadowy mountains and faintly silhouetted buildings, their shapes barely discernible against the star-strewn canvas above.

The scene was mesmerizing, a quiet symphony of beauty that filled the silence in your car and kept your thoughts company. For twenty blissful minutes, you soaked in the view, letting it anchor you in the present and wash away the weight of the day. When you finally turned into your driveway, the familiar sight of your home greeted you, nestled in the hills like a haven waiting to welcome you back.

Stepping through the front door, you let out a tired sigh, kicking off your shoes with a dull thud against the wall. The click of the lock behind you echoed in the quiet house as you shrugged off your pink jacket, the fabric still damp from the night rain. You hung it on the hook beside Mina’s oversized sweater, the two garments swaying gently together like old friends. The promise of relaxation beckoned as you made your way into the living room—until the scene before you sent a jolt through your system.

Your pulse leaped as you froze in place, a startled yelp escaping your lips. “Oh my god!” you exclaimed, spinning on your heel to shield your vision, hand slapping over your eyes. It was Mina—and her boyfriend, James—entwined on the couch, caught mid-act in a moment that no amount of bleach could ever scrub from your memory.

Mina let out a mortified shriek of her own, scrambling off James with the grace of a cat caught stealing food. She grabbed for a blanket nearby, throwing it over herself with a flushed face and wide eyes. “Jesus, Mina, my eyes!” you groaned, your voice dripping with disbelief and exasperation.

Snorting despite her embarrassment, Mina shot back, “Could’ve made yourself known, babe!”

You scoffed, still shielding your face. “Could’ve taken your boyfriend to the privacy of your damn room!” Your voice wavered between frustration and sheer mortification as you heard a muffled laugh from James.

Finally, Mina muttered something about being "decent," and you cautiously dropped your hand, still squinting in case of lingering trauma. Your gaze landed on James, who leaned back on the couch with an infuriating smirk plastered across his face.

“James,” you said flatly, your expression twisted in barely concealed disgust.

“Y/N,” he replied coolly, nodding his head like this was the most casual encounter in the world.

Five minutes later, James slipped out the door, murmuring something vague about an early workday. You didn’t bother to reply; the sound of the latch clicking shut was far more satisfying than anything you could have said. In the kitchen, you leaned against the counter, staring at the stove as the kettle slowly heated. The soft hiss of water simmering filled the quiet space, and the faint aroma of ginger tea grounds you. It was exactly what you needed after… that.

Mina emerged from her room in a plush robe, her damp hair hanging loosely around her shoulders. She hummed a cheerful tune, completely unbothered by the awkwardness of earlier. Spotting you at the stove, she grinned and opened the cabinet, pulling down a mug. “Ooh, make me some too,” she chimed, her voice light and casual. Without waiting for a response, she settled onto the couch, her notebook and a mess of papers spread across the cushions as she began flipping through her homework.

Despite her antics, you couldn’t help but feel a pang of pride as you watched her. Mina, for all her reckless decisions and impulsive streaks, had come a long way. The debts that once weighed her down like a ball and chain were gone, erased thanks to the money In-ho had given her—a bittersweet reminder of him. She’d left her destructive gambling habits in the past, choosing instead to enroll in college and focus on building something real for herself. You admired her for it, even if she still did dumb things like… well, five minutes ago.

The sharp whistle of the kettle snapped you back to the present. You turned off the burner and poured the steaming water over the ginger tea bags, the fragrant steam curling in the air as you filled both mugs. Carefully, you carried them to the coffee table, setting one in front of Mina before claiming your own.

Instead of sitting on the couch beside her, you chose the floor, folding your legs under you and leaning your back against the side of the coffee table. The image of James smirking on that couch was still too fresh, and you weren’t about to risk reactivating that trauma.

Mina glanced up from her notes, a mischievous glint in her eye as she took a sip of her tea. “Still mad?” she teased.

You shot her a glare over the rim of your mug, muttering, “I’ll get over it. Eventually.”

Mina giggled softly, the sound light and teasing as she took another sip of her tea before setting the mug back down on the coffee table. “How are the old folks?” she asked, leaning back into the couch cushions, her robe bunching around her elbows.

You shrugged, your fingers tightening around the warm ceramic of your mug. “Same old. Happy, healthy.”

Her smile deepened, filling with an undeniable warmth that softened her usual playful demeanor. “We got really lucky,” she said quietly, her voice carrying an earnestness that made you pause.

You let out a noncommittal hum. “I guess,” you murmured, your eyes fixed on the tea swirling in your cup.

Mina sighed, the sound heavy with meaning, and when you glanced up, her expression was serious. “I know what happened was... awful, y/n. I have scars too.” Her voice softened, the raw honesty in her tone cutting through the air like a whisper against your soul. “And I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m proud of you. Of me. Of us.”

Her gaze locked with yours, filled with genuine love and unspoken understanding. The weight of it settled over you like a blanket, and without thinking, you leaned forward, pressing your hand gently over hers where it rested on the couch. “I am too,” you replied, your voice barely above a whisper.

Your eyes dropped to your tea, the surface still steaming, faint ripples distorting your reflection. The image wavered, much like your thoughts, and the memories clawed their way back to the surface. What happened was terrible, you thought. The image of In-ho’s face flashed in your mind—the moment his hand slipped from your waist, the cold finality of his silence after you had laid it all bare. Your ultimatum had hung in the air like a blade, and his lack of response had been a response all its own. He had made his choice, and you had been the one left behind.

A sharp ache rose in your chest, unbearable and relentless, like a bruise being pressed too hard. Your throat tightened, and before you realized it, a tear threatened to slip down your cheek. You wiped it away quickly, as if denying its presence could erase the pain too.

“Y/n,” Mina’s voice broke through, soft yet cautious, filled with empathy. Her eyes were on you, studying you like she could see the cracks forming. She didn’t push, didn’t prod—just called to you in a way only she could, grounding you before the sorrow could drown you entirely.

You swallowed hard, blinking rapidly to clear the sting in your eyes, and lifted your mug again, letting its warmth anchor you. “I’m okay,” you murmured, more to yourself than her.

You cleared your throat, shifting in your seat as you tried to steady your voice. “My gallery looked great on the way home,” you said, steering the conversation into safer waters.

Mina’s face lit up instantly, her eyes sparkling with excitement. “The gallery show is going to be amazing!” she gushed, clapping her hands together like a kid on Christmas morning. Then, her expression turned sly. “We gotta talk outfits.”

You laughed, shaking your head. “Mina, seriously?”

“What?” she said, feigning offense as she leaned forward dramatically, her robe slipping off one shoulder like she was auditioning for a soap opera. “This is your art, babe! Out in the world! Your name is growing—you’re practically famous now.”

You raised an eyebrow, trying not to grin. “Let’s not get carried away.”

“I’m serious,” she continued, pointing a finger at you like she was delivering an intervention. “I’ll be damned if I let you show up to your own gallery show looking like—like poop.”

You burst out laughing, nearly spilling your tea. “Poop? Really, Mina? That’s your big motivational speech?”

She shrugged, taking a sip of her tea with the most nonchalant expression you’d ever seen. “Hey, I’m just saying. Your art deserves a look. Something bold. Something sexy. Something that says, ‘I paint masterpieces, and I could also steal your man.’”

You doubled over, clutching your stomach as the laughter rolled out of you. “You are unbelievable.”

“Thank you,” she said with a smug smile, raising her mug in a toast. “Now, I’m thinking black dress, black heels. You’ll look hot, mysterious, and rich. Total triple threat.”

You couldn’t help but chuckle, letting Mina’s playful excitement wash over you. But even as you smiled, that nagging thought returned, creeping into your mind like a shadow. Your name is growing—you’re practically famous now. The words bounced around in your head, but the more you thought about them, the less certain they felt.

There was the real weight of it—the fear that gnawed at your insides, the fear of being found. In-ho. His face, his voice, the way he had slipped out of your life with no real answer, no real closure. The thought of him lurking in the background, somewhere out there, made your chest tighten with dread.

𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔

Your black gown gleamed under the soft, ambient lighting of the gallery, the fabric flowing gracefully as you moved through the space. The ceilings soared above you, high and vaulted, their pale elegance juxtaposed with the golden glow of the chandeliers that hung like jewels, casting shimmering reflections across the room. The air was filled with the delicate scent of fresh paint—a subtle reminder of the work that had gone into creating the very walls you now stood beside.

The entire gallery radiated warmth, both in its inviting atmosphere and the rich tones of the wood flooring beneath your feet. The walls, a gentle cream, embraced each of your breathtaking paintings, their vibrant colors popping against the soft backdrop. Each piece was lit by strategically placed lights, their glow accentuating every brushstroke, every detail, allowing your art to breathe within the spacious, airy room.

The space felt alive—alive with the pulse of your skill, the soft hum of voices and footsteps mingling with the soft music of the room. Between the intricate molding along the walls and the polished surfaces, there was an undeniable elegance in the air, as if the gallery itself was a work of art.

Every single one of your paintings was up for sale, except for one. It hung on the wall, almost like a secret tucked away among the rest, its presence more intimate than the others. You watched as your family gathered around it—Mina, James, your parents—all admiring the colors, the brushstrokes. It was your mother's favorite, so you had saved it just for her. No amount of her objections could convince you to let her pay for it. It was a gift, one she didn’t need to argue for.

A cordial smile spread across your face as you observed the happiness that radiated from your loved ones. Their laughter and excitement filled the space, and you couldn’t help but feel proud. You continued your slow walk through the gallery, taking in the joy that seemed to pulse through the room.

You couldn’t help but chuckle when you spotted your agent—an energetic whirlwind, buzzing from one person to the next, mingl..chatting up a storm, shaking hands, and making deals. She was a riot, always moving at a mile a minute, but you loved her for it. Without her, this night wouldn’t be the success it was.

But then, your pace slowed. You came upon the first painting you had made after years of silence. The piece felt almost sacred in its own way as if it held a part of you that nothing else could.

It was a portrait—of eyes. His eyes. In-ho’s eyes. The ones that had once looked at you with a depth you couldn’t forget, even if you tried. The brushstrokes were wide and purposeful, capturing the passion of those eyes in a way that felt almost too raw to bear. You had painted the eyes of a man who no longer existed, a man whose memory you had tried to preserve through this one simple piece.

You felt Mina step up beside you, her presence familiar and comforting as always. Her voice was soft, inquisitive. "I always wondered why you painted him," she said, her gaze fixed on the canvas before you.

You sighed, your chest tightening as you looked into those painted eyes. The memories rushed back, but they were no longer as painful as they once were. "I guess I wanted one last look," you began, your voice thick with emotion, "in the eyes of the man I remembered him to be."

You paused, your fingers brushing the edge of the frame as you spoke. "His warmth. His love. I preferred that fiction over the fact of who he turned out to be. A murderer."

You could feel Mina’s quiet understanding beside you. There was no judgment, no need for more words. She just stood with you, letting the weight of the moment settle between you both.

Mina had excused herself a moment later, disappearing into the restroom with a brief, apologetic smile, leaving you standing alone in front of the painting of In-ho. The eyes in the portrait seemed to follow you, a silent reminder of everything you had tried to forget. You couldn’t tear your gaze away, the quiet hum of the gallery around you blending into the background. Time seemed to stretch, the only thing real in the moment being the image before you—the man you had once known, captured forever in paint.

Just as you were lost in thought, a burst of energy tore through the air, and your agent appeared in front of you, practically bouncing with excitement. She squealed so loudly it almost startled you. "Ahh, y/n!" she exclaimed, her voice bubbling with elation. "I've got wonderful news!"

You had to reach out and grab her shoulders to steady her as she nearly hopped out of her skin, her enthusiasm almost too much to contain. You couldn’t help but giggle, the infectious energy pulling you from your reverie. "Okay, okay, what is it?"

She took your hands in hers, her grip tight with barely contained joy. "Your entire collection has been sold," she declared, her voice cracking with excitement.

You froze, your heart leaping into your throat. For a moment, everything seemed to stop, the words hanging in the air like a dream you weren’t sure you could believe. You had to cover your mouth with your hands as if to prevent the shock from spilling out in the form of a gasp. "What... who?"

Before she could respond, a voice—his voice—slashed through the atmosphere, smooth and unmistakable. It hit you like a cold wave, the shock of it rushing through your veins. "I never knew you had a knack for the arts."

The words settled in your chest, each syllable like a stone thrown into still water. Your breath caught in your throat, and your body tensed, as if time had frozen. There, standing at the entrance of the gallery, was In-ho—his presence as commanding as ever, his gaze nailed on you with an intensity that made your pulse quicken. Your agent looked between the two of you, a slight frown knitting her brows. You heard her mumble just before excusing herself, surely picking up on the change in the air, but you couldn’t tear your eyes away from him.

Your sanity seemed to unravel in an instant, a quiet thread snapping, leaving you exposed and trembling. The ability to breathe, something you had taken for granted, felt stolen from you in a cruel, suffocating moment. He stood there, looking just the same as he did a year ago—too the same. In his all-black attire, the sharp cut of his suit made him seem impossibly distant, yet his red-bottomed shoes gleamed like a cruel reminder of the life you once shared. The man you had loved—maybe even still loved—was here, standing in front of you like a ghost you had desperately tried to bury.

Your body betrayed you, as it always did in moments like this. As he took a few slow, deliberate steps toward you, calling your name, every inch of you screamed to flee, to run, but your legs refused to obey. You found yourself moving backward in sync with him, each step matching his, like a puppet on invisible strings. The ground beneath your feet felt unstable, as though you were walking on glass, and you could hear the sound of your own heart pounding so loudly that it threatened to drown out everything else.

Your vision blurred. Your breath became shallow, ragged, as your mind raced to make sense of what was happening, but there was no escape from the crushing reality of it. This man—this man—was the reason your chest had once felt full of warmth, and now, he was the reason it felt as though every breath was being stolen from you.

You stood frozen, paralyzed by fear, as the memories of what you once shared crashed into you like waves in a storm. Three years. Three years of your life—maybe even more—lost but still echoing in the pit of your stomach. The implicit words between you and him were suffocating, the weight of his presence like a pressure pressing in from all sides.

It was as if time itself had stopped, your body locked in place, unable to move, unable to think. But then, like a break in the tension, a sound shattered the air—a crash. You snapped back to reality as you saw Mina, her champagne glass slipping from her fingers, sending shards of glass skittering across the floor in a violent spray. The noise was deafening, but it was nothing compared to the silence between you and In-ho, the suffocating silence that lingered like a storm cloud over your head.

Mina’s face twisted with pure disgust as her eyes locked on him, her body stiffening as she processed the sight of him. The contempt in her gaze was palpable, but her focus quickly shifted to you—to you, the one who was standing there, paralyzed in the wake of his presence. Without a word, she moved toward you, her hand grabbing your arm with urgency, pulling you away from him.

James was right behind, his grip gentle yet firm on your shoulders, a soft, steadying force in the chaos. But no touch could calm the frantic pulse racing through your veins. Your body felt as though it were vibrating with panic, your chest too tight, your breath too shallow. The room seemed to close in around you, the walls pressing in like a suffocating vise. You couldn’t breathe—you couldn’t think. The overwhelming, bone-deep fear that had settled into your bones was blurring your vision, making every step feel like an eternity.

You couldn’t be here. You wouldn’t be here, not with him, not in this moment, not in this suffocating air thick with memories you had buried deep.

With a sharp, desperate pull, you wrenched yourself from Mina’s grip, the sound of her shocked gasp barely registering as you moved. Your feet were moving before your brain could catch up, the instinct to escape roaring louder than everything else. You darted for the doors, the sound of your heart in your ears drowning out the world around you.

You ran—no, you fled. Past the warm golden light of the gallery, past the hum of conversations, and straight toward the exit. You could hear your name being called—his voice—but you refused to acknowledge it. It felt like a rope pulling at you, trying to drag you back into the darkness of everything you had tried to escape.

The doors slammed open in front of you, the cool night air hitting your face like a slap, but you didn’t care. Every step was a fight against the panic that gripped you, a fight against the crushing need to keep moving, to keep running. You could feel the weight of the past pressing against your back, but you pushed forward, ignoring the thumping in your chest, ignoring the tears threatening to fall.

You had to get away.

𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔

You found yourself on the nearest rooftop balcony, the city sprawled beneath you in a sea of lights and shadows. The buildings below were faint silhouettes against the dark sky, their windows flickering with life in a world you felt distantly removed from. The cool night air kissed your skin, a small comfort in the stillness that surrounded you. It had taken you nearly an hour to find some semblance of calm, your pulse finally beginning to slow after the frantic rush of fear.

Now, you sat on the edge of the rooftop, your legs dangling carelessly over the side, feet swaying slightly as they hovered inches above the air. The vastness of the city before you seemed to stretch endlessly, the lights below like stars scattered across a canvas too large to take in all at once. Your palms rested in your lap, fingers tense but unmoving, as if your body no longer belonged to you.

You knew you should be heading back to Mina, that you couldn’t stay here, isolated, like some lost fragment of yourself. But you couldn’t bring yourself to move. It was as though your body had forgotten how to function, paralyzed in the space between where you had been and where you needed to go. You couldn’t feel a thing—no warmth, no cold, just an emptiness that echoed in the hollow of your chest.

The world around you seemed muted, distant. Even the sound of the wind brushing through the city, the hum of life below, felt too far away. Then, faintly, you heard the rooftop door creak open behind you. A soft click as it shut, followed by the steady rhythm of footsteps that grew closer with each passing second.

You didn’t need to turn, didn’t need to acknowledge it. You knew it was him—the presence that had once filled your life with warmth, now a shadow that haunted your every step.

Still, you remained frozen. Your gaze stayed fixed on the city ahead of you, watching the endless rows of lights flicker in the distance. You couldn’t look back. You couldn’t face him again.

You let out a long, heavy sigh, the sound barely audible over the hum of the city below. Your gaze remained fixed on the distant horizon, the neon lights of a billboard flickering against the night sky, as if they too were too distracted to focus. You didn’t want to look at him. You didn’t want to acknowledge the weight of his presence that seemed to press in from behind, suffocating the already thick air.

“Why are you here?” Your voice was cold, detached, as if you were asking a question you already knew the answer to, but still needed to hear.

He didn’t respond immediately, and you could feel him take a slow step forward. You refused to glance in his direction, but the quiet shift in the air told you everything you needed to know. He was close now, too close. The scrape of his shoes against the concrete was barely audible, but it was enough to send a shiver down your spine. He leaned against the rooftop’s edge beside you, his body close enough that you could feel his warmth, yet you remained perfectly still, frozen in your resolve.

“I want… I want to try again,” he said, his voice low and tentative, like a fragile promise hovering in the air between you. There was an edge of vulnerability to it, something that clawed at the pieces of you still willing to believe.

You snorted without thinking, the sound bitter and dismissive. Your eyes flicked to the billboard in the distance, the bright lights blinking at you like an illusion—a distraction from the truth. “Leave,” you said, your tone sharp and unwavering. You turned your head slightly, but kept your gaze fixed on the far-off ad, your jaw tight. “You’re wasting your time.”

The words felt like a weight lifted from your chest, but the moment they left your mouth, they felt hollow, the empty space they created echoing back at you. You didn’t want to hear the words, didn’t want to see the man who had once been everything to you standing there, asking for something you could never give him again.

“You never told me about your painting.” His voice was soft, almost too gentle, as if testing the waters, waiting for a crack in your armor.

You swallowed hard, the words like gravel in your throat. "There's a lot of things you don’t know about me anymore," you shot back, your voice colder than you intended, but you couldn’t help it. The words hung between you, each syllable another stone thrown into the chasm that had opened between you. A sudden breeze tugged at your hair, lifting it from your face like a tender reminder of everything you had. But now? Now, it felt like the wind was pushing you away from him.

He stood up, his movements slow, deliberate, and yet, there was a sense of urgency in the way he stepped closer to you. “I doubt that very much, y/n.” His voice was thick with something you couldn’t place—hope? Regret? Whatever it was, it grated against your already raw nerves.

Without thinking, you jumped down from the ledge you’d been sitting on. The movement was sharp and instinctive as if putting distance between you both could somehow silence the noise in your head. Your feet hit the ground with a soft thud, but it felt like the sound reverberated through your chest, shaking your bones. You lifted your hand, instinctively warding him off, your fingers trembling with a mix of anger and something far more painful. “No.” The word came out sharper than you meant, but it was all you could muster as you finally met his gaze. His eyes were weary, so weary, but there was warmth there, too—an impossible warmth that threatened to break you.

“Just… no.” You repeated, the words tasting bitter on your tongue, your chest tight. You took another step back, the distance between you growing but feeling like an ocean. “You made your decision. And in a way, I’m glad you did.”

His confusion was palpable, his head angling as if trying to decipher the pieces of you that were slipping through his fingers. You could see it in his eyes—the search for the woman he once knew, the woman who had loved him unconditionally. But she was gone.

"You have no idea what I had to go through to get to where I am.” The words fell out of you, raw and unfiltered, like a confession that had been buried beneath layers of pain, regret, and shattered trust. You didn’t want to say it, but you had to—he needed to hear it.

“I have yearned for you.” Your voice wavered for just a moment before you steadied yourself as if bracing for the impact. “Your touch, your smell, the way you used to make me feel alive… But I’ve realized again and again that my In-ho—the one I loved—is gone. And what’s left? What’s left is a killer.”

The words hit him like a punch to the gut, and you saw the flicker of pain pass through his features—an undeniable flash of regret, or maybe guilt, but it was fleeting. It wasn’t enough. Nothing could ever be enough to undo what had been done, to heal the wounds that had been carved into your soul.

You stood there, breath shallow, heart aching, staring at him as the distance between you felt vast, impossible to close. You weren’t the same person anymore, and neither was he.

A tear shimmered in his eye, threatening to fall, but it never did. His lip trembled, just slightly, betraying the carefully constructed composure he tried so hard to maintain. He nodded, his expression breaking with something raw, something vulnerable that you hadn’t seen in so long. It was the first crack in the wall he had built between you—the wall that had torn you both apart.

He took a step back as if distancing himself from the emotion that was rising between you like a tidal wave. Slowly, painfully, he turned away from you and started walking toward the rooftop door, each step heavy, weighted with finality. The space between you and him grew wider, and your chest tightened in protest, but you couldn’t move. You could barely breathe.

His hand hovered over the doorknob, and for a brief moment, time seemed to freeze. Then, with one last, reluctant motion, he grabbed it, his fingers curling around the cool metal. He hesitated, turning his head back toward you just before he stepped into the hallway.

The words he spoke were like a slow, fragile exhale—barely audible but cutting through you with the sharpness of a thousand knives. "For what it's worth, y/n," he said, his voice thick with emotion, the sound of it scraping against your heart. "I shut the games down."

Your chin jerked in his direction, your eyes widening in disbelief, a rush of shock and confusion sweeping over you. His eyes were glassy, distant, but there was something else in them, too—shame, maybe sorrow. And, beneath it all, a tenderness that still managed to break through.

"For you," he added, his voice faltering as if the words had cost him more than he could bear to admit.

You felt a tremor run through you as if the very ground beneath you had shifted. He had done it. Shut the industry down—for you, carrying out the ultimatum you had given. The realization hit you like a wave, crashing over every part of you that had ever loved him, ever believed in him.

In a flash, he was gone.

𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔

You weren’t sure how you’d managed to end up in your bed, but fragments of the journey flickered in your memory—the way your legs had trembled beneath you, your hand gripping your stomach as nausea clawed its way through you. You could vaguely recall stumbling back to the gallery, the worried looks on Mina’s face blurring into the hum of voices, the soft touch of her hand guiding you. Now, you lay on your back in the quiet darkness of your room, the faint glow of moonlight filtering through the curtains and casting pale streaks across the ceiling.

Mina was beside you, her breaths slow and steady, her form curled beneath the blanket like a protective cocoon. The soft rhythm of her breathing should have been comforting, but your mind refused to settle. You couldn’t stop replaying his parting words, couldn’t stop turning them over and over in your head. “I shut the games down. For you.”

The weight of those words pressed against your chest, a maddening mixture of disbelief, confusion, and something else you couldn’t quite name. Why had he waited until now to tell you? Why had he carried that secret in silence all this time, letting you believe he was still the man who had abandoned you for something darker, something cruel?

A bitter scoff escaped your lips as you rolled onto your side, the mattress shifting slightly beneath you. Your hand curled into the pillow, your knuckles brushing against the cool fabric as you begged for sleep to come, to pull you into its merciful void. But your mind betrayed you, spinning endlessly, racing through memories and questions you didn’t want to face.

You cursed yourself for it—for allowing him to take up space in your thoughts, for spending even one more second on this when you should have let it go. But the harder you tried to push the thoughts away, the tighter they clung to you, like vines wrapping around your chest.

Your heart ached with the weight of all you had endured, the heartbreak layered upon heartbreak, carved into you by the games. The memories were jagged and raw, cutting into your mind no matter how much time passed. Yet, as painful as it all was, there was a flicker of something else—something that almost felt like peace.

The games were over. They were done. Nobody else would have to endure that nightmare, to face the horrors you had barely survived. And that knowledge, however faint, eased something deep within you, even if just for a moment. But still… he had betrayed you.

Your chest tightened again as you stared at the darkened wall, his face flashing in your mind, his eyes weary and regretful. And then the thought came, unbidden and unwanted—what if you allowed him to explain? What if you let him tell you everything, from the beginning?

The thought lingered, curling around you like a question you weren’t ready to answer. It was a dangerous thing, entertaining the idea of understanding, of finding closure. Yet, in its own way, it brought a strange kind of calm.

And it was that thought—fragile, confusing, and bittersweet—that finally lulled you into sleep, your breaths softening, your body relaxing as the tension melted away into the night.

𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔

It had been a long day—the longest. You sat stiffly in your office at the gallery, the faint hum of distant voices and footsteps barely reaching your ears. The weight of the day pressed down on you, heavier than the leather chair you were perched in. Your desk, usually a comforting space filled with the chaos of sketches and notes, felt foreign now, as though the air itself had shifted.

Your agent had called earlier, her voice brimming with urgency as she reminded you to sign over the paperwork for your collection to the buyer. You had chuckled at the simplicity of it, the practicality. Of course, it needed to be done. But beneath the surface of that mundane task, a strange sensation crept in—a quiet calmness, one you hadn’t felt in so long. This might be it. This might be your chance to finally get the closure you had been chasing in the recesses of your mind. Maybe, just maybe, you could finally get your explanation.

Your hands trembled slightly as you ran a cold, shaky hand through your curled hair, trying to smooth the strands that seemed to rebel against the order you so desperately sought. The thought of seeing him again, here, in this space, set your nerves alight.

And then, as if conjured by your thoughts, there he was.

In-ho knocked gently on the open door, his presence filling the room like a shadow stretching across the floor. He was composed, his suit perfectly pressed, but there was something different about him now—something weary in the way he carried himself, something almost fragile. You didn’t trust it, but you also couldn’t ignore it.

You gestured silently for him to sit, your throat too tight to speak just yet. He stepped inside, his movements measured, the soft sound of his shoes against the floor somehow louder than your own heartbeat. As he sank into the chair across from you, you stood, the paperwork clutched tightly in your hand. You circled around the desk, placing yourself directly in front of him, leaning back against the edge as if the furniture might anchor you.

The distance between you felt suffocating yet electric, and suddenly, you were aware of every small movement you made. You shifted, crossing your arms over your chest, a defensive barrier against the storm that was brewing inside you.

You couldn’t meet his eyes at first, not when the memory of everything you had said to him hung heavy between you. The words you’d hurled at him, sharp and unyielding, still lingered in the air, echoes of the heartbreak you hadn’t fully processed. And yet, even now, there was a part of you—a cursed, stubborn part of you—that begged you to apologize, to soften the sharp edges you’d used to shield yourself.

But you wouldn’t.

You wouldn’t apologize, not even as the tension between you thickened, not even as your heart screamed at you to do so. He didn’t deserve your apology, not after everything he had done.

The silence stretched on, heavy and taut, as you held the paperwork in your hands, your fingers clutching the edges tightly.

Your eyes flicked to him as he sat, legs crossed with an air of practiced ease, his confident demeanor filling the room like he owned every inch of it. Even now, after everything, In-ho carried himself with the kind of composure that could command a crowd—or, in this case, silence. His posture was effortless, but his presence was anything but. Every movement, every breath he took seemed calculated, deliberate, as if even his stillness was designed to draw attention.

You cleared your throat, breaking the thick, unspoken tension that lingered between you like a cloud. “From the beginning,” you said firmly, your voice cutting through the quiet. It wasn’t a request—it was a demand.

His gaze flicked to yours, sharp yet unreadable, and for a moment, you thought he might push back, deflect, or stall. But instead, he gave a slight, measured nod as if he’d been expecting this all along. He gestured toward the door with a slow, deliberate motion, his eyes locking on yours.

“Shut the door,” he said simply, his voice low and calm yet carrying the weight of something far deeper.

You hesitated for just a beat, long enough for your heart to stutter in your chest. Then, wordlessly, you turned and walked to the door, the sound of your footsteps echoing faintly in the quiet room. The faint click of the latch as you shut it behind you felt like the closing of a chapter—or perhaps the opening of one you weren’t sure you wanted to read.

With the door closed, the room seemed smaller, the air thicker. You made your way back to your spot against the desk, leaning into it with an unspoken attempt to steady yourself. The papers in your hand brushed against the wood, but your focus was on him now—on the way he sat, still composed, as if he had all the time in the world.

And yet, you noticed the slight shift in his shoulders, the faint tension in the way his hands rested on his knee. He wasn’t as calm as he wanted you to believe.

You crossed your arms again, this time more for yourself than anything else, and tilted your head slightly, waiting. A strange mixture of anticipation and dread coiled in your stomach as your gaze bore into him, silently urging him to begin.

He looked at you for a long moment, his expression unreadable, before leaning forward just slightly, resting his forearms on his thighs. The movement was subtle, but it felt like a shift in the balance of the room, as though he was finally ready to open a door he had kept locked for far too long.

"I had played the games. Once before when I was younger." You straightened at that, fidgeting, as he watched you before continuing.

“My wife... she was sick,” he began, his voice trembling just enough to betray the emotions he was trying to hold back. “She was expecting our child, and I was desperate—so desperate. I didn’t see any other way, so I entered.” He paused, his gaze dropping to the floor as though the weight of the memory was too much to bear.

“My thought process was simple,” he continued, his tone quieter now, like he was speaking more to himself than to you. “I’d either save the life of the woman I loved and our baby… or die trying. There wasn’t an in-between for me. But when I made it out, when I finally had the money in my hands…” His voice cracked, and he looked away, swallowing hard. “It was too late.”

Your gaze softened, despite yourself, the sharp edges of your anger dulling for just a moment as your arms slowly uncrossed.

Your throat dried, and your hands shook.

"And then I found you," he looked up, locking eyes with you.

“You were everything—fierce, unshakable, and so utterly beautiful that it hurt to look at you sometimes. The day you left, it was like the air was stolen from my lungs. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move—like the world had come to a standstill, and I was left frozen in the neverending emptiness you left behind.”

He leaned back slightly, his eyes locking onto yours with a weight that made your breath hitch. The intensity in his gaze wasn’t sharp—it was soft, regretful, and filled with something you hadn’t seen from him in a while: vulnerability.

“I ended the games the day you left,” he said quietly, his voice steady but thick with emotion, as though each word carried the burden of his actions.

You froze, the weight of his confession hitting you like a punch to the chest. Your teeth pressed into your cheek as you bit down, trying to steady yourself, trying not to let the shock show. But the tightness in your chest betrayed you, your hands fidgeting at your sides.

“I didn’t tell you,” he continued, his tone lower now, quieter, “because you needed to move on. You needed to heal from… from what I let happen. From what I allowed to become your nightmare.”

His voice cracked, just slightly, and he looked away for a fleeting moment, as if even he couldn’t bear the shame. When his eyes returned to yours, they glistened under the soft light, raw and open in a way that felt almost unbearable.

“I’m sorry, y/n,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper, trembling under the weight of the words. “For all of it. For the despair I caused you. For the part I played in your agony. For… for breaking the one thing I swore I’d protect.”

You felt your chest tighten, the lump in your throat rising as his words settled over you, heavy and unrelenting. There was no deflecting the rawness of his confession, no mistaking the sincerity that poured from him like a dam finally breaking.

He didn’t try to justify himself further, didn’t try to fill the silence that followed. He just sat there, his gaze searching yours, silently asking for something you weren’t sure you could give—forgiveness, understanding, maybe even absolution.

You took a deep breath, your chest rising and falling as you tried to steady the storm of emotions swirling within you. For a moment, you stayed there, leaning against the desk, your fingers gripping the edge as if letting go might send you tumbling. But then, slowly, you pushed yourself away, your movements deliberate, each step toward him feeling like a quiet surrender to the moment.

He watched you approach, his gaze flickering with surprise and a cautious hope, as if he couldn’t quite believe you were closing the distance between you.

When you stopped in front of him, your heart pounded in your chest, but your hand was steady as you extended it toward him. The air between you felt charged, heavy with everything that had been said—and everything that hadn’t.

“Come on,” you said softly, your voice gentler now, the tension beginning to unravel at the edges. A small, almost tentative smile tugged at your lips, though you weren’t entirely sure if it was for him or for yourself. “Let’s get dinner.”

For a beat, he didn’t move, his eyes searching yours as though trying to understand this small gesture of truce. Then, finally, his lips quirked into the faintest semblance of a smile, the kind that didn’t quite reach his eyes but was enough to make something in your chest loosen.

He reached for your hand, his touch warm and grounding, his fingers wrapping around yours with a quiet reverence. As you helped him to his feet, the weight of everything between you seemed to shift—not gone, but lighter somehow.

𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔𖣔

Dinner had passed quicker than you anticipated, the hours slipping away like grains of sand through your fingers. Now, the two of you walked side by side down the dimly lit sidewalk, the city alive with a quiet hum. Neon lights shimmered above, their reflections dancing faintly on the wet pavement from a drizzle earlier in the evening. In the distance, the soft melody of a street performer’s guitar drifted through the air, mingling with the occasional chatter of passersby.

You bundled yourself tighter in your jacket, the chill nipping at your cheeks and nose, while In-ho walked beside you, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his coat. His pace was slow, measured, matching yours as if he were careful not to overstep. The sound of your heels clicking against the concrete filled the silence between you, rhythmic and grounding, giving you something to focus on as your thoughts churned.

A question had been simmering in your mind all night, clawing for attention, refusing to let you push it aside any longer. You stole a glance at him, his profile illuminated briefly as you passed under a glowing streetlamp. His expression was neutral, unreadable as always, yet his presence felt heavier than the cold air.

Taking a steadying breath, you licked your lips, your voice breaking through the quiet. “Have you been following me?”

Your words dangled in the ambiance, remaining in the space between you like a sudden gust of wind.

He turned his head toward you, his steps faltering slightly as his eyes met yours. For a brief moment, his expression flickered—was it surprise? Guilt? Something else? You couldn’t tell. But the tension crackled like static, the city around you fading into the background as you waited for his answer.

He came to a complete stop, his body stiffening as if the weight of your question had rooted him to the ground. His eyes widened, the shock evident as they dropped to his polished shoes, unable—or perhaps unwilling—to meet yours as he rocked between his feet. The faint glow of the city lights above cast soft shadows over his face, highlighting the tension in his jaw and the subtle quiver in his lips.

You tilted your head, studying him with a mixture of resignation and frustration, a heavy sigh escaping your lips. “I knew it,” you muttered, the confirmation settling like a stone in your chest.

Your mind raced back to all those moments—the uneasy prickle at the back of your neck, the lingering sensation of being watched, the inexplicable certainty that he had been near. You remembered the black sedan at the light stop, the way your instincts had screamed his name even before your eyes had confirmed it.

In-ho lifted his gaze, and for a moment, there was something raw in his expression—an apology, perhaps, or a plea for understanding. But before you could decipher it, he moved. He stepped toward you, each footfall deliberate and unyielding, closing the distance between you with a quiet intensity that made your breath hitch.

When he finally stopped, he was closer than he had been all day, his presence towering yet strangely fragile, like he was holding himself together with sheer will as you looked up at him. His eyes softened as they locked onto yours, filled with something that looked like regret tangled with a need he couldn’t suppress.

“I ordered my men to keep their distance,” he admitted, his voice low and unsteady, each word weighed down with guilt. He paused, exhaling shakily as he raked a hand through his hair. “But I wanted to…” He faltered, his gaze breaking away for a moment before returning to you. “needed to make sure you were safe.”

His words hung in the air, raw and vulnerable, each syllable carrying the weight of his choices and the silent fear he hadn’t dared voice until now. You could see it—feel it—in the way his shoulders slumped slightly, as if the confession had cost him more than he was willing to show.

You turned away from him, your breath catching in your throat as you tried to steady yourself. The city lights blurred in your vision, the weight of his words pressing against your chest. You could feel the tears threatening to rise, but you fought them back, not wanting him to see how deeply his presence still affected you.

“I don’t know what to do with this, In-ho,” you whispered, your voice thick with uncertainty. You wiped at your eyes quickly, but it wasn’t enough to stop the tremor in your hands. “I don’t know what to do with you. With… all of this.” His eyes softened as he took a small step closer, but you didn’t look at him. You couldn’t—not right now.

“I don’t expect you to have the answers,” he said quietly, his tone more fragile than you had ever heard it. “I just…I want to make things right, even if I can’t fix everything.”

He took a tentative step closer, his movements slow, as if afraid that any sudden motion might cause you to pull away. You turned back to him. Your breath hitched in your throat, but you didn’t move. The space between you both felt electric, charged with unstated emotion, yet it was still so fragile.

Without saying a word, he reached up, his hand trembling slightly as it cupped your cheek. The warmth of his touch sent a wave of emotion crashing over you—everything you had locked away, all the longing and pain, threatening to break free.

You didn’t pull away. Instead, you closed your eyes for a moment, leaning into the softness of his touch, letting the comfort of it surround you like a fleeting memory. The space between you was still there, but this touch—this small, gentle act—felt like a lifeline.

Your heart was being pulled in two directions. The part of you that had loved him so fiercely, that had believed in him so completely, still burned with the longing for something—anything—to change. But the other part of you, the part that had been broken by his silence, by his choices, couldn’t see a clear way forward.

“I don’t know if I can let you back in,” you murmured, your voice barely audible, the words leaving your lips like an apology you weren’t ready to make. “I don’t know if I’m strong enough for that. ”You finally met his gaze, and there was a quiet desperation in his eyes that made your heartache. He didn’t say anything at first—he didn’t need to. His eyes said it all, full of hope and regret and an apology too big to fit into words.

Then without thinking, you whispered, “But I want to try.”

His gaze softened, something in his eyes shifting—relief, hope, or maybe both. Before either of you could speak again, you reached up, your fingers brushing his cheek as you leaned forward, pressing a soft kiss to his cheek. The moment felt fragile, full of all the things you had yet to say, and yet, it was everything that had remained unsaid.

When you pulled back, you found yourself searching his eyes, trying to piece together the weight of what was happening between you. You weren’t sure what the future held, but in that moment, you knew you wanted to try.

“I’ll be here,” In-ho whispered, his voice thick with something more than words. “However long it takes.”

[dyktvideogamesfx]

You've said Ultrakill is one of your favorite games-- I'm curious what your favorite part of it is... the lore's great, the weapon pool is just. mmm, the enemies and level designs. incredible.

the way it does difficulty? has to be my favorite part. i love how i can just. go do something thats a little bit harder. get a slightly better time, get a slightly higher wave, add an additional modifier like radiance or a self-imposed weapon challenge, and p-ranks all make for the perfect difficulty curve that has lasted me over 600 hours

so with that lil infodump, i bring it around to the beginning question-- what's your favorite thing about ultrakill?

There is MANY things I enjoy about ULTRAKILL... but my favourite?

I think generally, it is the lore. I'm gunna go under a read more here just in case. But to add to it- Gameplay is incredbile, even if I'm not very good at it.

The weapons? Hilarious. Looney tunes ass shit that somehow exactly fits the games aesthetic and style. How it merges comedy perfectly with tragedy and serious moments.

But anywho! Under the read more for some ULTRAKILL spoilers.

I am... quite frankly abnormal about how V1 is not the main character. That this is a game about Gabriel, at the end of the day. How every major change, every major importance, comes from his decisions in the end.

I'm already a big lover of playing with religion. One of my TTRPG characters who I have yet to play is a priest going through some real shit. There is so much you can do with religious guilt and the things that bind and ULTRAKILL plays with that like building blocks, it fucks.

The creativity of how each of the layers of hell is depicted is also? MWAH. perfect. PERFECT. seriously, I have never seen a game just play with its concepts like this before. The enemy designs also go hard.

I just really enjoy its lore conceptually. Breaking away from something thats been chaining you is always something I find hard to be invested in- especially if the character, Gabriel in this case, is very much like "No, I can't be feeling this way, there is something wrong with me."

It's just good. ULTRAKILL is good. Fraud WHEN.

[wisteriadaydreams]

Hey hey! Yandere Tanjiro definitely has the unintentional habit of sneaking up on you. At times he just approaches you from behind while you’re working and too busy to notice him coming, then looks over your shoulder to check at what you’re doing and he accidentally gives you a jumpscare? He’s so apologetic about it too, you can’t stay mad at him, it’s not his fault you’re so adorable when scared, so much so that he wants to gobble you up

TO BE ENAMORED

pairing: Kamado Tanjirō x gn!reader

genre: fluff, ig?

words: 1.4k (of Tanjirō simping for you)

tw: soft yandere

a/n: soft yandere Tanjirō is where it's at

Tanjirō has been taught many things during his training. How to breath properly, to bring his body beyond its breaking point, to always be alert and clear-headed in any situation. To learn how to reduce his presence in the face of danger and to keep his footing light so that they cannot easily detect his movements.

He has always regarded these tidbits and knowledge gained from his mentors and previous experiences as only ever most useful in his Demon Slayer career.

How his heart fluttered when he realized he can use them when it comes to you.

He first saw you when he was first taken to the Butterfly Estate on the back of a Kakushi, and though he was in excruciating pain, nothing could stop him from being dumbstruck by your appearance. You seemed to be veiled by a halo of light, which even paled in comparison to your radiance. You fussed over him with worry, the genuine concern you showed to a complete stranger like him made a pool of sunfire burn low in his stomach.

You were quick to direct them to an empty bed, getting to work and coordinating with the others easily like you've done this all your life. When you touched his skin, liquid lightning rushed through his veins, causing goosebumps to rise on his body. You treated his wounds and bandaged him up with a caring hand that made his heart stutter, but nothing could compare to when you crouched down closer to inspect something, giving him a full whiff of your scent. It filled his mind intoxicatingly, and for a moment he was sure he just had an out of body experience, his brain all mushy and fuzzy. If his bones weren't broken, he would've prop himself up to get another inhale.

The next day, he was reassured that it wasn't all a pain-induced hallucination when he saw you greet him with a gorgeous smile while giving him his medicine.

Tanjirō was completely smitten, even if he didn't know it yet.

Over the next few days, he greedily sought out any piece of information about you, even for things as trivial as whether you are right or left-handed, or even how you like to take your tea in the morning. The best time of the day for him is when you would come to bring him medicine and check on his bandages, the giddy smile not leaving his face even when it hurts when you touch his wounds.

(He will deny it if asked, but Zenitsu can attest to the fact that the burgundy-haired boy is noticeably less chipper if someone else came in.)

Rehabilitation training was grueling, but made exponentially better by your mere presence. His skin erupts into goosebumps every time he's able to catch up to you in the game of tag, butterflies swirling around his stomach when he grabs a hold of your wrist. He also managed to stop your attacks during the reflex test, but refrained from splashing the medicine water in your face out of guilt.

(Needless to say, he wasn't that happy when the next time, he was partnered with Kanao when the others saw his progress.)

His eyes are on you whenever you're with the others, a strange feeling coiling around his heart — intense like wildfire, a darkness that encroaches into his mind and make his gaze burn like an inferno.

(He aches to be by your side.)

No matter, he already has your scent committed into his memory, fused so deeply into a part of his soul that not even amnesia can erase it from him. He uses it to look for you in this maze of an estate, easily being able to locate you whether you're in the kitchen, the garden, or even the storage room.

There's truly not a corner that you can hide from him.

Tanjirō wouldn't hesitate to lend you a hand in whatever you're doing, swiftly waving away your protests with a smile as he plucks whatever you're holding into his hands. There have been times when he has been able to convince you to accompany you to town, his heart soaring at the idea of being able to spend more time with you.

He keeps these moments with you close to his heart, unwilling to share them with his friends. And though he adores the way you spend time with Nezuko, he has become greedy for instances when it's just the two of you alone. It's already hard enough to steal a moment alone when you're so busy, so it infuriates bothers him whenever someone interrupt. But what he truly savors are the moments before you've become aware of his presence, when he can simply look at you and soak in every little detail about you.

He drinks in the sight of you like it's the water that he needs to survive, every movement captures his attention like a leash that refuses to let go. Even if he were to stand in front of the most beautiful sight in the world, his eyes would only be on you.

Never has he been more grateful for his training, for he can take every opportunity to stand so close to you that your natural scent invades his senses, pulling him into a dream so bewitching that he is left with one singular thought.

You.

Your hands could be covered with rice flour, your cheeks could be smeared with dirt from the garden, your hair could be plastered to your sweaty face, flushed red from the heat. You could be freshly waking up, strands of hair sticking out all over the place, your eyes groggy and hazy, and he would still think of you as the most stunning person who ever existed.

He cares not if whatever you're doing is the most mundane work in the world, Tanjirō just loves watching you. He just loves how your eyebrows would scrunch together in concentration, or how occasionally you would hum something under your breath — your voice clear like the mountain stream, like a blessing straight from the gods.

You have him all wrapped around your finger.

And don't get him started on how you would react when you finally realized he's there.

"Tanjirō-kun!" You nearly jumped out of your body when you notice the red-headed boy behind you. "How long have you been standing there."

"Not long," he says innocently. Though he always feels a little guilty about scaring you, your reaction is so adorable that he can't help it sometimes. You're like a cute, jittery bunny with your eyes all wide open in shock. "I'm sorry, did I scare you?"

"No, no, it's okay. I guess I just wasn't paying attention." You wave it off, somehow never being able to blame him when he's that sincere. Surely he's not actively sneaking up on you. And although it seems he has an ability to find you wherever you are, it's probably all a coincidence, right?

"What are you working on?"

Your shoulders slack. You really can't be mad at him when he's bouncing on his feet, truly interested in whatever you're doing, giving you the kind of attention that you're unaccustomed to from the other Demon Slayers. They're all grateful for the care that you provided them (more or less), but few have taken their time to get to know you as someone more than a caretaker. It feels refreshing (and almost exhilarating) to be seen, to have someone take notice of you,

As for Tanjirō...well, let's just say no one can take his attention away in that moment except for you. It is a true skill, really, to be able to simultaneously pay attention to everything that you said and indulge in his thoughts. Surely you wouldn't mind if he stands just a little closer, right?

He wonders if he will be able to find the courage to hold your hand one day. To have you all to himself with nobody interrupting. To let him hug you tight and bury his nose in the crook of your neck. Perhaps even to kiss you...

A delightful shiver crawls down his spine, lighting up his insides like fireworks and bringing a drunken blush to his cheeks.

'Oh,' Tanjirō thinks while looking at you tenderly, 'That day will come, I'll make sure of it.'

After all, Tanjirō is nothing but obsessed determined.

©️ wisteriadaydreams

➺ All of the following works belong to me. Please don’t repost, copy, or steal my content off of Tumblr. Plagiarism will not be tolerated.

[mad-voidling]

Night in the (Balmoral) Woods

My fic for @iamnottoph for the 2024 @fallenlondonficswap! You can read it here or below the cut. Sorry for taking so long with it, I hope you enjoy it!

He turned forward again, and saw it. A ways down the dirt path made mostly by his own boots, a pale figure approached.

Gen, No Explicit Romance, No Violence, The Great Game, The Railway/Hinterlands, Balmoral

As he stood before the gates to the Moonlit Woods, the Devoted Gillie fought the urge to check his coat pockets again. Tonight was the night and he wanted nothing to go wrong, but he wanted even less to be caught. Few roamed the woods, especially at this hour, but he couldn’t be sure the Marigold Menagerie Keeper wasn't lurking about, watching from a distance with her hell-yellow eyes, waiting for him to make a mistake that would let her slip into the Woods. He didn’t believe her only wanting to check on the animals - devils were creatures who are born of and lived off of lies and he was loath to believe any word that came from their serpent tongues. Even if she was telling the truth, he had made an oath to Her Majesty to protect her sacred woods, and that was not a promise he was willing to break.

The sudden snapping of a twig had his head whipping around towards the noise, heart skipping a beat before he realized it had come from beyond the gate. Just one of the beasts of the woods, nothing to be afraid of - especially when they were separated from him by a wall of wrought iron. He had caught glimpses of the animals before, darting through the moonlight from one shadow to the next, and sometimes they looked… Odd. It was surely just his eyes and ears playing tricks on him, whatever those hellspawns had done to the moonlight made it play tricks on the mind, but he couldn’t forget what he had seen. Eyes like bright blood, beaks and teeth where they should not be, and sounds their vocal cords should not have been able to form. Everytime it happened it would send a chill up his spine, but he would tell himself it was just the wind, pull his coat around himself tighter, and fight the urge to make his way to the warmth of Crathie’s tavern despite how infected with traitorous revolutionaries it was.

He turned forward again, and saw it. A ways down the dirt path made mostly by his own boots, a pale figure approached. Suddenly he felt like a child all over again with his mother telling him tales of the bean-nighe, the baobhan sith, and all the other seelie folk who would snatch him up if he wasn’t a good boy who did his chores and went to bed on time. But it could not be - for there was no stream or pool for clothes to be washed in, he was no hunter, and most of all, despite the many strange and horrible things that lived in the Neath, the seelie were not one of them. 

Then came his memories of the Sunday sermons at the kirk, with tales of how angels would descend from above, clad in radiance and holy light, and deliver messages from the Lord Himself to common men. That could not be it, either - angels did not descend alone, always accompanied by a holy chorus to herald their arrival, and for as brilliant as it looked against the darkness of the woods, they did not blind him. Finally, it did not tell him to be not afraid, and as foolish as it seemed for such terrifyingly divine things to say to mortals who could barely comprehend them, such words seemed like they would be a great comfort at the moment.

Last to reach him in his fear was his rational mind, the one that knew the reason he was standing out in the cold instead of in the safety of his slightly less cold cottage. An agent of the Game would be meeting him tonight to collect information given to him by another agent the week prior. He had been told he would be meeting with the Pale Rook, and as the figure drew closer, he was all but certain this was them. Now closer he could see that they were certainly human, but to simply call them pale felt like an understatement. They were the color of a ghost from head to toe, their skin cool-colored as winter lacre and long platinum hair that would be at home with moonbeams. Even their clothing was a bright white, which made him feel far less ashamed of initially thinking them a specter or a sort of unnatural being.

They stopped a few feet away from him, just out of range of any potential melee weapons. “A nice night for wandering, isn’t it?”

The Ghillie blinked, confused for a moment before he remembered the passphrases and rushed out his response. “Yes, but who would want to be alone on a night like this?”

A smile briefly flashed across the Rook’s face, and they closed the distance between them. This close he realized that they stood several inches taller than him and that their eyes were a pale violet color rimmed by red. They reminded him of violant - both in their hue and how he would never forget them. They looked down at him through their gold-rimmed glasses, expression unreadable. Several moments of silence passed between the two before the Rook spoke again and broke the spell that held the Ghillie’s tongue.

“I assume you have what I came for, then?”

“Oh, ah, yes-“ He managed to stammer the words out as he fumbled through his pockets, pulling out the letters and papers he had been given. He hadn’t looked at them himself and knew nothing of their contents, only that they had been given to him by someone who had arrived at  the Balmoral train station from the east, and that they had slipped into the bathrooms and never emerged from inside. They had said nothing to him, only shoved what he now held into his hands and left - he hadn’t even seen their face.

As the Rook took what he held out, their hands briefly brushed against each other, and their skin was as cool as ice but still made his blood rush warm. He must have made an expression, because the pale stranger smirked, amusement twinkling in their eyes as they looked down at him and put the papers somewhere within their coat.

“It was good to meet you, sir. Perhaps we will come across each other again one day.” With that, they turned heel and walked back the way they came, leaves softly crunching beneath their boots. The Gillie watched as they slowly vanished down the trail, too mesmerized by them to remember that he was cold. When at last he could see not even a speck of white in the distance, only then did he register the great numbness in his face, and how his fingers felt only moments from freezing off.

Shoving his hands into his now empty pockets, he began the journey back to his cottage, body already relishing the fire he would soon start while his mind lingered on the memory of violant eyes.

[self-loving-vampire]

Scenario: Instead of describing it in detail, just look up Curse of the Azure Bonds. How do you and your sisters proceed in this situation?

The gold box games are on my list for later but let me look up the plot before I overthink any of the details of that...

Oh, this sounds kind of hot actually. We wake up in an unfamiliar place with some memory loss, missing equipment, and unfamiliar tattoos on our bodies that can be used to remotely mind control us for evil purposes? Sounds like a pretty interesting setup even outside of problematic kink stuff.

Either way, if none of us is familiar with the markings my first recommendation would be checking in with loremasters or sages to learn as much about them as we can. I imagine @thirteen-jades in particular will be able to think of several good questions that might help us a lot so long as there's answers to be had nearby.

Depending on the level of spellcasting available to us, she would also be able to make good use of divination magic as the party's cleric. Her role would be the most important one as a result.

Even if we're not able to dispel the bonds outright (which I imagine is the case) we might be able to come up with some kind of system to counter them. Again, it depends on the level of spellcasting available to us. Something like a contingency spell or geas or something might be worth trying.

It sounds like new characters start at level 5, while the max level from Pool of Radiance was 9. This means that (in the system I use) we'd be able to use spells from levels 3 to 5. That's kind of a big range in what it allows (no long-range teleportation at the lower end, for instance) and our options are going to heavily depend on where we are placed within it.

I expect the other me is going to feel guilty about being mind controlled into doing something bad even if the whole mind control thing makes it not her fault. She would probably convince herself she could have resisted it if she had tried harder. We'd comfort her if that happened.

I imagine Jade and I would feel kind of stressed and more than a little bit violated by the whole situation. The memory loss alone probably would be pretty traumatic for all of us, especially if the bonds take the form of womb tattoos or something.

[vintagerpg]

The multimedia extravaganza mostly dried up after Azure Bonds. The next SSI game got a tie-in novel, but no adventure book. TSR pretty much ignored SSI after that. In 1994, TSR opted to not renew SSI’s license. Black Isle made some notable D&D videogames, and then, for some reason, came Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor (2001), from Stormfront Studios (who had previously worked on the AOL Neverwinter Nights and the SSI Savage Frontier games). It wasn’t as bad as Temple of Elemental Evil (2003, and totally unplayable), but it was close.

Tie-in novels had been back for a little while, based on the strength of the Baldur’s Gate games’ popularity, so no surprise about this videogame also getting a novel. However, it also, briefly marked the return of the weird tabletop companion book, perhaps because the videogame was the first full digital implementation of the 3E rules (probably to its detriment, as it had been developed as a 2E game and been converted mid-development).

Anyway, Pool of Radiance: Attack on Myth Drannor (2001), exists, one of the not very common soft cover 3E books. Novelty: it ties into the videogame, rather than re-enacting it. The plot centers on the machinations of the Cult of the Dragon and their attempt to use a pool of radiance to empower one of their dracolichs. It seems mostly OK, but veers into some truly weird shit, like the naked man and the deepspawn living in weird symbiosis? I dunno, there are some mysteries I refuse to investigate, even for you, dear readers. A box of text at the end explains that the characters in the videogame destroy the body of the dracolich, but the heroes of the tabletop have the chance to destroy its phylactery and make victory permanent. Seems like a lot of work, honestly. Let the dracolich be free to eat garbage and do crimes, I say.

The art is nice, at least. Ted Beargeon and Vince Locke inside, a nice Brom on the cover.

[dndhistory]

Let's Play Pool of Radiance (1988) - Part 19

This week I manage to fail at pressing record for a whole mission to Zenthil Keep! However, I do manage to press record in time for a rematch at the Kobold Caves and we finally get that done! Expect a long series of battles, as we survive by the skin of our teeth! 

The musical score in this episode was gently provided by Old Moth Dreams, taken with their permission from the album "Winter Ghost Tales".

Support independent artists and get it at Bandcamp: 

Opening Music "Life" by MORSCHT, taken with their permission from the album "a sacrifice of myself unto myself".

 Support independent artists and get it at Bandcamp:

https://morscht.bandcamp.com

Pool of Radiance was the first Gold Box game and the first game set in the Forgotten Realms. It used the rules of first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Find out more about the history of Dungeons and Dragons at The History of DnD Instagram, Twitter, Bluesky, Tumblr and Website! 

https://www.instagram.com/thehistoryofdnd https://twitter.com/thehistoryofdnd 

https://bsky.app/profile/dndhistory.bsky.social

https://www.tumblr.com/blog/dndhistory

https://dndhistory.org/

Title Card created by Raquel studio: https://www.instagram.com/raquelg_studio/

[taamlok]

oc meme

Tagged by: @korcariiwitch! thank you!!

name: Eurydice Teurimil (yr·i·duh·see too·rih·mil)

nickname(s): Eury (by Wyll and Karlach), beefy (by Shovel)

pronouns: she/her

star sign: idk how to answer this because Faerun doesn't have star signs and i know nothing about astrology lmao

height: 164cm

orientation: bisexual

race: high elf (moon elf, but with wood elf ancestry, hence the hair)

romancing: Astarion

fave fruit: Pomegranate

fave season: Autumn

fave flower: henbane or poppies for utility purposes, lilac and lavender for prettiness and scent

fave scent: black tea, fresh tobacco leaves, cinnamon, and cut wood

coffee, tea, or hot chocolate: tea 100000%

average sleep hours: 4 hour elf trance from around midnight until 4am during the game, and during the early morning post-game (usually immediately preceded by Astarion biting her so whenever he does that +4 hours)

dogs or cats: cats

dream trip: she'd love to go back to the Dalelands one day when it's safe for her to do so!

amount of blankets: a lot (she and Astarion are both blanket hogs)

random fact(s):

Her surname means "bound to the moon" or "promised to the moon"; she made it up on the spot and didn't put thought into it, something we don't have in common because I put a lot of thought into it. The moon is highly associated with the colour silver in elven society (Teu-tel-quessir is the elven word for moon elves, also commonly referred to as silver elves). The pool of radiance that gave her her magic was a circular silver pool resembling the moon, and she is inescapably bound to it. The suffix -imil means both bound and promised to, which doubles as a nod to her eventual relationship with Astarion, the moon referring to both Astarion himself and the literal moon, under which she will spend a lot of time as they live their lives together.

Tagging: @euryalex @alexios @dameayliins @dameaylin @yrlietlanaevyss @haarleps @autismgremlin @masckarlach @yharnams @vspin @voloslobotomyservice @neonbutchery @grandmother-goblin

No pressure and sorry if you've already done this/been tagged already!! Also don't feel like you have to use your bg3 oc, I'd love to hear about any oc you want to talk about!

[derkastellan]

A detour to the Pool of Radiance (Thinking about sandbox design in 5e - Part 2)

Let's enter the wayback machine and travel back to... 1988? Yes, that's when "Pool of Radiance" came out, an "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons" computer RPG that's still rather playable today (I replayed it last week) and was innovative to boot.

Computer games had taken a massive leap forward in terms of complexity when floppy disk drives became wide spread, allowing new content to be loaded into a game after it had been started. This took games from simple recreations of arcade classics (pew pew!) or little action adventures to complex roleplaying games very quickly. The Wizardry series, the Ultima games (Ultima V released in 1988 as well), the Bard's Tale games... and yet there was still plenty of room left to innovate, and Pool of Radiance occupied a lot of it in one feel swoop.

(The picture references "Nox Archaist", a game intentionally programmed to run on the decades-old Apple II, but released around 2020.)

POR did several things that games had not done before it. It implemented mass combat on an actual grid like you would see when playing tabletop (with dozens of enemies acting in their turns), and it implemented a rather big subset of the AD&D roleplaying game, down to some of its most obnoxious quirks. Gary Gygax may have been the first person to formalize an RPG rule system for publishing (though we should credit Dave Arneson with pioneering the idea of an RPG and being the first Dungeon Master before that), but his rule/game designs... had room for improvement. (Hey, being first ain't easy!) AD&D wasn't a balanced game, and oddly enough, the developers of POR took that and ran with it.

The series of games started by POR, which later on became known as "Gold Box games" due to their packaging, kept many of the bizarre "features" of 1st edition D&D. There were level caps for demi-humans in most classes, you could multi-class demi-humans (level up in multiple classes in parallel) and dual-class humans ("change jobs" and acquire a second class to level up in). There was "To Hit Armor Class 0" (THAC0) rolls and descending armor class, and many other things that have ensured that AD&D is the least emulated old school system, largely confined to the mostly forgotten OSRIC and the setting-focused "Hyperborea" game with that looong name. (And the "Advanced Edition" companions for games that focused on being more like "Basic D&D", of course.)

Oh, and the bizarrely huge list of medieval and early modern melee weaponry.

And somebody packed all of that into a game fit to run on the Commodore 64 (where it became one of the first three games I bought, beside "Ultima V" and "Pirates!") or the Apple II, gaming systems that were still wide-spread but nearing the end of their technological relevancy at that point.

But this is neither an article about early computers and their games, nor is it an article about Gygaxian "realism" in gaming, or AD&D itself. It's about the actual content of POR and what we can learn from it.

Background

The back story of the game is that Phlan was a city north of the Moon Sea, a major trading hub with the barbarian lands of the North. It never got to rival the big cities of the South, but Phlan was a thriving merchant community. Given its exposed position it fell twice to monster onslaught. And now the second time to rebuild has come.

The tabletop companion module says the city was overrun by armies of monsters 50 years ago with a unique level of organization. The game hints that this was due to a corrupted Pool of Radiance being used by the general commanding the onslaught.

After the ruin of Phlan the plot thins a bit, as somehow the general is still looking for ways to actually spread his power further. (The adventure module hints at a back and forth of forces that hardly explains why someone could stop such a unique force without any other major conquests.)

Within recent time an expeditionary force led by some of the older powers and families once reigning over Phlan cleared out a small part of the ruins and erected a stockade. They are hoping they can commission adventurers to clear out the rest of the city, while providing the essential services needed as well.

Story and Structure

The basic hub of your adventures is this stockade of New Phlan where you can buy gear, rest, sell your loot, level up, hire NPC help, and ... have bar fights? This is where the central questgiver resides, the Council of Phlan, or rather, its busy clerk.

The game then mixes mega dungeon, gating, and sandbox to let you set Phlan free. The mega dungeon aspect is the bulk of the city south of the river, with another smaller subsection north of the river.

The city blocks of the south are:

An area of slums.

A former residential area around the city's major well.

The library of a sage.

An open-air marketplace.

An area used for warehousing.

The gate to the city's castle and the castle itself.

(This alone translates to 11 maps crammed within the same 16x16 grid dimensions. Each step represents multiple 5' spaces and in fact the game generates battle maps from the actual game map you're traversing!)

The northern block housed two areas of mansions and the city's major temple, a veritable cathedral. Further removed from the city (and separate) is its graveyard.

The city itself also had a fortress protecting it from the sea, Sokol Keep on Thorn Island. It's now overrun by undead.

All the blocks of the south are connected (also with the block containing the stockade). You can in principle roam around here and look for adventure as far as your power permits. While the game attempts to structure your adventures, it doesn't prevent you from mucking about in this part - except through the increasing nastiness of "the residents."

Gating occurs at several points. If you set over to Sokol Keep and bring it back under council control, some sea lanes open. Then you can reach the northern blocks and the surrounding wilds (which you can explore on horseback on an overland map). There are entry points to the western part of the city from the wilderness map as well, allowing you to circumvent the ruins in between.

In fact, in the beginning you have only two points of access, the slums and the island keep.

A rough start

There are quite a few posts even from recent years of people complaining that this game kicks their butt. The beginning of POR is indeed challenging to overwhelming as it is neither as linear as it seems nor does the AD&D-based engine work as many computer gamers have come to expect.

You see, your best bet to survive in this game is to get your characters up to level 2, but since this is AD&D 1st edition your major source of XP are not monsters, it's gold and treasure. In other words, it's the loot that matters, not your kill count.

It would be better if the game made this more obvious as your first missions are to clear the slums and retake the keep. Clearing the slums does indeed involve a lot of combat, and you are required to beat a certain amount of random encounters and all set-piece encounters in order to progress. (The game doesn't tell you this, it just awards you the mission of, well, "clearing the slums" with no clue what it entails. I've seen guidebooks for this game disagree completely on what this means in game terms.)

There's just a few problems. First of all, as mentioned, the random encounters don't give much XP. Second of all - they scale! The stronger your party is, the more enemies you will face. In fact, at first you meet a handful of orcs, kobolds, or goblins. Then there are more per patrol, and joined by slightly tougher "leaders" with bows. Then goblin patrols might even be led by a bug bear! In other words, you don't really outgrow this mission, and yet you have to beat it.

The best way to level up in the beginning is venturing deeper into the slums and find the hidden treasures. The loot will level you up faster than any combat would. Besides, given that there are a few magic items hidden about, your combat power increases faster. (In turn you can safely rest in any rooms where you have beaten an encounter. Too bad nobody tells you so.)

Being at level 2 increases your staying power a lot. Besides, you need all the loot to pay for leveling up? Tough break, heroes. But you can't beat the slums just yet. You probably need to be level 3 to do that... because hidden in the most dangerous part of the slums (harder encounters) is a TPK in the making, a close quarter combat with trolls and ogres.

Say what?

So, your real best strategy is to level up through finding treasure, then venture to Sokol Keep where most of its quest can be beaten by paying attention to clues - and one sizable combat you won't survive at level 1 because you fight 50 enemies. This becomes doable around level 2 or 3, go figure. That second spell slot, mages!

In fact, you're better off eliminating a group of bandits in Kuto's Well first. Also, around this time Mendor's Library opens up for you - the area around it is safe to rest (making it a good forward base for exploring further into the city), but you can't get into the building proper without obtaining the Knock spell at level 3.

And then you return to clear out the slums for real, thanks to the OP Stinking Cloud spell, also unlocked at level 3.

In other words, you're backtracking. When you're stuck, you can explore new avenues opening up around you.

(A bizarre artifact of this system is that you can clear the required number of random encounters faster if you don't level up your characters - which you only can in town anyway - and handle all the random encounters by staying close to the city gate in "search mode." But that's really gaming the game. And a tad boring to do 15 times in a row.)

Linear and not

Another way to keep track is how the council awards missions and rewards (hey, more XP through treasure). But not all of them are created equal. You can optimize the order to match with your party's capabilities.

Example: Valhingen Graveyard. This is a threat not only to New Phlan, even the big baddie gets scared of the undead pouring out of the cemetery and tries to send his toughest cleric there. (Too bad you learn this by taking a letter from the priest's dead body... oops.)

Basically someone is making undead. And the threat grows. Now, in the tabletop module it grows exponentially, which makes no sense. (They're not breeding, duh, nor is one undead making the next two.) In fact, each section has a specter beavering away, making new undead. In the computer game this is tied to the strength of your party. (Which grows as time passes.)

The mission ends up being raiding the site, battling your way through the undead legions, eliminating the specters making new undead, and finally finding the vampire behind it all and end it. If you don't eliminate the vampire, he will raise the specters again. If you don't eliminate the specters, they will make more undead. Both with some delay, but that just gives you breathing room and the ability to do the mission in chunks if you want. (You better not delay too much "between visits." If you do, you're doing it over.)

Even though the game does try to motivate you to do this mission ASAP, you're better off holding off until you're level 6 - at least your cleric(s). Because then their ability to "turn undead" makes a huge step forward. This actually makes the mission substantially easier.

In fact, at this point your cleric will outright destroy lower level undead. Good luck figuring this out with the little the manual - see above - gives you. The real table is in the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide (T means "turned" without a d20 check, D means "destroyed" - you just roll for how many are affected):

But I digress.

The quest is offered to you twice. At first you're kind of pointed the way. Then you are even formally commissioned (and given magic items to help) to do it. And yet, it's still wiser to wait. In fact, on my latest run-through I delayed clearing the Temple of Bane because not doing so meant a NPC cleric stayed in my party, I leveled both clerics up, and then did the mission with two level 6 clerics as my holy "firepower."

No matter what, the mission is hard. It's oddly one of the few real chances to grind, though. Skeletons and such don't give much XP, but you're given treasure rewards by the council for each undead killed in the graveyard, effectively boosting the XP you receive.

But the decision when you feel ready to do this is up to you. In different playthroughs by different people it will have happened at different times.

Quest marker vs sandbox

There's a general structure to the game, tracked by the missions the council gives. Only after you make enough progress on this quest marker will you open up the finale. But it's up to you to delay some missions. Fighting large groups of enemies becomes substantially easier after you gain the Fireball spell at level 5, for example!

It's reaching these milestones that makes you feel your party's growth in power vs the difficulty curve. When your fighter starts cleaving multiple goblins or kobolds at once. When you cast Stinking Cloud or Fireball for the first time. When your cleric just turns low level undead to dust instead of making them flee.

And so this also influences how you do missions. You can wait for being awarded missions, but you can also explore the maps - the wilderness, the mega dungeon. You can even get rewards for clearing other city blocks if you eliminate enough random encounters.

The wilderness itself has a bonus feature. Not only do different parts have different encounter tables. There's an off chance you stumble across a monster lair (yes, it's random!) and fight your way to some interesting loot.

Dungeons and Wilderness and Scaling, oh my!

So, having said all that, lets put it all together.

First, let's talk XP. Tying XP to treasure means that the most interesting leveling in POR happens at points defined by the game designer, when making your way to hoards of money and gear. Some of them are gated behind key combats, but some are just hidden. The equivalent to this in 5e could be milestone awards, but you're probably best of giving away additional XP if you want to boost your party that way - usually to the amount of an encounter. (It's in the DMG.)

It's interesting, though, that POR in effect, but without outright stating it, did something similar to milestone leveling whereas most other games favored the grinding approach of bringing down enemies for XP. (The "Might & Magic" games stands out for being similar to POR in this, having specific treasures boost your XP dramatically.) The game keeps you motivated to find hidden treasure and accomplish missions this way and while you wade through a lot of monsters in doing so, you never have to grind. I breezed through the game in two days (knowing it quite well by now) without ever having to go "XP hunting", a testament to the balance possible.

You could reduce XP awards for combat if you want to, but then you'd better be on your toes of allowing to evade combat and dealing with it creatively. It's no fun to slog through it on tabletop and get diminished rewards for "doing it anyway."

Next is the mix of big dungeon and other gates areas, including the equivalent of a hex crawl. The balance here is notable - before you can tire of the mega dungeon, you can branch out into differently themed missions elsewhere (free a kid from being sold into slavery, battle it out with a tribe of kobolds, invade the lair of the wizard that poisons the river, etc).

Then there is the notion of sandbox dynamics. When you clear up the Stojanow River you also can traverse the river safely on the overland map. In the adventure module (but not the video game) at some point there's a counter attack on the stockade in an attempt to end the "hero threat" once and for all. Certain events in the game only take place when the respective missions have been awarded - changing parts of the locations. Contrast this with the "you always arrive at the right time" approach taken by many 5e campaign modules (described in the first article).

To top it off, the mix of scaled content vs not-scaled content is interesting. Some things get easier if you tackle them later, some stay challenging, with some content bordering on "Nintendo hard". (Kinda-sorta.) Please note that the game scales its random encounters, something you could emulate by prepping several versions of them, considering the "tiers of play" or a somewhat finer granularity. We'll talk about making things more dynamic in the next article, though.

Buy it on Good Old Games and get a whole slew of Gold Box games along with it. Or buy a scan of the original companion module. Or both.

And if you buy the game, really read the quick reference card for how to navigate menus with your hot keys. No arrow keys for you, no. 7 and 1 are your friends.

[literaryfandomangel]

The Promise - Chapter Twenty-Seven

That evening, I was surprised when they didn't take me to their usual cave, and we didn't spend much time on the Boardwalk as we usually did. Instead, the guys made a quick stop at the Boardwalk before we left to visit a mysterious and secluded place.

They whisked me away to a clandestine hideaway on the back of a motorcycle. I couldn't help but squint tightly a few times due to Marko's daredevil-like riding. It felt as if we were either in a high-speed race or playing a daring game of chicken. Finally, we arrived at our destination, and I cautiously opened my eyes.

Before me lay a small lagoon-like cave nestled against the shore. A pristine beach stretched alongside, while the cave glistened under the enchanting moonlight. As I stood at the water's edge, I twirled around, taking in every enchanting detail. The cave glimmered and mesmerized under the moon's radiance, casting a captivating display of light all around.

“Are those crystals?” I asked, moving towards the cave wall. 

“Yes,” Dwayne confirmed. “Quartz.”

“It’s beautiful,” I whispered, running my hands along the rough walls of genuine quartz. 

“We knew you’d love it,” Paul winked before ripping his clothes off. I let out a small shriek, covering my eyes as Paul wiggled his pants off his hips. “You can look, babe.”

“Are you decent?” I asked, my cheeks flushing in my embarrassment. I wanted to look, but I didn’t at the same time.

“I have boxers on!” As the other three friends laughed, Paul's expression turned slightly affronted, but there was a hint of amusement in his eyes. I found myself unable to look away as he stood by the pool, his physique resembling that of a sculpture carved from marble. A smirk played on his lips as he maintained eye contact with me, and a blush crept over my cheeks as I realized I had been caught admiring my boyfriend before he dove into the pool.

“Come on!” Marko's voice echoed through the air as he confidently shed his clothes and prepared to make a splash with a cannonball into the pool. Meanwhile, I hesitated, feeling self-conscious about my body. Despite my initial hesitation, I eventually mustered the courage to take off my pants and band tee. I chose to keep on my tank top and underwear, feeling more comfortable with this arrangement, before finally plunging into the invitingly warm water.

Dwayne joined our group of four as we immersed ourselves in the refreshing pool. The atmosphere was lively, with Paul and Marko engaged in a playful splash fight. I relaxed, relishing the soothing sensation of the warm water against my skin. Throughout the commotion, Dwayne remained by my side, skillfully shielding me from the exuberant waves generated by the two energetic individuals.

“Do you like this?” Dwayne asked, his deep voice breaking the silence. 

“This is beautiful,” I whispered, gazing towards the sky. Only a small hole was in the top of the cave, allowing moonlight to stream through. 

“I thought you’d like it,” David murmured, causing me to start as I turned around. David was standing on a rock by the edge of the pool, looking at the two of us. 

“I do,” As I stood in the water, a mischievous grin spread across my face. I extended my wet hand toward David, hoping he would join us. However, he shook his head, indicating that he preferred to stay dry. Despite my playful pout, David remained resolute. His gentle smile revealed his affectionate nature as he leaned forward, running his gloved hand tenderly down my cheek.

“He won’t be swayed,” Paul whispered, causing my heart to skip a beat. I jumped, going to whirl around in the warm water, but Paul wrapped his arms around my torso. “Just me, babes.”

“You scared me!” I admonished Paul, who grinned into the curve of my neck. I missed the look that David shot Paul when his eyes turned yellow briefly. Paul just pressed a kiss to my neck before diving into the depths of the pool. I chuckled, letting Marko pull me along with him. 

The four of us swam in the pool for a while. Marko and Paul liked to take turns scaring me. They loved diving down under the water while I was distracted and then grabbed my feet. It never failed to elicit a response from me, which amused the two troublemakers.

“Alright,” Dwayne finally stated, noticing that I was yawning a bit more than usual. All of the physical activity, even though it was gentle, wore me out. Due to the caloric deficit, any activity made me tired very quickly. “Let’s get out. Princess needs some time to rest.”

“I’ll be alright,” I denied Dwayne’s actions, even though Marko was holding most of my weight.

“Let’s go, sweetheart,” Marko murmured into my ear. With his help, we made it to the shore of the little lagoon. David had spread a blanket down onto the ground, where we all lounged while we rested.

I was lying on the ground with my head resting on David’s shoulder. His warm breath was comforting as he pointed out the constellations in the night sky. Wrapped in David’s protective embrace, I felt a sense of peace. The presence of the other three guys around us only added to the feeling of security. It was a beautiful and intimate moment, and my heart swelled with warmth. In that tranquil setting, it felt as if we had known each other for years, and the connection between us felt destined.

As I gazed at the star-studded sky, a sense of profound connection filled the air. It was as if an invisible red string of fate had inexplicably wound itself around each of our wrists, binding us together in an intricate tapestry of fate. With a faint smile, I found my attention shifting from the celestial wonders above to the three other males sharing the blanket with me, each one encapsulated in the same ethereal moment of unity and companionship.

“I love all of you so much,” I blurted out, eyes wide as I realized what I had just revealed. I felt my breath hitch, freezing in my lungs as I froze.

Chapter Twenty-Eight