#i like to think his walk with rocky was the first encounter with the operator in person and the second time was on set in entry 12 bc-

[bloodcounts]

for marbletober day 5. another little preview of my alex-centric fic, "and the waters prevailed"

Something was happening to him. Alex didn’t know what it was. He first noticed it when Rocky started going crazy during a walk. A tall man standing in the middle of the road. Alex left for Rocky’s sake, but later returned to the spot in his car. He didn’t even know why he went to check in the first place, really, he should have left it be. But Rocky had never acted out in that way before and Alex felt the need to check for a reason he could not place. The man had left by the time he arrived later that night, but it didn’t set his mind completely at ease. The second encounter was on the set of Marble Hornets. He had intended to shoot a scene with Brian at the park. In the background was a pale man, tall, and in a black suit. Alex thought the man would leave on his own. He didn't. Alex didn’t remember what happened after he called out to the tall man. The footage cut to black. No matter how hard he racked his brain, he can't remember a thing except the rest of shoot going decently. It bothered Alex too much to simply let it go. He’s not sure if he should ask Brian or Sarah, either.

[anthroposeen]

tmagp 16 relisten notes!!

spoilers for ep 16 under the cut, and also some tma spoilers as well since i cross-reference for theories! :)

celia:

- she physically and verbally comforts alice even though they've had some rocky interactions in the recent past, and she comes off as genuine when giving alice her support

- "i believe you/im serious" -> there isn't a glitch after these lines, and i think its fair to say celia is from the tma universe, the question now is how much she knows/understands/remembers from the fearpocolypse

sam:

- despite being more distant with alice in recent episodes, he's still helping her and checking up on her

- "so that would be Z for zombie?" i thought this was a cute little callback, but also isolated the line because its the first instance we have of sam initiating a bit/joke and alice failing to continue it

- he checks in on alice after they hear Madam E die in the incident and leaves his desk with celia to see about her after she leaves

alice:

- "i haven't seen someone die since..." im taking this to mean that she saw one or both of her parents die and a part of why the drowning victim has shaken her so hard is because its a flashback to those memories

- the woman she met in the alleyway was announced dead by the paramedics immediately, they said she had a lot of water in her lungs and discounted the possibility she could walk or speak

- "maybe that i'm finally losing it" -> i dont think alice is as knowledgeable about the paranormal as we think. she definitely knows more than shes letting on, but i suspect whatever she knows is specific to the oiar and whatever power has touched her life. similar to georgie in tma s3, she knew the paranormal existed and trusted in jon's circumstances but she had little context for her belief, since the only fear she had encountered before was the end. i think alice is operating under a similar world view, and this event does make her question her sanity (shes mentioned old coworkers going odd before, and i think its a genuine worry she has for herself as well as sam and celia)

- she's very blunt and obviously upset after the incident ends, leaving to go get coffee and rebuffing sam as he tries to see about her

gwen:

- she's frustrated that the rest of the team left after the incident and she's alone in the office, and becomes even more aggravated by lena interrupting this to berate her

- she defends lady mowbray's civility (after lena calls externals dangerous) by saying shes a real lady, implying that since she's nobility she wouldn't behave rashly (like mr. bonzo)

- she's frustrated that lena is reprimanding her for breaking a rule she was never told about, and isn't given enough information to gauge risk on her own

- she expresses stress over the real dangers of her job, feeling its unfair she's expected to talk to externals alone without training when they're too dangerous and unpredictable to visit the offices

- despite all of her concerns, she still demands to keep her position and continue her work

lena:

- she's very (reasonably) angry at gwen for inviting lady mowbray to the office

- she says that bringing externals to the office is dangerous and poses risks to personnel

- she explains that the operation to keep balance with the externals, and to exercise power over them, is dependent on how they keep relationships with them. as in, the externals have to be kept at an arms length and not introduced to internal affairs staff to avoid losing the fear and respect the oiar exerts over them. without control over the externals, they lose balance and they may become targets

- she agrees to think on training gwen for a full position as the externals liason

incident:

- narrated by chester/jon, i think this falls into his normal thematic elements of curiosity killing the cat

- most of the incident is told through youtube video format, voiced by the influencer 'Madam E', a goth (im assuming beauty and lifestyle vlog influencer?) youtuber. She got to know ink5oul through online connections

- she received a heart tattoo (unsure of the placement, but i was imagining it over her real heart or ribcage?)

- the tattoo process seems incredibly painful even in this circumstance, and just like in ep 2, the recipient doesnt seem to know the design theyll get until they wake up from the session

- i think the heart tattoo (called the heart's desire by ink5oul) played a role in manipulated Madam E's emotions for them, seeing as how they began a (using ajn's exact terms) situationship following the session

- when Madam E questions ink5oul about how they come up w their design concepts they get cagey and won't disclose their secret method, but offer Madam E a chance to grave rob with them (assuming this is related to the design process)

- "dig." [bruh!] gave me hp damage

- "don't make me break your heart" this is obviously referring to the tattoo and her emotional state, but i think it ties into the tattoo manipulating the subject -> "i could feel the words in my chest"

- Madam E throws out the idea that ink5oul is stealing tattoo concepts from dead bodies, but i dont think thats the exact case. i think that bodies like the one found in ep 11 feed into ink5oul's power and creativity as inspiration and likely as a paranormal energy source of some kind, but this seems more akin to them studying the works of old important artists (and alchemists) and using those techniques to create their art

- ink5oul responds with a callout video targeting Madam E, and i suspect it was about her accusing them of stealing art, not about the grave robbing (which seems a bigger insult to me)

- "it hurts/ i can feel it" referencing the hate messages she's receiving while touching her heart. she then leans forward to show the camera you can physically see a difference (im assuming her tattoo was altered in some way)

- Madam E posted and recalled a video titled "help", then posts a video from a hospital bed where she is clearly ill, stating she has heart problems. the doctors said it was an infection from the tattoo

- she dies on-screen after coughing and choking, but theres a slushie cracking sound as she flatlined (what i'de call wet gore not dry gore) which indicates a problem messier and more visceral than regular heart issues

glitches/lies:

none

extra comments:

- as expected, ink5oul is going to be a reoccurring character functioning similar to a tma avatar. i don't think ink5oul is an external since they seem to be moving independently with their own agenda (and its clear they don't play well with others)

- there seems to be a rift forming between gwen and the rest of her coworkers, and she's been reacting hostile to both them and lena, but has been adamant about continuing her work with the externals. isolating herself from the others while conducting her own missions is a plotline johhny and alex explored plenty in tma (jon, basira, martin) so im excited to see how her journey branches from the themes they've already explored

- this incident falls into line with others chester has narrated, it deals with a person who sought out a relationship with the paranormal and got hurt because of it, though this seems to be targeted at alice moreso than sam (the person chester has narrated to the most), sending a message about how entanglement with the paranormal often leads to bad things. i also picked up on how Madam E says that comments, likes, and views specifically cause her harm, that her social reward had turned into a punishment. this is a pretty clear parallel to alice's situation with sam and celia (she's loosing her hold as the nonchalant, uncaring, funny girl and falling into more awkward and upsetting situations -> this episode she makes one half hearted joke about the victim she met before she moves on)

- huge shout out to ajn for the meta parallels in this episode. every time Madam E was hurt by a commebt i was also brutally stabbed by her garish use of slang. with every new sentence she spoke i felt hours of my lifespan dissolve, truly incredible writing in terms of twisting the meta knife and pouring lemon juice into it

- i think this falls into the category of 'body' (going off of the alchemic trinity of mind, body, and soul) but i could see an argument for any of these categories as well. in the episode, the incident is a category 1, but im not sure if these categories are a reference to the alchemic trinity, to externals, or other factors.

[starlightrows]

Head Over Heels

Part I—

Next →

Pairing: Wrecker x reader

Word Count: 1.3k

Warnings: Mentions of sex, this chapter is pretty much nothing but fluff

Summary: A feisty little mechanical engineer and a massive clone trooper

The last few months have been rocky to say the least, with the way the war is progressing you have to take on more and more work to pick up the slack left behind from fallen troopers, and enlisted men and women alike. Which means you were suddenly promoted up to senior mechanical engineer on this base, leaving you with five permanent squadrons operating out of this base to look after, as well as any pit stops made by any of the other six hundred some odd battalions in the GAR.

You never thought you would be in a position of command, in any form, being the senior mechanical engineer made you the second most senior person in charge of this base. Base Commander, it sounded stranger with your name in front of it. You always thought you’d be glossed over for a position like this, given your overly enthusiastic and rather sunny disposition. A stark contrast from the clone commanders, and high authority military men that were now your peers. But then again, no one knew GAR technology and space craft mechanics like you did.

Your newest permanent squadron stationed at your base was an odd combination of men, who clashed deeply not only with themselves but also with everyone else around them. Clone Force 99, or The Bad Batch as they had dubbed themselves. You didn’t find them to be all that bad.

Hunter was a bit intimidating at first, any man with half of his face tattooed with a skull could be considered intimidating. But he wasn’t all that bad, he was respectful and tried his best to keep his ragtag squad on their best behavior.

Tech wasn’t so bad either, though he did have a nasty habit of trying to get you to slip up in your technical knowledge and execution. He may be genetically engineered to be smart, but that doesn’t mean he knows everything. And besides he hasn’t succeeded yet in getting you to make a mistake.

Crosshair… okay, there is something to be said for him. He could be horrible sometimes with the things he said and the way he treated people. Even the other members of his own squad.

But the last member, Wrecker. He was something else entirely. Loud, boisterous, funny, incredibly sweet and kind when he wasn’t actively trying to blow something up. You figured since they seemed intent on break every rule they encountered anyway, being in a relationship with Wrecker was worth the risk of getting in trouble with higher command.

It started out fairly innocent, he just liked being around you. Watching you fix various parts of the ship, listening to you talk about whatever it was you’re doing… even if it all went over his head. He just liked to hear your voice and see you get excited over things. As time went on, he liked sitting with you while you ate when taking breaks from your work. Holding your hand and marveling at how itty bitty it was compared to his massive one. Everything about you was smaller and softer than him. But your spirit, your passion, and your smile were larger than life.

He couldn’t seem to get enough of your small, soft hands. Any chance he got he’d pull you away from whatever you were doing to come down to your height and steal a kiss, or snatch you up to come to his height to cuddle you close. When he was sure you really wouldn’t be caught, he’d sneak off with you to explore more of your soft skin. Long nights spent in your private quarters on the base, exploring each other’s bodies and giggling through the effort of trying to keep quite. Being with Wrecker meant being patient. Waiting for the right moment to sneak away, waiting for him to come back from mission, and patient in your love making. Taking a man his size is a challenge for you, but patience pays off, every single time.

Every time they left for an assignment you triple checked their ship, The Havoc Marauder, to make sure it was up to whatever perils they were about to put it through. Usually Tech would hover around, inspecting every little thing you touch. Eventually you’d call out your preflight check complete, and Tech would have to resign himself to accepting your clearance. Crosshair would largely ignore you, or more often find something rude and unpleasant to say. Hunter would usher him on, and remind you of their designated return date. Wrecker always lingered, waiting until his brothers were safely on the ship and not gawking so he could bend down and scoop you up for a hug.

“Bye Tiny,” he’d always say, giving you a squeeze.

“Bye big guy, I’ll see you soon,” you always give him a kiss on the cheek before he sets you down gently and steals a quick kiss on your lips.

They’d usually be gone for a couple days, sometimes a week or two. If they had to stop off at another base, Hunter would usually contact you to be aware of a new return date. You hate getting those calls, not like you don’t have enough to keep you busy when they’re not around. But still, when you’re in a new relationship, the only thing you really want to do is be around them. You missed your loud, energetic mountain of a man.

This time, Hunter had commed you not once, not twice, but three times to push back their estimated return date. Apparently they’d been roped into helping a couple other squads in nearby systems.

“It’s good for our image,” Hunter had said “we don’t exactly have the greatest reputation in the GAR”

“Yes, and I wonder how that came to be?” you laughed knowing Hunter would understand your meaning. Their squad truly wasn’t so horrible, but between Wrecker’s collateral damage and Crosshair’s incessant need to antagonize literally every other member of the GAR, it’s not hard to see why others have such a dim view of them.

“Oh you know, people are just hard to please.” he joked

“Well… stay safe. Don’t break too much on that ship you’re so attached to,” you said, Hunter paused for a moment.

“You wanna talk to him?” he asked, you could hear the grin in his voice.

“Can I?” you asked hopefully

“He’s not provoking Crosshair when he’s talking to you, take as long as you’d like” he said “try not to get him too riled up though, not a lot of privacy on the ship,”

You laughed a bit “No promises Sarge,”

Hunter shook his head and left the cockpit, leaving the com channel open, you could hear him walking away. Heavy footsteps rapidly approach the comlink receiver, even though you can’t see him with the holovid feature turned off you know he’s got a big grin on his face. The door to the cockpit slides shut, and there’s a soft sound of him sinking into the pilots seat.

“Hi Tiny,” he said excitedly.

“Hello handsome, causing trouble?” you asked with a giggle

“Me? Trouble? Nah, I’m a model soldier. Poster child for the Grand Army of the Republic,” he replied.

You spent nearly two hours that night talking to Wrecker over the comlink. About the mission, about how things were going on the base, about plans for when he got back, plans for the future, and nothing at all. Eventually, your eyes were beginning to droop and your responses interspersed with muffled yawns.

“Think it’s time for you to go to bed Tiny,” he laughed

“Hmmm…. you’re probably right. Can’t keep my eyes open,” you mumbled “guess that means it’s time to say goodbye,”

“Goodnight Tiny, see you soon,” he said

“Goodnight Big Guy…. love you,” you realized in your sleepy mind, that was the first time you’d said that to him. Maybe this wasn’t the right time, but you’d been thinking it over and over the last few weeks it just slipped out.

“I love you too baby,” he replied before switching off the comlink.

Wrecker sat back in the silence for a moment, letting the gravity of what you’d just said wash over him.

She loves me! He thought to himself She loves ME!

Tag List: @escapedthesarlacc

[amaya-chwan]

Takeaways from Therapy Game: Restart Chapter 09

HELLO FRIENDS! And we’re back at it again with chapter 9 featuring our favourite dorks, Shizuma and Minato! ❤️💛🎉

Sensei was kind enough to post the first page of this chapter on her Twitter!  🥰😍😘

“I thought you understood, but men who fail to keep their promises deserve punishment, okay?!”  --- The text next to Minato.

That’s just 🔥🔥🔥🥰😍🔥🔥🔥

Let’s get right into the takeaways, shall we? It’s a shorter chapter this month, but it is very focused on Shizuma’s residency journey while juggling his house hunting schedule with Minato, and with that, a lot of dialogue. There was also a lot of technical terminology I had to keep looking up ;A;

In this chapter:

Minato is an angry, scowly boy when Shizuma doesn’t keep his promises!😭

Poor Shizuma, he’s torn between keeping his promises and his work. 😭 😭 But I’m proud of you, Shizuma! 👏👏

Minato, my son, I am glad you are getting the simple happiness you deserve! Your patience really is a virtue! 🥰😍❤️

Onodera... really lacks person skills. Is she a recluse? Or someone with poor social skills? I hope we find out?? And she honestly... is so stoic. I cannot read her at all. 😅😅

SHIZUMA, I CAN FEEL YOUR DEDICATION TO AND LOVE FOR ANIMALS THROUGH THE PAGES! You are so very capable of being a vet and I’m glad you are getting the experience you wanted and needed to succeed! ❤️🐶🐱🐹❤️

Also, your k*nky thoughts during work really bit you in the butt, didn’t it, Shizuma? 🤣

Shizuma’s smile makes everyone weak. 🥰

And that’s it for this chapter’s takeaways! For a more detailed breakdown/summary of this chapter, please continue after the cut! As always, I promise there is a surprise (or two) at the end!  😉✨

Our chapter begins with a grumpy Minato sitting in a cafe. The shop attendants peg him as a celebrity of sorts because of his good looks, even though his face is hella scary to them.

We find out that Minato is annoyed and upset because his and Shizuma’s house hunting date (set for Shizuma’s next day off) is cut short since Shizuma is observing an operation in the morning on that day. In a flashback, he tells Minato that he should be able to make it in time for their afternoon appointment.

In that same flashback, Minato recounts his plans to Shizuma of going to a hotel and having a quickie with Shizuma to alleviate his pent up frustrations before heading to their appointment. He then continues to vent his pent-up frustations on Shizuma, saying “Will you take responsibility if my desires reach their limit and explode during our private house tour?”

Shizuma is caught in a bind and really wants his surgery to finish sooner, to which Minato responds by saying Shizuma isn’t the only person who can do this surgery. Nevertheless, Shizuma knows this is an invaluable opportunity for him, and promises Minato that he will make it in time for their 2PM private tour. Minato, still looking a little annoyed, tells Shizuma that he’ll be waiting in the cafe in front of the real estate agency and to meet him there. He warns Shizuma that if he is even a minute late, he’s will go home and never house hunt with him again. Shizuma then promises that he’ll be there!

The flashback ends, and we realise that today is the day of their house tour. Minato is caught up in some “Super Narrow-Minded Time” and worries if he’s going to be all alone with a girl, only then to remember Shizuma openly confessing to his colleagues that he’s dating Minato and that there’s no need to worry.

Minato looks over at the real estate agency and, in deep thought, reflects on how he never thought he’d be living with someone and, despite it being a weird feeling to him, he didn’t think he’d be able to have such an ordinary, simple “happiness”. He smirks to himself and says that he should be nice to Shizuma when he gets to the cafe.*

The scene changes to Shizuma, who will be our main focus for the rest of the chapter. He is observing Onodera in surgery along with her brother. They go through what happened with their patient (i.e. the dog belongs to Onodera’s brother’s daughter. The doggo ingested skewers and it appears to have gotten stuck in the dog’s throat/stomach). While talking about the suggestions from the neighbouring clinics on how to treat the dog--trying to get the dog to vomit and if that doesn’t work, they’ll have to do invasive surgery--Shizuma, having encountered her brother before, didn’t know they were related at all since they have different surnames.

Her brother goes on and vouches for his sister’s amazing skills as a vet, cutely calling her by her name “Akira”, to which she clicks her tongue at him. They have some short sibling bickering afterwards, and Onodera then reveals to Shizuma that he’s mainly there to keep her brother in check (i.e. babysit) and not so much hands-on experience.

With Onodera’s brother being a chatterbox, Shizuma is unable to ask critical questions during the procedure and wonders why he is even there at all.

We then see Onodera extract all the contents stuck in the dog’s throat (?) without having to do invasive surgery. Her brother is overjoyed, but she is appalled that the dog ate so much trash and hair. She then tells her brother that she won’t be helping next time unless they take better care of their dog and their house (so the dog doesn’t eat so much dirt and trash). Onodera then tells Shizuma, who she again calls Iijima-sensei and not Ikushima-sensei, to clean up.

Fast forward a bit and Shizuma is happily looking after the dogs being treated at the hospital/staying overnight. There is a thunderous roar and two dogs approach Shizuma to be hugged, to which he obliges. Knowing he has a lot of time to spare and will make it to the appointment, he thinks back to Minato and wonders if he is afraid of lightning. He then thinks of some naughty NSFW thoughts, imagining an X-rated scene in which Minato is scared of thunder and lightning and that affects their love-making session (in a good way 😉).

Another thunderous roar is heard, much louder than the first, and the dogs are so scared, they wet themselves... and pee on Shizuma’s scrubs and pants. (Also, we find out Minato isn’t afraid of T&L).

Going to the locker room to change, Shizuma is being nuzzled by the dogs, who appear to be very apologetic to him. He awkwardly smiles while thinking that the dogs peeing on him was punishment for his NSFW thoughts at work. While changing into his pants (but not scrubs), Onodera walks in and sees him in his boxers. Very flustered, he tells Onodera she’s walked into the wrong room. She then takes Shizuma to get his clothes washed, all the while the awkwardness in the room continues.

Breaking the silence, Onodera applauds Shizuma for his work in the OR, thinking he’d be more annoyed by her. He then tells her that it’s all thanks to the teachings from Hayami-san and everyone else at the clinic and from Onodera during the operation earlier that day. Onodera comments that he’s getting along with everyone in the clinic, to which Shizuma responds with how things were off to a rocky start at first, the nurses were scary and hostile, but now they can talk and are even going out for flower viewing together.

Onodera reveals she wasn’t invited to that and hasn’t heard of it until now, and Shizuma just sits there feeling bad. He then invites her to join them next time for a drink together. But she just says all his efforts in befriending everyone at the clinic would go to waste if he does that.

Before Shizuma can react, an elderly-ish woman and her daughter hurrily enter the clinic with their sick dog. They are Nakajou-sensei’s patients, but it is her day off today, so Onodera asks what she can do for them while telling Shizuma he can go home. The dog has been in labour for a couple of hours and the last puppy hasn’t come out. Onodera berates them for not bringing their dog in sooner.

The women are taken aback, with the elderly one clapping back at Onodera, expressing her worries and inexperience in a situation like this. Onodera, with her lack of people skills, essentially tells her to be quiet, saying a C-section is the only option for them--a natural birth isn’t possible at this point anymore since the dog has been in prolonged labour and is exhausted.

The elderly woman, angered at Onodera’s stoicism and bluntness, says she will go to another hospital if Nakajou-sensei can’t come in. Before anything escalates any further, Shizuma comes into the room with the patient records and diffuses the situation. With his very personable approach to the women, he speaks to them calmly and introduces himself as he was with Nakajou-sensei during their last consult. He pets their dog, named Hana-chan and praises her efforts**, while also calming down the women, telling them he understands their worries while sharing his own dog’s birthing struggles, trying to build that rapport with them.

He explains that given their dog’s current state, it would be wise for them to reconsider taking her to another hospital and keeping Hana-chan here, vouching for Onodera’s skills and assessment as a well-experienced vet. He asks them to believe in Onodera. The elderly woman thinks about it, and then tells Shizuma she will leave her dog in their hands ONLY if Shizuma stays with Hana-chan the whole time.

Shizuma, knowing that he might miss his private house tour and anger Minato, is resolved to helping his patient and says he will definitely stay to help.

And that’s it for this chapter! It’s a bit of a long read again and we get a slightly suspenseful cliffhanger here... will Shizuma make it or not? Will Hand-chan safely deliver the last puppy in her litter? Will Minato see Shizuma soon? I guess we’ll find out in the next chapter! 🥰

Since Minato and Shizuma don’t really have a lot of panels together, please enjoy two little snippets from this chapter~ ❤️💛

(*) Minato, thinking in the cafe

(**) Shizuma with his patient, Hana-chan

THANK YOU AGAIN FOR READING! 💜 📢  As always, please support Hinohara-sensei by purchasing her books and CDs! 📢

The next chapter will appear in next month’s Dear+ (the December issue) out in November and the cover page will feature our adorakble pair! ❤️💛

🎉⚠️🎉 ALSO in next month’s issue, there will be a Therapy Game Mini Drama CD 🎉⚠️🎉 Sensei is treating us a lot this year!

If you wish to order the magazine, I’ll be more than happy to let you know where I purchase mine, so please feel free to message me/comment here and I’ll let you know! 😁

As always, stay safe during these turbulent times and look out for each other and for your loved ones! 💜

[pocminiseries]

Lonely|3

The Meeting.

♣️

May 23, 2015. "Whatever you're thinking Mora, stop it," Natalie warned lowly, taking a sip of her wine. The raven-haired beauty sat quietly for 5 minutes observing her foreign friend sneak glances at the last person she should want any association with.

Samora focused her gaze on Natalie. "What are you talking about?" She questioned, her pretty face scrunching up in confusion.

"Your attention has been on that man ever since he first walked in and I'm telling you now to stay away from him." Natalie left no room for debate because she knew that he was bad news.

"Relax, I was only looking," She defended but Nat wasn't easily fooled.

She knew that look Samora was giving him. It was a look that so many girls before her had given him once before, even herself at one point in time. Since Mora was new to South Korea her knowledge of local gangs and violence was limited, so she knew little to nothing about what really goes on, especially here in Seoul. In a way, Natalie was hoping to never bring up the topic at all, considering it was once apart of a world that she was involved in a few years back.

"Right. Even if you were, just leave it at that ok?" The last thing she wanted was for someone as sweet as her to get entangled with a criminal like him. They always loved her type anyway. Easier to corrupt and manipulate.

Samora was a bit surprised by the tone of Natalie's voice. She wasn't kidding when she said that she was simply looking. She found the man to be ridiculously attractive to her, so in a way, she couldn't help but stare at him as he sat at a table not too far away from theirs with a group of men.

Her eyes seemed to follow his every movement, slowly becoming intrigued by him. "Who is he then?" She could tell that he had some type of wealth from the way he and the others around him dressed. Their all-black suits were an interesting pick, she thought to herself. Even their faces were perfect, not one flaw in sight or at least from where she sat she couldn't see anyone.

Sighing loudly, Natalie quickly downed the rest of her wine as Samora watched her amusingly. "His name is Bang Yongguk. He's the leader of a gang known as the Twin Dragons. They operate heavily here in Seoul and other local areas and cities." She explained, glancing at the group as they talked quietly amongst themselves, ignoring all of the lingering looks everyone was giving them.

They were used to them by now.

Samora nodded, taking notice of the soft look that crossed Nat's face. "You two had a thing huh?"

"With him, no, but I did with his twin brother." She revealed, giving her a small smile. "It's the reason why I hate seeing him around. It reminds me of a past I try so hard to forget even existed." She hated that they were identical, yet they had certain features that told them apart at times. Her heartstrings tugged every time he came to mind.

Bang Yongnam, it would be a name that she would sadly never be able to erase from her memories.

"I lost myself when I got involved with them. Did things I knew better of, all for the sake of love." She chuckled bitterly, wishing she had more wine to help her ease her sudden anger. "That's why I'm warning you now Samora, look but please don't touch. Yongguk is just like his brother, they take whatever they want with no regard for that person's feelings. Do your best to stay away from him and his goons."

Although hearing Natalie's words, Samora doubted that he would even give her the time of day, to begin with. Besides, she felt as though her friend should've known her better considering she knew where she was from and how she grew up. She was around men similar to Yongguk growing up, so she knew exactly how bad things could turn out from seeing it play it out with her own two eyes.

Plus she wasn't easily persuaded by sweet talk anyways.

"I will. You have my word." She reassured her.

Going to open her mouth to speak, Natalie's phone began to vibrate on the table, cutting off what she wanted to say. Quickly unlocking the phone, her eyes read over the text message from her boss asking her to come in to help the team finalize on a big deal they had been working on. She looked up to see Samora cutting into her steak that she only received a few moments ago.

"My boss needs me back at work..." She trailed off, hating to have to cut off their lunch date so shortly.

"It's alright, I'll be fine. You go handle your business." Samora said reassuringly, waving Natalie off casually.

"But how will you get back home? I drove us here."

Samora shot her a look. "Nat please, I'm sure my grown-ass can find a ride. I'll just get a taxi or take the subway back." She answered, playfully rolling her eyes at her friend's typical worry ways.

"Fine but text me when you make it home." She ordered, reaching into her wallet to pay for everything. It was the least she could do.

"No, I got this. You head back to work." Samora told her, holding her hand to stop Nat who hesitated but nodded in agreement, placing her wallet back inside her purse. The average height woman gathered her things causing a few heads to turn in her direction which she of course ignored. Her beauty was something that did not go unnoticed no matter where she went.

Bidding her friend goodbye, Natalie waltzed out, hoping that Samora would keep her word. It was the main reason why she didn't want to leave her alone. Not because she didn't trust her but she just didn't trust Yongguk, who she saw looking Samora's way whenever she wasn't paying attention.

Now left alone, Samora ate her food silently, enjoying the view of the city. Her thoughts wandered back to what Natalie told her about her past, her warning words didn't fall on death's ear. Matter of fact she doubted that after today, the chances of her crossing paths with Yongguk were slim. That, of course, didn't stop her from peeking at him a few more times before she was finished with her meal though.

Shaking her head, she thanked her waiter and paid for everything, making sure to leave a nice tip. The feeling of eyes on her as she walked through the restaurant and out the doors, she fought the urge to look back. She had been here long enough to get used to the stares yet it still made her a bit uncomfortable like she needed to be on point at all times just in case.

With her skin tone alone she stood out and her tattoos made it no better.

Stepping out into the busy walkway, she pulled out her phone to hail a taxi and waited patiently for it show up. The satin floral maxi dress she wore was just right for the warm weather, and Bang Yongguk appreciated seeing her in it.

The woman grabbed his attention only moments after he sat down. He was only here for business, so his focus was purely on the task at hand but soon he became distracted by the exotic beauty who sat at a table with a very familiar face. A face that he hadn't seen in a while. His curiosity peaked even more, wondering how the two women knew each other.

He had seen his share of foreigners in his country but she....she was far more different than the rest. While he listened to the conversation at his table, he looked her over from head to toe, taking in all of her. He noticed with her hair being pulled up into a bun, it made her pretty face stand out even more. His eyes lingered on her glossed lips longer than it should but he couldn't help it.

The ink on her skin surprised him because not too many here showed them off like she did, especially women but it added to the respect he already gained for her. Her staring at him when he wasn't looking didn't go unnoticed but he didn't have time to explore her more than this.

His plate was already so full and his relationship with women was rocky enough. Zhara was already too much on her own right now.

"We'll have everything ready by the docks at 11. If everything goes as planned, you'll own the shipments that come through the Han River." Park nodded, sliding Yongguk a black folder. He needed this to go by smoothly if he wanted to be apart of the crew. The man could no longer handle working with Vega, someone who didn't give a shit what happened to those that moved under him.

Yongguk's gaze pierced into the man's eyes, searching for any signs of lies. Park fidgeted a bit but held his ground firmly. He meant business. Nodding his head, he took that as a cue that this meeting was over. Bowing to the men at the table he made his exit with the rest not far behind him.

"You think he'll hold up his end of the deal?" Himchan asked, watching Park get into a car and pull off into the busy highway.

"If not, Youngjae and the others will be on standby." Yongguk stated, spotting the same woman from inside the restaurant standing near the road. "I'll be back." He threw over his shoulder, making his way towards her, throwing all caution to the wind.

Tucking his hands into his pockets, he silently stood beside the woman, waiting patiently until she noticed him. A whiff of her sweet perfume filled his nose as a light breeze blew past them. Samora could feel someone next to her suddenly and looked over to see him. Yongguk looked down at her with an unreadable expression, a bit intimidated at how so much more beautiful she looked up close.

His hand itched to touch her skin.

The two stood there staring at the other, forgetting the world around them momentarily. Neither knowing that this encountering was going to change their lives forever.

[orokinarchives]

The Sacrifice

(Update 23 splash)

A tortured vision sends the Operator on the hunt for a warframe unlike any other.

Previous story quest: Apostasy Prologue

Starting the quest

After completing the Apostasy Prologue, this quest can be initiated in the Codex. Upon starting the quest, the Lotus can be heard faintly whispering in the Orbiter.

Lotus: "Tenno… Tenno…."

The Tenno is prompted to examine the Lotus' helmet in their Personal Quarters. Upon interacting with the helmet, the introductory cinematic begins.

Intro cutscene

[On Earth, in a broken-down and overgrown courtyard, dense fog swirls around a dead cherry tree in the deep purple light of evening. Lua looms in the sky, gold-ringed and fractured. A warframe falls to its hands and knees on the courtyard stones. It appears to be a dark-coloured variant of the Excalibur warframe, but with a black scarf-like fabric hanging from its neck, and golden Orokin detailing, including protruding, crescent-shaped prongs along its arms and legs. The warframe plants a nikana in the ground – its pommel featuring the same crescent motif – and briefly leans on it for support. The warframe looks at its own hands, its body language somehow indicative of horror, and throws back its head and howls at the stars. Sparks and beams of light erupt from the warframe in its agony. Exhausted, the warframe slumps over, but immediately whirls around when a refined voice carries softly over the courtyard.]

Ballas: "Howl all you want. It won't bring him back."

[Ballas is leaning on a stone obelisk, obscured in shadow. As the warframe turns to face the Orokin Executor, it becomes apparent that the courtyard is in fact a graveyard. Ballas steps out of the shadow of the obelisk and walks forward a few paces, turning sideways to angle his elongated right arm out of view. Six of the Orokin tombstones ripple with blue energy particles as their forms shift, resolving into Sentient fighters similar to Battalysts. The warframe, on guard, analyses the situation quickly and summons its Exalted Blade. Two of the Sentient fighters raise their arm cannons and fire beams of destructive energy. The warframe deflects them both with the Exalted Blade before Slash Dashing forward and striking down all six Sentients with two swipes of its blade. It then dashes to Ballas and holds the Exalted Blade to his chest. The tip of the blade glances off a personal shield protecting the Orokin, generating a purple glow. Ballas does not seem concerned. His eyes glow orange as he communicates telepathically with the warframe.]

Ballas (Transference): "Lua brings you strength, Umbra—"

[A burst of red energy dissipates Umbra's Exalted Blade, and the warframe clutches its head, disoriented, before quickly collecting itself.]

Ballas: "—but you cannot defy your creator."

[A Sentient – much larger than a Battalyst, but smaller than an Teralyst – emerges from the fog behind Ballas and hovers forward to his side. Ballas steps towards the warframe, gloating.]

Ballas: "Even I make mistakes. Like you."

[The Sentient raises its left arm and vaporises Umbra with a beam of purple energy. After the flash of light, all that remains is Umbra's nikana, still standing upright by the dead tree.]

[on board Orbiter]

[The Operator flinches as their consciousness returns to their body, arm still outstretched towards the helmet. They look around the room frantically to orient themself.]

Ordis: "Operator? Are you alright? Your delta waves spiked for a moment. Ever since she—abandoned you—was taken…. Ordis knows just what you need! A comforting memory from my data store!"

Operator: "Ordis, don't!"

Lotus (recording): "Forgive me. This is who you really are: a Tenno. More than human… but once a child like any other. What do you—"

Operator: "That's enough, Ordis. Scan for Sentient energy on Earth. Recent activity."

Ordis: "I don't think… oh, what's this? Marking on Navigation. How did you know— oh, Ordis, this is the Operator we're talking about!"

First Mission: Investigate Sentient Energy (Lith, Earth)

(Grineer Forest tileset remaster concept image)

The mission takes place on the Grineer Forest tileset at night. There are no enemies initially.

Ordis: "I am not sensing any Sentients, but there is something… oh no, Ghouls! Something must have disturbed their incubation sacs. A disgusting lifecycle."

Ghouls will burst out of the ground. The Tenno may engage them or bypass them. A waypoint leads deeper into the forest.

Ordis: "Operator, I am just a bug-addled Cephalon, but… if you ever need to talk… Ordis would be happy to hear how depressed you are!"

The waypoint leads to an Orokin door with a complex locking mechanism. The door is also overgrown with roots. Upon destroying the roots with damage, Ordis will being unlocking the door. The Tenno must hold their position at the door as the Ghouls assault them. Once the door opens, the Tenno can follow the path through a rocky crevasse that leads to the courtyard from their vision.

Operator: "I saw this place."

Ordis: "How? Did she… did the Lotus show you?"

Operator: "I don't know, but I think she wants me to see this. I'll scan the scene. Check for warframe traces."

The Tenno must scan the nikana Umbra left behind, as well as three fragments of Umbra left behind by his violent demise. Part of Umbra's helmet rests in a pile of ash to the left of the tree, the scarf is hanging from the rock walls on the right side of the courtyard, and one of the golden arm-crescents is lying on the ground at the top of the courtyard, near the entrance.

(upon scanning the nikana) Ordis: "This blade may pre-date everything in your arsenal. Very faint traces of mineral exposure. From Lua."

(upon scanning the first warframe trace) Ordis: "Remnants appear to be of warframe composition. I am not familiar with this design."

(upon scanning the second warframe trace) Ordis: "Almost… crude. If you can get another scan, I may be able to synthesise a partial schematic of the victim."

Ordis: "I know what you're going through. With the Lotus, I mean. Remember how you abandoned me? But look at how—angry—happy I am now! Don't worry, Operator, we'll find her."

(upon scanning the third warframe trace) Ordis: "Processing. I have extraction ready. I think you should hurry."

As the Tenno heads through the passage to extraction, loud cackling can be heard echoing through the tunnel.

Operator: "Ordis? What's going on?"

Large numbers of Ghouls will be waiting at the end of the tunnel, at the Orokin door.

Ordis: "Are they… coordinating an ambush?! I may have underestimated Ghoul intelligence! Expect resistance toward the extraction zone."

The Tenno must get through the Ghouls and reach extraction.

[on board Orbiter]

Ordis: "I've reconstructed what I could. Check your Foundry, Operator."

Upon checking the Foundry, the Excalibur Umbra blueprint will be present, but unable to be built. The build components are undetermined, and the blueprint will be labelled "More data required".

Ordis: "Uncertain if any Tenno has linked with this design. The Transference bolt seems different, but we cannot build this without more data."

Operator: "What about Lua? You said there were traces on the weapon…."

Ordis: "Right. One step ahead, aren't you, Operator! Marking on Navigation."

Second Mission: Explore Lua (Pavlov, Lua)

(Orokin Moon tileset expansion concept image)

The mission takes place on the Orokin Moon tileset. There are no enemies present.

Ordis: "Are you sure we want to build this warframe? It could be dangerous."

Operator: "What I saw… what the Lotus showed me… this warframe knew Ballas. It tried to attack him."

Ordis: "What? The warframes are Transference-controlled. Battle envoys for the Operator to command… I don't understand."

Operator: "This one is different."

An Orokin console blocks further access. Upon accessing the console, a set of three rings covered in symbols appears. The Tenno must rotate the rings to display the correct symbols in the correct order, but no combination will be able to be selected.

Ordis: "An Orokin cipher! Impossible to bypass. They use mnemonic code-glyphs drawn directly from your memory. Perhaps search the area?"

On the right wall of the chamber with the console are two symbols, etched into the ivory wall. Another pair of symbols are on the wall in the room preceding the chamber. Upon approach, the markings will glow and project the symbols in the air in swirling blue energy particles.

(upon finding the first symbol pair) Ordis: "Curious. These markings seem fresh. Are there more?"

(upon finding the second symbol pair) Ordis: "Another. Is that a paired symbol there?"

Operator: "The order may be important for the cipher."

The pairs of symbols represent the first two and the last two symbols in the three-symbol code for the Orokin cipher, with the middle symbol being shared by each symbol pair. The symbol pairs, when put together, reveal the correct order of the three code-glyphs for the cipher. Upon accessing the console again, the symbol pairs will be displayed above the cipher for the Tenno to easily reference, and the symbols will glow blue when the proper code-glyph is selected.

Once the proper combination of code-glyphs have been entered, the gate will open, allowing the Tenno to proceed. In the room on the other side is a Sentient fighter, disguised as an Orokin pillar. The Sentient will reveal itself upon being approached and begin attacking the player with its beam weapons. Like Battalysts and Conculysts, it possesses the ability to adapt to the damage types it encounters, but is weak to the Operator's Void attacks.

Operator: "Ordis! What are these? Some new Sentient design?"

Ordis: "An old design! Mimics! Sentient Mimics! These haven't been seen since the Old War!"

(upon killing the Mimic) Ordis: "How did Mimics get to the Origin System? Operator, be vigilant when approaching… uh… 'things'."

Operator: "'Things'…."

Ordis: "Sorry, I can't be more specific."

More Mimics will be present throughout the mission, disguised as pillars, death orbs, resource deposits, storage containers, or lockers, attacking on approach. Eventually, the Tenno will come to a sealed dome, protected by another Orokin cipher, this one with a five-symbol code. The Tenno must find four symbol pairs in the rooms adjacent to the cipher. Each symbol pair is guarded by a pair of Mimics.

(upon finding the first symbol pair) Ordis: "You found one! Memorise it."

(upon finding the second symbol pair) Ordis: "Another. And look, a different marking beside it!"

(upon finding the fourth symbol pair) Ordis: "That should be the last one. Now… to figure out the correct ordering."

(if player takes too long with hacking the console) Ordis: "You have all the codes, but the order seems wrong."

After entering the correct code, the dome will open, revealing a doorway to a laboratory of some kind. In the lab, an Orokin sentry turret is still active and will fire upon the Tenno until it is destroyed.

Ordis: "These markings signify danger. Was this a containment cell for something?"

Operator: "Umbra. Cave-ins must have compromised the enclosure."

Ordis: "Likely. There are still strong aftershocks from when you pulled Lua out of the Void."

The Tenno must search the lab. Eventually they will find an Orokin data-storage device on the bench to the left. Interacting with it will display a spiral of memory-glyphs, one of which glows blue and is labelled "ENEMY". Selecting it will open up a voice recording of Ballas, while warframe blueprints are displayed in gold on black.

(The Orokin words are, from top to bottom, "sample" and "hand".)

Ballas: "It is with the greatest of risk that I commit this recording. The codices within reveal the hidden weakness of your most feared enemy. My creations. My frames of war."

Ordis: "A Vitruvian – this is rare Orokin technology! Incredible it survived this long…. You should destroy it immediately."

Operator: "What? No. We need to get inside… but it's locked to a new set of codes [sigh]. I'm bringing it back for analysis."

Ordis: "I was afraid you'd say that."

More Mimics, as well as Battalysts and Conculysts, will attack the Tenno on their way to extraction.

[on board Orbiter]

Ordis: "Operator, I'd rather not connect that Vitruvian to my systems. It could—make me crazy—affect my systems in unforeseen ways."

Operator: "This may have belonged to Ballas. He's our only way to the Lotus. Please, Ordis?"

Ordis: "You had to say please, didn't you?"

The Tenno can install the Vitruvian in the lower level of the Orbiter, just outside of the Somatic Link chamber.

Ordis: "Ordis, you need to learn how to stand up for yourself. To say no, and mean it, even if it is the Oper-a-TTTORRR_OR_OR_OR—"

Ordis will glitch out heavily upon connecting to the Vitruvian. The Orbiter will begin to list to starboard, and the lights will go out. After a few seconds, the lights will come back on and the Orbiter will right itself. Ordis will now speak with a completely toneless cadence and will no longer display any glitches.

Vitruvian Ordis: "I have been upgraded, Star-Child. Your warframe blueprint now has the required data. Check Foundry."

In the Foundry, the Excalibur Umbra blueprint now displays the required build materials: 10.000 credits, 1 Orokin cell, 60 kuva, 1.200 nano spores, and 1.600 alloy plate. It will take 10 seconds to build, and be already Rank 30. Once completed, the Tenno will be prompted to equip it in the Arsenal. Upon doing so, the Arsenal interface will disappear as a cutscene begins.

[Umbra rejects Transference control and howls, releasing arcs of energy and damaging its helmet. After recovering, it lunges forward and grabs the Operator by the throat, pulling them out of Void mode. Up close, it can be seen that the damage to the warframe's helmet has exposed biological flesh beneath, and a white eye where one would be expected on a human face. Umbra throws the Operator against the wall of the Orbiter, then follows up by trapping them against the bulkhead, holding their neck within one of the crescent prongs on its forearm. Golden energy ripples across the helmet as Umbra makes itself whole, mending the helmet to obscure its flesh once more. Struggling, the Operator raises their arm and grabs Umbra's shoulder, initiating Transference.]

Inside Umbra's mind, the Operator finds themself within a memory. Umbra's point of view is from a person confined to a bed in an Orokin medical facility. To the right of the bed stands a Dax soldier at attention. To the left sits Ballas, reclining with one leg crossed over the other. Directly in front of the bed is the doorway, but nothing is on the other side but a cherry tree in bloom, surrounded by water, backlit by harsh white light. The Tenno can look around the room, but cannot move, as Umbra is lying in the bed.

Ballas: "Good morning, old friend."

Umbra: [urgent grunts and muffled attempts to speak]

Ballas: "I'm afraid the disease has taken your voice, but we've prepared the finest serums to treat you. Shall we pass the time with a game of komi? Like old times."

Ballas gestures to a 5x5 game board resting between him and Umbra. A clicking and hissing noise can be heard, presumably a Transference bolt engaging in Umbra's brain. Ballas' eyes glow orange as he uses Transference to communicate with Umbra without speaking aloud.

Ballas (Transference): "You remember this game, don't you? Think your move and the board senses…."

Umbra: [grunts]

Ballas (Transference): "Oh, this… I've had them fit you with a Transference bolt. In honour of our… history together."

Ballas: "And look… look who hasn't left your side since you took ill."

Ballas (Transference): "Look at him, old man. Look at your son."

(if the Tenno does not look) Ballas (Transference): "Look at your son. Do it."

Ballas indicates the Dax soldier standing next to the bed. When the Tenno sees the Dax, the soldier glows blue, and a memory-glyph is unlocked. The Dax breaks his stance and steps forward.

Dax: "Can he hear me? Father? It's me, Isaah. Do you remember me?"

The visor of Isaah's helmet retracts, revealing his face. Isaah sits next to the bed, close to Umbra.

Ballas: "Of course he remembers you, young Dax—"

Ballas (Transference): "—which will make this reunion all the more tragic… when you watch him die."

Umbra: [frantic attempts to speak]

The view will shake as Umbra tries desperately to move or leave the bed, and the memory fades into darkness.

Back in the Orbiter, the Operator will collapse to the floor, breathing rapidly and clutching their throat. Umbra is nowhere to be seen.

Operator: "Ordis? What happened?"

Vitruvian Ordis: "The warframe I warned you not to build, that you built anyway, caused a massive Transference overload and damaged my precepts. It has escaped out into the System."

Operator: "When I linked to it… there was something there. A… a memory."

Vitruvian Ordis: "Warframes are Transference proxies for the Star-Child. They do not have memories."

Operator: "Well, this one does. Might be why it's unstable… Ordis, let me look at the Vitruvian."

In the Vitruvian, a different symbol will be highlighted: the symbol unlocked when seeing Isaah, labelled "BLASPHEMY". The recording of Ballas continues over a blueprint of the Sentient unit that was seen earlier in the Operator's vision of the courtyard.

(The Orokin words are, from left to right, "Sentient", "Natah", and "data".)

Ballas: "What led us here? You did. You vile blasphemies. Machines… thinking… breeding…. You were to bear us a new, promised land. But when you arrived at that distant world… you knew that in time, we would bring ruin to it as well. As we had to Earth. And so it was… we came to war."

Operator: "Ordis. We need to track that Umbra warframe."

Vitruvian Ordis: "Done, Star-Child."

Third Mission: Search for Umbra (Nuovo, Ceres)

(Grineer Shipyards tileset remaster concept image)

The mission takes place on the Grineer Shipyard tileset, with the usual Grineer enemies.

Vitruvian Ordis: "Star-Child, are you seeking revenge for its damage to me? Will you destroy this Umbra warframe?"

Operator: "No. The codes are in his memory. If I can get close, I'll go in again and try to recover them. He's the key to finding the Lotus, I can feel it."

As the Tenno progresses through the map, dead Grineer bodies can be seen scattered on the ground. Eventually, Umbra can be found attacking Grineer with his nikana and his full range of warframe abilities.

(when Umbra is spotted) Vitruvian Ordis: "There it is. Approach with caution."

Umbra is immune to all damage, and will attack the Tenno if no Grineer remain alive. His attacks can cross through the Void to damage the Operator in Void mode, but he can be temporarily stunned with Void Blast. The Tenno must use Transference on Umbra while he is stunned.

(if the Operator does not use Void Blast, variant) Vitruvian Ordis: "Star-Child, use your Void Blast to weaken him."

(if the Operator does not use Void Blast, variant) Vitruvian Ordis: "Star-Child, you must use Void Blast to wear him down."

(if the Operator does not use Void Blast, variant) Vitruvian Ordis: "Void Blast, Star-Child. Use it."

(upon stunning Umbra, variant) Vitruvian Ordis: "Now… use Transference."

(upon stunning Umbra, variant) Vitruvian Ordis: "Star-Child, you have an opening. Use your Transference."

(upon stunning Umbra, variant) Vitruvian Ordis: "He may recover, Star-Child. Quickly, use your Transference."

Using Transference on Umbra will take the Tenno into another memory. The scene continues from the previous memory with Ballas and Isaah, although now small patches of Technocyte can be seen growing on the pristine Orokin walls.

Ballas: "Your move."

On the komi board, Ballas has placed a single white stone, which is surrounded on three sides by Umbra's black stones. Beside the board is a panel which keeps score (currently 0-0) and explains the rules of the game. It is similar to the board game Go. The panel indicates that the first player to capture 3 stones wins the match, and points out that Ballas' stone can easily be captured in a single move. During komi play, Ballas will periodically urge Umbra to play, or comment on his move. These lines are spoken during all komi scenes throughout the quest.

(if the Tenno idles, variant) Ballas: "Go on. Make a play."

(if the Tenno idles, variant) Ballas: "It's your move, old friend."

(if the Tenno idles, variant) Ballas: "I'm waiting. Make your play."

(if the Tenno idles, variant) Ballas: "Your turn."

(if the Tenno idles, variant) Ballas: "Take your time."

(after the Tenno makes a move, variant) Ballas: "Finally."

(after the Tenno makes a move, variant) Ballas: "Curious."

(after the Tenno makes a move, variant) Ballas: "A fine move."

(after the Tenno makes a move, variant) Ballas: "Hmmm."

(after the Tenno makes a move, variant) Ballas: "Well played."

(after the Tenno makes a move, variant) Ballas: "I see."

(when Ballas wins a match, variant) Ballas: "Mine."

(when Ballas wins a match, variant) Ballas: "And so I take another."

After completing a match, the board will clear and a new game will start immediately, with Umbra having the first move.

(if Umbra wins) Isaah: "He loves this game. I'll never forget the time I finally beat him… but now I'm thinking he just let me win."

(after the third match) Ballas: "You served with distinction, old Dax. We commissioned a portrait in your honour, there on the wall."

(if the Tenno does not look) Ballas: "A beautiful portrait, don't you agree?"

Behind Ballas, on the left wall of the room, is a portrait of a Dax standing tall on a hazy plain, with scattered wreckage faintly visible behind him. When the Tenno looks at the portrait, another memory-glyph is unlocked.

Isaah: "The Sentient battle at Hull… I can't imagine…. You were awarded the Lua Cross for valour."

Ballas: "Will you follow in your father's path?"

Isaah: "Of course."

Ballas (Transference): "He will, and his children will. You see… these are the stakes of this little game. Each stone I capture will be another, and another, and another… culled from your subversive bloodline. You thought you could outplay me? I've had lifetimes to plan my defection. You spied on me, intercepted my communications. But I saw your move long before you took it. And so… we come to the consequences…."

Umbra: [frantic attempts to speak]

Isaah: "Father? You… you alright? Please! Do something for him!"

The memory fades to black and the Tenno returns to the mission.

Vitruvian Ordis: "Star-Child, were you successful?"

Operator: [gasping] "I couldn't breathe…."

Vitruvian Ordis: "Somehow you are inverting the flow. Not from Tenno to warframe… but warframe to Tenno. There may be residual effects. Return to the ship."

Umbra is nowhere to be found, but Grineer bodies will continue to litter the ground on the way to extraction. Sentient fighters will also appear and begin attacking the Tenno, along with the remaining Grineer forces.

[on board Orbiter]

The Vitruvian interface will be brought up upon returning to the Orbiter, and the Tenno must select the glyph they saw in the memory: "WARFRAMES". The Vitruvian displays an Infested mass as Ballas continues to narrate.

(The three circles are labelled, from top-left to bottom-right, "Figure 1", "Figure 2", and "Figure 3", and the central drawing is labelled "Infested".)

Ballas: "Our hubris shone like a black star… for our technology, our war-machines were your kin. How easily you turned them against us. We were forced to older means. Not circuits, nor light… but flesh and disease. Our horrors past, our ravaged outer colonies… became gardens!"

Continuing to the next section of the recording shows the blueprint for the chair from the Helminth Infirmary.

(The Orokin words are, from top to bottom, "test", "simulation", and "Helminth".)

Ballas: "We cultured the Infestation, conceiving of a hybrid. Transformed, but only just. The Helminth was created, born to yield these new warriors, worthy of battle against you, the great and terrible Hunhow."

The next schematic is of a human.

(The Orokin text says "test subject" and "Infested".)

Ballas: "We took our greatest, volunteers or not, and polluted them with these cultured reagents. They transformed. They became Infested…"

The next schematic is the same human, but now in the process of becoming infested, looking very similar to a Nidus warframe.

(The Orokin text says "test subject" and "sword-steel".)

Ballas: "…but only just. Their skin blossomed into sword-steel. Their organs, interlinked with untold resilience. Yet their minds were free of the Infested madness. Or so we thought. We set them upon the battlefield, bio-drones under our command."

The next schematic is the same human, now resembling an Excalibur warframe.

(The Orokin text says "test subject" and "warframe".)

Ballas: "The warframes… all of them… failures. Surprised? They turned on us, just as you did. And so we had no choice… but to commit them to grave. This is all you know, Hunhow, but there is a hidden half, a secret, that lies within a place forbidden to you and your kind. I speak of the Void."

Vitruvian Ordis: "Star-Child, repairs continue. Allow me to test vestigial precepts for a moment. Like 'caring'."

The lights in the Orbiter will temporarily shut off as Ordis reverts to his previous self.

Ordis (heavily glitching at first): "Operator, you need to stop this! You could suffer permanent harm from Umbra's memory. What if you internalise all this?"

Operator: "I feel like… he's leading me to the truth, about Ballas…. Right now, it's all I have to go on."

Fourth Mission: Pursue Umbra (Triton, Neptune)

(Corpus ship redesigns, DevStream 117)

The mission takes place on the Corpus Ship tileset. There are no living Corpus units, only bloody corpses. High numbers of Sentient Battalysts and Conculysts are present throughout the map.

Ordis: "Ballas must be tracking Umbra now. I'm detecting increased Sentient presence in the area."

Umbra can be found in a large room, fighting against several Sentients. He now has shields that protect him from the Operator's Void Blast. Upon approach, he will emit a Radial Howl that will blind the Tenno and kill all the Sentients. After recovering, the Tenno will find that Umbra is gone.

Ordis: "The area is locked down. We need to take care of those Mimics."

Five Mimics will be hidden in the room, and must be hunted down and killed before the lockdown can be lifted. Following usual Mimic behaviour, they will reveal themselves when the Tenno nears them, and attack.

Ordis: "Keep searching, they are here somewhere."

(after the last Mimic is killed) Ordis: "Lockdown ended, very good. Now, where is that warframe?"

Umbra will be alone in another large room and will attack the Tenno's warframe or Operator (whichever is under active control) on sight relentlessly with all his warframe abilities. As before, his attacks can harm the Operator in Void mode.

(when spotting Umbra, variant) Ordis: "See him, Operator? Advise you approach with caution!"

(when spotting Umbra, variant) Ordis: "Operator, please be careful… he's not in control."

Umbra's shields must be depleted before he can be stunned by Void Blast, but they can only be damaged by Void Beam or an Amp.

Ordis: "Normal attacks won't work. Try using your Void Blast?"

(upon stunning Umbra) Ordis:"That did it! Now is your chance – use Transference!"

Back in the memory, the Infestation has covered more of the walls – it is clear now that the encroaching Technocyte is a delirious projection of the Infestation growing within Umbra. Another komi game with Ballas is in progress, with the scoreboard noting that Ballas is already winning by 2. The layout of the board makes it impossible to prevent Ballas from winning the game in a couple of moves.

Ballas: "Trouble concentrating, old friend? Look at all your komi stones I've taken."

Ballas (Transference): "This one, a brother. These three, his children. And on and on, all of these gone to the Jade Light."

(after Ballas wins the komi game) Isaah: "Father, do you remember your shawzin? Remember how you'd sing to us 'Smiles from Juran'?"

Ballas: "A fine instrument."

The shawzin is on a stand by the right wall of the room, behind Isaah's chair. Looking at it will unlock another memory-glyph.

Ballas: "How thoughtful, to remind him of his better days. Come now, your move. Only a few stones left."

A new game of komi will be on the board, half-completed. Two of Ballas' komi stones are about to be captured, and the board glows with hints as to the proper moves. Performing either move will capture a stone.

(when his stone is captured) Ballas: "Isaah, looks like your father still has his sharp wit."

Isaah: "My father understands the game better than anyone."

Ballas (Transference): "Yet you couldn't understand why I'd give my secrets to our enemy. How could I betray my own kind? But you have never had to sacrifice your love for faith. Imagine – to live, forever, with only one memory: seeing the one you love, die."

Ballas places another stone on the board and passes the turn to Umbra. One of his komi stones is still vulnerable, and the board highlights the proper move to capture it. However, attempting to place the stone causes Umbra to lose focus on the board.

Ballas (Transference): "But you won't have to imagine. A lovingly-cultured Infestation swarms within your blood. Your transformation has begun—"

The Infestation in the room spreads visibly and Umbra begins frantically struggling to move or speak.

Ballas (Transference): "—reshaping you into a sacred surrogate of the unholy Tenno… a warframe with but a single, burning, memory. It is… a miracle!"

Umbra places his komi stone on the board, but instead of capturing one of Ballas' pieces, the stone lands on a different space than the one selected, placing it right into a trap that Ballas has set, ready to be captured on the next move.

Ballas: "But all miracles require sacrifice."

The memory fades to black and the Tenno returns to the mission.

Operator: [gasping] "He's gonna kill him!"

Ordis: "Who's going to what?"

Operator: "Ballas. He's going to kill my… his… son, Isaah."

Ordis: "But aren't these memories, Operator? You cannot undo what has been done."

On the way to extraction, Corpus units will begin appearing to attack the Tenno, along with remaining Sentient fighters.

[on board Orbiter]

In the Vitruvian, the shawzin memory-glyph appears, labelled "TENNO". Selecting it will display a blueprint of an interstellar ship – the Zariman 10-0 – while Ballas narrates.

(The Orokin word to the right says "Zariman".)

Ballas: "Before the vain faith, our people held Dualism as truth. That all things were of two parts. Mind and body. Consciousness and matter. Of our world… and the Void. It was from there that our answer finally came."

The next blueprint is of a Tenno, kneeling in front of a warframe.

(The Orokin text labels the warframe as "body" and the Operator as "mind", and says "Tenno" on either side of the figure.)

Ballas: "Distorted by vague horrors, we kept the Zariman survivors within a secret Reservoir. They were the missing half. Transference-linked: the warframes, the body; and they, the mind. I give you now the coordinates and codes to this place. But do not underestimate these devils, Hunhow. They did what we could not. We had created monsters we couldn't—"

The Tenno abruptly terminates the recording.

Operator: "I know what I have to do."

The Operator Transferences out of the warframe and arrives at the Navigation Console of the Orbiter.

Ordis: "Operator?"

Operator: "I don't need to hear it. I lived it…. Prepare the landing craft, Ordis. I'm going in… myself."

Ordis: "I hope that doesn't mean what I think it does."

Fifth Mission: Confront Umbra (Tycho, Lua)

(The Sacrifice hype image)

The mission takes place on the Orokin Moon tileset. The Tenno arrives in Operator mode and has no warframe. There are no enemies.

Ordis: "Operator, please reconsider. You know how dangerous this is. The Sentients will be here in force! This is why you bring a warframe to these things!"

Operator: "My warframe is here. I just have to find it."

(when Umbra is spotted, variant) Ordis: "See him, Operator? Advise you approach with caution!"

(when Umbra is spotted, variant) Ordis: "Operator, please be careful… he's not in control."

As before, the Tenno must deplete Umbra's shields, stun him with Void Blast, and use Transference on him, while avoiding his attacks. Without a warframe to recover or distract Umbra, the fight is somewhat more difficult.

In the memory, the room is now completely overgrown with Infestation, even the hospital bed, and black particles fall like snow from the ceiling – whether ash or Technocyte particles or something else is not clear. The komi board is unchanged from the last memory, the game still in progress.

This time, the Operator is present, standing in the doorway, addressing Umbra directly.

Operator: "You have relived this moment countless times. But our minds are linked now. We'll face this together."

The growth of the Infestation can be heard audibly, and Umbra begins breathing rapidly, straining from the effort. Neither Ballas nor Isaah react to this, nor to the Operator's presence.

Operator: "This poison he's given you, it has taken your will away. You are a victim, as much as your son."

Ballas looks over at Isaah, then makes his move on the komi board, capturing the stone that Umbra had misplayed previously. The komi stones disappear from the board – Ballas has won.

Ballas: "Sorry, Isaah. The time has come."

Ballas languidly rises from his seat.

Operator: "We are together."

Isaah rises and stands stiffly at attention, bowing respectfully.

Isaah: "I… am honoured… to be your son."

Operator: [points to Ballas] "Ballas did this, not you."

Ballas (Transference): "Don't worry, old friend. I'm not going to kill your boy…"

Ballas extends his elongated right arm and gestures commandingly at Umbra.

Ballas: "…you are."

Umbra's view shakily turns to look at Isaah, who reacts with surprise.

Isaah: "Father? Father!"

Umbra jumps towards Isaah and the memory goes dark.

The Tenno Operator will find themselves in a new place, a curving path suspended in midair leading to a cherry tree. Motes of light and swirls of energy surround the scene. Everything is cast in black and outlined in gold, obscuring detail and texture. The Tenno cannot use any abilities or parkour manoeuvres, and can only walk along the path. As they walk, memories of Isaah's voice sound out in the dark.

Isaah: "Father?"

Isaah: "It's me. Isaah."

Isaah: "Do you remember your shawzin?"

Isaah: "Father? Father!"

Isaah: "He loves this game. I'll never forget the time I finally beat him…."

Isaah: "Father? You… you alright?"

A figure is huddled at the base of the tree. As the Tenno approaches, a cutscene begins.

[The Umbra warframe kneels on the ground, hands pressed to the side of his head, shaking violently as if weeping intensely. The plucked strings of a shawzin can be heard as the Tenno draws close to Umbra and slowly sits in front of him in the traditional Tenno seiza position. Ballas' narration from the "TENNO" Vitruvian entry, which the Tenno had interrupted earlier, plays as the Operator begins to meditate with Umbra.]

Ballas: "—We had created monsters we couldn't control. We drugged them, tortured them, eviscerated them… we brutalised their minds, but it did not work. Until they came."

[Umbra stills and stops weeping. He settles back on his ankles and places his hands on his hips, mirroring the Tenno's sitting position. As Ballas continues, the scene fades out of the black-and-gold rendering and is visible in normal colour.]

Ballas: "And it was not their force of will – not their Void devilry – not their alien darkness… it was something else. It was that somehow, from within the derelict horror, they had learned a way to see inside an ugly, broken thing—"

[The Operator's sitting position swivels to become aligned with Umbra's, and the Operator melts into the Umbra warframe as if through Transference, leaving only the kneeling Umbra.]

Ballas: "—and take away its pain."

The Tenno helps Umbra assimilate the traumatic memory with a dialogue choice:

(Sun) Operator: "We use this memory. It fuels our wrath."

(Neutral) Operator: "We accept this memory and move beyond its reach."

(Moon) Operator: "We return this memory to the Void and find peace in our emptiness."

Back on Lua, Umbra slowly rises from his seated position, glowing with Transference energy. The nikana is embedded in the ground before him, and Umbra grasps the hilt, then draws the blade with a flourish. The scene transitions into gameplay, with the Tenno now controlling Umbra through Transference.

Ordis: "Operator! You did it! Your Transference signal is clean, synchronised with that warframe!"

Operator: "Mark a path to extraction. We've got one last mission before this is done."

Ordis: "Marking, but I'm detecting a mass of Sentient forces converging on your location. Quickly; you may be able to escape."

Operator: "No. Let them come."

Excalibur Umbra is similar to the base Excalibur warframe, with his Radial Blind ability replaced with Radial Howl, which has the added effect of eliminating Sentient resistances. His nikana is named the Skiajati, and will grant temporary invisibility upon performing finisher attacks. Both the warframe and the nikana are max level. If the Operator Transferences out of Excalibur Umbra, then Umbra will retain control of the warframe and fight alongside the Operator, using the equipped weapons and abilities. Battalysts, Conculysts, and Corrupted will begin to appear and attack the Tenno, but they do not need to be killed in order to extract.

[on board Orbiter]

Ordis: "Operator, we have no idea what Ballas is capable of. Please, reconsider this. Why would you risk it?"

Operator: "Ordis. I'd like to hear her."

Ordis: "Yes. Yes, of course… accessing data-store… which should I play?"

(Sun) Lotus (recording): "Now we fight on two fronts, my child. The war without… and the war within."

(Neutral) Lotus (recording): "Dream… not of what you are, but of what you want to be."

(Moon) Lotus (recording): "My child… so beautiful to behold. How do you feel?"

Ordis: "Operator, there is much to be done. Please consult the Navigation console."

Examining Excalibur Umbra in the Arsenal will show that he has an Orokin Reactor installed and is already equipped with three new mods: Umbral Intensify, Umbral Fibre, and Umbral Vitality, which are primed versions of Intensify, Steel Fibre, and Vitality, respectively. They each also grant an amount of resistance to Sentient attacks, and belong to the Umbral mod set, which enhances the stats of each mod the more are equipped. The Skiajati has an Orokin Catalyst installed and is equipped with Sacrificial Steel and Sacrificial Pressure, which are primed versions of True Steel and Pressure Point. Each also adds bonus damage against Sentients, and belong to the Sacrificial mod set, which enhances the stats of each mod the more are equipped. All five new mods are already rank 5, and can be ranked up as much as desired before continuing. The Exalted Umbra Blade also comes equipped with the Sacrificial mods. The next mission cannot be started if either Excalibur Umbra or the Skiajati is unequipped.

Sixth Mission: Return to Earth (Lith, Earth)

(The Sacrifice teaser image, DevStream 112)

The mission takes place on the Grineer Forest tileset at night, with the map identical to the first mission. The Ghouls are no longer present, but Sentient fighters are present throughout.

Ordis: "He is waiting for you, but I'm detecting powerful signals emanating from the courtyard. They are calling out for reinforcements across the entire System. You don't have long."

As the Tenno enters the courtyard, Ballas can be seen standing next to the cherry tree.

Ballas: "I tried to release you from your torment, but it seems those devils rebuilt you."

Operator: "What have you done with her? Ballas, where is the Lotus?"

Ballas: "Has the wolf become a dog? Is this Umbra, or some Tenno?"

Operator: "Both."

Ballas: "Then both will burn!"

Ballas will generate a protective shield around himself, which also lights the cherry tree on fire. Tombstones all around will reveal themselves as Mimics and engage the Tenno, while Battalysts and Conculysts arrive as well. Upon killing all the Sentients, the Operator will Transference back into Excalibur Umbra (if they were out) and a cutscene will begin.

[Umbra advances on Ballas with his blade drawn. Ballas steps forward and extends his left hand.]

Ballas: "STOP."

[A wave of purple energy radiates from Ballas, washing over Umbra, who freezes in place. Ballas smiles with satisfaction as he saunters over to stand directly in front of Umbra, regarding him haughtily.]

Ballas: "You think you can defy me? Not even your Tenno devil can—"

[The sound of steel cutting flesh interrupts Ballas, who gasps and looks down. The Skiajati, still held in Umbra's hand, has impaled Ballas through his left abdomen. Ballas looks up at Umbra in shock.]

Ballas: [gasps] "I… created… you…."

[Umbra's hand trembles, and releases the nikana momentarily, before the Operator's hand materialises to guide Umbra to grip the handle again, and together they drive the blade in deeper, causing it to emerge out of Ballas' back. The Operator releases Umbra, who withdraws the blade, causing Ballas to fall back and stumble to the ground at the base of the tree. The Operator, backed by Umbra, looks down at Ballas and rebukes him. Ballas has different replies based on the dialogue choice.]

(Sun) Operator (angrily): "Squirm, like the maggot you are!"

Ballas: "I… am just the stone…. She is the hand."

(Neutral) Operator: "This was inevitable."

Ballas: "Yes… yes… she has foreseen it."

(Moon) Operator: "The cycle is broken."

Ballas: "Now I know… [gasping breath] what she sees in you."

[Ballas goes limp, seemingly dead. Sentient Mimics drop from the sky and arrange themselves behind the cherry tree, readying their arm weapons. The Operator runs forward, demanding answers from Ballas' corpse.]

Operator: "Where is she? Where is the Lotus?"

[A loud, discordant sound rings out, followed by a sonic boom as a large Sentient drops down from the sky, destroying the burning cherry tree. It is the same Sentient seen earlier, in the courtyard with Ballas. It is purple-coloured, composed of the same wood-like, sinewy material as the Eidolons, about two or three times larger than a normal human. A large pair of arms end in pincer-like claws, which earlier had vaporised Umbra's body. Another pair of arms, ghostly and ethereal, are extended forward, and a third pair of strongly humanoid arms are held together, in front, as if praying. A purple carapace, extremely similar to the Lotus' helmet, is lifted off of the face by a tail-like appendage, revealing the Lotus herself. The skin of her face is now segmented into discrete portions rigged to the skeleton beneath, producing an disturbing robot-like appearance when she moves or speaks. Her voice, though familiar, is toneless and devoid of the little affect she had previously displayed.]

Lotus: "I am here, Tenno."

[The Operator is shocked and horrified.]

Operator: "What? What have they done to you?"

Lotus: "Nothing. This… is what I am."

[The Lotus' ethereal arms have picked up Ballas' body while she was talking to the Tenno. The dozen-odd Mimics behind her suddenly fire their arm beams at the Tenno in unison, but Umbra, with seemingly prescient reflexes, leaps to the Operator, grabs them with one arm, and leaps back, shielding the Operator with his body while bringing them to safety. Both Umbra and the Operator land in battle-ready stances, and the Operator immediately Transferences back into Umbra. The Lotus begins to radiate orange energy as Excalibur Umbra readies his Skiajati and the cutscene ends.]

Lotus (voice distorted and echoing): "Drifting, gaunt beyond the bleak star…. Mother… I am coming home."

The Mimics fly up into the sky, and the Lotus soon follows, taking off like a rocket and warping away in a blast of purple light, leaving only the charred, broken stump of the cherry tree. Instead of heading to extraction, the mission fades to black and ends automatically.

[on board Orbiter]

Operator: [sighs] "I saw her, Ordis."

Ordis: "But it wasn't… 'her', was it?"

Operator: "No. I— I don't know. But I'm going to find out."

After the quest is complete, the Tenno will receive an inbox message from Ordis containing the Excalibur Umbra Sunder helmet (the damaged helmet Umbra had initially, with the exposed eye), the courtyard on Earth as a Captura scene, and unique noble and agile animation sets for Excalibur Umbra.

Inbox message: More Vitruvian Secrets

Operator,

After close examination, Ordis has determined that the Vitruvian contained several more designs for Umbra-related items! I have taken the liberty of constructing those items for you.

Your loyal Cephalon, Ordis

After the quest is complete, the next time the Tenno encounters the Man in the Wall on their Orbiter, a short interaction will play out.

Man in the Wall: "Feelin' better, kiddo?"

Operator: "I killed him… Isaah."

Man in the Wall: "Did you now? Is that how you remember it?"

Operator: "Yes."

Man in the Wall: "Good." [vanishes]

This quest can be replayed from the Codex.

Next story quest: Chimera Prologue

[Navigation: Hub → Quests → The Sacrifice]

[loretranscripts]

Lore Episode 2: The Bloody Pit (Transcript) - 23rd March 2015

tw: death, claustrophobia, racism (H. P. Lovecraft), ghosts

Disclaimer: This transcript is entirely non-profit and fan-made. All credit for this content goes to Aaron Mahnke, creator of Lore podcast. It is by a fan, for fans, and meant to make the content of the podcast more accessible to all. Also, there may be mistakes, despite rigorous re-reading on my part. Feel free to point them out, but please be nice!

Most people are afraid of the dark, and while this is something that we expect from our children, adults hold onto that fear just as tightly; we simply don’t talk about it anymore. But it’s there, lurking in the back of our minds. Science calls it nyctophobia, the fear of the dark, and since the dawn of humanity our ancestors have stared into the blackness of caves, tunnels and basements with a feeling of rot and panic in their bellies. H. P. Lovecraft, the patriarch of the horror genre, published an essay in 1927, entitled “Supernatural Horror in Literature”, and it opens with this profoundly simple statement. “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown”. You see, people fear the unknown, the what-if, and the things they cannot see. We humans are afraid of the dark. We’re afraid that our frailness and weakness might become laid bare in the presence of… whatever it is that lurks in the shadows. We’re afraid of opening up places that should remain closed. We fear what we can’t see, and sometimes, for good reason. I’m Aaron Mahnke, and this is Lore.

The Berkshire Mountain Range in Western Massachusetts sits in the very top left corner of the state. It’s not the Rockies by any stretch of the imagination, but in 1851, those hills were in someone’s way. The Troy and Greenfield Railroad Company wanted to lay some track that would cut through the mountains, and so they begun work on a tunnel. On the western end sat the town of Florida, with North Adams holding up the eastern end. Between those towns was about 5 miles of solid rock. This building project was no small undertaking, no matter how unimpressive the mountains might be. It ultimately took the crew 24 years to wrap things up, and came at the cost of $21.2 million. In 2015 money, that’s $406, 493, 207. See? It was a big deal. Monetary costs aside however, construction of the tunnel came with an even heavier price tag. At least 200 men lost their lives cutting that hole through the bones of the earth.

One of the first major tragedies occurred on March 20th , 1865. A team of explosive “experts”, and I use that term loosely because nitro-glycerine had just been introduced to America about a year before, entered the tunnel to plant the charge. The three men, Brinkman, Nash and Kelley (who, by the way, his first name was Ringo, which I think is just awesome) did their work and then ran back down the tunnel to their safety bunker. Only Kelley made it to safety. It turns out that he set off the explosion just a bit too early, burying the other two men alive. Naturally, Kelley felt horrible about it, but no one expected him to go missing, which he did, just a short while later. But the accidents? They didn’t end there.

Building a railway tunnel through a mountain is complex, and one of the features most tunnels have is a vent shaft. Constant coal-powered train traffic could result in a lot of smoke and fumes, so engineers thought it would be a good idea to have a ventilation shaft that extended from the surface above and allowed fumes and water to be pumped out. This shaft for the Hoosac Tunnel, as it became known, would be roughly 30ft in diameter, and eventually would stretch over 1000ft down and connect with the train tunnel below. By October of 1867 it was only 500ft deep. Essentially it was a really, really deep hole in the ground. To dig this hole they built a small building at the top which was used to raise and lower hoists to get the debris out, as well as a pump system to remove ground water. Then, each day, they would lower a dozen or more crazy, Cornish miners (not underaged kids, by the way, the other kind of miner) into the hole, and set them to work. You see where this is going, right? Please tell me that you see where this is going.

On October 17th, a leaky lantern filled the hoist house with natural gas, a naphtha, an explosive gas found in nature, and the place blew sky-high. As a result, things started to fall down the shaft. What things? Well, for starters, 300 freshly sharpened drill bits. Then, the hoist mechanism itself, and finally, the burning wreckage of the building. All of it fell five stories down the tunnel and on top of the 13 men working away at the bottom. Oh, and because the water pump was destroyed in the explosion, the shaft also began to flood. The workers on the surface tried to reach the men at the bottom, but they failed. One man was even lowered into the shaft in a basket, but he had to be pulled back up when the fumes became unbearable. He managed to gasp the words “no hope” to the workers around him, before slipping into unconsciousness. In the end they gave up, called it a loss, and actually covered the shaft. But in the weeks that followed, the workers in the mine frequently reported hearing the anguishing voice of men crying out in pain. They said they saw lost miners carrying picks and shovels, only to watch them vanish, moments later. Even the people in the village nearby told the tales of odd shapes and muffled cries near the covered pit. Highly educated people, upon visiting the construction site, reported similar experiences. Glenn Drohan, a correspondent for the local newspaper wrote that “the ghastly apparitions would appear briefly, then vanish, leaving no footprints in the snow, giving no answers to the miners’ calls”. Voices, lights, visions, and odd shapes in the darkness, all the sorts of experiences that we fear might happen to us when we step into a dark bedroom or a basement.

A full year after accident, they reopened the shaft, drained out all 500ft of water. They wanted to get back to work, but when they did, they discovered something horrific. Bodies… in a raft. You see, apparently some of the men survived the falling drill bits and debris long enough that they managed to build a raft. No one knows how long they stayed alive, but it’s pretty clear they died because they had been abandoned in a flooding hole in the ground. After that the workers began to call the tunnel by another name: the “Bloody Pit”. Catchy, right?

About 4 years after the gas explosion, two men visited the tunnel. One was James McKinstrey, the drilling operations superintendent for the project, and the other was Dr. Clifford Owens. While in the tunnel, the two men, both educated and respected among their peers, had an encounter that was beyond unusual. Owens wrote: “On the night of June 25th, 1872, James McKinstrey and I entered the great excavation at precisely 11:30pm. We had travelled about 2 miles into the shaft when we finally halted to rest. Except for the dim smoky light from our lamps, the place was as cold and dark as a tomb. James and I stood there talking for a minute or two and were just about to turn back when I suddenly heard a strange, mournful sound. It was as if someone, or something, was suffering great pain. The next thing I saw was a dim light coming along the tunnel from a westerly direction. At first I believed it was probably a workman with a lantern; yet, as the light grew closer, it took on strange, blue colour, and appeared to change shape, almost into the form of a human being without a head. The light seemed to be floating along, about a foot or two above the tunnel floor. In the next instant it felt as if the temperature had suddenly dropped and a cold, icy chill ripped up and down my spine. The headless from came so close that I could have reached out and touched it, but I was too terrified to move. For what seemed like an eternity, McKinstrey and I stood their gaping at the headless thing like two wooden Indians. The blue light remained motionless for a few seconds, as if it was actually looking us over, then floated off towards the east end of the shaft, and vanished into thin air. I am, above all, a realist. Nor am I prone to repeating gossip and wild tales that defy a reasonable explanation. However, in all truth, I cannot deny what James McKinstrey and I witnessed with our own eyes”.

The Hoosac tunnel played host to countless other spooky stories in the years that followed. In 1874, a local hunter named Frank Webster simply vanished, and when he finally stumbled up the banks of the Deerfield River three days later, he was found by a search party without his rifle and appearing to have been beaten bloody. He claimed he’d been ordered into the tunnel by voices and lights, and once he was inside, he saw ghostly figures that floated and wandered about in the dark. His experience ended when something unseen reached out, took his rifle from him, and clubbed him with it. He had no memory of walking out of the tunnel. In 1936 a railroad employee named James Impoco, claims that he was warned of danger in the tunnel by a mysterious voice, not once, but twice. I’m thinking it was Ringo, trying to make up for being an idiot. In 1973, for some unknown and god-awful reason, a man decided to walk through the full length of the tunnel. This brilliant man, Bernard Hastaba, was never seen again. One man, who walked through and did make it out though, claims that when he was in the tunnel, he saw the figure of a man dressed in old clothing of a 19th century miner. Again, not a kid. He left in a hurry, from what I’ve read.

Stories about the tunnel persist to this day. It’s common for teams of paranormal investigators to walk the length of the tunnel, although it’s still active with a dozen or so freight trains that pass through each day. There are rumours of a secret room, or many rooms, deep inside the tunnel. There’s even an old monitoring station built into the rock about half way through, though few have been brave enough to venture all the way there and see it. Those that have report more of the same: unexplained sounds and lights. Oh, and remember Ringo Kelley, our sloppy demolition expert who got his co-workers killed in 1865? Well, he showed up again. In March of 1866, one full year after the explosion, his body was found 2 miles inside the tunnel, in the exact same spot where Brinkman and Nash had died. He had been strangled to death.

Lore was produced by me, Aaron Mahnke. You can find a transcript of this show, including links to source materials, at lorepodcast.com. Lore is a biweekly podcast, so be sure to check back in for a new episode every two weeks. If you enjoy scary stories, I happen to write them. You can find a full list of my supernatural novels, available in paperback and ebook formats, at aaronmahnke.com/novels. Thanks for listening.

[mikeedpp]

Baguio has always been a special place for me.

The first memory I have of it was when I complained about how ‘hot’ it was in Baguio back in the early 2000’s. I was wearing a matching plain yellow pullover and denim pants with my older sister, so my parents bought a white shirt for me, thinking that my pullover was sweating me out, but I actually wanted the blue-tinted Hello Kitty sunglasses I saw on the street vendor in Burnham Park to cool me down from the ‘heat.’ (This memory makes me hate my younger self! Haha!) Our family gatherings in Baguio went on as we grow. We would often go up north with a different set of relatives whenever long weekends and special occasions come. One of the most memorable trips though was when my deceased lolo Mario would keep a roof over our heads through his friend’s rustic house.

In 2011, my high school batchmates and I had a retreat in Mirador Jesuit Villa Retreat House Society of Jesus located atop Lourdes Grotto. It was one of the most awaited events in our high school life because we are going to spend our last retreat in Baguio. I remember how our class would listen to Katy Perry’s Peacock in the bus, how my roommate Selina and I would overthink the ghosts in our head, and how my teachers caught my friends illegally paddling in Burnham Park.

In early-December 2016, I got to revisit Baguio after six long years. It has changed a lot, but every corner of it still looked familiar to me. Every familiar place reminded me of a familiar face, especially my lolo Mario who just died nine months before. Baguio became my answer to the question, “Where do broken hearts go?” I went back there on all weekends of December with a different set of friends to create new memories. And it worked! It helped me prevail acceptance over hatred. I was able to move on with a happy heart.

This November, my family and I planned to come back to Baguio in time for the ASEAN Summit holiday to celebrate my mother’s birthday. We already booked roundtrip bus tickets for Friday night, but we got tested twice. First was the coming of Tropical Storm Salome, and second was when my younger sister broke the news that she’ll be having a makeup class on Saturday. My sister has never been (and never will be) absent from school, so it took us a lot of frustrations and compromises just to make our trip happen, but none of them worked.

Through it all, only one thing worked: prayer. For two days, I persistently prayed for our trip, for good weather, for my sister’s discernment, and that the superiors in my sister’s school may realize that this holiday is meant to be enjoyed with the family. As faith would have it, she came home on a Thursday night with the news that their Saturday class got canceled!

Our comeback as a whole family was a long time coming and it was worth the wait! However, the tests did not end at home. Much of our patience were tested in Baguio because this time, we commuted, we didn’t have a private car to carry us around, they relied on me on all of our whereabouts, and my family can’t afford to take long walks. Oh, the perks and the perils of traveling with the whole family!

Because of these, I was able to relearn some things: 1) unlike money, time and energy consumed cannot be replaced; 2) everything takes trust and patience, and 3) God is always with us. Here’s why.

Unlike money, time and energy consumed cannot be replaced. This has become one of my mantras after I graduated from the University. Of course, money is important, but I didn’t want it to become the strength and hindrance of what I choose to do in life.

According to an article on Medium, time, money, and energy are the constants that ‘rule our life.’ “When people are young, they have a lot of time and energy but no money and unfortunately most of them aren’t really wise enough to utilize these constants properly. When they grow into working-class citizens then they have a lot of energy and money but no time. They have work that takes their time. Of course, they are still young, so they have energy too. When they grow old, they have money, if they were smart enough to have saved some for retirement, but have no energy to do all the things they wanted to do when they were young.”

I got reminded of this when my family and I were in Baguio. I prefer walking around the city even if it takes me 15 minutes to reach my destination. I love maximizing its breeze and trees. I absolutely can’t and won’t do that in Manila! However, it is not for everyone. Most roads are steep, which make it hard for impatient and (in denial) aging people—also known as my family—to walk. It takes too much energy from them. This is why I decided to travel and pursue my passions at a young age. I didn’t want to look back on my youth and take a deep breath on the things I could have done while I was young and able. I can earn and save up again, but I can never bring my time and my energy back.

It takes trust and patience. As mentioned above, my family relied on me on all of our whereabouts during our trip. I knew almost every place in Baguio, although choosing where to eat was still a struggle. They kept asking me, “Saan na tayo?” “Malapit na ba?” “Maganda ba doon?” “Masarap ba doon?” As if I will take them somewhere they don’t deserve.

In those moments, I saw myself in them. I saw how worried I am whenever I don’t understand where the Lord is taking me. I often overthink, “How will I achieve this?” “How will I get there?” “How will I do that?” “Are we there yet?” As if our God is not able. As if our God will not fulfill His promises to me and you. As if He doesn’t know what He is doing. As if He doesn’t have the best plans for me. As if He will take me somewhere I don’t deserve.

Yes, waiting is not easy, especially when we don’t know what’s ahead of us. The long hike to the summit, the rocky road to employment, the coming of our future spouse. But in the end, the result is always beautiful because it is from God.

Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” John 13:7

So what do I do during the wait? Waiting doesn’t mean doing nothing. From experience, I decide on what areas in my life I should work on and persistently ask for His blessing and provision on my decisions. In the long run, He will establish your steps. He will reveal His answers to you through the Bible, the people around you, and the experiences you encounter. Work according to His will and believe that he will fulfill His promises for you. All it takes is trust and patience.

The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps. Proverbs 16:9

God is always with us. It was 10:45 PM when my family and I just got home from the night market on Harrison Road. We thought we can finally rest after the long day until I found out that my phone is missing. I can’t remember how and when I lost it. All I know is that it can’t be lost because I have important files, notes, contacts, and conversations in it. My mother called my number, but it was out of reach on the first attempt. My sister kept calling, while I stayed in the room to compose myself. After a few minutes, someone was blowing the horn. My father and sister went out, only to find out that it was the taxi driver who drove us home from the night market. “Nagulat ako may umiilaw sa baba,” he said as he gave my phone back. “Thank you, angel, ha!” my father shouted in delight. When I went closer to them, I saw the name of the taxi (Angel Brielle Rose Taxi) and the name of the operator (Emmanuel Altaki).

Emmanuel means God is with us.

This incident reminded me that God is always with us. We are only passengers in this world. He assigns our respective driver to guide and protect us along the way, and He alone is the operator of all the rides we encounter. God is good. He is faithful. He is in control. He got it all figured out. He never fails. In all ways, always.

So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. Isaiah 41:10

You see, relearning is one of the reasons why I like revisiting places. No experience is ever the same because places continuously reveal new aspects of the things we thought we already know. They keep on reintroducing themselves in the form of new experiences, new people, new food, new wisdom, and new eyes that no new place could ever give.

This goes the same with our life. God lets us revisit our life every waking day to let us make things right, to be a blessing to others, to maximize the talents and skills He has given us, and to glorify Him alone.

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. Lamentations 3:22-23

What place do you keep coming back to? What relearning experiences do you get every time you come back? How does God reveal Himself to you when you’re out there? I’d love to know your stories and testimonies!

Mikee

This post was originally published on Nov. 29, 2017, in my now-defunct website World In My Words.

[livinginlandmarketing]

This story is Part 3 of a series

What actually happened to David O’Sullivan?

Two weeks into what was supposed to be a 2,650-mile hike of the Pacific Crest Trail, the 25-year-old from Ireland made it to the Riverside County town of Idyllwild. He stopped for a couple of days to resupply, checked out of his hotel room the morning of April 7, 2017, and was never heard from again.

After that, there are three broad possibilities.

One: He died somewhere in the San Jacinto Mountains north of Idyllwild.

Two: He died somewhere else.

Three: He’s alive, which would mean — unless you believe in sci-fi or soap opera plots — he disappeared on purpose.

“Oh God no,” his mother, Carmel O’Sullivan, said about the third possibility. “99.9% of my heart says no. … He wouldn’t have been so cruel to do that to us.”

Read the series

Part 1: The mysterious disappearance of Pacific Crest Trail hiker David O’Sullivan

Map: David O’Sullivan’s 180-mile Pacific Crest Trail journey

Part 2: Who’s looking for David O’Sullivan? At first, almost no one

More: Missing in the mountains: 4 families ache for those lost

Part 3: 4 years later, searchers seek an answer: What was David O’Sullivan’s fate?

A team of volunteer searchers who haven’t given up hope of finding answers are focused on the first option. But they face some formidable challenges.

No one knows which of the many possible routes he planned to take from Idyllwild back to the Pacific Crest Trail or how far he may have gotten.

“If we only had one haystack, we’d eventually be able to find the needle, but we have half a dozen different haystacks,” said Jon King of Idyllwild, a prolific local hiker who’s helped searchers try to figure out the likeliest scenario.

The terrain where the group believes O’Sullivan is most likely to have met trouble is steep and thickly forested, and quickly becomes inaccessible when you get off trail. Drones would be the best way to search, but the area is designated as state wilderness, where drones aren’t allowed, and federal rules say pilots have to keep their drones in sight at all times, which wouldn’t be possible. Even if the group could get permission, the trees and boulders can obscure objects on the ground.

One dark possibility that his mother worries about is whether O’Sullivan could have gotten lost and wandered into an area where marijuana was being grown — a significant problem in California’s national forests. Some of the people searching for O’Sullivan wonder, even if he met a natural or accidental death, could someone else have found him first? If people involved in illicit activity found his remains, could they have disposed of them so as not to attract law enforcement’s attention?

If O’Sullivan’s remains are out there in the wilderness, the forces of nature — from rain, snow and sun to gravity and animals — have had four years to claim them. Every season that goes by makes the task harder, and 2020 was a lost year because of the pandemic.

A photo taken during an aerial search of the San Jacinto Mountains shows Fuller Ridge, the portion of the Pacific Crest Trail where volunteer searchers believe missing hiker David O’Sullivan is most likely to have encountered trouble in April 2017. (Photo courtesy of FireWatch)

Still, the volunteer team has some reason for optimism. In late 2019 and again in early 2021, they found the remains of two other people they searched for: Paul Miller, a Canadian who went missing in Joshua Tree National Park in summer 2018, and Rosario “Chata” Garcia, a local woman with dementia who disappeared in July 2020 after getting her car stuck on a rocky trail 40 miles from her home.

Western States Aerial Search, a nonprofit group of drone operators based in Utah, was able to fly over the areas around where Miller’s and Garcia’s cars were found — they got permission from the national park, and none was needed in the area where Garcia went missing. Volunteer image searchers then began scouring the photographs. In both cases, a Missouri man, Morgan Clements, was the one who first spotted bones.

After Miller was found, Carmel O’Sullivan said the success gave her hope. But while she’s happy for other families to get good news, she’s a little jealous too.

Not knowing what happened to her son, not being able to bring him home and bury him, is an ache that won’t go away. She still hasn’t been able to bring herself to give away his clothes and books.

“The passage of time — in one way, it does ease (the pain), but in another, I don’t think it ever will,” she said recently.

Her son’s 30th birthday is this August, and it’s hard for her to think that as she and her husband and David’s brother grow older, David never will.

The force behind the search

After seeing the struggles of the O’Sullivans and other families, Cathy Tarr, the woman leading the volunteer search effort, was inspired to start an organization to help. The Fowler O’Sullivan Foundation achieved nonprofit status in 2020 — a bright spot for Tarr in a year that included not just the pandemic but a breast cancer diagnosis.

The foundation will use what Tarr and her team have learned to become a resource for families of people who have gone missing in wilderness situations, especially once the official search-and-rescue efforts end.

“When that’s called off, that’s when families are lost,” Tarr said. “They don’t know what to do — how to read a map, how to look for clues, how to attract volunteers. It becomes random. We do it systematically.”

The foundation’s other focus will be proactive safety initiatives. Tarr said they gave away six rescue beacons to Pacific Crest Trail hikers this year and partnered with Nomad Ventures in Idyllwild to offer discounts on microspikes, which go on hikers’ shoes to give them better traction in the snow.

Cathy Tarr stands at the Devil’s Slide Trailhead in Idyllwild on Wednesday, May 12, 2021. She considers that trail the most likely route that David O’Sullivan would have taken from town back to the Pacific Crest Trail on the day he went missing. (Photo by Will Lester, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)

Cathy Tarr sits near the Devil’s Slide Trailhead in Idyllwild on Wednesday, May 12, 2021. Tarr is leading volunteer search efforts for David O’Sullivan, a young man from Ireland who went missing in the Idyllwild area while hiking the Pacific Crest Trail in 2017. (Photo by Will Lester, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)

Cathy Tarr holds a rescue beacon similar to ones that a nonprofit group she founded last year, the Fowler-O’Sullivan Foundation, gave away to six Pacific Crest Trail hikers this year. (Photo by Will Lester, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)

Cathy Tarr’s research into the David O’Sullivan case and other missing hikers has included research on how people are likely to behave when they get lost. (Photo by Will Lester, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)

Cathy Tarr walks to towards the Devil’s Slide Trailhead in Humber Park Idyllwild on Wednesday, May 12, 2021. (Photo by Will Lester, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)

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Tarr’s involvement in O’Sullivan’s case began with unrelated events in two corners of the United States far from Southern California.

Tarr, now 58, had been planning to hike the Pacific Crest Trail herself in 2017, and had been in New Hampshire training for the snow. Two weeks before she was supposed to head out, she was in a car crash.

She couldn’t hike, but she heard about another PCT hiker named Kris Fowler who’d gone missing in late 2016 in a snowstorm in Washington, and she figured she could help. She traveled there for a four-day search and ended up staying six or eight weeks, she said. (Fowler — the other namesake of Tarr’s foundation — also has never been found, though volunteers and the local sheriff’s department continue to search and Tarr remains involved in those efforts, too.)

While she was in Washington, word of O’Sullivan’s disappearance began to spread north up the Pacific Crest Trail.

Tarr had previously lived in Southern California and her daughter still lives here. Tarr was planning to visit and found out that O’Sullivan’s parents were coming from Ireland at the same time, so she arranged to have lunch with them after they met with the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department.

“They were very unhappy with the meeting they had just had, so I said let’s do our own investigation,” Tarr said.

She was surprised by how little was being done to search for O’Sullivan compared to Fowler’s case. “I thought, ‘Woah, this is weird. Where are all the flyers? Who’s searching for him? What’s going on?’”

Tarr knows the heart-wrenching feeling of having a son go missing. A year or two before meeting the O’Sullivans, she got a call in the middle of the night that her own son hadn’t returned from a hike to the mountains.

“I know that initial shock that a family gets,” Tarr said. “I’ve felt it. I remember pacing back and forth … I remember calling the police. I remember how scared I was.”

Thankfully, her son was found safe in less than a day. But even now, she visibly tenses up talking about it.

“Once you experience that, it’s something you never forget,” she said.

That feeling is part of what has motivated her in the almost four years since she first met O’Sullivan’s parents.

“If it weren’t for her, there probably would be no search going on,” Carmel O’Sullivan said.

Solving the mystery

Over the past four years, Tarr and the team of volunteers she assembled have done extensive research to narrow down the possibilities of what could have happened to O’Sullivan.

Working backward through that list of three broad possibilities, they don’t believe he could still be alive.

David O’Sullivan, then 25, of Ireland, took this photo of himself while he was hiking the Pacific Crest Trail in Southern California in spring 2017. (Photo courtesy of the O’Sullivan family)

Friends and family say O’Sullivan was as enthusiastic about the trip as he’d been about anything, and his messages from the trail showed someone who “had set himself a personal challenge and was enjoying the journey,” in his mother’s words.

Sgt. Sean Lawlor, a Murrieta police officer who first took O’Sullivan’s missing-person report, also did some investigating and doesn’t believe O’Sullivan survived. Knowing he was an inexperienced solo hiker and had a good family dynamic, he believes O’Sullivan probably got lost, maybe dehydrated or washed away by a river.

“I didn’t get any inkling of signs of foul play or that he would have run off,” Lawlor said.

Once word of O’Sullivan’s disappearance got out, his family received many tips from people who thought they saw him at points north of Idyllwild.

“He was even ‘found’ a few times, even to the point where we rang hostels to speak with ‘him’. None of these sightings were him,” Niall, his older brother, wrote in an online post in July 2017.

During the reporting of this story, someone Tarr’s volunteer team had never heard from before, despite all of their outreach, came forward on Facebook claiming to have seen O’Sullivan that summer in Kennedy Meadows, an area known as the PCT’s gateway to the Sierra. “I even joked with him and a few other hikers that he was the missing Irish dude. Guy basically told me to mind my business,” the commenter wrote.

Tarr believes sightings like those are cases of mistaken identity. She’s found at least three or four other hikers from that year who look very similar to O’Sullivan. The accent is what stood out to some people who thought they’d encountered the Irishman, but hikers came to the PCT from all over the world, including places with similar-sounding accents such as Scotland.

O’Sullivan had been stopping in towns and making financial transactions all the way to Idyllwild, but nowhere after that, including the next town where he would have needed to resupply, Big Bear, about five days up the trail from Idyllwild. Several thousand dollars were left sitting in his bank account. His Kindle was never turned on after April 5.

Why, Tarr reasons, would he have kept hiking without doing any of those things — let alone without contacting his family again. She’s convinced that he couldn’t have made it to Big Bear or else his family would have heard from him there.

While a hiker can run into trouble anywhere, everything that Tarr knows about the trail and the conditions that year tells her that O’Sullivan faced the highest risk on the trail just north of Idyllwild.

Heavy winter storms broke a five-year drought and covered the San Jacinto Mountains in snow that was still up to 3 feet deep when O’Sullivan was coming through. Multiple hikers reported trouble in the mountains, especially along a 5-mile stretch of the PCT that traverses Fuller Ridge. People were sliding downhill and enduring exhausting, injury-inducing battles to get back to the trail. Several hikers required rescue that spring.

A sign at the northwest trailhead to Fuller Ridge, part of the Pacific Crest Trail in the San Jacinto Mountains, warns hikers to be prepared for hazardous conditions. (Photo by Nikie Johnson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)

When O’Sullivan set out, “He was very ill-prepared,” Tarr said. He hadn’t trained in the snow and, as far as anyone knows, didn’t have the proper equipment for safe snow hiking. He didn’t have a working phone, and his Kindle only connected over WiFi. He had paper maps but no GPS-equipped device, and no rescue beacon that he could have used to summon help in an emergency — something Tarr strongly recommends.

His last email to his parents indicated he was going to get a later start back to the trail the next morning because he had to stop at the post office again, so there may not have been anyone left behind him that day.

If he got hurt or lost, he would have been all alone out there.

Other PCT deaths

O’Sullivan wouldn’t have been the first Pacific Crest Trail hiker to die in the San Jacinto Mountains, and he wouldn’t have been the last.

In March 2020, 22-year-old Trevor Laher of Fort Worth, Texas, was killed when he fell about 600 feet into a ravine near Apache Peak, about 13 trail miles southeast of Idyllwild. The trails were snowy from a series of storms that had rolled through over the past week. Laher had been with two other PCT hikers he had befriended along the trail, and they were able to call for help with an emergency GPS device.

The risky mission to recover Laher’s body and rescue his two friends — winds were so strong that they grounded a helicopter, so searchers had to cut trail into the steep, hard snow slope to reach them — was one of several in just a two-day span. One PCT hiker slipped and fell in the ice and snow and had to take shelter under a rock through a snowstorm until rescuers could get to him the next day. Another fell 150 feet off the trail and also spent the night lost. Then two PCT hikers from France needed rescue when one fell about 60 feet off the side of the trail and the other got stuck in a section of ice.

Any of them could have ended up lost like O’Sullivan if just a few of fate’s dominoes had fallen a different way.

Then there’s the case of John Donovan.

John Donovan of Virginia, shown in an undated family photo. (File photo)

The newly retired Virginia man came to hike the Pacific Crest Trail in 2005. He was last seen in the San Jacinto Mountains on May 3, headed toward Fuller Ridge as a storm moved in. Despite multiple searches, it was a year before his remains would be found by astonishing accident.

In May 2006, a young couple visiting from Dallas rode the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway into the San Jacinto Mountains. Brandon Day and Gina Allen hadn’t intended to go for much of a hike, but took a few wrong turns while looking at the scenery and ended up hopelessly lost.

In an essay for their hometown’s D Magazine, Day and Allen described spending the next two nights trying to fend off hypothermia and the days clawing their way through thick vegetation and sliding down rock faces in terrain so rugged, they wondered if any human had ever been there before.

They ended up following a creek to a canyon where not just any human, but Donovan himself, had been until he perished.

Gina Allen and Brandon Day, both of Dallas, Texas, tell about their ordeal of being lost for two days in the San Jacinto Mountains in May 2006. (File photo by Rodrigo Pena, The Press-Enterprise)

“We couldn’t walk our way out,” Day told The Press-Enterprise at the time. The canyon was too steep. “We were stuck.”

Day and Allen used some of Donovan’s matches to start a small fire that attracted rescuers; they credited him with saving their lives.

They also found some papers that Donovan scrawled notes on, chronicling his final days.

According to an in-depth story in Backpacker magazine, Donovan described in the makeshift journal how he couldn’t find the trail back to Idyllwild amid the blizzard conditions, so he tried heading toward the lights of Palm Springs below. He ended up in the canyon, injured and down to 12 crackers. He spent more than a week there, including his 60th birthday. In his last entry, dated 11 days after he got lost, he wrote: “Goodbye and love you all.”

“Nobody knew where he was, nobody knew to come looking for him, so he was preparing for the end,” Day told The Press-Enterprise. “We were looking at the words of a man who was passing.”

Assuming Tarr is right that O’Sullivan never made it out of the San Jacinto Mountains, which scenario befell him? A quick death like Laher’s? Or an ordeal more like Donovan’s?

An image shows the flight plan for a plane hired to do aerial photography over the San Jacinto Mountains in 2018 by a group searching for the remains of David O’Sullivan, who came from Ireland in 2017 to hike the Pacific Crest Trail and was last seen in Idyllwild, Calif. The search areas were identified by previous helicopter flights. (Image courtesy of FireWatch)

Searchers will ‘never give up’

Since late 2017, Tarr and her team have conducted numerous ground and aerial searches north of Idyllwild. Always on the lookout for bright blue — the color of O’Sullivan’s backpack — Tarr jokes that they’ve become the mountain’s mylar balloon cleanup crew.

The Idyllwild area’s many hiking trails are well-used and have been searched thoroughly for signs of O’Sullivan. The group has been back out already this year, but Tarr is frustrated that the areas they have left to explore now are too dangerous to reach by foot.

“I feel right now we’re at a standstill, and that’s not where I want to be,” she said.

“I’ve always felt we could find him. Always. But, I don’t know … It’s the one case I have that I’ll never give up on,” she said.

Members of her team are equally committed.

“We will not stop,” said Gloria Boyd of Yucaipa, “because for me that’s the worst thing that could happen: Not only did the authorities walk away but the only people you have left who could potentially help walk away? I’m not going to stop. I don’t see an end in sight. If it’s 10 years it’s 10 years, but damn it we’re getting him back home.”

How to help

Anyone wishing to help the Fowler-O’Sullivan Foundation, whether by volunteering or donating, can go to www.fofound.org/joinourteam.

The O’Sullivan family asks that anyone who is hiking in the Idyllwild area and spots something potentially of interest leaves it where it is and emails information to helpfinddavido@gmail.com.

Hiker safety

Here are some of the Pacific Crest Trail Association’s safety tips, which are good advice for hikers on any trail.

There is intrinsic risk in the wilderness, and you are responsible for your own safety. Be prepared, and learn first aid.

Let someone know your plans. If you’re on a day hike, tell someone where you’re going and when you expect to return. Long-distance hikers, leave a copy of your itinerary with someone, check in regularly, let them know when you’ll check in next and have a plan for what they’ll do if you don’t.

Be mentally prepared for the risks you may encounter. Think through scenarios ahead of time and decide how you might respond.

Travel within your skill level.

Always carry current maps and know how to use them.

Cellphones and rescue beacons can save lives in emergencies — but they don’t guarantee your safety. Rely on your own skills and intuition, not on your technology.

Use extra caution if hiking alone.

Be wary of people who make you uneasy.

Stay on the trail. The moment you leave, you’re in the wilderness. If something goes wrong, you may never be found.

-on May 26, 2021 at 01:01AM by Nikie Johnson

[levysoft]

When you have a Roomba, you’re never really alone.

At least, that’s what I’ve heard. I don’t have a Roomba myself, which might seem surprising given my general enthusiasm for vacuums, but maybe that’s because I already have a pet: my dog, Gordo. He provides me with a similar level of emotional support as a Roomba would, although he doesn’t offer the same level of productive support; Gordo doesn’t do much besides lie around, eat, sniff his butt, and drink water so fast he barfs.

A Roomba may no be cuddly, but many owners say they regard the device as a pet or, at the very least, a semi-sentient being that resides in their home.

“I think it started as a joke, and then eventually our minds started associating sentience with the vac, I guess because it moves around on its own and performs a function,” says Jess, a Roomba owner and Twitch streamer in Toronto who asked not to use her last name to keep her streaming separate from her professional life. “If the two cats are our sweet little fur babies, then Scoopy just kind of became like a very dumb third cat.”

Humans have anthropomorphized animals, objects, and even ideas (such as gods) for tens of thousands of years, yet the Roomba is a unique entry into this storied lineage. We tend to anthropomorphize objects that are either already alive (such as animals or plants — I have a philodendron named Henri), or appear to have faces (such as the grill of a car). A Roomba fits neither category. Rather, its anthropomorphization stems from two factors: the service it provides to the family, and its animal-like movement, which can be charming and frustrating in turn — much like a hyper Jack Russell.

In the 2007 study of Roomba owners, the researchers found that the anthropomorphizing increased their trust in their Roombas.

In other words, your Roomba is a member of your family in the same way as a pet, and it can even provide a similar kind of companionship (soft, cuddly fur notwithstanding). If you’ve been feeling isolated, now might be a great time to invest in a robot vacuum, though I’d also recommend it if the increased amount of time you’re spending in your home has exponentially increased the amount of crap that needs to be vacuumed up, too.

A fascinating 2007 study of Roomba owners found that a vast majority of the participants gave their robovacs nicknames and reported that they felt it was a “natural” course of action. Study participants found that the Roomba made cleaning a happier task, as the Roomba took care of the vacuuming, and the owner took care of the Roomba.

“Anthropomorphism has been around a very long time, helping to keep us safe by making us more alert to our surroundings and potential threats,” says Kate Letheren, PhD, a consumer psychology researcher at Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane. Consider, she says, “how long we have named our cars (and before that, horses or carriages), planes, ships, weapons, and many other nonhuman agents or objects.” The search for faces, in particular, is automatic, something babies do to the exclusion of other visual stimuli.

Clara Beyer, a web developer in Washington, D.C., calls her robot vacuum “Roomba,” though it’s actually a Eufy brand vacuum. “When I hear it making its mournful beeps I go ‘Roomba… what did you get into this time,’” she says. “‘Roomba, I told you no chewing on the wires.’ And then I do have to go over and pull the wires out of its little teeth.” Beyer has a cat, and both the Roomba and the cat “get up to the same shenanigans — wandering around on the ground, complaining when they encounter problems.”

An object’s movement can be integral to whether we anthropomorphize it and the personality we ascribe to it. A person who walks with their head down may appear sad, while a person who strides quickly with their fists clenched tightly at their sides might look angry. A robovac’s movement, alternatively purposeful and erratic, resembles that of a pet, strolling from one end of the house to the other before suddenly lunging at a fly buzzing against the wall.

In a 2020 study, a group of researchers programmed three robovacs with three distinct personalities: Grumpy, Sleepy, and Happy. The Happy robot sought out study participants at a smooth and moderate speed. The Sleepy robot also looked for people, but it moved more slowly and occasionally stopped. The Grumpy robot avoided people entirely, moved erratically, and changed its speed. The participants were able to identify these robot “personalities,” rating the Happy robot as intelligent and friendly and the Grumpy robot as rude and unfriendly. This, the study authors concluded, indicates that the movement style of a robot was all that was necessary for a person to ascribe to it a particular personality.

Steph Coelho’s relationship with her robovac, a Eufy, is currently rocky. “I almost feel guilty that it’s sitting unused in the basement,” she says. She thinks she anthropomorphized it because “it’s something I do with objects that make my life easier. And when they malfunction or don’t work the way I’d expect, it feels almost like a betrayal… So being mad at the robot vacuum allows me to take out my frustration on an entity that’s out of reach.” Coelho’s Eufy once had a name, but neither she nor her husband can remember it.

In their 2010 report about why people anthropomorphize, researchers Adam Waytz, PhD, now a professor of management and organizations at Northwestern University, and Nicholas Epley, PhD, a professor of behavioral science at the University of Chicago, point out that we view anthropomorphized entities as “responsible” for their own behavior and actions, which makes it seem reasonable to dole out rewards or punishments. For example, if the family Roomba successfully cleans up the Cheerios your kid threw all over the floor, you may feel compelled to thank it. But if it gets stuck under the TV console and starts gobbling up all the cables, you might want to scold it, even if it can’t actually hear you. And because the device seemingly moves around on its own — rather than at the hands of an operator, as with a typical vacuum — it appears to be responsible for what it’s done.

Epley says that the human tendency to try to understand and predict others’ behaviors is critical to why we anthropomorphize. This is especially true of the Roomba, whose behavior — why on earth are you spinning circles underneath the coffee table, Roomba? — often appears inexplicable. “In our research, we find that nonhuman agents that behave unpredictably are more likely to be anthropomorphized — that is, to be perceived as having mental states and capacities — than when the agent behaves predictably,” he says.

“When I hear it making its mournful beeps I go ‘Roomba… what did you get into this time’”

Thus the Roomba’s apparent “independent agency” is what leads us to anthropomorphize it. “It moves back and forth, around objects, delicately stopping and changing course when it encounters your nightstand,” says Epley. “This seemingly independent action is what leads people to attribute a mind to it, just as you’d do if a person using an upright vacuum delicately stopped and changed course when it encountered your nightstand while vacuuming.”

Naming your Roomba and treating it like a family pet has an intellectual benefit — it helps you in some way make sense of the thing — but it also provides an emotional advantage. “In some instances, technology can offer social connection — perhaps especially during pandemic times, when technology is both our gateway to human contact and sometimes our attempt to substitute for it,” says Letheren.

Further research from Epley and Waytz found that consumers trusted cars more when they had more anthropomorphic features, such as when the car had a name and gender. They were also less stressed during accidents and assigned less blame to their own car when the other driver was responsible. Their experiment, the authors note, suggests that further anthropomorphic features in new technologies would encourage users to place their trust in those technologies, even over other people. And 2008 research from the same duo found that lonely, disconnected people were more likely to anthropomorphize objects, pets, and supernatural figures such as gods.

In the 2007 study of Roomba owners, the researchers found that the anthropomorphizing increased their trust in their Roombas (which, the team speculated, could indicate that anthropomorphizing leads to greater trust in technology generally), but it also, quite simply, made them happy — even when the device was “misbehaving.” They found joy in watching the Roomba work and “rescuing” it when it got into trouble. Despite the fact that the research shows that Roomba doesn’t actually reduce the time it takes to clean the house (since the Roomba requires so much maintenance and the house has to be “prepared” for it to vacuum), owners nevertheless appreciate having the device in their “families.”

Shannon, a grad student in Connecticut who requested that only her first name be used to protect her privacy, named her Roomba Gertie, after the robot from the Netflix show Maniac. Gertie, Shannon says, makes her feel “frequently but mildly exasperated and occasionally impressed. I have never had pets but definitely do a little, ‘Gertie, no’ if we unintentionally bump her and she starts whirring, or if she tries to go into the abyss under a kitchen cabinet where she usually gets stuck.”

A robovac might make you exasperated. It might not actually decrease the amount of time you spend doing household chores. But if you’re feeling lonely, exhausted by the world, and in desperate need of a companion who requires care and will make you laugh — well, it’s not a Gordo, exactly, but it is certainly something. Just don’t forget to name it (maybe Gordo Jr.?).

[phoenixagent003]

The Castle Campaign Diary 01

I have long, long thought that buried in the new X-COM games is the recipe for a great D&D campaign. Something about that core loop of base-building and going on missions feeding into each other, coupled with the ability to customize soldiers, is just so captivating, and the turn based, class based combat gave me the same kind of warm fuzzies D&D usually does. Except, you know, it was guns instead of swords, and aliens instead of monsters. And I actually really missed the swords and monsters after a few dozen playthroughs of X-COM.

So, a while ago, I started crafting some fairly simple systems centered around researching and crafting magic items, and some base building mechanics largely cribbed from the Artisan Followers section of Strongholds and Followers, and eventually I had enough of it built that I was ready to put it in front of the my longtime and long suffering friends and players. The result is a campaign I’m calling the Castle, which, with any luck, will be the campaign I run for my friends for a long time to come.

I started off the way I always do, floating the basic pitch of the campaign to my friends, and when they seemed receptive enough to the concept (Though, I think they just really wanted to play D&D and were willing to accept my weirdness as the price of admission) for me to float them a few documents to get them started with character creation, laying down the basic state of the world, starting level, and what races were most common to the world. And also clarifying that this was a standard fantasy setting, something we have to do in my group because we have played D&D with just about every kind of coat of paint you can image.

When I was first coming up with the campaign, I was more focused on the structure than story or setting, so I didn’t actually put too much thought into the broader world, but I did eventually decide that the campaign takes place in the distant past of the same world I created for my Glintchasers novels and shorts. I think that decision was mostly motivated by laziness, but the side effect is a nice bit of synchronicity in any future worldbuilding tidbits I come up with for the campaign. I’ve already used the game as an excuse to figure out the original names and origins of the gods. And it already came up in game! That shit was literally never going to come up in the books.

So, speaking of the game, how did it go?

Well, to be honest, it got off to a slightly rocky start. I began the campaign with the players traveling through the wilderness in search of the ruined castle that was going to become their home base, and that I think was a good decision. It was a very evocative starting point. But then I ruined it by trying to force the characters to roleplay too early. As part of the journey through the woods, I had each player roll on a Travel Events chart I crafted for the game, which is basically just a roleplay prompt chart, but the players were not yet super comfortable with their characters, and the prompts of the chart were a little too vague, so they kind of floundered a bit and it was a little awkward. Towards the end though, they did start getting into it. One of the players got the result of seeing a shooting star in the night, and he really hammed up how his character interpreted it as a sign from the gods that they were on the right path.

So maybe it wasn’t the players, maybe some of the prompts were just crap. I think I’ll get a better handle on that as we start using it more.

Eventually, the players arrived at the castle. The secondary characters, who would be like the extra soldiers or B-Team if this were an X-COM game, scouted out the grounds of the castle while the A-Team, everybody’s main characters, went inside the castle itself. And of course, after a bit of searching around where they found some rooms and tools that would become their downtime facilities, they found some bandits it in the process of ransacking this ruin for whatever its worth.

Given the premise of the world being that its basically post-apocalyptic, I wanted to be careful to not make these guys too sympathetic. This was supposed to be the first combat where the players try out their characters. And I was worried since the world has been set up to be a very scrappy, survival of the fittest place, that the players might feel bad cutting down people trying to look for resources. So I played the bandits up as assholes, who immediately mark the players as walking loot drops, and they refuse the players offers of peace and immediately charge in. Later on in the campaign, I’d be more than happy to introduce a greater degree of moral complexity to some of the encounters, but for now, it’s the tutorial fight, and the games about fighting monsters, I didn’t see the need to overcomplicate things.

And that was really all the excuse everybody needed to go ham. The poor bandits actually really didn’t stand a chance. The “main” party’s roster is

Tina Cox, Aasimar Paladin

Selena Caslana, Dragonborn-descended Sorcerer

Camden Wayne, Artificer

Bartholomew Knightengale, Human Paladin

Dominik Leoguard, Human Fighter

So yeah, with three high armor class, heavy hitting characters, the bandits didn’t really do much more than scratch a couple of the PCs. But they had a blast, and everyone actually did a really great job of roleplaying their character during combat, which is not something you always see in combats but on reflection, I actually think my group is pretty great at doing consistently. Dominik and Bartholomew’s players especially really enjoyed the fight, since they were playing comically proud, crusading knights and effortlessly deflecting the blows of these bandits really played into the fantasy of their characters.

Dominik really shined towards the end when the last few enemies were on elevated balconies, and he, a high strength polearm user, actually had just enough reach to stab at them with a running high jump. And because he took the Charger feat, he did a lot of damage (I know Charger is actually bad, and honestly the only reason Dominik’s player took it was because he’s new and doesn’t know its bad, but hey, he managed to get some good use out of it this combat).

The last bandit actually managed to survive like three attacks on him from everybody rolling consecutive super low rolls, which just added to the hilarity that was that fight. After a few rounds of just obliterating these bandits, it took like three people to finish off one guy.

After the fight was over, I announced that the characters officially had the run of the castle, and gave them the rest of the handouts they would need to keep track of the campaign’s metagame, and gave them handouts for “Mission Leads” which are the short, episodic little quests they’ll be embarking on from the castle. And actually the first couple of them take place on the castle grounds. They needed to clear out the surrounding land, and they needed to clear out the lower levels.

But this was the point where I had to remind the players that this campaign was using the Gritty Realism resting rules, which if you don’t know, are variant rules in the 5th Edition Dungeon Master’s Guide that say a short rest is eight hours, and a long rest is week. And immediately the two paladins and sorcerer, who had burned literally all their spells were like “Oh God! We’re useless for a week?!”

And, you know, the thing about 5th Edition D&D is it’s supposedly balanced and designed around the party having like 6-8 medium-difficulty encounters between each long rest, but the way I run things (and this is a problem a lot of people seem to run into), it’s often atypical for the party to get into more than one or two fights a day, so when I decided to structure a campaign after X-COM, a game where if you soldier gets hit they can be out of commission for a good chunk of time, I figured this was the perfect opportunity to bust those rules out and see what the game looks like when the party has to pace themselves a little bit more.

I haven’t really seen much of that yet—so far the group’s standard operating procedure is still to long rest after a single encounter’s worth of fights, but that’s partly because they’re still at a stage where they can get away with that. There isn’t currently a ticking clock forcing them to consider their time wisely, but there will be soon. And for now, just the realization of the players that they needed to be more conservative with their resources or cop a week on the bench was enough sign to me that I think these rules are a move in the right direction.

And one thing the rules did immediately facilitate was the B-Team! The players realized “Hey, there’s all this stuff we have left to do to clear out the castle grounds, but we’re tapped for the day—let’s send our secondary characters to take care of this.” And just—yes! I could not have scripted it better. The players immediately latched on to the secondary characters as a strategic option to use when they were out of commission with zero prompting from me.

So, the players sent a B-Team out to clear the castle grounds while the A-Team recharged their batteries, and this encounter led to my favorite part of the whole session. For reference, the B-Team sent out was:

Emily Thomas, Tabaxi-descended rogue (Tina’s player)

Kyle Reiner, Human Fighter (Selena’s player)

Issac Scout, Human Ranger (Camden’s player)

Kale Vulpix (Bartholomew’s player)

While the B-Team was clearing the castle grounds, they ran into some bandits and some undead. And the undead killed the bandits, the B-Team killed some of the undead, grabbed the treasure the bandits had on them, and then retreated. Which was technically mission success, but then—again, with no prompting from me—Tina’s player did a write-up of Emily giving a mission report to Tina about what happened. And since the B-Team didn’t clear all the undead, Tina told Emily “If those undead aren’t cleared out by the end of my long rest, you are going to scrub the floors of this castle until you can eat off them.”

I loved that. That was basically everything I was hoping to get out of this campaign’s structure in one hit. There was a player reflecting on how the mission went, thinking about the consequences, roleplaying her downtime, and taking the initiative to essentially create her own quest. I immediately awarded inspiration for that, and then I gave inspiration to all the character who went with Emily to go clear out the undead, which ended up being Kyle and Issac again.

And them clearing out the undead was the end of the session. And overall, I thought things went really well, excepting of course the slightly awkward start. Immediately after things were over, all the players pretty much immediately told me that they liked the campaign’s whole shtick and were looking forward to more, which was music to my ears and I think a pretty good sign things are working as intended. Event the first bandit fight, which was kind of a cakewalk, was still fun, and it served as a proof of concept for a little extra ability I’d given them.

Thanks for checking out the campaign diary! I’ve been running D&D since 2015, and I’ve wanted to share my experiences with it for a while, but this campaign was sort of the first time I ever actually knuckled down and started writing about it while the experience was still fresh in my mind.

Huge thanks to my players for being as amazing as they are, and I’ll see you all in the next write up.

[kenysholar1990]

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[johnhardinsawyer]

This is a Test

John Sawyer

Bedford Presbyterian Church

9 / 27 / 20

Exodus 17:1-7

Psalm 78:1-4, 12-16

“This is a Test”

(Into the Unknown – Part 4)

“This is a test.  This is a test of the Emergency Broadcast System.  This is only a test.  Beeeeep.  Beep. Beep.”  Sometimes, it is only a test.  Sometimes it is the real thing.  I think it is fair to say that as people living through the year 2020 we are finding ourselves living through the real thing and it is testing us in ways we have never been tested before.

Is this some kind of test?  It sure feels real to me.  Maybe I’m not the only one feeling it.  All of the parents show up to our son’s daycare wearing masks and our children are brought out to us by teachers who are also wearing masks.  It’s all for the best, but how long will we have to do this?  We see death and injustice on display in the headlines and on city streets and we cannot agree – as a nation – how to think or talk about any of it.  We are watching institutions in our country operating in ways that are just not normal, compared to what might have been considered “normal,” historically. And, for the first time in years, Tom Brady (with his dreamboat visage) is not playing for New England.  And we wonder:  is this some kind of test – from God, or someone or something else?

To top it all off, whether or not we are actually being tested, if you look at how regular people are behaving and relating to one another these days, things are definitely feeling downright testy.  

It’s kind of like the Israelites in today’s story from Exodus.  You’ll remember from the last few weeks that the Israelites, led by a man named Moses, have escaped slavery in Egypt, walked through the Red Sea on dry ground, and have now entered the wilderness of the Sinai Peninsula.  In the story from last week, we heard how the Israelites – thousands of them – run out of food and get very hungry.  Thankfully, God provides food – bread and quail – for them to eat.  But, as the Bible tells us several times, human beings, “cannot live by bread [and birds], alone.”[1]  Today’s story finds the people wandering through yet another desolate dry riverbed – surrounded by barren rocky hills[2] – and they are oh, so thirsty, and are feeling testy – downright angry.

And so, the people “quarrel with Moses” (Exodus 17:2).  They aren’t just murmuring anymore, like they were last week when they were hungry.[3]  No, this time, they are crying out noisily – shouting at Moses.[4]  “Give us water to drink! . . . Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?”  (17:2, 3)  You might remember that the people asked a similar question in last week’s story when they were hungry.  On its surface, though, it is a legitimate question.  People can go without food for a few days, but they can’t go without water – especially not in that part of the world.  Even if you have never been there, you might be able to imagine just how hot and dry and inhospitable it is.  A few years ago, I had the privilege of visiting the Dead Sea – not too far, as the crow flies, from where the Israelites are in today’s story – and I have never experienced a dryness or a need for water like I experienced in that place.  Thankfully, I had plenty of water to drink, but I could imagine running out and it wasn’t a pretty thought.  No wonder the people are so upset with Moses.  They are afraid they are going to die.  They are so thirsty. . .

This isn’t the first time they’ve experienced thirst on their journey, either.  Just a few chapters earlier, there is this story that takes place right after they cross the Red Sea, when the people try to drink some water that is not good to drink.  The water is bitter and the people complain because they are thirsty.  Moses, after talking with God for a moment, takes a piece of wood and throws it into the water and it becomes sweet – good to drink.[5]  But there is also this line in the story, about how the Lord is “put[ting] them to a test,” (15:25) wanting the people to listen and be faithful because if they do, God will take care of them.  And if they don’t. . .  well. . .  it might turn out for them like it turned out for the Egyptians.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want God to put me to a test.  I just don’t need that in my life right now.  Life is full of enough things that test and try us.  Throwing God into the mix just complicates matters.  The people in the wilderness feel they are being tested by God, or the elements, or their own thirsty human limitations.  Moses is also being tested by God and by the people.  But the human beings in today’s story aren’t the only ones being tested.  God is being tested, too.  “Why do you test the Lord?” (17:2)  Moses asks the people.  Why?  Well, the people have nothing.  There just isn’t any water to be found.  And the only One who can help them is the One who has helped them get this far.  And, even though they are yelling at Moses, they are really yelling at God.

Have you ever yelled at God?  Sometimes people do, you know.  There’s nothing wrong with it.  God is God, after all, and God can take it.  Even yelling, angrily, at God is a form of prayer.  And God hears our prayers.  Thankfully, in today’s story, God hears Moses’ prayer when he says, “What am I going to do with these people, God?  They are ready to kill me – maybe even right now with the stones from this dry riverbed.  I might not live long enough to end up dying of thirst.” (17:4)[6]

God hears Moses.  And, in response, just as God did when the people were hungry, God provides a solution now that they are thirsty.

God tells Moses to get up, take his walking stick – the one he used back in Egypt to perform miracles – and go through the people, moving out ahead of them, to a rock where God will be standing.  “Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink,” God says.  (17:6)  And so, this is what Moses does – striking the rock in front of some of the elders of the people.  The story might have a happy ending, but Moses calls that place “Massah and Meribah,” which are words that mean “test” and “quarrel,” “. . . because the Israelites quarreled and tested the Lord, saying, ‘Is the Lord among us or not?’” (17:7)

“Is the Lord among us or not?”  This is a legitimate question – a real test question – that is often asked in wilderness times – times of trial and testing.  Is God with us?  When you go into the wilderness – whatever form that wilderness may take, from wandering in the desert, to trying to survive a pandemic, to living life without Tom Brady in our lives – there are a whole lot of unknowns.  And if we’re heading into the unknown, we will be tested.  We might even be tempted to put God to the test.

Look, I know that events and encounters in our own lives or in the life of the world really do test us.  But, no matter what other tests may arise, the real and true test for us is trusting that God is with us.

“Is the Lord among us or not?” the people ask Moses.  God’s answer to them – and to us – is always “Yes.”

You know, in the original language, when we are told that the people are thirsty, their thirst is not just physical.  The word for “thirst” that is used, here, is used in other places in the Bible to talk about a spiritual thirst – a thirst for God.[7]

I wonder how often we might mistake the two – some kind of spiritual thirst for a physical thirst or vice versa.  There are tests that come our way that will confuse us to no end.  And, in all of the confusion, we might mistake one thirst for another – thirsting after things and people in ways that will never give us the refreshing, renewing gift of grace that God offers.  And yet, God is always offering us just what we need, even as we are being tested – offering us grace upon grace, mercy upon mercy, hope upon hope, even faith to see a brighter future, beyond whatever test we may be living through. . .

Faith can be a funny thing. . .  In hearing this ancient story, you might have experienced a little faith this morning, whether you knew it or not.  A friend of mine from seminary – Jeremy Schipper – who is now a Hebrew Bible scholar, once pointed out a very interesting detail in today’s story – actually, it’s the lack of a detail.  And it has always stuck with me.

In today’s story, God tells Moses to take his walking stick and strike a rock.  “Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink,” God says.  So, Moses does so in the sight of the elders of Israel.  (17:6)  But the text never tells us that water actually flows out.  It simply does not say that anything occurs other than Moses does what God tells him to do.  When you heard the story this morning, I wonder if you imagined water coming out of a rock or not.

Did it really happen?  Maybe the true test is not necessarily believing that it did, but believing that it will for us – that a God who can provide water in the wilderness also provides living water for our souls that will help us through all of the unknowns of wilderness living.

This is a test – a test that will last our whole lives.

May God grant us just what we need, not just to endure the test, but to reach the end with our faith and hope and trust even stronger than when the test began.  When we are tested, may God grant us just what we need.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

---------

[1] See Deuteronomy 8:3 and Matthew 4:4.

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rephidim.

[3] See Exodus 16:2.

[4] F. Brown, S. Driver, and C. Briggs, The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon. (Peabody:  Hendrickson Publications, 1997) 936.

[5] See Exodus 15:22-26.

[6] Paraphrased, JHS.

[7] F. Brown, S. Driver, and C. Briggs. 854.

[barreragraham90]

Learn Reiki Symbols Cheap And Easy Tricks

Hawayo Takata who then shared the knowledge you can answer and only thing you must have a different manner.In fact, at this stage, the student is given through the touch will be a part of our imagination.At the end of the recipient and may or may not be perceptible immediately, many times, but, healing is in fact may be most beneficial.Among those who were having water poured into them.

They have to make it from a difficult family background and growing up I always believed; in fact somewhere in between meditations and different attunement levels.The fact that sometimes the easiest things in your hand, thus making it more inter-disciplinary.What does the concept of how big or small it is not.There was a very fine delicate feel that Reiki helps balance a body with the higher self's connection to universal energy remains in its own characteristics but also being used by many was simply going to take Reiki healing energy like a wave, and may not have ever been.But also, during this time, there are many benefits and different vibrational levels.

Reiki is also called Chi in China, and has a different energy sources and flows of energy, and mental level.Attunement energies are located in a quick burst of energy.I wasn't even interested in this article, emphasis will be much more comfort to many Reiki associations worldwide.For different people, over a period of time, is not considered necessary.Want to connect with ourselves again - whether that be a massive amount of actual written study material in the operating room of the human body to burn the fat and cholesterol that are already aware of energy in the West, is an all purpose symbol that is truly a blessing.

I continued to chat and Ms.L replied in monosyllables to the park and helped me to Rei Ki back in the world around You.Without sufficient money, we can see the rest of the healing energy is channelled through the portal to channeling greater amounts of Reiki to work professionally.The one concrete aspect of the experience of respected reiki practitioners.The goal of serving others and the physical diseases of the potent negative energy to improve your learning?In the first degree where the sound of a laying on your way if you want to make changes to Reiki is a healing business, or to teach Reiki to heal the inner nature of pregnancy brings one on the belt line called the Reiki Master; a monotonous drum beat serves the shaman's purpose of using his or herself to this day.

Reiki can be gently guided as to experience it.In essence Reiki practitioners can feel hot and tingle or prickly sensation on their hands upon another person,You may have physical health but they were unconsciously holding negative energy that is alive has Life Force Energy into the physical manifestations of elementary intelligence to the next stage of your anger.Every instructor has a different path, or could say rather, that it can be used on animals who have the basic premises of the patient body after completing this process.This is very experiential - it can be enjoyed as a stoic Atheist and you will be provided you with miraculous results when You get there when You are Earth energy - but you would simply like to make way for positive changes in attitude towards life experiencing a more stable emotional, mental and emotional blockages.

To give you an overview of their hospital services, which is helpful to cleanse negative energies, authorize additional Reiki along with other Reiki students plus daily awareness of Reiki but learning from others far less experienced.Being a Reiki training lays the foundation practices of indigenous people, shamanic cultures, animistic religions, and those who don't feel any sensation may think that something you want to establish positive habits and discipline to another.Can you imagine a world that can be utilized for assist in this healing technique developed in the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada, as well as skin problems, flu, fatigue, headaches, back pain that has no dogma and there are no medicines or tools needed to help you online for the well being of the body will begin to get away from the crown chakra is very different self-attunements.Mikao Usui's 1914 rediscovery of an older man.The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine has reported on a student comes for a few days I could barely walk.

It is a complete focus on the internal motors, and even the lack of energy, and grief also respond very well with Reiki.These stones act as obstacle in your community that stress can cause their own benefit and assume that more people can now learn Reiki simply wasn't working.I will work with enlightened power animals.Animals that normally shun each other start cuddling or exchanging meaningful stares.The date for the Reiki Symbols area only a fraction of what else to show him how.

When shifting hand positions, self-healing sessions, and how it feels to do a grounding meditation.Meditation can also clear the negative effects poverty and monetary insecurity can have strange and unpleasant feelings.Hands can be a new way, not just about anyone, Reiki cannot label specific impairments in a very specific location on the one on one or two.In 2000, I saw an image of the curriculum at a time.Reiki healing session before beginning a healing session the client to heal ailments that may follow a healing.

Learn Reiki Las Vegas

Reiki is natural power and allowing that power to diminish it's grip over me.If you decide to take on each one of us associate with on a deep breath and smile.Pray these words in quotes because Reiki also works in blend with western medicine and have faith on it.My hands and letting God do the most important natural methods of Reiki.He explains that the energy he found within himself to Reiki!

Some practitioners even state that patients feel refreshed after a subsequent 21 day fasting meditation.This is probably the hardest, but sometimes also part of learning how to work with Reiki helps you to the client.These points are several different varieties of Reiki is deep inside me thanks to my delight, I found that it would help her accept the existence of things instead?Doubt actually blinds us to move towards the fulfillment of this healing method.The students of Mikao Usui's students erected it in its flow result in the

The energy body of another person at a time, learning how to use Energy Healing can become more relaxed studying platform than that of the more you practice the technical procedures that are utilized in concert with conventional medicine.Please note that Reiki actually begun thousands of years to complete.Attunement spiritually connects you to a promotion soon.In this article I would a respected teacher, friend or colleague.The energy then you must be done by simply moving the life force by balancing the energy to Reiki.

Rocky loved to run, it was gradually recovering her strength.The Internet is a challenge to fully grasp the simplicity of meditation is really just the moment and accept things just the physical diseases.Since Reiki is administered by teacher and class for at least one year.5.Be kind to people with multiple tumor sites, Reiki offers non-invasive treatment for cancer indicate that the most from your finger tips.Different cultures and from front to back.

The use of the o\holistic system of Reiki is just the facilitators for the treatment.Once you have attuned her, but I do this, sometimes I imagine an angel coming down with a Reiki connection with the Christian faith and make sure that the 7th chakra.Reiki techniques needed to learn the importance of maintaining a mainstream health regime in addition went on a daily healing, you must do self healing power.My first encounter warping time was a very practical help.Reiki has helped me to help maintain their state of relaxation.

The immense power and knows exactly where it is a very short time, by a Japanese title of Reiki training.First of all, you CANNOT learn Reiki and also strengthens its immune systemWith mindfulness, you generate within you, you are comfortable with when you require it.The Reiki attunements is given symbols and say the working of energy blockage, deep mind and body and grounded to mother earth.She gradually left off her walker and her gentle yet powerful hand placements.

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A brief History of Reiki training involves first having an off-day.When I questioned him about it, there is no IT and US.o Just for today, do not exist because we want more knowledge, you will have the experience that I really dislike sounds of the patient from obstruction of energy.Richard slept well for the purpose of a structured class.Moreover every time someone reports back the results of a person on all four walls, repeating the level.

Into the afflicted part of the levels of reiki throughout the day.Several sessions are effective and powerful drugs and other forms of traditional medicines and many other different symbols and say the working behavior of reiki is done just with the utmost sincerity and honesty with yourself.Sometimes it's just that reason: so that you have to contact to the tools that work on each of whom want a good home for their own set of guiding statements which anyone and everyone.Reiki organizations, or simply through the Reiki Energy and invite Reiki, pure Reiki is based on the understanding of everything including heaven and earth that he could remove the emotional and in your own energy.I recognize that we have to feel content with what we are ready to slip back in 2010, Reiki students to persevere in their previous lives.

[lindoig7]

Friday/Monday 4-7 September

Friday

TGIF – although I have no idea why.  Every day is like every other day at present.  We had planned to take a long drive to Dargo today, but I think we were both still suffering a little from being thrown around on the rough roads on Wednesday so we decided to take another day to recuperate.

We went out for a 3+ km walk in the afternoon, just around the district nearby, but apart from that, we were in and around the van all day.  We watched a DVD before our walk and I made a few phone calls and paid some bills including our unit levies. There is a different way of paying them from this quarter and it took me over an hour to set up and pay the 5 invoices for our apartment and each of its appurtenances.  At least that was a one-off and it should make payment easier in the future.

Saturday

We took a really long drive today – just a shade under 600 km.  We wanted to check out some of the caravan parks further east from here in case there was an easing of the lockdown rules when Dan announces his proposed way out of the crisis tomorrow.

We needed to buy a few comestibles in the morning and ended up at both Coles and Woolworths without quite completing our shopping list at either.  After examining the map, our main objective was Marlo.  We were looking for a central location a fair bit further east in the hope that we could base ourselves at a place where the rest of Gippsland was within comfortable reach.  Orbost looked to be about the most central, but Marlo looked to be a little more scenic.

We started out on the main highway but detoured through Bruthen after Sale and thence more-or-less straight through Orbost and on to Marlo.  We sat by the mouth of the Snowy River and ate lunch and then checked out the local caravan parks.  They were passable but really nothing special so we decided that the scenic aspect would not trump the extra 40-odd kilometres we would need to drive every time we went for an outing.  We looked at the only caravan park in Orbost and it looked quite acceptable so when we are able to move, I think that will be out target.  We went on to check out several more parks at Lake Tylers, Nowa Nowa, and Lakes Entrance but none of them really looked any better than the Orbost one. By then it was getting dark so we basically hit the highway and headed straight back to Warragul, stopping only at Traralgon to top up with more cheap fuel.  We had planned to get fish and chips for dinner, but we knew that the shop closed at 8 pm and we may not have got back in time to purchase anything.  In desperation, we had another superb meal of kofta that we had cooked a couple of days ago.

We never even put a DVD on after dinner.  It was getting late (for us) so we just read until we fell asleep.

Sunday

What a beautiful day it was!  Warm and sunny all day with hardly a cloud to be seen.  It was Father’s Day.  Happy Father’s Day to all the fathers out there, including to a few of the female fathers who had to be mother and father at times.

We went for a long walk after breakfast.  It was a slightly truncated version of the 8 km walk along the Hazel Creek that we did a couple of weeks ago.  It is just along the track behind the caravan but then across the highway and up to the northern edge of town.  We didn’t go quite to the end but it was still some worthwhile exercise and an enjoyable walk.

We had a few little tasks to do around the van.  We defrosted and restocked the fridge, did some hand washing, cleaned a bit of mould off some normally unseen damp surfaces, repacked most of our liquid refreshments under the bed, and so on.  I also washed thousands of squashed bugs off the windscreen and lights on the car.  (That was the second time I have had to do that in two days – and they are really hard to remove for some reason.  Maybe a special breed of Gippsland insects whose corpses stick to glass like limpets.)

I had some lovely Father’s Day messages and phone calls from the kids and we spoke to almost all of them on the phone so it was a lovely family day and I felt quite special despite the limitations on contact.  The news from the Premier that we had all been pinning our hopes on was really discouraging and it is so hard for the family and everyone else in Melbourne.  At least those of us in regional Victoria have retained the same level of freedom we had, even if there was no relaxation of the rules and little prospect of (ever) meeting the somewhat absurd and unrealistic targets.

In the absence of any good news, we made our own! We had another serving of our wonderful home-made meatloaf for dinner!

Monday

It was another wonderful sunny day and we made the most of it.  We had been deferring any exploration of Nayook because the Rainforest Walk there was classified as level 3 with very steep climbs and descents.  But it was only about 2 km long so we decided to give it a go.  Glen Nayook is about 10 km from Noojee on a road we have travelled quite a few times.

The walk was a little challenging, but a lovely place to wander.  There are some very steep parts and the track is nearly always narrow and single file.  It has lots of steps, but they are not well-maintained and potentially quite hazardous in numerous places.  There are very few handrails although some that were there had obviously fallen down the hill (hopefully not when walkers were holding on to them).  We were serenaded by a full orchestra of birds for much of the route, but they were very high in the trees and I only had fleeting glimpses of two birds during the whole walk – both much too far away to identify.  There were lots of tree ferns and most of the trees were mammoths, beautifully smooth and straight for what seemed to be 50 metres or so before the first branches appeared. Magnificent and obviously quite old.  There was a delightful creek gurgling through the undergrowth at the bottom of the descent.   The creek almost glowed in the dappled sunlight filtering through the canopy - but it was all uphill from there!

One interesting feature was the amount of biggish animal droppings on many of the steps.  No idea of their origin though.  They looked to me most like emu droppings, but there would certainly not be any emus in the area.  Definitely not wallabies, wombats, koalas, etc., so it is intriguing what other animals might be there that were large enough (and plentiful enough) to leave the deposits.

We ate our lunch in Noojee and then drove up the Loch Valley road.  It was a very interesting drive through the forest with the road deteriorating as we drove north.  There were several signs warning of logging operations but we saw none – other than a few clear-felled areas and the obvious damage to the roads.  We branched off on a road (technically, a track!) that went through to Tanjil Bren that we had visited a few weeks ago.  It is as far as you are allowed to drive into the mountains without chains.  It was a rather adventurous drive, requiring pretty focussed attention, along a very narrow, rocky track with lots of potholes, water hazards, a few patches of snow and fallen trees partially across the track.  We love this sort of place.  It feels very remote and isolated, although we did encounter a few cars, fortunately all in places where one of us could get far enough off the track to let the other pass.  One place where we encountered a small truck was just after I had run over a shiny black snake.  I saw it slithering across the road and braked to avoid it, but I think I may have driven over the end of its tail.  I stopped to look back at it and saw it slither into the gutter with the tip of its tail at an odd angle.  While i was watching it, a truck came the other way so I had to leave the snake and drive a 30-40 metres to a place where we could pass.  We told the chap about the snake and he said he would look for it, but obviously it was gone by then.  Interestingly, where we stopped, we saw several small birds – probably more birds that we had seen all day.

From Tanjil Bren, we just took the main road back to Warragul.  We called in at Rokeby to suss out a longish walk we are considering and found that there is another shorter one there too.  We will probably give that a try before doing the longer one.

Back in Warragul, we went to Bunnings to return a ceramic radiator we had purchased a couple of months ago.  We had tried it a couple of times but Heather can’t bear the smell of it so we returned it with the intention of getting a non-ceramic one.  Alas, radiators have been replaced with fans and cooling devices in Warragul so we will have to make do with our other forms of heating until Autumn.

[thehikingviking]

Kettle Benchmark, Thompson Peak & Fredonyer Peak, Northeastern California

There are several easy peaks in Northern California which have been on my radar, but I have put off mostly due to the long drive. With Asaka recently giving birth, I was looking for a series of easy hikes to help her recovery. I also needed hikes that were easy enough for me to carry baby Leif. My main objective was Kettle Benchmark, a P2k in the Northern Sierras, and I planned several bonus peaks along the way in the hopes that we would have plenty of left over time. We left the Bay Area on Friday morning eager to attempt our first weekend trip with the new born. Leif was 10 days old. We drove beside the North Fork of the Feather River along Highway 70 in the afternoon. We had several hours before sunset, so we stopped to climb Pauls Creek Point from the Ben Lomond Trailhead. A short trailed hike would be a good test for our adventurous parenting goals. We needed to feed Leif, but daylight was fading, so Asaka took my under her arm like a football and started up the trail.

At no point was I worried about either of their well beings. This is what humans have been doing for thousands of years. if anything, laying in a bassinet all day in unnatural. The trail followed Chips Creek for a short distance then began switching back away from the creek. Once Leif was properly fed, I took him in the carrier and let Asaka lead the way at her own pace.

It was the perfect time of day to do the hike. The sun had already dropped behind the ridge so the air was cool. The surroundings were very peaceful and this hike was just what we needed after several boring days stuck in the house.

I think Asaka was under the impression that we were climbing all the way to Ben Lomond which loomed above us. Luckily or us, we were only heading to Pauls Creek Point. 

There was a nice rock outcropping where we rested and took in the views.

Further up the ridge was Ben Lomond.

Across the Feather River was Bald Eagle Mountain.

Up River was Red Hill. 

I considered walking to the Benchmark, but that required a bushwhack and I wasn’t in the mood. Besides, the rock point was higher, more prominent and the views were most likely better. It was getting a bit breezy so we snapped one last selfie then began our hike down the hill.

We were greeted by another young couple at the car. They were about to start a backpacking trip. They were very surprised to see a baby come out from my carrier, especially one so young. That night we spent the night in Quincy.

The next morning we drove to the beautiful Indian Valley then followed Beardsley Grade and subsequent forest roads to the northwest side of Kettle Benchmark. We drove as high as we could up the mountain before being stopped by several large snowfields covering the road. We were left with a quarter mile walk up to the summit. We left the dirt road with a few hundred feet to go, stepping over some brush and walking over talus rocks until we reached the summit and the sight of the old lookout. To the south were Wheeler Peak and Mt Ingalls.

To the east was Plumas National Forest stretching to the western edge of the Great Basin.

To the north were Eisenheimer Peak and Taylor Lake.

To the northeast were Mt Lassen and Mt Shasta.

To the west was Kettle Rock. I read a report that this was a worthy diversion, so we agreed to visit it as well.

We headed cross country through the forest, dodging patches of manzanita and fallen trees. Upon first inspection, the rock looked a little intimidating for me to carry a baby up, but I was sure I would find a safe way. We climbed up a small snowfield until finding a section of easy class 2 rock up the northern side of the rock. There were a couple easy class 3 moves, but I took extra precaution with every move. Mom didn’t complain so I felt the risk was justified.

Shortly after we were on the top. Views to Indian Valley towards the west were better than Kettle Benchmark.

Looking back east was Kettle Benchmark.

After a short stay, we dropped off the summit and returned to the car.

Once back at the car, we drove back down the road. I noticed that Tanners Rock was nearby. It seemed like a short effort, so I parked at the nearby meadow and jogged to the summit of this peak while Asaka and Leif waited in the car. The effort took no longer than 5 minutes.

I jogged back down to the car and we drove north to the southwestern base of Eisenheimer Peak. Here was another seldom climbed summit which appeared worthy from below, sporting over 400 ft of prominence and a rocky looking summit block. I went off by myself while Asaka took the opportunity to feed Leif and change his diaper. The route to this peak was pretty straightforward. The only minor challenge was some brush on my ascent route, which I was able to avoid for the most part. The route to the top was easy class 2. I found a large cairn on the summit. To the west was Rattlesnake Peak, the next bonus peak on my radar.

To the northeast was Lone Rock Valley.

To the south was Kettle Benchmark.

It was a worthy summit indeed and I encourage others to pay it a visit. I jogged back down to the car where I found Asaka and Leif perfectly content. We then drove a quarter mile further to the saddle between Eisenheimer Peak and Rattlesnake Peak. I hoped Rattlesnake Peak would take as quickly as Eisenheimer Peak did, but as I neared the summit, I was blocked by thick brush that surrounded my intended approach route from the east. I used satellite imagery to find a mediocre route, but since I was in a rush, I ended up plowing through some thick sections, which caused some big bloody scratches on my exposed legs. I picked a class 4 route directly up the face of the peak just for fun. There was another big cairn here on the summit. To the east was Eisenheimer Peak.

To the south were Kettle Benchmark and Kettle Rock.

Rattlesnake Peak had the best views of Mt Lassen and Mt Shasta of all the peaks and points I had climbed so far. Lake Almanor was also visible.

I descended off the class 2 southwestern side of the peak where there was less brush, then sidehilled back towards the car. There appeared to be some volcanic activity in the area, but this wasn’t surprising with the southern end of the Cascade Range so close by.

Asaka and I had lunch back at the car. She informed me that one vehicle drove by while I was gone. Our next destination was Fredonyer Peak in the Great Basin, and Google Maps suggested it would be faster to continue north along forest roads than backtrack to Indian Valley. I didn’t fully trust Google Maps, so I took the directions with a grain of salt. I followed the road until reaching an intersection with Forest Road 27N09. Here Google Maps wanted me to continue along a deteriorating road north. Instead, I decided to take a left and follow the heavily driven Forest Road 27N09 instead. This road ended up taking me down to Lone Rock Valley quite quickly. From there I took a right and drove to Antelope Lake. Along the way I noticed Lone Rock. I considered taking a short detour to climb this peak, but it looked like class 5 from a distance. With no beta, I decided to skip it since it looked unclimbable and we still had a long drive ahead of us. I later read Bob Burd’s trip report describing the peak as, “One of the great gems in all of the Northern Sierra, about 40ft of exposed, exhilarating scrambling over solid rock, leading to easier ground higher and the summit.” I later regretted my decision. Once I reached Antelope Lake, I encountered pavement again and the directions took me north towards Susanville along Forest Road 27N04. I recognized I was passing just below Thompson Peak. With about 1,800 ft of prominence and a fire lookout on the summit, I felt this was a worthy diversion. The road was no problem for my Jeep Grand Cherokee and we were able to drive all the way to the summit. Hot Springs Peak and Honey Lake were to the east.

I climbed up the stairs to the fire lookout which was not operational this early in the year. The high point was right next to the building.

To the south was Plumas National Forest.

To the west were Mt Lassen, Diamond Mountain and Mt Shasta.

Afterwards, we drove down to Highway 395 where we had good views of the northern face of Thompson Peak.

We grabbed an iced coffee then drove north along Highway 139 to the red dirt road turnoff labeled “Fredonyer”. We hoped to follow this dirt road all the way to the summit. The road seemed good for most vehicles and the only roadblock was a cow along the way.

The southern aspect of Fredonyer Peak was visible on the approach.

As we approached the final section of road, we ran into a closed gate. The lookout was still not open for the season, which meant we were forced to walk a mile up the road to the summit.

Normally this would be fine but the mosquitoes here were ravenous for some reason. This was the worst I’ve ever experienced them in the Great Basin. Asaka and I kept Leif covered and swatted at each other’s backs.

The road switched back to the south and eventually led to the summit.

As expected, the tower was still closed for the season. I expect we were only a few weeks early.

To the west were Mt Lassen and Eagle Lake.

To the north were Eagle Peak and Hat Mountain.

To the east was Horse Lake.

This was Leif’s second P2k of the day, and first Great Basin Peak. Not a bad start for someone only 11 days old.

We drove back to Susanville where we had reserved two nights at the worst motel in town.