#like turned everyone into an undead army levels of terrified

[planeoftheeclectic]

Hello, Peregrine 4 for the WIP Wednesday ask game please!

Also, what's this about a dnd character's Inigo Montoya speech? That sounds awesome, you should work on that too.

3 minutes of editing done! Here's the first three sentences of Snorri's Inigo Montoya speech!

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You don't know me. But you know my mother. Or rather, you knew my mother.

[kingoftheblacksun]

I have a theoretical question for everyone...

Put on yo' fantasy hat for a moment. Play pretend world. It's just a LARP.

Let's say someone gets born and lives a life not worth living and then has a massive spiritual awakening that takes over eighth years, and it reveals to them they they're not even 'human', nor is anyone else, since that word was only made up in the 13th century to replace the name of the tribe they murdered and kidnapped you from.

You discover your life was miserable because you are not the same as your oppressors. Your people were more powerful individually, yet were far less numerous and also living in an age where most of your abilities were lessened, for complicated matters relating to cosmic chakra. Your tribe was murdered by Rome, 2000 years ago, after they sent waves after waves of soldiers, and you slaughtered them all, until they finally wore you down with some really dirty underhanded tricks that surprised you only by the extent of their dishonor. You go out '300' style.

You discover your people are an esoteric conspiracy, and are virtually unspoken about in modern culture. Your magic was real and the Romans feared you, and after they looted all of your gold and silver, and threw your loved ones into slavery, they buried your world and burned it so no one would ever learn of you, for fear you may one day stand again.

You find out most amazingly that these people were truly immortal, and after they were betrayed and scattered, some of the more ancient ones refused to return to the Sun, and have lived and died in worthless misery waiting for a time we may finally arise to strike the throat of the false fathers who hold us down for their sin.

You find out you are one of them. You find out people are terrified of you. You find out no one will help you, almost like a great wall of silence and rejection.

You find out they pathologized you. Your entire tribe is considered 'autistic'. The Romans took their love of class and hierarchy and made it the gold standard for this fiction called 'humanity', and they wrote a big fat hate book called the DSM-5 to hang about your neck and shame you with like an albatross on a dead fisherman.

You are marginalized to isolation, and your species is of a wild nature which has sensory issues like any wild animal, so you live in abject misery in their loud horrible stupid dumbass sin world of Roman sleaze. None of them care because they're all hateful robots who only follow context and there is no family, no friends, no community, no country - only sin and poverty.

Yet you are a Child of the Sun - a Divine Child. The Sun would never leave you behind. From a complicated journey the cosmic chakra finally come to turn towards the great awakening, when the Moon marries the Sun. You have no powers because the light is not divine. You have been oppressed by Force, which is the Moon. Yet here comes the Sun - which is Power.

When the Sacral passes to Manipura on the Cosmic level, on April 8th, you will be a free Wolf, anew. You will have your Power, back - likely with accrued interest. God loves you.

You also know your Father, who is the Lord of Darkness, is going to thrash upon this sinful land a great fury of violence and horror in his gleeful destruction of its foul Roman hierarchical illusion, and you also know likely a lot of people just not might survive that sort of thing. You may wince.

You also know you may be given Power - Divine Power - and the ability to kill anyone who gets in your way, effortlessly. You will have dominion over the world, by God, and you will rule them. You may even eat them if you wish. You are the Queen of Hel. The world is yours to devour or keep as your prize for surviving to see the Return of the King. You are Hades, deciding to live as a lady to show off your gams.

Hekate is your Atman and she comes with the three powers of Shakti - Parvati, Durga, and Kali. You can likely raise an undead army of ghouls and demons and conquer the entire world if you like. I mean, if you like. You know? Think the world deserves some conquering by demonic hordes of hellhounds and vampires?

So, theoretically in this great cringe LARP of silly theatrical no way that couldn't be true, I'm just curious - if this story were really happening, and this being was considering how much devastation they might unleash upon this brutal, hateful, abandoning, seriously ugly society which has despoiled the world for 2000 years - tell me, why should the King of the Black Sun spare any of you?

If you were staring down at a big red button that said 'Release the Vampires!' and you knew you could push it - would you? Would you throw this world into chaos and Hell as it deserves? Would you hesitate?

Not that I am the Judge. The Judge is my Father. I am only a wild dog. April 8th we'll see what Father decided. He's the 1st Dark Archon. I love him.

[legendaryenchantment]

“Magi”-verse!Merlin

(Connected to Rhea’s universe of origin.)

The Merlin here is not very different in personality, but is in deeds and timeline.

While either time-line, Merlin adopts Garreth to raise well before the age of Arthur, he also later adopts Rhea well after he revives from the tree by Garreth’s influence much earlier in timeline than he had in the original-verse.

A lot happens, namely the three end up in several minor and major conflicts that culminate in both his father, Asmodeus, and another entity breaking Merlin down for the purpose of using the wizard as a battery for their individual reasons. Ash sees the opportunity to finally get Merlin to shed his humanity and the entity sees a way to escape. Especially since one of the conflicts leading to that moment had been Merlin and company sealing the entity away temporarily.

Merlin does break, but in true trickster and legendary fashion, he set a trap prior to this. Shielding the tiniest kernel of his mind and heart from the damage. Just enough to trip off a spell that impossibly turns his own heart into a crystalline vessel previously discovered to be capable of trapping the being when it attempts to possess him in a moment of shattered weakness. (Plenty of practice with Ash.) By the end of it, he in turn turns the being into a battery pack in his chest for magic.

Though this works, Merlin’s human soul does not recover nor does his psyche nor heart.

Funnily enough, he only uses the energy of the trapped being to nix the need for physical things like food and sleep. He becomes what his father had always dreamed of, a super-powerful conqueror and destroyer that Asmodeus always believed he could ultimately control.

Spoiler Alert: He can’t.

Ash gets fucking scared for his baby boy though he admits this to fucking no one, because demon--duh. But it is a well placed fear due to Merlin having done absolutely nothing other than ‘banish’ the gaggle from his burgeoning ‘kingdom’ when none of them take up his offer to join him. Certainly not a good way to keep one’s head attached, Ash thinks.

Anyway, the gaggle start to marshal up their forces and go galivanting to Avalon. Rhea and the Devang of that dimension work out a hopeful plan that they can gather up the three swords (Excalibur, Aerondight, and Caliburn) and find Arthur either still on Avalon or, if not, reincarnated. One thing at a time, though.

Devang, naturally, wants a weapon to kill if it comes down to it.

Rhea hopes that the weapons will pave a way and Arthur will be able to talk Merlin down. She’s an optimistic sort like that.

There’s some conflict on this journey and that Devang starts dabbling in her ghaster nature, terrified.

Arthur is found in a temple in the care of the elves. Sealed in a healing and stasis chamber for the day he’d be sought and revived for ‘grand purpose’. Whatever that means, they figure this qualifies when the others explain.

Arthur is disoriented and not physically strong anymore and has a lot to work through. So after retrieving him and Excalibur, they take him to a safe place to recover and build back up with some help from the crew.

Meanwhile, Devang sends Rhea to their roots in Dekro to see if she can learn anything there. She does and gets some time to mentally recover and train.

This training montage is a month long thing before the crew reunites.

During that month, Merlin is a terror. He quickly amasses a fortress in Millennium and conquers the area. Primarily making use of an undead army of creatures he more or less effortlessly controls on top of insanely easily popping off catastrophic levels and types of magic. Man’s an unstoppable force that (before banishing the group, revives dead-ass Garreth twice without a problem--I left that out from earlier) many factions try to resist, but are soon bulldozed.

In a month, he’s gotten the west half of North America soundly under his rulership. Lets face it, not everyone is a warrior and not everyone knows what the hell else to do when an omnipotent guy with undead saber-tooths for guards informs them they can either join his soon to be utopia or join the military for the rest of their unlives.

The gaggle returns together and start devising a plan. Rhea insists on the Best-Case-Scenario plan of getting into the fortress with Arthur and hopefully getting through to Merlin. Arthur is in alignment with this.

Nearly everyone else hopes this works, but are fully ready to do their darndest to kill him dead if that seems like a Not-Gunna-Happen-Any-Sooner-Than-Pigs-Fly.

It’s a three pronged attack and there’s a lot of conflict and some losses, BUT!!!

Arthur and Rhea’s group manage to get to Merlin in his dorky little throne room.

It is VERY dramatic. And overblown, lmao. But the gist is that a psychic attack makes Merlin unsteady, he’s driven to tear out the crystal (and heal himself) to hold it, he pleads madly for people to come around to his side of things (prosperity if he can remake the world and the idea that they all just need to let him bare the burden of keeping the being in the crystal imprisoned), fails, and is spontaneously trapped in place as best they can both physicals and magically. It’s enough of a delay in his activity to do a couple of things.

Use a wand that had, in the beginning of the RP, come off the tree that originally held him captive to try and stab Merlin. This is a surprise move from one of the group that never even discussed this wild idea with anyone (the whole fight at this point is Chaos and all plans go to shit).

Somehow, one member manages to divert this idea into making Merlin attack from his breaking binding. Merlin is Big Panic and Fear at the sight of the fucking magical stick and uses the crystal in hand since his own energy is tied up in healing and trying to escape. The wand springs to life into a mass that is trying to become a tree and latches onto the crystal prison in Merlin’s left hand. The branch (wand) remembers that it LOVES to eat magical energy and is quick to snatch the crystal while the energy that just hit it springs it back into a tree.

The tree quickly starts to overgrow the tower and the fortress, busting it to pieces as time go on.

It also is trying to get a good hold on the hand holding the crystal, because Merlin is still yummy.

Rhea has the good sense to lop his arm off high enough to get him free of the tree before it can overgrow him.

Merlin can’t maintain thought by now let alone one whole unit of magic. Between physical pain, emotional pain, and mental pain. He’s defeated and out.

Everyone wants to get away from the still growing and castle busting tree. They have the good sense to follow that desire.

Beat up and weary everyone starts to pack up and get the fuck out. Even Ash takes this ending as something of a win. Myrddin, is alive.

There’s a last ditch effort by the Magi Council (which is one of the parties that joined the fight in that Month-To-Slowdown-Merlin) to do two things. Kill Merlin for destroying so many lives up to this point and a black hand sort of sub-faction wants to also murder Arthur.

They succeed in assassinating Arthur, but not incapacitated and over defended Merlin. Favoritism much from the group? lol. (Don't’ worry about Arthur, though. He’ll be back as a reincarnation some day.)

THEN EVERYONE GOES HOME ohboy.

And eventually the Magi Council round up Merlin and try to put him on trial. Which Merlin takes quietly with his usual, if deeply broken, sort of formal grace now that he is back to his senses without the entity in the crystal or his father baring down on him. 

During this trail, unorthodoxly, the newest elected leader of the group presents a pile of evidence that the sub-faction of the Council was behind the attack that killed Arthur and also a mysterious plan to help the creature in the crystal. Which puts Merlin in a feisty sort of mood. Merlin still insists that he has to face a punishment, whatever that happens to be, but first the Council has to right this wrong before they can hold themselves to the adequate standards to punish him.

This all gets worked out to his satisfaction and he is generously sent to a specially made prison rather than to death. Mostly due to the new leader of the Council pushing for prison and not execution.

Merlin then spends ten years in the prison. It’s a neat little thing that wicks his magic away and keeps him mundane behind some bars with a small desk, some books, and little things that keep him sane. Like visitations and a window high up on the wall. And guards to banter as they stay nearby, such and such.

He recovers in a little orange suit. Misses out on Rhea’s graduation from academy and some of her other doings. Garreth focuses on his own reclamation after tragedy.

Though it is certainly a punishment to ease the ones that suffered, it’s a bit of a sanctuary to a person like Merlin who often retreats himself into isolation.

He rebuilds himself, too. Relearns how to write with his non-dominant hand. Receives correspondence from people who still remember his good deeds before the bad.

Then Alfred, the new Council Leader comes and informs him that Rhea is in danger form a former student of her academy.

And everyone finds out, very alarmingly, that he stayed there of his own will.

He didn’t need magic to free himself.

Just quick hands and tiny makeshift tools.

[wheeler-things]

No I know you’re talking about the manifestation theory (and I see what you’re saying and I’m terrified) but straight up— the thing about being “the leader”/the one calling the shots is that when things go to plan, you get the acclaim and when things go wrong, you get the blame.

And Mike’s clearly (one of) the leader(s) of the group. He’s the leader of the Party, and even when more/older people show up, he gets listened to when he’s planning (even Hopper’s willing to hear Mike out about the Mind Flayer analogy in s2 and only gets frustrated when Dustin starts talking about undead armies). Mike’s good at making plans, and, whether because he’s an intuitive tactician or because he manifested the UD, he’s also good at predicting the UD’s moves.

So, he gets the blame when things go wrong… not necessarily with the UD because everyone knows it would be unreasonable to blame him for that, but you can’t just turn off how you feel about someone. If everyone sees Mike as a leader in combat, they’re still going to see him as a leader out of combat too. But they’re also unwilling to admit that they see Mike this way. Even the Party won’t admit it. In s2, Dustin insists they’re a democracy… but falls into line every time Mike demands they leave Max behind/keep her out of the UD stuff. Lucas doesn’t follow this demand, ultimately, but Lucas is functionally Mike’s right hand/second, and he tends to push back against Mike a bit more— but he also still looks for opportunities to do what Mike suggests when shit hits the fan. Like the fireworks in s3, which are 100% his idea (and a good one at that), but he ignores Max saying they’re a useless plan because El can save them with her powers because he wants to help her. Which I believe he legitimately does… but this is Lucas (and ultimately Will as the person shown helping Lucas in this plan) being the only person doing something in the spirit of what Mike was trying to suggest all along— coming up with a plan that doesn’t rely on El being strong enough to save the world all on her own.

I also think this adds context to the relationship between Hopper and Mike in s3. Not only is Hopper being protective over El and realizing that her relationship with Mike is unhealthy, but I think there’s a legitimate level there of Hopper struggling to see Mike as a kid. This even happens in s2, when Hopper pulls Mike into another room to have a pretty adult argument with him (Hopper argues pretty harshly with El in s2 as well, but Mike’s the only kid besides El that we see him do this with— but we see him do it with other adults multiple times). He’s treating Mike, basically, like an equal. And as a result he’s (momentarily) surprised when Mike responds to this like the traumatized child that he is. So, then Mike and El get together and Mike is being a rude teenager, and Hopper, who respects Mike in life or death situations (he trusted him enough to leave him with Will outside the lab, he trusts him at the end of s3 to care for El, he’ll sit there and listen to Mike saying all kinds of things about the Mind Flayer, but roll his eyes when Dustin says something to fantasy-based, etc). So… this conflict results in what we see in s3– Hopper threatens Mike off in ways which are entirely inappropriate when dealing with a teenager, but which make a bit more sense if you look at it through the lens of this man— this ex-soldier— trying to have a mature conversation with someone he legitimately respects when shit hits the fan… and said person is blatantly laughing at him/mocking him/disrespecting him.

So… why is Mike always the bad guy? Why is everything on him? Because he’s the leader. Because if something’s wrong, he’s the Party at fault because he didn’t preemptively fix it.

But at the same time, Mike doesn’t ever get the good parts of being “the leader”. Nobody ever seems to turn to him and commend him on what he’s done well, or even recognize him out loud AS the leader.

Something something, the Party’s a democracy until Mike makes the tough call to insist on keeping Max out of the UD business, and then all of a sudden it’s “so sorry Max we’d invite you but the leader’s spoken”. Because if the Party’s really a democracy, why didn’t Dustin and Lucas team up on Mike like over bringing her to Halloween (which they even did bringing her to Halloween covertly behind Mike’s back despite talking to Will about it— almost like they were living by the principle of asking forgiveness rather than permission but… they had Will on side, so why couldn’t the democracy work to allow Max to join in… unless it’s not a democracy at all)?

Will’s the only one who talks about Mike as the leader. He calls him the heart (I will not talk about Mike as the heart of the Upside Down, I will not talk about Mike as the heart of the Upside Down, I will not…), and he depicts him leading the charge. Will is the only character who is willing to admit that Mike is the leader. That he respects Mike as a leader. That Mike is as responsible for the positive results of his ideas/plans/actions as he is for the negative ones.

But outside of Will, Mike never gets the acclaim. Hopper does. El does. Nancy certainly does. Steve does. Dustin does (though it’s tempered because nobody likes his attitude about it). Max does when she drives the car in s2. But Mike absolutely does not. He gets the implicit responsibility (it’s lighthearted, but an example is Dustin in s4e1 discussing what he and Erica should do at the end of the game, and turning to Mike to ask him to make the call/give his specific input even though this is nominally a group choice— and you can kind of assume Mike’s proven himself as a tactician to the rest of the club as well, because his insistence that Dustin and Erica should get to choose seems to shut up all other arguments from the otherwise vocal members of the club— and that’s all well and good in dnd, but it’s part of a broader pattern in more life or death situations). He gets the blame when things go wrong. But when things go right, he’s ignored because he’s never the heaviest hitter. Which is why it’s so fascinating that he plays a Paladin (charismatic tank build). And why I think manifestation theory would be deliciously ironic— turns out he’s been a heavy hitter all along, but it’s been used for the other side.

Interestingly, I think Nancy and Max are sort of in the opposite boat to everyone else— they seem to primarily view Mike through the lens of him being an annoying teenage boy and, as a result, generally tend to be more skeptical of his plans/ideas in dangerous situations. Which is fascinating and sometimes troubling in the opposite direction, like in s3, they ignore Mike’s (very tactically reasonable, if poorly phrased) point about maybe not… asking El to use up all her strength on what is functionally a wild goose chase that they don’t even know will pan out if she finds anything at all, and that ends with Hopper nearly dying, El losing her powers and nearly dying, and Mike and Max being knocked out.

Either way, though, it doesn’t seem to matter which way you view him. Except for Will (and sometimes the rest of the Party), you’re not going to acknowledge when he does something right. And it does make me worry about whether, if manifestation theory is correct, the others (outside of the Party) will ever be able to forgive him.

no but really why does mike get blamed for every little thing it's not funny anymore. why is he inherently more culpable than the rest of them. why is he the one they always expect to know everything. why does he usually actually know everything or have the key to figuring it out. why is he personally responsible for any given disagreement even when 3+ people are involved and all acting out of line not just him. why is he the heart why is he the bad guy why why why

[laryna6]

I’m not going to start posting Lichverse yet even though I finished the novel because there’s worldbuilding stuff that needs to be changed after the reveal that Igris’ species are born from fruits of the world tree instead of being creations of the Monarchs as per monsters (or maybe the creator made monsters to serve the monarchs but canon doesn’t say so I can have fun) and also while I HAVE figured out when to have Jin-Woo’s chest open so people can see he has two hearts I haven’t given up on working in the creepy cute aesthetic and other stuff I want to do earlier.

Also the reveal that in previous timelines Ashborn zombie apocalypse’d humanity (probably bc we were too squishy to survive being ground zero and he couldn’t protect us so he wanted to gather our souls before we got slaughtered more painfully by other monarchs’ armies and ceased to exist - also bc needed larger army to fight other monarchs and keep Antares from killing him and all his shadows with him) as soon as he took over his new host body. So it makes sense that the rulers would ask a human to find a human host and like Il-Hwan would agree - his family lives in a major city. In the case of shadow blitzkreig, they’re all gonna get turned into undead mind-controlled into adoring Ashborn, nothx. Also the Architect didn’t want to pick Jin-Woo, Ashborn insisted, in times where Jin-Woo wasn’t Like That the Architect would have gotten to pick and would have picked an asshole. So Il-Hwan goes looking for the stuff an asshole would have done to level up in a setting where what happens in a dungeon... and then the monster who has repeatedly slaughtered Il-Hwan’s species like cattle is using his son as a host body.

So yeah, Dad has been highkey Suffering.

But, anyway, here’s the current draft of the first chapter of lichverse. Warning for like, canon-typical stuff + also frottage.

Abandoned by everyone, about to be crushed like a bug…

It seemed as though the stone blade paused for a moment, but maybe it was his perception of time slowing down as his death approached.

It was finally over. His sister… mother! The pain would stop… but Mother would die, and Sister… Sister would have to scrabble like he had. A teenage girl?

He’d sold his body to keep his mother alive. Jin-ah…

As the blade crashed down he fell and was caught. Was cradled.

Darkness… a soothing, cool darkness. No more pain, no more fear. But still… warm. This darkness didn’t have a beating heart, but still…

Jin-woo knew the heart of someone who had lost too much, far too much, and would do anything to protect the precious little they had left. He saw someone like that in the mirror, when he couldn’t avoid it.

This person… would never hurt him. Never let him be hurt. He was safe.

“Return to me,” he heard a voice he knew calling for him, and he knew he would always answer.

A black-armored figure before him, flickering with black and purple light. Too large to be human. A monster. A monster and still when Jin-woo found himself on his feet he took a step towards him gladly, eagerly. A step and another. This feeling… like when his Mom or Dad came home and called his name and he ran to them, happy to see them.

He stopped when he had to crane his head back almost painfully far to meet those glowing eyes – an undead – he was an undead…? And saw the concern in them. For him, for a weakling, for nothing, and he knew he was safe. He’d been so scared, everyone had left him to die alone. But someone… someone came. Someone saved him. The relief sent him to his knees as the last of the stress that had kept him on his feet for so long left him.

Slumping even further forward, he bowed his head and pressed against those armored legs. He trembled, the pain and fear he’d had to suppress for so long escaping his body. Day after day, knowing he was already far, far past his estimated life expectancy. Knowing he was going to die and it was going to hurt, and even if he lived he was going to hurt but he had no choice. There had been no choices since Mom was taken from them too.

And that great figure knelt and put a hand on his head.

That mana… it was terrifyingly powerful, but he knew why it didn’t terrify him. Something he’d tried not to think about for years: the moment he’d awakened, feeling mana, power all around him. Power that dwarfed his, could crush him. But it had never even occurred to him to feel fear, because this was his father. Of course his father was the strongest! Of course he would save everyone!

Instead he’d been so happy, running to his dad and saying he could be a hunter now! Like him! They could beat the bad guys together! And his Dad had patted him on the head and said, “Sorry, but you have to wait until you’re a little older before you can fight anything, and by that time I’ll have already beaten the bad guys that are making the gates appear. So you’ll never have to fight.”

“I won’t get to fight?” he’d asked, disappointed.

“Sorry,” his dad said, patting his head apologetically, but not sorry at all.

His dad… they hadn’t invented the measuring technology until a year after he vanished, so Jin-woo didn’t know how strong he was. It wasn’t until Mother was spending long enough asleep that Jin-woo could go get measured after school that he found out why his dad had fought so hard to keep him from ever having to hunt. He’d been proud of his Dad, believed he would have been an s-class, but… would an s-class really have had such a worthless son? But the mana in his memory, it was so much stronger than the a-class he’d seen once.

His father… His dad really was… tears fell from his eyes, and that hand remained to steady him, that mana still cradled him, as pathetic as he was.

He didn’t know how long he cried there, with loss and pain and fear and gratitude. No one… no one since Mother would have held him as he cried. He couldn’t burden Jin-ah or a stranger like that. If someone reported he wasn’t able to provide for Jin-ah…

That made him open his eyes. “Jin-ah…” he said, a plea. Part of him knowing that this person – monster – would understand how precious she was, how he couldn’t bear to fail her.

“You can return to her,” a deep voice promised him. That… the monster language. Was he still speaking Korean?

“Monsters attack humans,” he said, looking down at his hands, how they flickered with darkness too.

“Because they’re controlled by the Ruler’s crystals… but even without them the subjects of most Monarchs would see your kind as resources to exploit.”

Food.

That hand withdrew and the glowing figure shrunk until he met his own eyes, heard his own voice – speaking Korean this time. “You don’t need to be afraid. You know you will never hurt your sister. Or any of those you love.”

“I won’t hurt her?” he asked again, craving reassurance like a child. Like a weakling (the weakest of the weak).

“Never,” he was promised again, without a trace of irritation at having to repeat himself in his voice.

“I shouldn’t believe you.” Shouldn’t take that risk, with Jin-ah.

“Believe yourself.” This time he was scolded a little. “You went out there to die for her, over and over. You would never hurt her.”

It meant nothing that he went to hunt because it really didn’t do anything… he’d fail her eventually, and then she’d… “I failed her.”

“That was…” the other him – monster – the one who cared for him sighed. “That was my fault. I watched you, and how hard you fought to protect them, the wounds you bore… There was someone I wanted to protect. I fought knowing I would fail them, and yet… but you haven’t failed those you love. I am here because of all your struggle, all your pain and sacrifice.” A bottle appeared, was pressed into his hands. “I watched, I saw you, earn this a thousand times over. With this, you can cure your mother.”

Jin-woo drew in a breath, looking up with startled hope. The other him nodded, and he felt the promise. “You won’t have to be afraid anymore. You’re one of mine now. A human would have to gradually adjust to higher mana levels, but as a shadow I can fill you with my power. That wasn’t…” he sighed. “I was going to possess you, but when the Architect began to cast the curse meant to bring about your death, I couldn’t let him. …but I didn’t have enough of a foothold in that dimension to keep the stone from crushing you.” He scowled at himself. “I should have waited until you were safe, then killed the Architect and undone his curse. I have not done right by you. I’m sorry. You deserve better than than what happened to you. The least I owe you is making sure you can return to your life and your loved ones.”

Jin-woo’s eyes widened. An apology? An admission of fault? A being even stronger than his father, lowering itself to apologize to him? A nothing? The weakest of the weak?

Why? Who could force him to do it? Even S-ranks were beyond the law. He didn’t gain anything from it: his power could crush Jin-woo so easily, and if he could shape-shift then he could take Jin-woo’s place as he’d said he’d planned or maybe send another undead?

His hands curled around the bottle, pulling it to his chest as he began to believe it was real. Because the only reason he could see for this monster to apologize was if, if he really did think that Jin-woo deserved better. And if he deserved anything, then his mother deserved to wake, to live.

“The dungeon will close with the Architect dead. You need to return there and escape, or it will take some time for me to get another foothold in the human world and transport you there. My br-the Rulers are doing their best to shield it.”

He had to hurry. His mother… if it took too long they would take her off life support, and for her to die now, because he didn’t bring her the cure in time…

His mirror image nodded. “Go.”

That mana curled around him, bore him elsewhere, and he heard stone groan and topple to the ground a moment before he opened his eyes to find himself on the altar. Oh no, his foot…

His leg was still there!

…Why was he so surprised by that, when his entire body had been crushed, and yet here he was, intact even if he flickered with black and purple. He started to push himself up so he could get off the altar only for the altar to crumble beneath his palm. He stared down at it.

“…Ah. Humans wield strength only through channeling mana, but as a shadow the strength I’ve given you is yours. Until you can learn to control it, there are artifacts that seal all but a fraction of someone’s power, for negotiations. If I give you a few of them… and I know the curse the Architect designed, perhaps I can modify it…”

A window, like on a computer screen? Appeared before Jin-woo, then changed to show equipment? He felt weight after weight settle on him, then become as light as a feather, as thought it had vanished entirely.”

“The closest I can come is still half again as strong as you were before.”

He was stronger than before and this person was apologizing for it? At any time that thought would have stunned him, but how people treated him didn’t matter, not next to what he held in his hands. “That’ll only make me faster,” JIn-woo said, desperate to go.

The window swung out of his way and he jumped down off the altar. Out of the corner of his eye he saw it change once, then again. A bunch of squares. Inventory, it said? Two rows of those squares filled up with a graphic of.. he looked down. The same bottle he held. And in the lower right corner of the image of that bottle? x999

Was that… a thousand of these bottles per square? A potion that could cure Eternal Slumber? They, they’d be rich! He’d never have to run a dungeon again!

“With your power sealed like this, you’re vulnerable. I’ll send you Igris.” He felt another flare of mana, and a red-armored figure kept pace with him easily. “He has been my right hand since long before I became the Shadow Monarch.”

That feeling… Like Jin-ah. ‘One of the few precious people I have left.’

“He will protect you as if you were me.” Jin-woo turned his head to see an image of his mirror image running beside him. The other nodded to Ignes, who nodded in return.

Next to the other Jin-woo saw the status window. His status window. “So I am an undead… You can bring back the dead?” he realized belatedly. “My, my father…”

“He’s not dead,” the other told him. “He was the vessel of one of the fragments of brilliant light, he wouldn’t have died within a space they control unless there was a monarch there, and I’m keeping track of all of them.”

Jin-woo froze, skidded to a halt. “He’s not…” He trembled. His mother, enough money to secure Jin-ah’s future, even… even his father…

“I will try to find him, but I can’t promise anything.”

Jin-woo shook his head quickly before the other could apologize. Even a chance his father could come home, that he, his mother could see him again! “Yours,” he swore. “I’m yours.” Anything, for this. He sold his life and death and pain over and over just to buy time. To have, to have his family… His soul wasn’t enough. He could never repay this.

Was this why a part of him had felt nothing but devotion towards the other as soon as he fell into has grasp? Had he sensed this in the mana? Or not even this, just… the kindness that made someone willing to give him so much, to give a nothing like him…

“You are not nothing,” the other him insisted as Jin-woo fell to his knees, his gratitude overwhelming him again. “Igris.”

Igris scooped him up easily as breathing, and practically flew to the dungeon exit, carefully placing him on his feet, steadying him the way the other and holding him up when Jin-woo tried to go to his knees again.

“You do not kneel before me,” the other told him. “You never have to kneel before me.”

“But…” but then what could he give? What could he offer? He looked at him with desperation.

“I need you,” he was promised. “I need for your will to protect your family. But I’ll explain later. You should be with your family now.” The other him – the one who felt the same desperate wish to protect – looked down at Jin-woo’s shadow and it filled with hundreds of eyes. “You and your sister should get to see your crea- Your mother again. That’s… You should get to have that.”

And Jin-woo knew that the other would never get to have that, never again.

“You won’t fail them,” his other promised him, forceful and desperate and yearning, and Jin-woo heard you won’t fail them the way I did. “We can talk later, there’s time. Take him home, Igris.”

And giant arms held Jin-woo tight until he found himself in front of his apartment door.

He scrambled for his keys, turned them, flung the door open – half again as strong – “Jin-ah!”

“Jin-woo?” he heard her throw herself out of bed, scramble for her bedroom door and through the living room. “JIn-woo? Are you okay?” she asked him.

That wasn’t important. “Mom,” he said, holding open his arms. “Igris, can you take us both?” Red darkness tried to rise from his shadow but the hall was too small and Igris was forced to appear outside. “I found something that can cure Mom.”

Jin-ah stared at him, mouth slipping open as if to ask him if he was serious but he would never say that unless he was. When she could move, she flung herself at him. As a hunter he could already lift her easily, but it wasn’t just his strength that made everything feel so light right now. “Igris… do you know where she is?”

The red-armored giant shook his head.

“I can give you directions.” He went out the door and Igris lifted them both as if they weighed nothing.

“is he a summon?” Jin-ah asked, breathless. “A healer’s summon? Are they going to cure Mom?”

“That way.” A blur, and when Igris was still again, Jin-woo said, “Sort of? I don’t know how to explain, I want to get to Mom. That way.”

Jin-ah didn’t interrupt again, vibrating with eagerness. She didn’t want to make this take any extra time either.

“That window, there,” JIn-woo said when they were outside of the hospital. Igris sat them down, swept his cloak over them and there they were, in the room.

Jin-woo lifted up the bottle to look at it and a window with a description and directions appeared next to it. She just had to drink the entire bottle? That easy? They were that close? He dodged around Jin-ah to get to the bed, then stopped, forced himself to go slow, to open her mouth carefully. He was stronger than before. He couldn’t hurt her, not like this. Not when they were this close.

A progress bar. Lists of ailments – muscular atrophy, eternal sleep… And everything finished counting down as Jin-ah shook him and asked, “Is it working? Is it working?”

And then she opened her eyes. “Jin-woo…” A moment more, an intake of breath, “Jin-ah?” he saw his mother realize how long it must have been. “Then…” He saw her look past them. He knew who she looked for, who she had watched for for so long.

“He’s alive,” he told her. “He’s alive and I’ll bring him home, I promise.” He could make a promise like that, as weak and pathetic as he was, because he had help.

He saw her look at him and frown, the way she’d frowned when she found out he was doing dungeons. The, ‘Are you kidding me? I’m an adult, we take care of things. Your job is to stay safe and study.’

Study… those potions, they had money, he wouldn’t have to do low-level dungeon runs.

His other self needed him for something and Jin-woo would make it happen no matter what, do anything for the person who gave him this. But… tomorrow wouldn’t be like today. Tomorrow his mother would be home.

A nurse finally arrived, her head downcast and shoulders slumped, and he saw her look up, then stare when she saw his Mother sitting up instead of lying there dead. “I found potions in a dungeon,” Jin-woo told her to forestall questions. “I’ll give you five of them if you let us leave, now.”

“My clothes…?” Mom asked the nurse.

The nurse blinked, “Ah, we returned your clothes to your family…” Because they’d known she was never leaving that bed.

And Jin-woo hadn’t brought anything. He went to the window, yanked it open, jumped out. “Igris?” he asked, then hesitated. He’d just ordered around something – someone – so powerful? Was that really okay? But Igris appeared and swept his cloak over Jin-woo again, and Jin-woo found himself in the entryway at home.

He’d forgotten to even close the door, let alone lock it. Clothes! Right, his mom’s clothes! He threw some of everything into a bag, then ran out and looked up at Igris hopefully. “Thank you,” he said as the cloak swept over him again, putting him in the hospital room.

The fact he’d screwed up by forgetting clothes for his Mom… That was, that was the kind of thing that happened in real life. This was, this was real. He dumped the bag out on Mom’s bed, throwing the clothes down hard enough to make the mattress bounce a little. “Sorry,” he said, but found himself grinning. He hadn’t… He hadn’t failed them

They were okay.

He…

Anything.

Anything.

He’d do anything for them. For this. Maybe he’d been turned into a monster, maybe he was going to be used to kill humans, but who cared as long as Jin-ah and Mom were okay?

He wanted the inventory screen open and it was. Reached and pulled five bottles out, one after another, as the nurse pulled over a curtain so Mom could get dressed.

“They just have to drink it all, every drop,” he told the nurse. “That’s it.”

“Potions are a thing now?” his Mom asked from behind the curtain.

Questions.

Oh shit.

Um.

He did not give a damn what was up with the other him or exactly how dead he was or anything like that, but he could not tell Mom that he died. He was not going to do that to her.

“I think Jin-woo reawakened and he’s a spatial mage now, Mom,” Jin-ah said helpfully. “Pulling those out of thin air is spatial magic, and he’s got a summon that can teleport us.”

She didn’t mention the flickering black and purple at all? Not that Jin-woo was going to bring up anything else he’d have to explain! It seemed ungrateful to claim that Igris was his summon, take credit for everything the other him had done, but it was better than making them worry.

The mana that was in Jin-woo now wasn’t his, but it felt like it could have been his, because the feelings in it… they were all feelings he knew. A lot of them too well. Someone so powerful wasn’t ‘another him,’ but… there were things that were the same. They were akin? Kind of like family.

So he said, “Igris can take us home.” They could be home, instead of having to wait torturous minutes on the subway. For him and Jin-ah it had been too long since Mom had been home. He needed to see her there, and then he’d be able to believe a little more that this was real.

But it helped, when she came out from behind the curtain. It helped so much when she wrapped her arms around him.

When they were home at last one of them wanted to go to sleep. Jin-woo desperately didn’t want his mom to go to sleep, but eventually she told them to get to bed and they went.

Shit. Did he have a bedtime again? He wouldn’t have to ride on public transit out to gates?

…when had he last gotten eight straight hours of sleep?

He’d been trying not to think about it. But he’d known. That he was wearing thinner and thinner. That it was only his youth letting him get away with how hard he was pushing himself. That he couldn’t keep this up forever.

…He lay down in bed and realized he didn’t feel tired at all.

…Did he need to sleep anymore? Mom had fed them, so he knew he could eat, but did he need to? He raised his hand to look at it. How energy flickered around it, but the hand itself didn’t flicker, as though he was solid or real or alive.

Thank goodness he still had body heat, or Mom and Jin-ah would have noticed when they hugged him.

…when had he last been hugged?

He wanted the menu thing open again. The status page. Sung Jin-woo the Enduring. General-class Shadow, Lvl. Max.

Shadow, was that what he was? Igris had appeared out of and vanished into his shadow sometimes, he recalled. ‘General…’ was… so he would need to fight. Something about protecting humans? If that wasn’t a lie.

He knew it wasn’t a lie. His hand went to his heart.

But he wasn’t an idiot, and things too good to be true… There had to be a catch somewhere. The fact he was so certain, the way he loved the other him the way he’d only loved Jin-ah, his mother and his father… He didn’t trust people like this. They knew he was worthless (he was worthless), so they treated him like that and he knew they were going to treat him that way.

But… someone who hadn’t wanted him to die… like his father had wanted to protect him, like his mother had wanted to take care of him, like Jin-ah had decided to be a doctor because she wanted to get better at patching him up… Someone who apologized to him like he was worth apologizing to.

The way his mom had apologized to him for being gone so long, for putting so much on his shoulders. She told him he was strong, was amazing, for bearing it, for doing so well.

In his status screen. ‘The Enduring,’ like he was worthy of a title, of anything.

The other him was something from the gates. That meant a monster. An enemy of humanity. But the more he thought about it, the more certain he became that he could trust him. Like family.

Jin-woo frowned.

…No, Dad would absolutely not have had a kid with a monster or something. He felt like he needed to say sorry even for thinking that.

“Igris?” he asked, and the knight appeared, sitting next to his bed in order to fit in his bedroom. “How do I talk to him again? Should I go inside a gate?”

Igris shook his head and raised his cloak again, tilting his head questioningly.

Jin-woo got into a sitting position and nodded. “Thanks, Igris.”

Instead of tensing up he relaxed when he found himself in the darkness, surrounded by the other him’s power. When he saw him. “Thank you,” he said. “I can’t ever thank you enough.”

The other him shook his head. “I’m glad you could have that. Your family, safe for now. I’m glad I was able to help bring it about. There’s still someone missing. I’m limited in what I can do without revealing I’m active. I’m sure the Rulers know since they’ve been using the blood they shed to time-travel, but the monarchs… The Architect was still willing to work with me, but the instant they realize I won’t help them loot your world they’ll go back to trying to make me stay dead.”

“Can they?” Sung Jin-woo asked, eyes widening. Could he lose this person? He couldn’t… to have a chance at having everyone home, and then lose the person who made it possible…

“No power is limitless. Even that of our creator.” The other him touched his replica of Jin-woo’s chest.

“…Do you have a name?” Jin-woo asked, to change the subject. Even if it sounded like he’d need to know about that eventually, he didn’t want the other him to have to try to explain it when there was so much Jin-woo didn’t know that an explanation wouldn’t help when he didn’t have the context for it.

“Ashborn, now. The Monarch of Shadows.”

“So I’m a shadow, and my class is General?”

“Not a class, but a rank.” Ashborn was silent a moment and then said, as though confessing. “Igris’ counterpart was trapped inside a barrier in the last battle. She couldn’t return to my shadow when her body was destroyed and her mana was torn apart. Unless you’re trapped in such a barrier, I’ll be able to bring you back no how many times your new bodies are destroyed. I sent Igris with you in case one of the humans hosting the power of the rulers finds you and realizes you’re mine. He can summon himself, but I must teach you how to quickly remove the limiters reducing your power and call your forces from your shadow.” He waved at the eyes gazing up at Jin-woo from his shadow. Or what pretended to be a normal shadow. “Once you know that much, it should be safe to let you return to the human world. For now. Once you have a serviceable knowledge of necromancy, Igris will teach you to dodge-tank, and after that you can choose your own combat training.”

“So I’ll be fighting?” Jin-woo asked.

“I’m sorry,” Ashborn said, as though that was anything to apologize for. “You will be attacked by all sides for being one of mine.”

And Jin-woo felt Ashborn’s pain in his mana, the pain of an old wound. How many of his had Ashborn lost…?

“But you’re good at surviving,” Ashborn told him, rallying. “I hope… Humans are so peaceful.”

There was soft longing in Ashborn’s voice, so Jin-woo didn’t say anything like, ‘what planet are you from?’ Jin-woo had attended that much school. Even before the gates, humans had huge wars and shit. But if idealizing humanity gave him something to hope for, then Jin-woo wasn’t going to burst his bubble.

“Compared to us,” Ashborn added, and Jin-woo realized that Ashborn’s mana was flowing through him and back into Ashborn. Right. So Ashborn would know his emotions too. “You hope that Jin-ah will never have to fight, not even to defend herself. The fact that you consider this a possibility… But I will show you how to assign her bodyguards.”

Trying to find out what exactly Ashborn wanted from him so he could deliver it on a silver platter could happen later. Protecting Jin-ah? He needed to know how to do that now.

“I will send an army with you, and show you how to summon them. If they are killed, they can be revived again and again, as long as you have mana. Let me give you this, to be sure you won’t be left unprotected.” A still beating black heart appeared in Ashborn’s hands, bleeding white flames.

He stepped forward. He’d had his ribs cut open before. For Mom, for Jin-Ah. Ashborn could do whatever he wanted to Jin-Woo, and he’d just be grateful he could be useful to the person who saved him. Who chose him.

But those hands and the heart just passed through his chest like a ghost’s, and there was no pain, just warmth in his body like drinking a hot cup of coffee on a cold night, and Ashborn’s mana flooding into him now that he could hold so much more of it. “Ah… Ah…” he gasped for breath, feeling that care melt him away, filling him so full it felt like he couldn’t take anymore and then something in him gave way – opened, and he jerked, head flung back, and panted even harder when there was more, the warmth in his chest and the butterflies in his stomach sparking heat that drove him to take a stumbling step forward. Seeking Ashborn, needing him. So amazed at arms around him, someone holding him up, helping him stand and he needed Ashborn. He’d needed someone, so desperate for so long, knowing no one cared but Jin-Ah and he’d die to keep her from having to bear this.

He craved Ashborn desperately, two hearts pounding in his chest loud enough to drown out all other sound.

For so long he’d felt so empty, so numb to everything but the pain of survival and dread of the inevitable, but now he was full, full of love and he wanted, wanted more, wanted to drink down more of what Ashborn gave him and drown in it, drown in him. He pressed against him, panting against his lips, moving his hips as he tried to bury himself inside the body that matched his – Ashborn thought he was pretty enough for it to be worth wearing that face himself, even if Jin-Woo didn’t have the money for plastic surgery and that was one more reason it was impossible to find a job that paid well enough to replace hunting.

Fire filled his veins and only Ashborn could quench it, and his liege held Jin-woo, warm arms around him, warm body against him, giving him everything he needed, letting him have everything he wanted, and more.

More and more, and then without warning white fire burned everything away.

When it receded, Ashborn was still holding him in his arms. “I could feel that you were alright, but you sounded like you were in pain.”

“It was good…” he moaned, hips jerking again, and then horror tried to penetrate through the warm lassitude. Had he just, just rubbed himself off against, against… the one he owed everything?! “I’m sorry!”

“There’s nothing to be sorry for. I’m the one who should apologize. I knew Baran conceived when his battle-lust reached its peak, I just didn’t realize that the pounding of his heart was connected.”

“Con- con-“

“The Monarchs and Rulers were made capable of bringing forth armies. I… After… I am no longer capable of that. All I can do is preserve what’s left of my children, and shelter the fallen children of others.”

“Am I….?!!” A terrified shriek escaped Jun-Woo.

“I thought your body wasn’t the type that created children?” Ashborn looked down at where their bodies were joined. “Your mother and Jin-Ah are the same type and you’re a different type, yes? Or was it your Dad who created the children and that’s why no more workers were produced to help support the hive after he left?”

“I’m an undead now, so, um…” He buried his head in his hands, feeling really stupid, and in front of Ashborn. He wanted to die. Again.

But Ashborn still held him, Ashborn’s affection and admiration for him still poured through him.

“I’m sorry,” he said though.

“I think it’s admirable, how dedicated you are to taking care of your family. Of course you would want to be sure you hadn’t created a child when you’re still learning to control your own strength and might not be able to protect them.”

Like when people assumed he was some kind of thrill-seeking idiot, Jin-Woo thought ‘I could explain, but I don’t want to have that conversation,” and kept his mouth shut.

[obsidianarchives]

Game of Thrones Recap: S8E3 - "The Long Night"

What do you even say about an episode like this? Yes, it was dark and full of terrors (particularly for viewers trying to watch online), and certainly there were long-form narrative issues we will discuss with how this changes the impact of the rest of the season, but this was unquestionably one of the most exhilarating, terrifying, and cathartic episodes ever put to television.

Winterfell

The episode starts with one of director Miguel Sapochnik’s (Hardhome, Battle of the Bastards, Winds of Winter) trademark long tracking shots as the defenders of Winterfell hear their mama pulling up in the driveway and they most definitely forgot to take the chicken out of the freezer. Sam’s hands can’t stop shaking, Tyrion needs more wine, but the real soldiers are ready to go down fighting. The tension already has its hand firmly in your chest five minutes into the episode when the crew hears the approach of a single rider. Out of nowhere, it’s the Red Priestess of Asshai, Melisandre, and she gets straight to down business to defeat the Huns.

In one of the best visuals you’ll ever see, she calls out to the assembled Dothraki in the vanguard and lights all 100,000 or so of their swords ablaze. The ring of fire lights up the darkness and Jorah and Ghost lead the charge against the front line of the dead. It’s a beautiful moment, watching from the walls of Winterfell as a host of fire bears down on the cold dark and for a moment there’s hope of the impossible. The dream is snuffed out in an instant, as the lights of their swords darken almost immediately when they realize all too late that the other side bought giants. Yeah buddy, it’s a wrap! It’s almost disappointing we didn’t get to see Ice Spiders as well, but the unfeeling swarm of death was terrifying enough on its own.

Seeing the greatest number of her army (and all those Brown people) reduced to shreds in seconds, Daenerys NOW decides to get on Drogon and use their air force to even the numbers a bit. Why was this not the plan from jump? They also could have used the Dothraki to mow down the wights from the flank, but that’s what happens when they keep letting Jon draw up battle plans when he hasn’t won a game of Connect Four since he’s been back from the dead. Where is Robb when you need him?

It matters little, as the Night King has bodies to spare, and as the dead reach the second level they wash over everyone. Once the dragons enter the field of battle, the literal winds of winter kick up a storm brought by Lord Coldemort, cutting off Dany and Jon’s dragons from the main battle. On the ground, the losses begin as Dolorous Edd dies saving Sam, who had no business being on the field in the first place, Jaime has to save Brienne from an inglorious death, and the bulk of the living face a hasty retreat back inside the castle with their flight being covered by the Unsullied. What are the Northmen even here for at this point? Melisandre casually strolls her behind down to the moat as people are dying, to ignite it and protect the castle just in time to give them some cover. Knees to chest girl!

In the crypts, Tyrion is still all the way in his feelings about being left out of the battle and has to be straightened out by Sansa. The two share a moment of understanding and compassion, but Missandei is also there and is not here for the two showing anything less than proper deference for her girl Dany. In the Godswood, Bran connects to the wi-fi and wargs into his flock of ravens, presumably to draw out the Night King, who we’ve felt but not seen up to this point in the episode. He reacts in kind by telepathically commanding his forces to choke out the fire guarding the castle by piling their own lemming bodies onto it and forming a bridge of corpses before finally descending from the skies on Viserion to find Bran.

The dead breach the castle and everybody is in trouble now. The Hound, who hates fire even more than the wights, found himself a nice little corner to cry in until Beric tells him that his baby girl Arya is still fighting and he runs off to save her. Big Bear Lyanna Mormont is in the courtyard handling her business but has the misfortune to run across an undead Giant who keeps that block hand strong and Mutombo-swats her away. Undeterred, Lyanna runs up on him axe in hand but is gripped up, and as the giant is crushing the life out of her she goes out like a true G and stabs him in the eye with a dragonglass dagger, taking the Hulk with her.

Inside the castle, Arya lurks her way around trying to hide and catch her breath for a moment, but runs smack dab into a Wights-Only library. Quiet as a shadow, she flits around the room evading her doom, but in the most zombie-ish scene yet, the dead still come pouring out and the terror takes her as she has to run, chased by a horde and already down her weapon. Arya is finally found by the Hound and Beric, the latter of whom is stabbed repeatedly as he covers their escape. As the trio find a safe room, Dondarrion dies for a final time where the waiting Melisandre opines it was his purpose to deliver Arya here. Reciting the prediction made the last time they saw each other in season three, when the Red Woman took Gendry, she mentions the eyes Arya will shut forever, "brown eyes, green eyes...and blue eyes." Arya (and the rest of us) hit the Wee-Bey gif as the full meaning of the prophecy becomes clear, and she wasn’t even mad Melisandre’s name was still in Gendry’s phone.

We finally get a dragon battle as Rhaegal and Drogon take on their brother, with Dany even knocking the Night King off of Viserion. She goes for the win and Drogon hits him point blank with about 30 seconds of dragon fire…to which the white walker steps out of smiling. Welp! My man is completely unbothered like she gave him a free trip to the sauna, and keeps walking towards Bran. Jon gives chase with Longclaw, trying to end it by killing him, but before he can get there the Night King turns around and raises the dead again. Petty!

Jon finally gets his sword off and gets busy this season, but just when it looks like he might get got by the unending reanimated army, Daenerys comes to his aid with Drogon, burning a path for him to follow. Unfortunately, the Queen kept her dragon on the ground instead of in the air for some reason, and my baby boy Drogon was quickly swarmed by wights. He had to take to the sky, trying to shake them off to survive, but left Dany alone with the dead. But she's not alone! You already know ol’ sucka for love Jorah rolled up to defend her. He finally dies protecting her as we all have seen coming for years, but is mercifully spared the sentiment the show apparently thinks we feel for him.

In the most obvious development yet, when the Night King raised the dead, he raised ALL of the dead, and suddenly being locked in the crypts with a bunch of corpses turns out not to be the best idea. Thankfully there was no one we know returning as zombies, but Sansa and Tyrion had to have a moment where they accepted their fates and charged out of hiding to meet death like an old friend. Playing it a to a hilt, we were treated to a slow-motion montage of everyone about to die as the Night King finally made his way to Bran with a host of White Walkers on his flank.

Jon tried to give chase yet again but was cut off by Viserion with half a face, guarding the courtyard. It was left to Theon, the last Ironborn alive guarding Bran with a bow in echoes of season one, when the Three-Eyed Jaden finally returns to assess the situation on the ground. Everyone knows what's about to happen, and Bran tells Theon he’s a good man just before he dies futilely charging the Night King.  

His last defender gone, Bran simply stares at the Night King, seemingly awaiting his fate. Jon, making a last-ditch effort to save his brother, stands and faces Viserion and…screams at the dragon, fully prepared to die trying. This is your king??? As the Night King pulls out his sword to end the series, Arya jumps out of nowhere, leaps over the White Walker guard and drives her Valyrian steel dagger at him. She's caught in mid-air, but she does the same knife drop-and-switch she used when sparring with Brienne and stabs him with the right! He crumbles and takes the rest of his army with him. Arya Stark, first of her name, Princess that was promised!!

The battle finally over, Melisandre walks out into the night with Davos hot on her heels, takes off her glowing red necklace and, as the funk of 40,000 years fades away and her task is complete, simply withers away into nothingness.

For all the hype and fear of another massive culling, the episode left a surprising number of the main cast still alive. We knew — or assumed — many of the main characters who still have ties to King’s Landing would survive simply because there is more payoff to come with their stories (Cleganebowl, the Lannisters, etc.), but this isn’t a series that has shied away from doing the unthinkable. While it always seemed clear to me the series would deal with the dead before settling who sits on the Iron Throne, there's an inevitable question of let down; what can a stick fight over a chair mean after this? There are no elephants. What is the Golden Company after Giants and Ice Dragons? We've still got three episodes of intrigue to wrap the series up but it now seems an even trickier path than before to stick the landing.

Speaking of hype, the constant comparisons to the battle of Helm's Deep did this episode no favors. While there were truly magnificent and breathtaking shots, much of the episode was (by design) obscured in darkness and Sapochnik indulged too many of his worst habits, pulling-in a bit too close and sacrificing spatial awareness for evocative immersion. This worked in Hardhome and to a lesser extent in the Battle of the Bastards because we had already spent time establishing the fields of battle. This was a chaotic war on all fronts, in a territory we’d never fully fleshed out in terms of geography. While it was clearly an intentional choice to send the viewers the fog and chaos of war, it lacked the kinetic heft of his earlier episodes or the narrative clarity in Neil Marshall’s Battle of Blackwater and Watchers on the Wall.

Perhaps it’s instructive to look closer at the Lord of the Rings comparisons, however. Destroying the ring and defeating Sauron and the forces of Mordor wasn’t the final battle in the text. Instead, we pared down the scope and pace of the story to deal with the irreparable harm done to the small band of survivors that we started the story with. They had grown, and despite all their victories, still had to return home to a final insult of their victory tainted, and their once idyllic and peaceful vision of the Shire scourged and forever changed. This ending was dropped in the film version so it appears we'll get to see for ourselves how well that type of storytelling holds up to a direct, visual medium as opposed to text.

[mateodeavalor-blog]

An Oath By The Blood Of My Hand

Mateo and Naomi set out to stop Arawn and break the Cauldron’s spell. (November 2nd, 2018)

@arawnprydain

@someonespecial-naomi

[trigger warnings; death, murder, gore, blood, violence, and dark shit all around.]

MATEO

Mateo guided himself and Naomi towards Enchantra. Luckily, or unluckily depending on how you looked at it, the zombies had all mainly flocked to the town where everyone was concentrated. The farther they got from the buildings the less zombies they had to worry about, seemingly. The occasional one popped up in the dark of the eternal - apparently - night because oh yeah! That was his fault, too! Having let out some terrifying monster that made the moon turn from its usual eerie soft glow into a grim bloody color. And it was going to look like that for forever unless they did something about it. But they also had to stop the zombies from turning everyone in town into Arawn’s minions, and from Arawn taking the Cauldron anywhere else to spread the disease.

Mateo didn’t know what to feel, honestly. There was too many things crowding around inside him trying to get the spotlight. Usually he could manage his emotions, they ran their course and did what they needed and he could move on when they were done. This was just overwhelming. It was everything all at once and yet he knew that if he let it all in that he wasn’t going to be able to keep moving his legs. He would just have to ignore it all for now, wait until he fixed this whole mess, and then he could let the crushing weight of guilt bury him in his grave that he had dug for himself.  

He stopped at the tree lining, listening for footsteps that weren’t his or Naomi’s now that they were standing still. There was only the steady flow of water next to them that the river was just a ways next to them. Mateo turned to look at Naomi before casting his eyes to the ground, ashamed that she was with him and not with Elena. That she had to be here at all, helping clean up his mistakes.

He pointed weakly towards the forest.

“Uh, it should be... just this way,” he said, glancing up at her from under the rim of his glasses. “We’ll have to be careful, though. He probably has himself surrounded by those...those things.”

 NAOMI

It should probably worry her that she felt more at peace now than she had in weeks. The dead were walking, the sun had stopped rising, Mateo’s master had shown his true colors, and the world might very well be ending. And Naomi felt totally centered and calm.

Chaos was her normal, now. At least she had a plan and a weapon in her hand, and her best friend back beside her. (Not that she wasn’t still mad at Mateo, because oh boy, was she mad at Mateo. But at least he was around for her to be mad at.) She had her mission, and thus, her purpose.

She’d probably have to examine that later.

For now, Naomi was creeping alongside Mateo as they made their way through the forest. She wasn’t as graceful above land as she was under the sea, but she was still one of Pachamama’s best for a damn reason. Any zombies they had run into had been quickly and efficiently dealt with by a quick knife to the back of the neck, severing the spine so a quick hit knocked it right off the rotted neck.

Naomi stopped by Mateo at the edge of the forest, looking into the darkness and feeling nothing but the familiar rush of adrenaline and the blood pounding in her veins. Hearing Mateo’s voice again after a month of silence still made her heart leap. He was alive. He was alive. She kinda wanted to punch him again. “I’ve faced worse,” Naomi said, not elaborating as she began to make her way through the forest. “So what do we need to do to stop this cauldron thing?” she whispered, keeping close to Mateo.

 MATEO

Her confidence was jarring. Even though it shouldn’t have been because this was Naomi Turner he was talking to, who he knew was far more qualified to be doing this than him. But it was his mess to clean. His thumb ran over his palm, bandaged now, but he could still feel where he had willingly given a part of himself up to make all this possible.

Naomi had also always known that Arawn wasn’t what Mateo thought he was. Mateo, all the way up until the very end, had trusted the man, had looked up to him in a way that made him feel a physical pain in his chest. The same man who had taught him how to properly extract a memory on the first try had held a knife to his throat because he hadn’t cared the entire time. It had all been a ploy to get him down there to unleash the dead on the living.

She had warned him, tried to reason with him, and Mateo hadn’t listened. Why hadn’t he listened? He knew the answer to that question, but he hated it too much to fully examine it. Another apology wanted to crawl out of his throat but he didn’t let it because they couldn’t get into that right now. There would be time for that later. He would have a whole lifetime to make up for this whole thing.

“Honestly?” he sighed, then shook his head. “I don’t know. I only ever heard about it from... from him and I didn’t think to-” Mateo grit his teeth. “If we... if we can stop him then that should stop the zombies from doing what he wants, so that should buy us some time until I can... figure out how to stop the Cauldron. Or, if we’re lucky, stopping him will stop everything altogether.”

He paused, then laughed something bitter and humorless, “It’s never that easy, though, is it?”  

 NAOMI

Naomi looked at Mateo and felt… sad.

She had wanted to be wrong. About Arawn. She had wanted to just be paranoid, to be able to tell Mateo that yeah, he was right, she was wrong, that she was so proud of him for finding a master that could really appreciate the wonderful person Mateo was. Someone who could help him become the amazing sorcerer Naomi knew he could be.

She didn’t like being right. Didn’t like that the world could be so consistently cruel.

She reached over silently, taking his hand in hers and giving it a brief squeeze. “No, it’s not, but if anybody could pull it off, it’s us,” she said to him with a small, confident grin. “I’ll take care of Arawn, you take care of the Cauldron,” Naomi said with a small nod, her expression going dark. Her nails had long gone sharp and deadly, and she knew the skin on her back had turned rough and dark in patches.

“I have words for that man.”

Hopefully, Arawn spoke ‘knife’.

 MATEO

He looked up when she touched him, surprised that she would want to to that. That her touch was reassuring and gentle, that of a friend he did not deserve after what he had done. It made his throat tighten and his eyes sting enough to where he closed them to force the tears there from falling. Mateo clutched her hand back, maybe holding on a little too tight.

With a sniffle he smiled, laughing a little as he nodded in agreement. Mateo didn’t want to talk to Arawn. He didn’t want to face him ever again. But he didn’t really have a choice here. It was the only way to put an end to the zombies and get the people who had him and that demon in their heads out from under the spell.

“Deal,” Mateo agreed, and began walking forwards again.

The green fog thickened as they got closer, swirling around their feet until their shoes disappeared beneath the smog. He took them along the river until they were in view of the scene he had escaped from.

Only with some new, undead, additions.

 NAOMI

Mateo clutched his hand back, and just like in that nightmare in the arena, she wasn’t afraid. This was going to end, one way or another.

(This wasn’t a dream, a voice whispered in the back of her mind. If you die in Mateo’s arms now, you won’t wake back up.)

They walked together, hand in hand, as the fog got thicker and the smell of rot and death got heavier in the air. Even out of the water with her senses dulled, it got to Naomi’s head; she could smell the blood, making shivers run up and down her spine. Naomi pulled her knife out of its sheath, gripping it tightly as they began to see figures in the distance. They stopped, Naomi gesturing for Mateo to get low.

“Is it worth trying to surprise him or should we just rush him?” she asked. “You could get rid of the zombies with the Tamborita while I go after him.”

 MATEO

He ducked down when Naomi motioned for him to, squinting through the brush that they were now eye level with. Her question had him clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth, letting out a breath as he tilted his head with his indecisiveness at it. Mateo didn’t know Arawn anymore, did he? He hadn’t ever really known the man at all. How was he to know if he was powerful enough to sense them coming? If he would even have to lift a finger with the dead army he had surrounding him.

“I-I-I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head more violently. Using his magic? Was she crazy? That never went to plan. And the only reason it had been working recently was because of the person they were here to take down.

“I can’t,” Mateo told her, turning his head to face her. “I can’t. I’m not-. I’m not powerful enough. We shouldn’t have split up. I shouldn’t even be here he probably knows I’m here already and-”

 NAOMI

He was spiralling.

Naomi reached out, grabbing the back of Mateo’s neck firmly, grounding him with her touch as she pressed her forehead against his temple. “Mateo,” she whispered. “You can do this. He can’t hurt you, I won’t let him.”

“You are better than him,” she continued. “And don’t tell me it’s not true, because it is. You are a better person, you have a better heart, and you are stronger than him. You have me, you have all of our friends, and Arawn has nothing. He had to raise an army of the undead just to have some fucking friends; we love you, magic or not, no matter what. I can’t do this alone, I need your help, Teo. You know the Cauldron better than any of us, you can do this.” She rose up a little from her crouch, kissing his hair.

“I’ll protect you,” Naomi reassured him.

 MATEO

Mateo clenched his jaw, biting down hard as she spoke. Slowly, over the course of her words the tension there loosened. His breathing evened out to something more attainable. Her touch was soothing, as was her voice. Familiar and kind and everything he didn’t deserve but needed in that moment. And he knew she was being genuine, he could see it right there in front of him, glowing brightly underneath her other emotions.

When she pressed her lips into his hair he leaned into it, squeezing his eyes shut briefly as he focused on the contact and the encouragement.

She was right, in a way. Mateo couldn’t leave her to clean up this mess alone. He couldn’t just stand by and let this chaos persist. He had done this to the town, he was the reason any of this was possible and he would be responsible for cleaning it up.

“Okay,” he whispered. Then repeated, a little louder, “Okay.”

Mateo gripped his Tamborita tighter. “I’ll distract them.”

He moved to run off, to leave her there but he faltered on his second step. The last time they had done something like this she had come back to him bleeding to death. Mateo knew Naomi was more than capable of handling herself, he knew, but Arawn wasn’t a bunch of scared kids fighting for their lives, either. He turned back, holding her gaze, “Be careful, okay? I’ll be right behind you soon.”

 NAOMI

Naomi didn’t have to be a sorcerer to know what Mateo was thinking about when he turned back to her, and she smiled at him confidently as she twirled her knife around her fingers. Naomi Turner from District 5 wasn’t Naomi Turner from Avalor; didn’t have a childhood of being trained to be a Huntress, of fighting for two years in the civil war that had taken over her home, of making her way alone across the ocean not once, but twice. She was malnourished, Naomi wasn’t. She was injured when she had faced off against Rita and Maru, Naomi wasn’t. Naomi had killed malvagos before. The only difference was this time, she was really going to enjoy it. “Mateo, I’m hurt. I’m always careful,” she joked. “You get their attention. I’ll show that malvago why your friends are scarier than his.” With a final wink, Naomi melted into the forest, moving silently as she made her way around to get a better angle.

 MATEO

He smiled at her retreating form before turning his gaze back to the undead bodyguards. After a minute, giving Naomi a head start to be completely out of his vicinity, he took a slow breath - in and out, stood to his full height and calmly stepped out from their hiding spot.  

“Hey!” he yelled, causing heads to turn in his direction. He walked slowly, waiting for them to attack him. Waiting for them to come forwards in an effort to bite him or tear him to pieces. Finally, one of them moved. And then the next, and like a domino effect they all came stumbling forwards towards him. Mateo moved, too, cutting around the edge of them, so they were making a giant circle around one another so that in the end Mateo was standing where they had been and they were standing off of their posts.

“Vetzi,” he shouted, clapping a hand against his Tamborita. A yellow wave of magic came out, knowing the ones closer to him down. But it wasn’t enough to harm them in anyway, just slow them down.

Mateo backed up, walking backwards until his back hit something. He turned, on the defense, hand raised at the ready.

 ARAWN

He had known the boy was on his way. The map of his had told him where he was.

The girl’s dot had ceased to exist now that her soul string had been clipped and the immortals was no longer within the town’s limits for him to follow. Didn’t matter, he only cared to watch the boy’s.

When he saw it moving back towards the forest he had called off the search in the town, let those return to the task of allowing the sheep that lived there to be reborn into creatures with purpose. No longer flocking around one another with dead eyes for now they would have a meaning.

Arawn sat on a throne of bones derived of bodies that had formed into the seat on his command. His grin sharpened when the boy’s voice sounded out from just beyond the way. He looked up in time to see one of his pathetic spells pass through the air.

Then the boy himself appeared. Arawn opened his arms up when he turned to face him.

“The prodigal son returns!” he bellowed, raising from his seat. “So kind of you to return, boy, did you realize resisting me wasn’t worth the waste?”

A dark chuckle bubbled up from deep in his chest, echoing into the night. “Or are you here to beg to be apart of all this just for me to spare your pathetic waste of magic and life?”

 MATEO

Hearing that voice again sent a chill down his spin and he shivered as a result of it. He quickly aimed the drum wand at Arawn, following his movements with it so he could strike if Arawn attempted to throw something his way first. His heart picked up speed and he could hear the groans, the stress of bones against flesh as the zombies moved behind him but he didn’t look over his shoulder. He knew Naomi would hold up her end of this plan.

Mateo did look around him, trying to find the Cauldron, eyes darting every which way. The magic radiating off of it was hard to miss though and eventually his eyes found it in the dark. It was sitting just beyond the throne Arawn had stood from. The green mist was flowing out of it steadily.

“This is wrong, Arawn!” he said, because at the end of the day Mateo had cared about this man. He had trusted him, followed him into the depths of the Underworld, had learned necromancy from him, all because he thought the best in people. He knew, somewhere, that there was no hope for a sorcerer like this. A malvago who had gotten so addicted to the dark magic of the world that they couldn’t see the light anymore. But maybe all they needed was someone to pull them out of it.

It was also a selfish attempt at justifying himself, hoping, praying, that maybe there was something decent still left in this man. Something that he had seen that day they had met that told him to accept the offer to become his apprentice. That there had been some form of kindness lodged in there, that it hadn’t all been a ruse.

“You can’t justify hurting people like this!” Mateo said and stepped forwards to close the distance between them. “End this. Now. Please. You can’t... you can’t honestly believe this is how the world should be.”

 ARAWN

Laughter followed the boy’s attempts at reasoning with him. It was an airy, mocking laugh that came back as he threw his head back, his arms still out to the side of him.

Suddenly he went silent, head snapping back down to pin Mateo down with a glare.

“What do you think this is?” he spat, seething. “I seek no redemption from you! From this world! From anyone! This place has been nothing but a cesspool! War after war. Genocide. Toxic sludge poured into the Earth as if it was not the source of life itself! People preach, they plead for the Mundus to stop, for peace to reign, and for what?”

He laughed again. “For what reason do we have to keep them around, boy? Any of them? Mundus and Magick alike who have betrayed this world to its very core. I am giving this planet a second chance at life. I am the one who will see our species through.”

With a few long strides he stood before Mateo, not caring to stand out of the way for his silly little wand. Arawn tilted his head, eyes narrowing at the boy as he softened his volume.

“When this world is cleansed of those who have soiled it I will guide us all into a new age. One far better than the one we live in now.” His tone was still cold, sharp enough to cut steel. “Can’t you see that? What I’m doing has to be done, Mateo. And just because everyone else is too pathetic and weak see that makes it my responsibility to see this through. For everyone’s sake.”

 MATEO

His heart was pounding in his chest as Arawn stalked closer. He held the Tamborita higher, put his palm closer to the drum. Mateo felt something he didn’t normally feel, something that was hard to pull out of him. It made his chest burn and set his teeth on edge.

Anger rose in up. It took hold of him as he listened to Arawn talk about people like they were nothing. Like they were the reason this world was so terrible. And maybe that was true to an extent; looking at Arawn now he knew there were bad people in this world, but he also knew there were far more good than bad. People just tended to harp on the bad because it was harder to dismiss.

He knew because Isabel talked about her schoolwork and excitement colored her something wonderful, the future forming for her as she spoke on knowledge and goals that made her happy. That when his mother called him in for dinner and pulled him into a hug, brushing his hair away from his face with concern that he was wrong. That when Elena got angry at something on the news, her passion blinding him enough to where he knew he should look away but couldn’t, that there was still hope left to make changes. And he knew he was wrong because if Arawn was right then Naomi wouldn’t have followed him into the dark of the night to fix his mistakes.

Arawn was wrong because, hey, maybe the world wasn’t perfect. People weren’t perfect. They fought and they killed and they did unspeakable things day after day. But there were those that helped their fellow man, who risked their lives to protect strangers or animals that had gotten caught in tragedy. Mateo knew that Arawn was wrong because he had seen it. It’s why he still had the ability to carry on.  

“You’re wrong,” Mateo replied sincerely, his voice tight with emotions. “And if you can’t see that, then I can’t help you.”

He moved then, pulling his hand back and landing a punch across Arawn’s jaw. When he pulled back he laughed and then shook out his hand because oooww.

 ARAWN

Arawn could see the anger. It was pure, concentrated. He wanted to reach out and take it for himself. What an achievement this was, to see the boy who had been nothing but a bleeding heart harden.

Perhaps Arawn hadn’t failed the boy as much as he had originally thought. Pity it was too late to matter.

He rolled his eyes at the statement directed at him, and when he returned his eyes to the boy it was just in time to see the fist coming down.

Arawn stumbled back from the impact, a hand coming up to console his jaw. He touched his finger to his lips, pulling away to find his own blood staining the pads.

“You rat!” he growled, jerking his head up. Arawn pulled the dagger from his sleeve, flipping it round so he was holding it comfortably. Then he moved forwards, lunging at Mateo with it, not caring where it hit as long as it hit some form of flesh.

 MATEO

At Arawn’s outburst he looked up from his hand and his eyes widened at the glint of metal. He stumbled to the side, and dropped his Tamborita in favor of gripping onto Arawn’s arm to keep the dagger from getting near him. The line on his neck had begun to scab over, the line across his palm had a bandage over it now.

For a brief moment Mateo had some weird sense of clarity where he wondered how this came to be his life. How he, some kid from Avalor who got snapped at for taking too long to answer a question, was standing here playing a game of tug-o-war with a literal psychopath who he had once would have defended with his dying breath. It was stupid, none of this should be happening. He and everyone else should have been back home by now, carrying on like always.

But they weren’t. And this was real.

He struggled, trying to twist Arawn’s wrist the wrong way to get him to let go of the dagger.

 NAOMI

The tension was thick in the air as the two sorcerers fought for control of the knife, pushing against each other like opposite ends of two magnets, literally fighting over the fate of the world. Master versus apprentice, good versus evil, skinny versus skeletal.

And Naomi interrupted it by taking the zombie head she had just snapped off its body and throwing it as hard as she could at the back of Arawn's head.

“OYE!” she hollered, whistling to get Arawn's attention. Once his attention was away from Mateo for a split second, Naomi pushed off from his creepy skeletal throne where she had been Chillin’ and closed the distance between them in an instant. Her blade sliced through the inside of his elbow of the arm holding the knife, weakening his grip enough for Mateo to wrestle it away while she caught Arawn in a chokehold and kicked one of his knees out from under him.

While Arawn had been monologueing about how awful and hopeless the world was and how pathetic Mateo was - the ass - and Mateo had been hitting his former master with his best right cross - hot damn, Teo, go off - Naomi had been wiping out his little battalion of undead bodyguards. Working her way through them silently, one by one.

It was a good way to work off her fury at all of Arawn's comments directed at Mateo, each one making her blood boil hotter and hotter. She was going to enjoy hurting him.

(Again, something she should examine. Later though, later.)

“You talk a lot of shit for a guy who got his 'Take Over the World’ plot from the rejected script of a C-list horror film,” she told him casually as the tip of her knife pressed under his jaw against his throat, easily breaking the skin for no other reason than to let Arawn know he wasn't the only one with a Big, Pointy Knife.

“Also, next time, maybe workshop your evil monologue with a friend before you pull this shit, to make sure it's at least worth losing all your little bodyguards while you blather on. Because right now-” Naomi hissed in a breath, letting it out as a hum, “it's really not.”

 ARAWN

Arawn had been using his entire weight to press the dagger forwards, watching with gritted teeth as it only got closer and closer to the boy’s stomach. Only a few more inches and it would sink into Mateo’s body and the pain alone would make him release his grip so Arawn could complete his task and be rid of the boy forever.

Then another voice sounded out among the forest, loud and obnoxious, followed by something clocking him in the back of the head.

Of course he looked, turning his head to see who would dare to defy him among his army that should be under his complete control. He gawked at the girl who was walking towards them.

His eyes moved around them, commanding silently upon those he had told to remain here to protect the Cauldron. But there was no one else left standing to answer his call. Just the three of them.

“How dare you-” he started as she approached but cut himself off as a yelp of pain came out instead as his skin was cut open. His fingers uncurled from around the dagger’s handle as he tried to pull away, to retreat in order to examine his wounds.

She did not let him, though.

He clawed at her arm, his feet kicking wildly to be able to plant themselves. Arawn hissed, attempted to yell but the pressure on his throat choked it back and spit spewed from his lips in his fury to be heard.

When the knife touched the skin of his neck he stopped, frozen, the only movement coming from his shallow breaths at his body’s want for oxygen betrayed him.

Death had always been his friend. He had seen it as nothing to be scared of, welcomed it willingly into his home and into others. Then he had taken it for granted and defied it, becoming a God among men as he brought back people from the afterlife, as he pulled soul strings into his hands one by one.

Now, as Death loomed over him he only felt fear and panic. The things he had yet to do, his plans for the world, lost to the blade of a knife and two children who thought they knew better.

 MATEO

Mateo took Naomi’s distraction for what it was and pulled the dagger from Arawn’s hands as he let go. He stumbled backwards, holding it up to look at before letting it fall to the ground like it had burned him. He didn’t move to pick it up, instead he bent over to pick up his Tamborita and stepped over to where Arawn was squirming in Naomi’s arms.

And, he had to say, it was satisfying to see.

“Thanks,” he told her in between pants. Briefly he glanced down at the head that had rolled to the side, opening his mouth to say something to her about it but thought better of it since now was definitely not the time to address that. Zombies were still running around outside, surely some were on their way here now that their master was in peril.

Instead he turned his attention to Arawn. Mateo pointed behind him, using the Tamborita, at the Cauldron.

“How do we stop it?” he asked. “Tell us, and we won’t hurt you.”

He didn’t look at Naomi for consultation, even though he knew she would want to disagree, he held his gaze on Arawn. The fear that had developed there was something he thought the man incapable of, both before and after learning what he really was, but Mateo could see it staining, like he was bleeding from an open wound.

 NAOMI

Naomi leveled A Look at Mateo. Deep down, she knew he was right. Arawn should be taken to court, to be tried for Peach's murder and the whole 'Bringing back the dead' thing. He should suffer in jail.

But after everything he did to her family, the suffering he had caused them? What he'd done to Mateo? It didn't seem like enough.

Nothing would ever seem like enough.

But she sighed, pulling back her knife just a bit so it was no longer piercing the skin; a small trail of blood beginning to roll down his neck and against her arm. “What he means is, the faster you answer, the more I’ll consider letting you live,” she whispered in his ear, tightening her hold around his neck just a hair. She could feel him trying to scratch at her arms and rested her foot against his leg in reply. “Keep struggling, and I get to show you how they teach the girls in Avalor to walk through someone’s kneecap.”

Her knife continued to hover by his neck, a light pressure that reminded him that one wrong move, and his head was off his shoulders.

 ARAWN

He kept his mouth firmly shut which resulted in his breathing to be sharp as it struggled to pass through his nose. His eyes struggled to look down far enough to see the knife, try and make an estimate of whether or not he could knock it from her grip.

Arawn glared up at the boy as he returned into his field of vision, eyes narrowing at him as he spoke.

And suddenly clarity found him once more. Hope being spoken before him. He had leverage over them due to what was in his head. He smiled, then began to laugh only to cough violently, the arm around his throat closing around his windpipe.

“Fools,” he sneered, amusement in his voice. Anything he said could be a lie, it could be the truth, it could be nothing at all and they wouldn’t know because they had failed to do their research before coming here.

He stopped moving when the girl spoke, closing his eyes against the sound of her voice in his ears as he forced himself not to shake with fear. Arawn wasn’t scared, his body was panicking, trying to figure out a way to survive while his brain was working into overtime on how to turn this around for himself.

The only thing keeping him from lying was the boy. A sorcerer he had trained himself to be able to see, and with his heightened state the fear he knew was on him now would only give him away. No matter, the truth of the situation would be enough. That was the beauty of this plan, after all, no one could stop him in the end.

A smile appeared on his mouth, blood coating his front teeth to match that under his chin. “Nothing can destroy the Cauldron. You idiot. It was forged by sorcerers from molten iron and raw magic to entrap a soul, and it has been sitting in the Underworld for centuries. An eternity down there, accumulating all that it had been exposed to. There is nothing that can combat it.

His smile sharpened as he let out an airy sound, one that communicated that he knew he had won. “Killing me would not stop it, either. I’m attached at the soul and will remain in control, body or no, I shall remain connected forever.”

He tried to right his weight, the angle at which she was holding him uncomfortable but she gave him nothing. Arawn sighed, glancing at the Cauldron from over the boy’s shoulder.

“There’s only stopping the spell, and that-,” he cut himself off with a chuckle, turning his eyes back to the boy, “would take someone willing to sacrifice themself to the Cauldron, never to return to this world or the next. A Fate worse than Death, as they say.”

 MATEO

As Arawn began to talk Mateo began to feel more hopeless.

If not even killing Arawn, which Mateo was reluctant to do despite everything because there was just too much bloodshed in his life for him to want to kill the man, the spell would remain. The zombies would still be linked to him, and soon the world would turn into a terrible dystopian movie that no one wanted to be a part of. He wanted to cry, to fall to his knees in defeat for having been as stupid as to think he could do this.

But then Arawn laughed, a sound that would ring in his ears every night before he went to sleep from here until he was eventually turned into one of those who heard the Cauldron calling to them, and he told Mateo the answer to everything.

Someone would need to jump into the Cauldron of their own volition to put an end to the spell. The catch being they would be lost from every world. There would be no afterlife for them. No meeting with lost loved ones or waiting to greet those that would eventually come to join them. There would be nothing for them. An emptiness, like the black nothing that one saw when they looked into the Cauldron itself.

Mateo lowered his Tamborita and looked down at it in his hands, then he turned and looked over at the Cauldron.

“It has to be me,” he said softly to the drum wand that had once been held by his grandfather, hoping that somewhere he would hear him.

And he knew what he had to do. This was his mess. This was his fault. He didn’t want to sit by and watch his friends turn into mindless servants. He didn’t want the whole world to be in the hands of a man who didn’t know what was really there.

He looked back at Naomi and took one step back, towards the Cauldron.

“It has to be me,” he told her. “It- it has to be me, Naomi.”

 NAOMI

Yeah, no, she wasn’t buying it.

Naomi didn’t trust this man nearly as far as she could throw him, and she didn’t believe his whole ‘Someone must sacrifice themself to the Almighty Cauldron’ bullshit either. The man knew he wasn’t going to walk away from this unless it was in handcuffs, and was bullshitting anything to buy himself more time.

That’s what Naomi was thinking when Mateo had whispered those five words that had made her heart stop dead.

Her head snapped up towards him, although even in her shock, her grip on Arawn didn’t loosen. “What- no! Mateo, come on, he’s lying,” she said in Spanish, eyebrows furrowed together. “No one’s sacrificing anyone else to a pot today, not even yourself. This bastard already killed Peach.”

“You’re not the only way we can find out more about the Cauldron, smartass,” Naomi reminded Arawn, putting pressure on his leg with her foot. “I’m sure Goliath has a book on it or something.”

She looked up at Mateo, meeting his eyes and giving him a small smile. “We’ll figure this out, Teo, with or without him. We’ll make this right.”

 MATEO

“He’s telling the truth,” Mateo said, turning his eyes to Arawn, knowing Naomi would know what he meant. It was among the fear and the mirth sitting in the man. In someone else it would have set him at ease to see, in this instance he wished he hadn’t spent days memorizing the shape of it in order to impress the master he never had in the first place. “I can...I can make this right, Naomi. It’s my fault, it has to be me.”

He took another step backwards, looking up at Naomi. After this he wouldn’t be able to screw up anymore, he wouldn’t have to hurt anyone else. It would all be over and Mateo de Alva would cease to exist.

“Tell my mom…” he trailed off, smiling as he thought on Rafa and Marlena. “Well tell her the truth, I guess. We both know no one could ever lie to her.”

Mateo took a deep breath, his chest rising and falling in large movements as he released all the tension that was starting to form. He couldn’t think about this decision, there was no time to examine every little detail or wonder about the what ifs. There was nothing left to do but what had to be done. He opened his mouth to ask her to tell Elena that he loved her but changed his mind because, well, he could only hope that she already knew. Even if she hated him now.

“Everything’ll be okay,” he reassured her, smiling brightly because it would be. What was his life compared to that of the whole world? To that of the people he cared about most of all? He would do anything for them, and this would only prove it. “I promise.”

He turned and took off then, running before she could get the chance to chase after him. Mateo had never been the athletic type, and now he never would be, but he crossed the distance to the Cauldron within seconds. He caught himself against it, palms gripping the rim as the green fog rolled over him.

“And I’ll keep it this time!” he yelled over his shoulder to her. And with that he hiked his leg up on the lip of the Cauldron. He gave his Tamborita one last look before letting it go, resting it up against the side of the Cauldron.

In a very Mateo fashion, his foot slipped, dipping into the Cauldron as the handle of the drum wand fell from his hand. He blew out a breath as he looked down, but he didn’t regret it. He was ready and willing. The world deserved better and Mateo was going to give it the chance it needed.

He let go.

 NAOMI

It seemed to happen all in slow motion. Naomi was ready to just… talk him down again. Take Arawn in to the police, get back to Goliath’s house, find more info on the Cauldron. They’d wake up tomorrow and maybe it wouldn’t be fixed, but it would be better.

Her eyes went wide as he ran to the Cauldron, yelling over his shoulder with one last look back. No. No no no no.

(Was this how he’d felt, in that nightmare? Racing to catch her before she hit the ground? Time slowing down until there was an eternity between each moment and yet, it was all flying by too fast.)

“MATEO!” she screamed, throwing Arawn aside carelessly as she raced after Mateo, to pull him back. Nonono, she just got him back, no- he couldn’t-

He slipped. Naomi missed his shirt by inches.

Mateo was gone.

She caught herself on the lip, ignoring the chill of the green mist curling around her wrists and legs as she looked frantically into the cauldron. “TEO!” she screamed again, her voice catching in her throat as tears bubbled in her eyes. “No, nononono please, Teo, please,” she begged, searching the surface of the mist for any hint of her friend. Any hope she could reach in and pull him back out. “Mateo!”

(She was in the square, smelling blood in the air as Daya drowned above water. She was in the courtyard, watching Camila take her last breath before a bullet went between her vibrant green eyes. She was alone in the ocean, fighting for her life and feeling each beat of her heart like it was the last.)

Naomi screamed, wordless and echoing into the hidden spots of the forest as the night parted and dawn began to break across the sky.

 ARAWN

Before he could react to what the boy was doing he was tossed to the ground. He let out an indignant sound as he made contact, and turned to watch.

Arawn thought the girl would make it, but she didn’t. The fool had gone and done what he thought all the scum of this Earth would never do, give everything for nothing. Not once did he think there would be anyone capable of being his foil, and yet all this time he had been dragging him along at his side.

A fist formed and punched into the ground, grabbing at the grass there. No, no, no. The green fog seemed to pause in its place for the moment, and then began to retract. The Cauldron was pulling back everything it had released and he could feel that pull on his own soul string, hear his army cry out in anguish as their rule on this Earth had been cut short.

And then he saw it, just in front of him was his dagger. He looked back at the girl as she began to scream, then to the dagger.

He reached forwards and grabbed it, then stood. Damn them, he thought as he approached her from behind, damn them all. He would have his revenge on the boy yet. It would be on those he cared for most. Starting with her.

Arawn stood behind her for a moment, just watching. And then he reached out and grabbed her hair, pulling back, ready to slam her forehead into the side of the Cauldron.

 NAOMI

Naomi could feel the Cauldron shift the air, feel it start to drag back the corpses that had taken to walking the earth. It tugged at her clothes and at her hair, whipping them around her in the wind.

She didn’t care.

She was still frantically searching the inside of the Cauldron, looking for any piece of Mateo to grab a hold of, to pull back to the surface. She’d dive in after him, pull him to the surface; she was a goddamn mermaid, what else was she good for besides swimming? Tears still rolled across her cheeks as she sobbed, cooling instantly against her cheeks in the wind.

Naomi hadn’t even noticed the sun.

She did notice the hand in her hair. Arawn. Malvago. Murderer.

Something snapped inside her chest, something fragile and sharp like dozens of shards of glass, and her lips pulled back over her sharpened teeth with a howl as she slammed her elbow back as hard as she could at Arawn’s face. As soon as his grip had loosened, she spun around, reaching out with her claws to tear at his face and throat. There was nothing human about her in that moment, her nails tearing through his fragile, pale skin and drawing blood. Not in the spots of darker, tougher skin that popped up along her hairline and around her eyes, or in the animalistic look in her eyes, or her bared, pointed teeth.

She was a shark, afterall. She wanted blood.

“YOU!” she screeched, leaping at his throat with a hiss as she tackled him to the ground. Her nails dug into his throat, hands pressing down against his windpipe.

 ARAWN

Suffice to say, he had not seen that coming.

Arawn yelled out in pain, dropping the dagger as his hands went to combat hers. But he was no match, her nails had already dug into his skin. He tried to back away, regretting his decision to not run when she had given him the chance, blinded with his want for revenge.

It would be his downfall it would seem.

The feeling of her nails tearing his skin, the warmth of blood rising up as his body worked to try and heal at a speed that would be of no help to him, was none like he had ever felt since he was always on the other side, listening to his victims cry out for help where none could be found.

No one would come to his aid, even those he had worked his whole life to have stand by his side were vanishing around him.

When he opened his eyes, it was to the sun. The night that had meant to last for the rest of eternity had gone, too. That moth creature had been bested as well, it would seem, so not even she would be coming to help, nor would he at least die knowing the world would never know light again.

Survival instincts kicked in then, and his hands came up to push her off of him. His legs kicked weakly at her. His stature had never been on his side, his muscles were nonexistent. It was why he had relied on magic all his life to get him where he needed to go, but there was nothing it could do for him now.

 NAOMI

“Malvago!” Naomi nearly growled, fury and heartbreak fueling her blindly along, lifting Arawn by the front of the shirt. She wanted to slam him into the ground, wanted to drag him to the river and drown him in the mud at the bottom. She wanted to snap his neck and tear his head off like she’d done with his stupid fucking zombie bodyguards.

Even in her fury, there were tears rolling down her cheeks. Mateo… her Teo, her best friend. The boy who had sat so patiently with her, teaching her Spanish. Who had always strived to include her when she felt like an outsider in her own skin. Who had thrown himself so completely into everything he did, who loved with his whole heart and saw the best in everyone.

It should have been her. It should have been her. She was already broken beyond repair, Mateo could be saved. He hadn’t killed anyone with his own hands. He had people who loved him, a family. Naomi would never be herself again; just a shadow, waiting for the woman she had once been to return.

This wasn’t a dream. She wouldn’t wake up from this.

Naomi screamed again, a broken, horrible sound, before reaching out for Arawn’s knife and lifting it high over her head. She didn’t know what she was going to do with it, just that she wanted to make Arawn suffer. Fuck the right thing, fuck Peach, fuck Swynlake. She was going to make this slow.

 ARAWN

She screamed a word he didn’t know by ear but the depth at which she said it made him feel it in understanding. The amount of hatred and anger behind it would have been something he would have loved to touch, to pluck from her and let it sit on his shelf in a jar where he could keep it for later.

Arawn gasped, trying to work air down his throat around where her fingers and nails were blocking its way. His hands gripped onto her wrists, his fingers dumbly tried to pulls back the hold she had on him but his fingers were shaking too much to do any real damage.

The girl did it herself, though, when she reached off to the side and released his neck. He sucked in air loudly, gasping, until it reached the very bottom of his lungs. His eyes widened as she pulled back, his dagger in her hands.

He needed to move. So he did. Arawn grabbed her side with both of his hands and shoved, using his weight to throw her off of him and the momentum to roll away. He ended up on his stomach so he had to push himself up with his palms, the soles of his feet slipping against the ground as he struggled to stand.

Arawn was on his feet before her, and instead of running he pulled back and landed a kick to her abdomen. He spit on her, bloody and thick.

“Damn, you!” he cried out as the sunlight peered in on them through the canopy above, as the green mist that had once littered the land was now gone. “Everything I did! Everything I worked for! Gone!”

He pulled his leg back to kick her again.

 NAOMI

She was being sloppy, wasn't thinking with her head. If she was, she wouldn't have left his hands free, wouldn't have let go of his neck. In Pachamama she'd been one of the best because she didn't bother with dramatics; she was quick and efficient.

Excuse her if the sudden, suicidal sacrifice of her best friend was causing her to be a bit sloppy.

Arawn managed to push her off, causing Naomi's legs to tangle together for a moment as she tried to get her body back under control. His kick wasn't enough to crack anything important, at worst she would have a bruise, but it did knock the breath out of her and she gasped in reply. His spit landed on her cheek and her eyes snapped up to his, wide and furious.

When he went to kick her again, she caught his foot instead, slamming her fist wrapped around the hilt of his knife against the side of his knee. She heard something crack. She hit it again. His leg bent at an unnatural angle.

“You’re pathetic,” Naomi hissed as she shoved Arawn back, rising up to her feet and throwing the knife far out of either of their reach. “You talk so much about how ‘weak and pathetic’ the world is, but you are by far the weakest excuse of a creature I’ve ever seen.” Naomi brought her knee up, slamming her heel down into Arawn’s ribs and hearing the bones ‘crack!’

“You pick on the weak and insecure because they’re the only people you can have power over,” she continued, lips drawn back over her teeth and tears rolling down her face. “You meddle with the dead because they can’t fight back. Because it’s the only way you have control. And the second anyone stronger than you comes along,” she began to stalk towards him, watching him struggle to move on his leg, “you become a whimpering, sniveling, coward.”

“You know what I think? I think you were scared of Mateo.”

 ARAWN

The girl recovered too quickly and made her move, which was far more effective than his had been. He yelled in pain, shoulders pulling back as the sound was yanked from him. Then he was tumbling backwards, his head bouncing up off the ground. His spine sparked in agony as it made contact with the floor. His hands fisted the fabric of his trousers on the thigh above the shattered knee, as if that would bring him some amount of comfort.

Arawn turned his head to watch his dagger be tossed out of the way before jerking his head back to the girl as she spoke.

Perhaps she was right, but he did not see it that way, so to him she was wrong. Just as everyone else was.

He had worked for what he had become, torn through books looking for the answer to his problems, and did not settle for anything less than what he deserved. The world didn’t deem him a hero because of the world was too weak to know what it needed in order to survive.

His hands dug into the ground, along with the heel of the foot that was not attached to his broken leg, in an attempt to get away from her. Her foot came down on him and he couldn’t even scream at the explosion of pain that she detonated in his chest.

He coughed, turning his head to get all the spit and blood out of his mouth to try and breath. Arawn wrenched, convulsing as he coughed it all up.

“You,” he spat once he had caught his breath, “know nothing.”

A hand came up to wave about them. At the peaceful air of the forest. At how still it was after hell had quietly gone back to sleep.

“How long will this last?” he asked her softly, then yelled, “How long? Until you, and everyone else, is just ash on a battlefield fighting for a cause that means nothing in the end!”

Arawn looked over at the Cauldron as she accused him of fearing the boy who would no longer pose a threat to anyone, lost to nothingness for all of time. He huffed, then winced in pain. Arawn returned to her and smiled. It wasn’t sharp, it wasn’t evil, it was genuine, it reached his eyes, almost wistful in nature. Not for Mateo, no, not as he was, but for who he could have been had he only seen the light.

“He did not know what he had.” And that was the truth. Bare for anyone to see, it didn’t need a sorcerer to pass the test. “He was too blinded, always speaking on other people rather than focusing on himself.”

She cared for the boy, he could tell by her reaction, by her willingness to follow him here. She had caused him pain, so he would cause her some, too. It would make his fate worth it in the end.

“I gave him the tools he needed. Without me he would have been still been nothing, wasting away over old grimoires and journals. Still caught up in wanting to help his friends, people like you, instead of wanting to help himself, on becoming a sorcerer.” Arawn prepared for what would come next, digging his fingers into the dirt, setting his jaw. “A pity, really. Now, because of you, he’ll never get the chance.”  

 NAOMI

If he thought he was going to be able to break her, if he thought he might be able to find the magical combination of words that would stop her…

He was going to be sorely disappointed.

The image of Mateo falling back into the Cauldron was burned behind her eyes, and despite Arawn’s efforts, Naomi knew squarely who to blame for this situation. For bringing the Cauldron up from the Underworld, for pulling Mateo away from everyone he loved.

He was right, Naomi should have gone into the Cauldron. Mateo should be here instead. But she didn't for a moment forget who had sought out the Cauldron in the first place.

“I'm from Avalor, malvago,” she told him, resting her foot on his breastbone and pressing him into the dirt. “I know about battlefields. I know about war, and I know about how depraved humans can be. And maybe it won't mean anything in the end, but I don't care. I fight for today.”

His smile made the glass in her chest shatter further, and she leaned her weight further against his chest.

“Mateo was my best friend,” she growled. “A handful of people in the world know his heart better than me, and you are not one of them. His magic wasn’t what made him special, and the fact that you couldn’t see that means you’re the one who’s blind, not him. But you know that, don’t you? You know he was better than you, that he mattered more than you. He would have become a powerful sorcerer without you, would have thrived without you. He proved you wrong about the world and I think you hated that.”

“I’ll be mourning him until the day I die,” she told him, her tears landing on his face. “So will Elena, and Isa and Gabe. His family. A nation. Who’s going to mourn you, malvago?”

Naomi reached down, grabbing Arawn by the hair, and dragged him over to the Cauldron. She grabbed his arm, twisting it behind his back at an angle that was uncomfortable, but wouldn’t break anything (yet). “You think this will miss you?” she hissed in his ear, forcing him to stare at the cold, dark Cauldron - not even catching the light from the dawn. “You think the dead will mourn your loss?”

 ARAWN

He chuckled against the bottom of her shoe, only to stop when her weight pressed enough for it to cause pain. It ran from his knee to his ribs, up through his chest cavity and lingered in the wounds that were still bleeding on his neck and face.

Arawn tensed as the girl moved forwards, thinking this would be the end, that either her nails or his own dagger would sink through his flesh only to bleed out like some miscreant among the weeds.

Her hand in his hair made him gasp. Both of his hands came up to hold onto her wrist, trying to get his weight to be distributed not solely by the chunk of hair she had him by. He yelled as she dragged him along, voicing what his leg felt like as it was moved across the forest floor.

His breath caught as his arm twisted around him, feeling the pressure she was putting on him. Anger bubbled up, hot and itchy, at being held against his will. At feeling so powerless.

It was like he was a lowly apprentice all over again, unable to bottle even the brightest of smiles. Like he was one of his many victims, struggling for their life under his hand. Arawn tried to fight against her but the pain was too much for him to bare, so he stayed still, trying to think on what to do instead of allowing his body to simply panic.

He laughed out right at her accusations.

She was right. No one would mourn him after this. There would be no one who cared nor knew the name that he belonged to.

Arawn pulled a hand up, his finger shaking as he gripped onto her to get some weight off his leg. “You are all too blind to see you make the other vulnerable with these pointless attachments. Nothing will ever get done should we persist like this, plagued by the thought of others.”

It did not matter to him. The point had not been to have people know his name, it had been to touch the Heavens and the depths of Hell at the same time, to have power in every cell of his body. It had been to form the world as he had wished it because the world had not been made for him. It had tossed him to the curb like garbage and he had been on the hunt for revenge ever since.

For a day, that had come true, and it had tasted like the cosmos themselves.

Now all he could taste was his own blood.

“I could bring him back.” Arawn did not want to die, his work was not finished. Death would hold him from this plane, to a world that did not need him as this one did. “If we hurry, I can bring him back. It will have to be to another body, but that can be done easily. If you kill me, he will truly be lost forever.”

 NAOMI

Out of everything he had said so far, that was probably the most insulting. ‘I could bring him back’.

He had already told them that whoever sacrificed themself to the Cauldron was lost forever. ‘A fate worse than death’, he’d said. Mateo was gone. Her fist tightened in his hair as her shoulders shook with her silent sobs. Whatever Arawn thought he could bring back wouldn’t be Mateo, and it infuriated her that he thought she would let him try. That she couldn’t see through his transparent attempt to save his own life. That she didn’t already know the damage his kind of magic could do.

“No,” she growled, hand shaking in his hair. She drew her fist back, dragging his head with it, before slamming his face against the Cauldron. Blood streaked down the side of the Cauldron and sprayed back against her arms and face. “I warned him to stay away from you,” Naomi said before drawing his face back again. Slam. “I told him I’d protect him from you. So, malvago...”

“You-”

Slam!

“Will never-”

Slam!

“Touch!”

Slam!

“Him!”

Slam!

“AGAIN!”

She drew Arawn up onto his limp legs, blood dripping down the front of his face and the Cauldron in a gory display that would have rattled her four years ago. Now, she felt nothing. “You’ll never have power over anyone again,” she whispered, looking in his one good eye as the light began to fade from it. “You die as you lived; a weak, pathetic creature alone in the world.” She spit in his face, making sure the last thing he saw was her glare and bared teeth, before tossing his body at the Cauldron.

 ARAWN

‘No’, the girl said, and his fate was sealed.

Though, he supposed, it had been written like this from the moment his soul string had been constructed.

After he had first tied a string to the body, pulled that man back from slipping beyond the Gates. Often there were those who would describe their magic by saying that it pulsed within them, striding along side their hearts to beat to the drum of life. He did not experience that. Even when performing spells anyone could cook up with the right ingredients.

His sucked in heat, sucked in movement, sucked in light. It felt like creeping darkness, like nothingness if nothingness was the dark red of his blood pressing against the rune that matched the soul he was holding by a thread.

In all his time he had not thought on how, if faced with Death, could he fight it. The one thing he had not anticipated was finding the only thing he had thought his ally to sign on the dotted line to his proposed truce.

His face made contact with the Cauldron and he did not have time to make a sound as he went back in for a second beating. Then another, and another. Blood splattered, painted the side red against its sheen black. It moved on its own, like rain drops on a car window slipping sideways from the wind. Only these moved up, crawling inside the Cauldron as it commanded.

He had no power here. Not anymore. It felt as though it had been swept up with the rest of his army, taken into the Cauldron.

Her words fell on him heavily, weighing him down as she pushed him back into the Cauldron where it welcomed him hungrily. It had tasted flesh when the boy had sacrificed himself, but it needed something more.

The last of the green fog engulfed him, the force of it tearing the flesh from his bones. He screamed then, loud and guttural. Magic sparked around him like flames, cutting through him like it was nothing. It pulled the muscles and tendons, dissected him until his bones were all that was left. But the Cauldron wanted those, too. It wanted everything.

Including the soul string that it plucked from the very root to pull down inch by inch.

A puff of the green fog floated from the opening, his screams echoing from the walls of the Cauldron. But soon those ceased and everything that ever was Arawn Prydain was gone.

The Cauldron sat still in the silence, then, satisfied.

 NAOMI

Naomi had stood back and watched, numb, as the Cauldron devoured Arawn easily, not even hesitating to rip him to pieces. His scream had echoed in the forest long after it had ended, after the fog had stopped and the oppressive feeling of dark magic had dissipated.

The zombies were gone, the sun was rising, Arawn was dead, and Naomi had never felt emptier in her life.

The mermaid dropped to her knees, hands resting on the outside of the Cauldron as she hunched over, sobbing in earnest now. It wasn’t worth it. The day was saved and it wasn’t fucking worth it. She didn’t care about the zombies, about the eternal night.

She just wanted Mateo back.

“Please,” she whimpered, fists flattening against the surface of the Cauldron. “Please…”

The forest, and the Cauldron, were silent.

Naomi cried out to sky, giving voice to the grief that had fractured inside her chest. She let it consume her, let it rip her to pieces. Grieve now, let it out, so she could get back up. So she could move forward. Someone would have to tell Elena, tell Isa and Gabe (if they were able to find him). Someone would have to get word to his mother and sister. Tell them Mateo had given his life for the world, that he had died a hero.

(In Pachamama, she wouldn’t have had this moment to grieve. Tomorrow, she’d cry. Always tomorrow, the day that never came. Tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow. She would mourn Daya tomorrow. Camila tomorrow.

She was out of tomorrows, out of space to store her grief. Today, she would cry for Mateo, and maybe tomorrow, she would stop.)

Naomi wasn’t sure how long she had knelt there, shaking and sobbing to the indifferent world, when there was a deep rumbling. She barely looked up in time to see the Cauldron begin to sink back down, returning to the Underworld. “No,” she croaked, eyes wide as it buried itself again. “No! Please!”

She grabbed the sides, desperately trying to keep it from disappearing, from taking Mateo’s soul away forever. It was useless, and soon Naomi was left on her hands and knees over a mound of fresh dirt, no sign of the Cauldron left behind (though that patch of the forest would always remain dead and lifeless). Tears hit the dirt, and Naomi dug through the top soil for a moment, frantically, before giving in and collapsing onto the ground. She was soaked in gore from the zombies as well as Arawn’s blood, and was sore from all the fighting and running.

She just wanted to sleep.

But no. Tomorrow. Tomorrow, she would sleep.

Today, she walked back to Swynlake.

 MATEO

The world came back in broken mirror fragments. A bite at the back of his head, this sick, scraping kind of drag, a thud that just into his side. He thought he could hear himself groan, and there’s a flicker of light, blasted bright enough to feel like a firecracker laced into everything else. His eyes wouldn’t cooperate. They were hollow, like he had pits rather than eyes, and every time he tried to open them cracks splintered further into his skull. And he knew something was wrong. Something was so wrong.

Oh, right. He remembers then. He was dead, that’s what’s wrong. It’s easier than thinking about the fact that he isn’t dead, and he had to fear becoming dead. But...actually he isn’t dead and the fear rocketed through him like a bullet train, and it wouldn’t let go.

After he jumped in there was supposed to be nothing. Infinite nothing. Mateo de Alva should have ceased to exist. He gave everything up in order to put an end to his beginning and there wasn’t supposed to be an afterlife. Just emptiness. He guessed it should have been similar to the end of an album or playlist when suddenly his headphones cut off and his ears were left ringing and his mind was blank for that split second. Mateo thought that’s where he was supposed to go.

And maybe he had been there for a while, an eternity even, but he wouldn’t have known because to him it felt like one minute he was slipping into a metal Cauldron and the next he was sputtering in an airless place trying to bring oxygen into his lungs where it could not be done.

When he does finally pry his eyes open as his senses sliver fully in his vision is blurry. He reached up to feel for his glasses but his movements felt heavy, weight down by something. It was the air itself. Or, not air. Not air at all. It was another element altogether.

Water, he was underwater. Mateo kicked his legs, reached a hand up, going for the surface should there be one above him. His blood was rendering through him like he was going to burst as he didn’t think he was going to make it because, you know, maybe this was the nothingness that Arawn had described after all. But then his hand breached the surface, cool air hitting his palm.

His head followed after, and he gasped for air, pushing himself further out of the water until he inevitably was pulled back down by gravity. Mateo still couldn’t really see, glasses lost to wherever he was. And it wasn’t just the water that had Mateo feeling heavy, it was a lot of things accumulating to make him want to sink back down under the surface.

But the water had other ideas. It pushed him towards shore until he was laying face first in the dirt. His lower half was being lapped at by the waves, and he knew he should have stood, but he couldn’t bring any part of him to move yet. So he laid there, chest rising and falling almost like he were actually dying, just trying to breath in a mix of the air, the dirt below him, and the water trying to push him back to his feet.

 NAOMI

Eventually, she had pushed herself up. Naomi had left the clearing - empty now, the Cauldron and Arawn’s throne long gone - and began to make her way back to Swynlake. She was numb, now, all her tears spent into the soil and her grief let loose into the sky. With every step, she could feel it in her chest, the shards dragging along her ribs and heart, but she had to get back to Swynlake. To Elena and Isa and Goliath and Sofia. Maybe Gabe, once they found him.

She had to tell them.

First, she had to wash Arawn’s blood off of her arms and face.

Naomi changed her course, heading back towards the river where she could slip in and maybe swim back to Swynlake instead. At least get the blood off of her; the gruesome reminder of what she had done. She didn’t regret it, not for a moment, she just didn’t want to lay that on her friends too.

‘Hey so, Mateo died. Yup, tossed himself right into the Cauldron to stop the zombie apocalypse. Oh, and I brutally killed a man in cold blood with my bare hands! Yeah, that’s a thing I’m capable of now.’

Yeah, would rather not do that.

Naomi passed through the treeline surrounding the end of the river and stopped, starting wide-eyed at the body laying half in the river, half on the bank. No… it couldn’t… How did…?

Did it matter?

“Mateo?” Naomi called softly, voice rough from screaming and sobbing, as she began to walk towards the body. Then jog. Then run. She was at his side in a moment, not minding the blood covering her as she pulled him up further onto the bank. “Teo!” she repeated, grunting as she pulled him up out of the river. “Teo, talk to me!”

 MATEO

Mateo’s eyes snapped open at the sound of his own name because that wasn’t right either. No one here, in the nothingness, should have known to call him that. It was his mind playing tricks on him, probably, conjuring up Naomi-, because that was Naomi, to make him feel at ease with the whole dying thing. Which was a little weird, cause no offense Naomi but he would have for sure thought his mom would be the first person who came to mind for safety and comfort. This whole dying thing was too weird to process right now, he just really needed to lay here and think about it. Ponder all the ways this was wrong, about how he couldn’t even get dying right. Literally one of the only things everyone had in common and he was the one person who could screw it up so completely that his damnation to nothingness had made him end up here.

Where that was, exactly, was still yet to be determined.

But then someone was yanking on him forwards and he sputtered, coughing, getting all the excess water he’d been breathing in out of there so he didn’t choke. Not that he guessed that mattered if he was dead, right?

Or, no, wait he had figured he wasn’t dead. This was all so confusing for someone who until recently wasn’t supposed to be alive anymore.

“Naomi?” he asked, voice rough and scratchy. He squinted up at…someone. He couldn’t exactly tell because his glasses must have either been left in wherever he was or the water had swept them from his face. But they looked like the fuzzy image of Naomi he could remember seeing when he didn’t have his contacts or glasses on. “Talk to you about what?”

He paused, then clumsily pushed himself upwards, one hand slipping against the slick bank of the lake. “Wait-! What’re-? What’re you doing here? You shouldn’t be here. You can’t be here.”

 NAOMI

That lying, rat-face bastard. She was going to dig up the Cauldron herself, bring Arawn back, and kill him again for lying to her.

Later though.

Right now, she was trying to process the fact that, against all odds, this was definitely Mateo; alive and well and soaked to the bone. The realization broke over her in waves, each one kickstarting a new emotion in her chest. Eventually she just gave up on trying to understand them, or how it had happened. She just tackled Mateo instead, crying as she wrapped her arms tightly around his neck and hung on as tight as possible. “I shouldn’t be here!? You threw yourself into a Death Crockpot! Teo, what the fuck!?” she asked, sobbing.

She only pulled back enough to press little kisses all over his face, just like she would sometimes do to Elena or Isabel. Just to prove that he was really here, that it really was his heartbeat she felt under her palm, that he had really come back.

“Don’t you ever do that again!”

 MATEO

He couldn’t process what was going on, it was too much too soon. Mateo was spent, he was confused and tired and he knew if he continued to open up the door he wasn’t going to stop in trying to figure out what the heck had happened until he drove himself into the ground. So, for now, he was going to let it be until his brain didn’t feel like it was going to take a nosedive if he so much as thought about something past basic human functions.

So he didn’t really think when Naomi pounced, he just did. He pulled his arms around her and squeezed, one hand running back and forth across her back in the hopes that it was soothing. The pattern was comforting to him, at least.

He squawked at the kisses, not really knowing how to react besides embarrassment flooding his system as it felt like he was a child being pandered for doing something stupid enough to-. Oh. Right.

“Okay,” Mateo agreed wholeheartedly as he nodded vigorously. He sighed in amusement, smiling because he was crazy and stupid. Relief took him over, washing away all the tension and worry that were sure to tread over him in the coming days. Mateo released one of his hands from her to strike through the air with his hand, “No more giant cooking utensils. Got it.”

 NAOMI

Having him hug her back really cemented the whole ‘He’s really here, he really survived’ thing, and Naomi tucked her face against his neck as she began to sob harder. “You can’t do that to me again,” she whimpered, curling up against his side. “Don’t you ever!”

Her grief was still rattling in her chest, like it was trying to find a way to escape. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw his face as he fell back into the Cauldron, and hugged him a little tighter.

“It’s over,” she said quietly, both to Mateo and herself. “When you... all the zombies got sucked in, the sun came back… Arawn is dead,” she whispered. She didn't elaborate on how he had died. The blood all over her was telling enough.

(She didn't want him to know the monster inside her too well, didn't want him to ask for details.)

“The Cauldron sunk back down to the Underworld too, I think… it's gone too. It's over.”

 MATEO

Mateo shrunk back because he could tell that he had really hurt her, it was in her voice but he could see the pain in her, too. Albeit blurry, but he knew it well enough now to know what it looked like, even without perfect vision. He also felt bad that he was wet because he knew that he was transfering that onto her clothes.

Then again, she was a mermaid, so maybe it was comforting to her.

He breathed in deeply as she pressed in tighter, blinking up at the sky because would you look at that, the sun had come back out. That meant that the other team had been able to do their job, too. He froze when she said the next three words. Slowly he turned his head back down, looking at her with large eyes because it wasn’t hard to imagine how that had happened, which he didn’t allow himself to do. Mateo frowned, and not because of the thought that she had killed him but at the thought that he had left her there alone to deal with him. He knew that she could, but it didn’t mean that it was right that he did it at all.

He didn’t regret it, though. Even if he hadn’t come back, however that had happened, he wouldn’t have changed his decision because it had put an end to the Cauldron’s magic. And sent it back to the Underworld, hopefully never to be sought out again.

“It’s over,” he repeated, softer, pulling her just a little bit closer. He allowed them another moment to sit there in the sun, listening to the water and their shared breathing that had synced up before interrupting the silence.

“Come on,” he said, “the others will be waiting.”

[chasholidays]

Hi, thank you so much for doing these, they make my December! Can I please ask for a timestamp fic for your Mummy au, 'Where Have We Come and Where Shall We End?' based on The Mummy Returns? Thank you again, you're amazing!

Original fic here!

“You know she gets this from your side of the family,” Clarke grumbles.

“That’s neither helpful nor accurate,” says Bellamy, absent. “Your dad was the explorer, I’m pretty sure she gets this from both sides of the family.”

“None of this is helping,” says Alex, frowning down at her wrist. “It won’t come off.”

As much as he and Clarke like bickering, the reminder is enough to get their attention back on the actual problem at hand, which is that their daughter, in what Bellamy will admit is a grand family tradition, has apparently awakened some ancient magical entity that has laid dormant for years. This is what their legacy is going to be. The Griffin family: explorers, scholars, accidental undead summoners. That’s what they do.

“I know,” he says, crouching down to his daughter’s level. “It’s going to be fine. We can’t get it off now, but nothing bad is going to happen to you.”

It’s a phrase he’s said before, to his sister, to all the people he loves. It’s the promise he’ll never stop making, the guiding principle of his life. It’s part of why he loves Clarke so much; of course he takes care of her, but she doesn’t need him to. They’re good at taking care of each other.

And they’re going to protect their daughter, too.

“Didn’t something bad already happen to me?” Alex asks, dubious. At seven years old, she’s already too smart for her own good.

More evidence she really is his and Clarke’s daughter, honestly.

“Nothing worse is going to happen to you,” he corrects. “We’re going to figure this out.”

“How?” she asks.

“That’s the next question,” says Clarke. She hugs Alex around the shoulders. “Don’t worry, we’re professionals. We’ve got this.”

*

“How do you guys do this?” Raven asks, looking between the three of them with what appears to be genuine horror, mixed with some very grudging respect. “I’ve never raised the dead once.”

“Yeah, brag about it,” Bellamy says.

“It wasn’t her fault,” Clarke adds. “Not like the last one was Bellamy’s.”

“As always, your support means the world to me. And we don’t actually know we’re raising the dead. Just–some kind of weird magic.”

“That makes me feel so much better,” Raven grouses. “So, what happened?”

Alex tends to be a little shy around Raven, at least at first. They only see her about once a year, which is just enough that Alex remembers her and likes her, but still feels nervous every time they interact.

“Just be honest,” Clarke tells Alex. “You’re not in trouble. Raven just likes yelling at us. Not you.”

“All we want to do is figure out what happened so we can stop it,” Raven agrees. “Where did you get the bracelet?”

“We found it,” Bellamy says. “Me and Clarke, not Alex. We were bringing it back to the university to get it examined, and it kind of–”

“I barely touched it,” Alex says. “And Mom and Dad already touched it so I don’t know why it liked me.”

“Because you’re awesome,” Clarke tells her, and Alex smiles a little. “That’s true, though. I know you like blaming us for everything, but we didn’t have any reason to think it would react differently to her than it did to us.”

“Might be an age thing,” Raven says, thoughtful. “Can I see your arm?”

Alex nods, lets Raven examine her arm, the bracelet clamped around her wrist, the runes that appeared on her clear flesh. Bellamy read them and passed the being’s name along to Raven, did some research of his own, but they couldn’t find anything out. Everyone’s in agreement that they did something, they just don’t know what or how.

“Are we just unlucky?” Bellamy asks. “Is it genetic?”

“I think it probably is age-based” she says, as she moves her fingers over the design on the bracelet. “You and Clarke are adults, so it didn’t react to you.”

“So, it’s not actually our fault.”

“Not like someone decided to start reading aloud from the book of the dead or anything.”

“I did that one time,” he says. “Ten years ago!”

Clarke pats his shoulder. “Honestly, you don’t have to raise the dead that many times to never live it down. It tends to stick with people.”

“As my wife, aren’t you supposed to support me?”

“Support can mean a lot of things.”

Alex is examining her bracelet now, thoughtful. “So I didn’t do anything wrong?” she asks.

“Nope,” Raven confirms. “Just bad luck.”

“And we’re going to fix it, right? Nothing bad is going to happen.”

“Nothing bad is going to happen,” Bellamy assures her.

To his surprise, Alex grins, all bright and excited. “Then this is awesome. We get to fight a mummy!”

“She’s definitely your kid,” Raven says, with a smile.

Bellamy feels his own mouth twitching up too. “Yeah,” he agrees. “No doubt of that.”

*

If he’s honest, Bellamy is also pretty excited about the adventure. It’s not as if his life has been boring, since his first brush with the supernatural. He’s traveled the world, found new sites, met royalty, even been caught up in a few wars. He’s seen more things than he ever expected he would, and he’s gotten to do it all with first his wife and then his daughter by his side.

But it’s all been, for lack of a better word, mundane. There have been all sorts of amazing things, but the incident in Egypt ten years ago was, until the bracelet, his only encounter with anything like real magic. And it hasn’t been for lack of trying. He and Clarke make plenty of risky, weird choices, and none of them have resulted in any undead uprisings or supernatural activity.

At least, not that they’ve seen.

“You know, I was starting to think the whole mummy thing was a fluke,” he admits to Clarke, soft. They picked up Lincoln and Octavia on the way, as well as Raven’s kind of terrifying fiance Roan, and have a decent little army going into the burial site.

They thought about not bringing Alex, but she’s asleep on Bellamy’s lap anyway; Clarke followed her dad all around creation and she turned out pretty well. And if she wasn’t with them, they’d worry about what might be happening to her. The last thing he ever wants to do when his daughter is the target of supernatural evil is let her out of his sight.

Clarke is leaning on his other side, half asleep herself. It feels like the calm before the storm.

“A fluke?” she asks.

He shrugs, careful not to dislodge anyone. “You’d think after all these years, we would have found more curses. Or other things. Magical places.”

“Maybe we did,” she says. “Maybe it’s not always as obvious as an army of undead or a cursed bracelet. There must be things that come back from the dead and don’t want to hurt anyone, right? Just–go about their business.”

“Their undead business.”

“I think if my dad came back from the dead, he’d be nice about it.”

He clucks his tongue. “I think the people who are nice about it are probably also the people who don’t leave cursed items that will resurrect them in their tombs.”

“Well, no wonder we have such a low opinion of the undead,” she says, and he laughs, kisses her hair. It’s a good thing he married her, because he likes her better than anyone else in the world.

“No wonder,” he agrees. “That must be it.”

*

The burial site is in western Ireland, a far cry from where their boat let them off, but as soon as her feet touch dry land, Alex knows exactly where they’re going, which doesn’t seem to surprise Raven and Roan, but makes Bellamy want to bundle her back onto the boat and get as far away as possible.

“Doesn’t work like that,” says Raven. “She’s being drawn to the place. You haven’t noticed how tired she’s been?”

He had, but he hadn’t thought it was because she wasn’t in Ireland. “So if we don’t bring her there, what happens?”

Raven glances at Roan, who shrugs. “It varies, depending on the curse. I assume you’re not interested in finding out.”

It’s obvious enough there’s no reason to argue; instead, he turns his attention to Alex. “You feeling all right?” he asks. “Do you need anything? Talk to me, kid.”

“I’m fine,” she says. “Kind of–tingling. And I know exactly where we’re going. It’s far off, but I can feel us getting closer. She really wants me there.”

Over her head, all of the adults share a look. Clarke’s the one to ask, “She?”

“The ghost,” says Alex. “She’s waiting for me.”

“That’s—good,” Bellamy says, slow. “She’s not going to come get you, right?”

“No. She’ll wait.”

“Great. That’s not creepy at all.” He glances over at Clarke. “I think this is your side of the family.”

“Definitely not,” says Clarke. “This is all new.”

Aside from being very unnerving, Alex’s connection to the ghost doesn’t really seem to have much of an effect on her. She’s eager to get to the site, anxious even, but they all feel that, to a greater or lesser extent. Bellamy wants this to be over as much as she does. He doesn’t like the idea of a ghost calling his daughter to her.

“So,” he says, looking Raven and Lincoln the night before they get back to the site. “You have any idea what we’re dealing with?”

“This isn’t our area of expertise,” says Lincoln.

“We killed your area of expertise,” Clarke shoots back. “You didn’t get a new one?”

“Not this one.” But he leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “It’s a family burial site. I would guess that the child died first and the bracelet was hers, and the parents—the mother, I suppose, given what Alex said—enchanted it to bring them a replacement. And the replacement being chosen woke up her spirit. She’ll want to take Alex, and we’ll have to find the source of her power and destroy it.”

“Good thing we didn’t bring her the first time we came out,” Clarke says.

“Lucky.” He looks over at his sleeping daughter. “But she needs to come?”

Raven sighs. “Not that I’m saying we should use her as bait, but we might need to use her as bait.”

“Raven—“ Clarke starts, but she must realize she doesn’t have anywhere to go with the sentence. She gives up, shakes her head. “I know you’re right, but—“

“We’re not going to let anything happen to her,” says Octavia. “We’ve got this.”

Clarke looks over at Bellamy, and he reaches over and takes her hand.

“Yeah,” he says. “She’s going to be fine.”

*

“You’re here!” says the ghost. She runs directly through Bellamy and solidifies in time to throw her arms around Alex, nearly knocking her over. “I’ve been waiting for so long!”

Alex is hugging back, but she looks confused, and Bellamy feels about as lost.

“Fuck, it’s a kid,” Raven mutters. “I guess she wants a friend.”

“I’m Madi!” she’s telling Alex. “My mom told me that I could wait here until someone came to be my friend. And here you are!”

“Here I am,” says Alex, sounding dazed.

“What’s she supposed to do?” Clarke asks, sounding wary. “Stay here forever with you?”

“No, of course not. I can come with you!” She takes Alex’s wrist, holding up the bracelet. “Now that you’ve found me, we can go anywhere.”

It doesn’t get any less surreal. Madi is a bright, smart child who occasionally becomes immaterial, when she wants to. Her mother was a witch, and before she died, she sealed Madi’s lonely spirit away, waiting for the day that someone would come along to be her friend. From what they can tell, she isn’t malevolent or destructive, just lonely.

“She’s not malevolent or destructive yet,” Raven says. “That doesn’t mean anything until you piss her off.”

“She’s a kid,” Bellamy says. Clarke likes her and Alex likes her, and he likes all children, so it’s over, basically. There’s no way the three of them are going to kill a little girl who just wants a friend.

“A ghost kid. What happens when Alex gets older?”

“We find out. Look, I’m not saying she’s going to stay forever. But I don’t see why we have to kill her now, when maybe she’ll just—move on. She’s not doing anything wrong.”

“And you think she’ll keep not doing anything wrong?” Raven asks. “You’ll trust her with your kid’s life?”

“On a probationary basis.” He swallows. “I’m not saying it’s the smartest move, but—I think we could deal with her. However we need to deal.”

“I think you should kill her now and get it over with,” says Octavia. “But I know you’re not going to listen to me, so if she kills you, I’m going to laugh.”

“Noted.” He looks back over at Clarke and Alex, still chatting with Madi, trying to figure her out. She looks so happy, and he’s sure there are a thousand ways it could go wrong, but he can’t bring himself to think that it’s right to just leave her. “You have to admit, if anyone’s prepared to deal with a ghost daughter, it’s me and Clarke.”

Raven shakes her head. “So that’s how it’s going to be? You and Clarke and your daughter and your ghost daughter?”

It sounds absurd, but he’s an actual globe-trotting adventurer. His whole life sounds absurd.

So he just smiles. “Yeah. That’s us.”

[aion-rsa]

The Most Terrifying Magic: The Gathering Cards

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This article is presented by:

October means we’re officially in spooky season, so what better time to explore some of the more terrifying corners of Magic: The Gathering? Plenty of monsters and villains occupy each color of Magic, but it’s the black swamps that host the most vile and decrepit. Among the infinite shadows of these landscapes, few threats are as immediately fear-inducing as zombies.

If you’re looking to build a deck that’ll send shivers down your opponent’s spine, or just devour anything they throw at you, an army of the living dead is the way to go. Though often quite weak on their own, the dead quickly outnumber any adversary with the right strategy, and the right leaders. Rare, high-powered ghouls are key to any good zombie deck, whether in commander, standard, or otherwise – here’s a list of the best and rarest for you to track down for your own nefarious means.

Mikaeus, The Unhallowed

Here’s a legendary zombie priest to start with, and a very troublesome one at that. As part of Dark Ascension, Mikaeus can’t be used in standard, but he’s perfect for running a shambling black commander deck. The strengths of Mikaeus, The Unhallowed are three-fold. First, when a human card deals damage to you it gets destroyed, which is already a worthwhile defense. Then, other non-human creatures you control get +1/+1, so your ghouls already out are getting buffed, and on top of that, they have undying, meaning they’re resurrected with a +1/+1 counter if they died without one. With him out, the plague does not stop coming.

At around $35, Mikaeus is an investment, but one that puts the edge on any black commander build. For less than ten bucks more, you can find the foil version, which could be even better as trade fodder, too.

Sidisi, Undead Vizier

A slightly cheaper purchase is Sidisi, Undead Vizier, a rare from Dragons of Tarkir. Sidisi’s less about immediate strength, and more about strategy. When the zombie naga comes into play, you can sacrifice a creature. If you do, you can search your deck for any card and put it into your hand. In the commander format, since everything beyond lands can only be included once, that’s a handy tool to have in your arsenal.

Outside of that, the Undead Vizier has deathtouch, meaning any damage he deals to an opposing creature will kill that creature. At a converted mana cost of five and four strength and six toughness, Sidisi can deal some serious blows if need be. The pleasure of doing so will run you just over $10, so not too cost prohibitive an acquisition.

Balthor the Defiled

Magic: The Gathering has a penchant for producing some truly heavy metal card concepts, and Balthor is a classic. A zombie dwarf legend, which should tell you enough, Balthor’s two abilities are to strengthen minions, or bring back all red or black creatures in everyone’s graveyards to play. The first is self-explanatory, all minions in play get +1/+1, but the second can be explosive. For three black and removing Balthor from the game, every black and red creature in a graveyard returns from the dead. If you’ve been heavy on the low-level, easy-to-kill creatures, that could be catastrophic for whomever you’re against.

Balthor’s services are pretty easy on the wallet, at $10 or so, four times that if you’d like the foil version. “He remembers enough of his life to weep for what he has lost,” his description reads. Heavy.

The Scarab God

If mono-black feels a bit limited, The Scarab God is a strong way to expand, requiring one blue along with one black and three colorless. This undying God – the title’s not just for show – is a literal zombie machine that trades corpses for powerful tokens. Its main ability is, for two colorless, one blue and one black, that you can exile a creature from a graveyard to create a 4/4 black zombie token in its place. Then, if that wasn’t enough, this legendary inflicts one damage to each opponent for every zombie under your control at the start of tour upkeep, and gives you scry for each zombie too.

What’s more, Scarab God returns to your hand the turn after it dies. At $15, you’re getting a serious asset for a commander deck that can overwhelm most anything it’s up against.

Geralf’s Messenger

Of course, all these commanders are nothing without the frontlines, the wave of undead soldiers that battle in their stead. You can find many a decent pile of rotting flesh to fill out your ranks, of which Geralf’s Messenger is a fine addition. The three black, 3/2 zombie enters the battlefield tapped, but gives your opponent two damage right from the off, just so they don’t think they’re getting off easy. Then, this shambling corpse has undying, meaning it comes back with a +1/+1 counter if it dies without one, so once your opponent kills it, it returns stronger, like any good ghoul.

Commander, modern, legacy, Geralf’s Messenger is legal in a number of formats, and his price of $7 reflects that. Not everyone is meant to be a leader, some are almost criminally good at being a follower.

Commander, modern, legacy, Geralf’s Messenger is legal in a number of formats, and his price of $7 reflects that. Not everyone is meant to be a leader, some are almost criminally good at being a follower.

Murderous Rider

The current playing field for standard offers a couple of cheap options if you want to incorporate rotting flesh and zombification into your repertoire. Murderous Rider is one, a Throns of Eldraine rare zombie knight. This resurrected knight on horseback gives you two lovely abilities that can be useful in the right circumstances. As an instant, with swift end, it can destroy a creature or planeswalker, but you lose two life and it’s exiled. If it dies normally, it goes to the bottom of your library.

For a converted mana cost of three for a 2/3, it could be the trump card you need in a bind, and at $3 at the minute, it’s a bit of a steal.

Polukranos, Unchained

Zombie hydra – need I say more? This green-black legendary creature is a costly behemoth, but if you can tame it, you can do some heavy damage. It enters the battlefield with six 1/1 counters, so for two colorless, one black and one green, you’re getting bang for your mana. The drawback is that damage is calculated using those counters, so whatever damage it takes, it lose that many counters. For one colorless, one black and one green, however, Polukranos can can fight another creature, so you can bounce this thing around the opposition.

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Four colorless, one black and one green, and six exiled cards from your graveyard lets this multi-headed monster escape back onto the battlefield if it’s killed, this time with 12 1/1 counters. Costs around $3 at the moment, and allowed in every format. A legendary zombie in every sense of the word.

The post The Most Terrifying Magic: The Gathering Cards appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[gurdian-cocytus]

Overlord: Enri Enmott’s Bizzare Adventure

(This is NOT written by me. The original author is “Demiurge”. Although it is originally posted on Baidu, it has been moved to another site. The link is here. Now sit back and enjoy the tale of Enri going around the world kicking ass and taking names, all in the name of Ainz Ooal Gown!)

Chapter 1: Occupation

Enri Enmott. Once she was a simple village girl in Carne Village. Then one day, warriors from the Slane Theocracy disguised under the Empire’s banner massacred her village, all part of an assassination attempt on Gazef Stronaff, the kingdom’s famed warrior .

 Yet instead of the spectre of death, Enri encountered the one who will change the fate of the world, her village, and herself——Ainz Ooal Gown!

 Ainz healed her wounds, and gifted upon her the invaluable item “Horn of the Goblin General”. With it, Enri is able to summon a squad of 19 goblin warriors. As the village is short on manpower, the goblins provided much needed security and manpower.

 When the village was in need of defense, Ainz once again helped them, providing stone golems that are strong and incapable of exhaustion. With their help, the village built up walls and watchtowers, which became crucial in later events.

 As time goes, the goblins integrated and became an inseparable part of the village. Enri’s importance rises quickly, and she became the mayor. This event may be insignificant on a wordly scale, but Enri this is a momentous shift in her life.

 After taking in goblins and ogres from the forest and reinforcing their defenses, the village successfully repelled an attack from the forst monsters. Carne Village has become more than just a village, but a bastion where different races lived in harmony.

 When war broke out between the Kingdom and the Empire, Re-Etize’s first prince attacked Carne village. This proved to be a foolish endeavour. Enri’s goblin army wiped out the 5000-strong troop, while Lupusregina and the red hats killed whoever remained, including the first prince himself. Soon, rumours of “Enri the Bloody” spread all across E-Rantel.

 As the goblin army has grown to in the thousands, Carne Village is no longer able to support that many goblins. So Ainz, whose Sorcerous Kingdom has taken over E-Rantel, arranged for the goblin army to enter E-Rantel. This serves two purposes: to promote inter-racial harmony; and the food and resources the kingdom prepared for the war can be a nice reward to Enri, whose loyalty the the sorcerer king never wavered. What an act of supreme benevolence!

Today, the streets of E-Rantel is filled with people. Indeed, it seems most residents of the city has came out. For what reason you ask? Today is the day the city’s administrator——the Dark Hero Momon came to greet the goblin army from the sorcerous kingdom into the city.

Right now, Momon is standing in the middle of the main road, with his assistant Nabe the Beauty at his side. The reason why the event has such a big turnout is due to Momon’s words:”I heard this army of five thousand is commanded by a human, so perhaps we can coexist peacefully.” Therefore, almost all of E-Rantel has turned out for the event.

“If the commander is a human, surely she’ll be on Sir Momon’s side. Maybe the undead soldiers will leave.”

“Hard to say. Goblins aren’t that much better than undead...”

“I don’t care. As long as the undead are gone, I’ll take even an army of slimes!”

“Shush! Here they come!”

A goblin rider is galloping forward toward the city square. Even looking from a distance, one can tell this goblin is much stronger then your average goblins. It’s armour shimmered in the sun, obviously made of good materials.

Even though the army of five thousand has not arrived, this one knight is enough to impress the city’s residents, as well as the spies from various nations mixed in the crowd——Ainz Ooal Gown commands not only powerful undead and monsters, but also powerful creatures from all races!

“Sir Momon. I, captain Alvis of the riders’ corp, represents General Enri. General Enri is on her way here, per his majesty’s orders. As planned earlier, I will be introducing the regiments entering the city. If there is any changes to schedule, please tell me now. If not, then the entry ceremony will commence at once.”

Alvis did not came down from his winged wolf, and spoke to Momon still mounted. The crowd became unruly at this sight.

“How dare a goblin treat Sir Momon so rudely!”

“Hmmph, of course lowly races would know nothing of manners. Typical!”

Momon gestures everyone to be quiet, and the murmurs die down. Right now, Momon is almost divine in the hearts of E-Rantel’s citizens: a strong and gentle man who saved the city at its worst crisis.

“E-Rantel welcomes you, Sir Alvis. I hope his majesty’s army will treat his subjects amicably.”

“Our army is indeed commanded by General Enri of the sorcerous kingdom. Of course we will protect his majesty’s subjects with our lives, so you can be at ease, Sir Momon. Now, I shall signal the main army.

Alvis took out a small horn and blew into it. Soon, loud drumbeats can be heard outside the city.

While this is happening, Yuri Alpha and Lupusregina Beta are observing the proceedings from a hidden spot. Lupusregina is here because Ainz has awarded her with a day free after completing her mission protecting Carne village. Yuri is here at her sister’s request.

“Good things are better when shared.” is what Lupusregina said.

The two had disguised themselves, so they fit right in the crowd.

“As expected of Lord Ainz. He must’ve thought of this when he encountered the girlie. Even if he never directly said it, the fact that he gave the item to her should be clear enough.”

The two conversed quietly as the event begins. Having only observed the goblin army from afar once, Yuri is filled with curiosity.

The drum rolls come closer and closer, and from the horizon the leading regiment comes into sight. Gigantic boars carried great drums and drummers——they are the one thumping on the drums. Tribal tattoos covering the drummers’ bared upper bodies. With every move, the drummers’ muscles shakes and pulsates, showing off a wild, primal force of nature that puts everyone present in awe.

“First in the line is the goblin war band, under general Enri’s command. They may be few in number, but they are responsible for coordination on the battlefield.”

After the dozen members of the war band entered the city, a death knight led them away to their camping grounds. As the drum beats fade away, they were replaced by steady footsteps and clangs of armour. The sound is, to the surprise of many present, uniform and disciplined, further impressing the crowd.

“Now entering the city is out most populous regiment: the goblin armored corp. They can easily disperse the enemy army.”

Looking over the goblin army, one onlooker was reminded of his own war-torn motherland.

(If only our army has such strengths, we could’ve easily hold off our enemies. Maybe even take back lost territories...)

(...Maybe. It’s not like we didn’t spent a fortune on arming our forces each year, and yet...)

Following the armored corp came the cavalry. A rider riding a huge white wolf lead the troop, bathed in silvery holy light. Behind him are a group of riders similar to Alvis, alongside a group that looks similar to the paladin leader, albeit riding smaller wolf mounts. Following them are the regular cavalry.

“The cavalry consists of both holy light paladins and regular cavalry corp, which I belong. The paladins are few in numbers, but their strength is formidable.”

From the mayoral manor, Ainz is watching closely at the streets. Even with a long distance between him and the procession, his super-vision allows him to see clearly.

(I was wondering why Pandora is awfully excited after I ordered him to arrange Enri’s entry. I certainly didn’t ask for a military parade!)

Ainz felt his none-existent stomach aching again.

“Albedo, what are your thoughts on...this?”

“Even though goblins are lowly races, from the perspectives of humans I must say——this is a wonderful performance. Lord Ainz must’ve already foresaw the human girl’s talent from the beginning, so wise...I was indeed a fool back then. I am so very grateful to serve you.”

“Uh...no need to be hard on yourself, Albedo. I’m simply glad you can understand my plan.”

(Already foresaw my ass! I did everything but ‘foresaw’ this! I must say, that trash item actually spawned an army of goblins. Whoever made this is a sneaky one!)

he archers came after the cavalry. They wear red cloaks and carried huge bows that seem too heavy for a human to use. Their leader’s bow is especially huge, and even a physically fit human probably can’t lift it up.

“These are the goblin long bowmen. No one they set their eyes on has ever escaped. They can take lives from even hundreds of feet away.”

The goblins behind them wore long hooded robes and carries long staffs, clearly the look of magic casters.

“I-impossible!Their magic has reached level four?!”

“Are you seeing it right, man?”

“Hell, I wish I am!”

Someone from the magician’s guild is able to appraise the goblin casters’ magic level, and caused the ruckus. Level three magic is considered strong among magic casters, since most humans cannot use magic. Those able to use high-level magic are seen as rarities. Even a grand master like Fluder can only use magic up to level six. Even these goblin casters can cast level four magic, they would be an unstoppable force in battle.

“As seen here, these are our magic casters——magic blasters and magic enhancers. They will be our enemies’ worst nightmare!”

For the citizens of E-Rantel, this is indeed a nightmare. Initially hoping this general Enri is a normal human, now they are beginning to think this Enri must be a terrifying monster like Ainz Ooal Gown——only a monster can command other monsters.

“There she is! Boy, what an outfit!”

“Of course. This outfit is the brainchild of us and all other 41 maids. It fits every requirement Lord Pandora asked for.”

Lupusregina has already caught Enri walking forward with her superior vision. Under Pandora’s plan, Enri is slotted to appear last. Sebas was put in charge of giving her an impressionable appearance. Thinking a female touch is needed, he brought in the Pleiades for help, and eventually all 41 homunculus maids pitched in to create this outfit.

The five goblins appearing from the gates steps forward in a triangular formation. The soldiers clad in red hats, iron shoes and holding war scythes are cold-blooded killers——the most elite troops in the goblin army, the Red Hats. The only reason they appeared today is to protect their mistress, general Enri.

Today, Enri ditched the village maiden dress she wore for all her life, and put on the special outfit gifted by Lupusregina——her upper body is glad in white leather armour, with the emblem of Ainz Ooal Gown sewn on the chest. A coat loosely hang over her shoulder, with the sorcerous kingdom’s emblem on its back. White trousers and brown long boots complete the whole getup.

Ainz was immediately hit with a sense of deja vu when he first saw the outfit. When he asked about it, he received this answer: “Since Lord Pandora’s outfit is designed by Lord Ainz based on military uniforms, and general Enri needs to show her might as a general of the sorcerous kingdom, we based her outfit on that of Lord Pandora’s, with a few feminine touch of course.” Ainz could only grit his teeth as his nonexistent stomach ached. It sure sucks when your dark history comes back to bite you!

“Alvis of the cavalry corp, reporting to general Enri, mam!”

“You did well, Alvis. Now you may return to your position.”

Enri got off her horse and walks toward Momon. She took off her glove, showing off her rough hands you can find on either a farmer or a seasoned warrior.

In order to make sure she put out a strong first impression, Enri has been rehearsing and practising for the event. For everyone in the army, it is a sacred duty to aid their master. But for Enri, whose status and responsibilities escalated so rapidly, it was an exhausting and stressful affair. When Ainz heard Lupusregina’s report, he found himself emphasizing with Enri.

“Welcome, General Enri.”

“Sir Momon. Apologies for having you wait this long.”

Momon removes his gauntlet and reveals his large hand. Since Momon never takes any of his armor off in public, this gesture is rare. The onlookers seem to interpret this as Momon taking extra caution around this seemingly ordinary girl, having resorted to such strict manners.

For Enri, this is the first time she is under the gaze of so many people. She isn’t feeling a single shred of pride and joy as her goblin adviser explained. The rising nervousness in her keeps repeating what she learned during the rehearsal, so she can act them out naturally.

(This is way too many people! Why did I agree to this?)

“Even if it’s a gift from Lord Ainz, I’m grateful you did so much to provide camping grounds for us.”

This is the only thing Enri spoke today with genuine feelings. Since it’s still winter, the village alone won’t be able to support 5000 people. And hunting in the forest in large scale will devastate the land and deplete precious natural resources. To Enri, being able to have a camping ground and abundant food for her army is a gift from heaven.

“Then, Nabe will handle settling your army in. Since we have a few things to discuss, could you send someone to help Nabe with the arrangement?”

“I see. Adviser, you may go with her.”

“Of course, madam. I will assist lady Nabe with whatever she requires.” the goblin adviser bowed.

“Then please follow me. Everyone is waiting for you.”

Enri follows Momon towards the Adventurer’s Guild. The thirteen red hats that are guarding Enri also began to follow them.

“It’s okay everyone. I trust sir Momon will protect me. You may head to the camping grounds as well.”

Enri made her order with a smile. She still isn’t too used to her role. After all, everyone is expecting her to act like a seasoned general; no easy task for someone who’s been a farmer girl all her life. Fortunately she had gained some experience from taking in Abu and the other exiled goblins and ogres. With a little bit of practice, she thought she put up a decent performance.

“But general。。。”

Enri shook her head before the red hat can finish, her eyes determined and forceful.

“As you wish.”

“I leave the rest to you, adviser.”

“I will not let you down, general. The army will remain mobilized.”

The goblin adviser and the thirteen red hats bowed and place their hand above their hearts, a gesture of fealty towards Enri.

“All right, now just turn around and leave...”

Enri mutters to herself as she turns to Momon. Her adviser and the red hats head off toward the camp. Meanwhile...

“Even though she looks young, it looks like all the goblins really respect her.”

“As expected of Enri the Bloody. Remember back when we first met her? I bet had Sir Momon not intervened, she would start a massacre right on the spot!”

“Indeed! Sir Momon must have realized her strengths, and therefore told us to let her through.”

“Right...I remember Miss Nabe left on her own afterwards. She must have went to investigate Enri’s powers and motives!”

“Yup, yup!”

A group of former city guards are heatedly discussing what happened that day. Lupusregina, who was nearby, also joins them. Since she is in disguise, she isn’t worried about being recognized.

“I heard from a friend from Carne Village that Enri can punch through goblins and tear ogres apart with her bare hands!”

Yuri facepalmed at Lupusregina’s words, but the other all ate it up fully.

“A strong-armed general...”

And so, history repeats itself.

[myinneractress-blog]

Secret Cinema through the eyes of a thirty something woman discovering her inner actress

The first time I ever heard of Secret Cinema was when a dear friend told me about her time re-enacting the film “Back to The Future” a childhood favourite of mine. I thought nothing more of it for months until we found out that the latest movie to be tackled by the experts in immersive cinema would be “Star Wars – The Empire Strikes Back”.  A Star-Wars-crazed nephew with an eighteenth birthday approaching equated to a not-to-be-missed opportunity, we had to get tickets. I justified the price tag because it was a special birthday and purchased two tickets – both of which we gave to Dylan. I was secretly envious because by now I had done some research and it really sounded like an event I would very much enjoy. I was getting all the emails because I had booked the tickets and every time I forwarded them on to Dylan, my excitement was building on his behalf.

About three days before the event day I received a phone call from Dylan. He couldn’t find anyone to go with and he asked if I would like to. He had barely finished his sentence before I had accepted and I scrabbled together an outfit that resembled Lara Croft more than the galactic explorer I was supposed to be, but I was so excited to be going I didn’t care!

I drove us to the venue (I knew that there would be a bar there but I was keen to make sure that Dylan arrived and got home safely). We arrived early and spent about 45 minutes wandering around Surrey Quays, Dylan feeling increasingly uncomfortable by our outfits and the looks from people passing by. Eventually we figured out where we were supposed to be and followed the crowd to the secret location. As soon as we were in, it began; and it was exciting! With a racing heart I moved around and did as I was told by all the drill sergeants yelling instructions my way. I loved it instantly, we were transported to a different world and completely and utterly immersed, surrounded by storm troopers, aliens and (much to my horror and excitement when he put his hands on my shoulders) Chewbacca, to name but a few.  I was completely amazed by just how much attention to detail had gone in to the entire production and the hefty price tag was more and more justifiable. Special birthday or no Special birthday. I found the whole experience thrilling. But I didn’t feel that I truly let myself go and become my assigned character. A combination of trepidation about the unknown and nerves about being separated from Dylan held me back and it was a niggle of regret that I just couldn’t quite shake.

Flashforward a year - a normal workday evening. I had a text from the friend who had been to “Back to The Future”, telling me that her, her partner and her son had just booked to go to the latest Secret Cinema event, Danny Boyle’s “28 Days Later” and would I like to join them? I didn’t hesitate and booked a ticket straight away. As soon as I received the confirmation my heart palpitations began. What did I think I was doing? I don’t even watch horror movies why on earth did I feel like I was able to be immersed in one? Of course I had seen the film, it’s a classic, but I remember watching most of it from behind a cushion.

The anticipation was crippling and even though I was ridiculously nervous about being chased by zombies for three hours I was equally as excited to be going too and I even managed to rope in my sister to hold my hand along the way!

Outfit purchased, no character this time we were all just patients wearing scrubs covered in blood. Gruesome. The location was the same so I was comfortable in my surroundings but I could not slow my heart rate. My sisters ‘kit’ was incomplete so as the dutiful sister I went with her to the NSH ambulance so she could pick up what was missing. That is where it began. Suddenly, we were pushed to the ground by army officers as two ‘infecteds’ came hurtling towards us. The makeup was immense and terrifying. We were only allowed up to re-join our group once the infected people had been beaten to the ground with very realistic looking batons until they were no longer moving (except for the violent last twitch one made just as we passed them). By now I was nervously giggling wondering just what I had gotten myself into and totally thrilled by the exhilaration I could already feel building inside. As we entered the vaccination area and handed in our blood samples, more live action scenes took place with stretchers being whizzed about and doctors shouting orders at each other in panic tones whilst stern looking army men and women were insisting that no infected were allowed to enter. We were told to go to the pharmacy to purchase our supplies (read, alcohol), whilst we had time to, before being ushered into a room for our pre-med shot. I’m not really sure what this was and with blind faith I downed the vile liquid from a test tube before we were taken down to our beds. We lay looking at the screens in front of us. I don’t quite remember what exactly was on the screen but imagine the first scene of the movie and I’m sure you’ll get a sense of the rapidly moving images dashing across the screen. My sister and I were holding hands from adjacent beds. Tightly. Slowly at first, the lights began to dim then suddenly we were plunged into utter darkness. The entire room screeched in unison. And our held hands gripped tighter still. It felt as though we were laying together in darkness and in silence for an hour. Eventually we saw the welcome sight of a flashlight beam. Someone was calling to us. No one was answering her. This was the moment when I realised if I was going to maximise my experience I needed to eradicate that pesky niggle from Star Wars and throw myself into it as much as I could. She called again…. “Hello, is anyone there?” I took a deep breath and said in as loud a voice as I could muster “Er, Hello…” She came sprinting over to me as the lights raised a little and shock me awake. “We have to go” she told us “They’re coming!”.

At this point we all got up, rapidly. We followed her towards a doorway that seemed too small for us all to get through at any speed. We heard them before we saw them. The strangled noise of the undead moving towards us at an unnatural speed. “RUUUUN!” screamed our rescuer and none of us needed to be told twice. We sprinted, desperately trying to stay together as everyone else was doing the same to stay with their loved ones too. They were coming from everywhere – Underneath the railings to our left and right and definitely behind us. We did what any self respecting zombie apocalypse survivor would do. We ran. And screamed. And then we ran some more and when we felt like we could not run another step an appropriately timed live action scene took place. Before having to run some more. There was a definite expectation of a certain level of fitness required for this event and I didn’t know I possessed it.

Eventually we made it to the safety zone where men and women were separated. The women were taken to the quarters of Major Henry West to have supper.  We were asked if we had children and if so how many. When the major found out I had two children he made me stand and wrote an F on my scrubs. Apparently I was fertile enough to begin to repopulate the Earth. When we were dismissed we were allowed to take some leisure time to wander around the safety zone, get food and drinks and just relax a bit. Unless we heard a siren, then we had to hit the deck as fast as we could because that meant there was an infected that had infiltrated the camp. My sister and I discovered a boot camp and so we waited for our turn to take part. We didn’t expect it to just be us, the previous group was huge. The drill sergeant was a small women who was clearly very fit. My sister is also very fit. I am not. We were ordered to copy what she was doing which was fine at first. Then she started on the push up. I have never been able to do even one push up, my upper body strength needs some work to say the least. I had zero intention of telling the sergeant that. She could sense a weakness in me and told me I wasn’t capable. To this day I don’t know where I found the motivation to prove her wrong. I copied every push up every squat every jump like for like. It was thrilling.

The crowd then began to surge in one direction pushing us along with it. I wasn’t sure what was about to happen but again, the anticipation was building. As we waited someone in the crowd pushed me. It was crowded I didn’t care but I turned around anyway just to see who it was and I found myself face to face with an infected. My heart was racing as I noticed more and more of them surrounding us and everyone was smiling nervously at each other.  From under the railings in front of us an infected pair of eyes were staring at us and ushering us to crouch before a Dylan Thomas poem was performed for us: “Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light”. Then the rave started. The music was amazing and I spent what seemed like hours dancing with and amongst the undead. I threw myself into it as much as I could and I loved every single second. Then the officers discovered us and accused us all of being infected and we were moved towards another room where the movie would be screened. We ran one last time to get the best possible seat and discovered our veiwing experience was going to be laying on camp beds with pillows and screens on the ceiling. A blissful rest after our running and raving! The movie started and throughout the live action continued. The film wasn’t anywhere near as scary as I remember it being. I suppose once you’ve survived the real thing, nothing else even comes close.

'With endless love, we left you sleeping. Now we're sleeping with you. Don't wake up.'

[dialux]

trope it all up

So @eolaseadrom​ told me that I couldn’t do a blind date fic in canon verse, and I live to be spiteful. Also, the @jonxsansafanfiction​ valentine’s challenge is upon us, and there was really no better time for writing a fic than this one. So, without further ado:

My best attempt at working in four different prompts from the prompt challenge- each chapter encompasses one prompt.

chapter one: sansa is insulted, arya is nosy, jon’s angry, and bran’s just in this for the laughs.

i. blind date/set up

Summer had come, perhaps, and with it life; but at least in the winter, Sansa hadn’t had many marriage proposals. The Lords were more invested in taking care of their own keeps when their people were freezing to death in the streets; even the Vale soldiers had left the North once it became clear how cold the land would get, and Petyr had gone with them. But once Jon and- everyone else- had defeated the Walkers, and once the sun had risen and stayed like that, the men flooded into Winterfell by the thousands, all hoping to wed Sansa.

Sansa or Arya, in point of fact. Arya had right near skinned the first man and had been in the process of gelding the second when Jon stopped her- and after that, Gendry had been there to quietly threaten them into terrified silence. 

Mostly, the suitors came for Sansa.

And Sansa was exhausted of it. Twice wed, thrice betrothed, with nothing to show for it but scars running down her back and a quiet fear; Sansa would be content to spend the rest of her life living inside Winterfell, without the tension or anger or frustration that came with having a husband.

Which, perhaps, hadn’t been as easy a decision to make as it could’ve been. Sansa’d always wanted children, her own keep to run; but she’d learned her lessons with Ramsay, and with Joffrey. She might have been a little bit more snappish than usual about the whole thing, but certainly nowhere near the level everyone seemed to consider it.

And Arya, of course, had never had much patience for leaving things be as was healthy.

“Listen,” said Arya. “You’re moping.”

“I am not,” said Sansa, impatient. They’d been going back and forth for nearly an hour, and she was tired of it. “You’re mistaking me for Jon.”

“Lot of people tell you that you look like him then?” Arya asked, utterly dry. 

“I don’t mope,” she insisted. “I-”

“-flounce, mayhaps. And go all red in the face, and tear up all the sewing, and stuff lemoncakes in your face-”

“How dare you!” 

Sansa felt herself flush, hand clawing over the cloth she held- then she realized what she was doing, and straightened stiffly, wounded dignity dripping from her pores.

“I am the heir to Winterfell,” said Sansa. “And I will not suffer your idiotic- worries- when there’s no need to it!”

“You’re giving up a dream that’s been a part of you for years! Anyone with a head would treat that as painful, Sansa, and the only other person I know who’s as absolutely determined to be miserable is Jon!”

“Miserable!” Sansa shrieked.

Arya’s eyes narrowed, and then she turned and walked away. Sansa huffed, and, as soon as she was certain that Arya wasn’t returning, turned away and hurled the embroidery she’d been working on across the room. The wooden circlet made a satisfying thunk against the far wall.

...

Jon tugged at his jerkin uncomfortably.

It was Arya’s idea; before that, he’d been thinking on going into the Wolfswood for a few weeks with Ghost by his side. But he’d done the disappearing act before and hadn’t felt one bit better. With the Others defeated, the world was getting warmer; and Jon was feeling more and more unnecessary.

Or perhaps just aimless. 

Same difference.

Arya and Bran did their best to involve him, but it was a losing battle. Jon had never had much interest in politics- and now, with no eldritch undead army to worry over, he couldn’t be arsed to care. The only person to truly make him feel anything was Sansa, and that was more frothing fury than anything else.

But according to Arya, she knew of the perfect way for him to pass the night- she’d spent so long trying to convince him that Jon had finally given in. They were on their horses, heading towards the Wolfswood, when she said, “It’s a woman.”

“What’s a woman?” Jon asked absently.

“The person you’re going to meet.”

“I- what?” Jon levelled a deadly look at Arya, who only shrugged, unfazed.

“You’ve been acting ridiculous over the past week,” said Arya unrepentantly. “I’m just trying to make you feel better. And don’t worry- she’s not going to think anything bad of you. I also didn’t have to pay her to come, so that’s something.” She waggled her eyebrows. “It’s almost like people don’t actively avoid you, you know, if you’re a little nice to them.”

“Arya!"

“I mean it.” She nodded as they turned a corner in the path. “Just follow the sound of the water- we’re close enough. I’m heading back now. Don’t want to ruin the surprise, yes?”

Jon’s eyes narrowed suspiciously, but he didn’t say anything as she rode back the way they’d come.

The clearing Arya had pointed out was obvious, when he got to it. There was even a cloth spread over the grass, a basket of food set neatly on top; the sun streamed down brilliantly. It was, altogether, more planning than he’d ever seen his sister do, up to and including her vengeance on the wildling who’d tried to steal her- something she’d forced Jon to swear never to tell Sansa.

There was one thing missing, however, and Jon felt his brows pull together- where was the woman Arya had expounded upon at such length? He strode over to the basket, and there- right on top- was a card of folded, obnoxious yellow.

He flipped it open, and nearly choked on his anger at the first, and only, line.

...

Sansa entered the clearing carefully.

Bran had agreed with Arya, an earnest, innocent look about his face- and Sansa would pinch his ears until they bled when she got back to Winterfell, see if she wouldn’t- and so Sansa had gone to this meeting, shoulders high about her ears, fingers bunching the fabric of her skirts nervously.

As soon as she saw Jon, however, she felt all her tension fade in favor if irritation.

“Jon? What are you doing here?”

He turned around. In his hands was a paper painted a yellow bright enough to make anyone’s eyes bleed. His mouth was pursed into a thin line, and his eyes were bright with enough anger to shine purple.

“Read,” he said, and thrust the paper at her.

Sansa arched an eyebrow at his tone but took it nonetheless, smoothing it out. 

“May the two unhappiest people in Westeros enjoy each other’s company.” She looked up at him incredulously. “Is this your idea of a romantic card?”

“I didn’t want this,” Jon told her brusquely. “Not a bit. I didn’t even know that it was you!”

“Neither did I,” said Sansa.

Jon breathed out slowly and turned around, hands waving frenetically through the air. “If you’re here,” he snapped into the air, clearly not addressing Sansa, “then I suggest you leave Winterfell right now, Arya.”

Sansa ignored him, heading towards the blanket. The basket on top was filled with actual food- she unwrapped a loaf of bread, and tore off a chunk, leaning back to allow the sunlight to spill over her face.

“-told me that you didn’t bribe her-”

There was a bottle of wine at the bottom. Sansa uncapped it and took a long sip.

“-keeping her in the dark’s the same thing, you absolutely moronic child-”

It was fruity, she thought. Nowhere near as sour as the Night’s Watch seemed to enjoy.

“-and I will-” his ranting broke off as he turned and saw her. “What’re you doing?”

“Relaxing,” said Sansa, lifting the bottle of wine. She smiled lazily. “I think I’ve earned it, don’t you?”

“What?”

Sansa sighed. “We’ll get back to Winterfell soon enough,” she told him. “I’ll give Arya enough chores that she can’t so much as think about anything else for a couple weeks. But nothing’s going to happen with me getting mad right now, do you see? So- just relax. We can yell at Arya in a few hours.” Jon flushed, and she waved a hand sloppily, almost spilling the wine. “Or not, continue yelling if that’s really your heart’s desire.”

She leaned back once more, eyes dropping shut. A few minutes later, Sansa heard the thump of Jon seating himself beside her. She smiled, and, eyes still closed, extended the bottle of wine. Jon took it immediately.

...

They napped, for a time, exchanging the bottle of wine; then, they split the food between them. Sansa wasn’t quite sure what had happened- but they weren’t snapping at each other.

It had been a long, hard road here. They’d taken back Winterfell, but that had been only the beginning. Petyr had done his best to sow discord between Sansa and Jon, and while Sansa had done her best to support Jon, Jon himself hadn’t been so easygoing about it. The day he threatened to throw Petyr out of Winterfell, Sansa had defended him; Jon had gotten incandescently angry.

A week later, he’d left for the south; when he returned months later, Arya and Bran were back, and the armies of the dead were coming. Sansa, however, hadn’t been able to find it in herself to be anything more than polite to him.

But they were here, now, years later: and if it had been a hard road to walk, if they were both more than a little damaged for it, they at least understood each other.

“And did you see Daenerys’ face?” Sansa asked, laughter bubbling up between in the spaces between her words, making her gasp, light-headed. “When her dragons refused to set foot in Winterfell? She made us meet her in Castle Cerwyn!”

“Only reason I didn’t start shouting right then was ‘cause I was imagining Clay Cerwyn’s answer,” replied Jon. 

Sansa snorted. “He kept silent when the Boltons skinned his own father- he didn’t so much as wait for the dragons to cast a shadow on his keep before fleeing.” Her lips twisted. “His poor wife had a time of managing the entire household. And Arya wasn’t of much help, let me tell you.”

“Why? Too threatening?”

“She refused to go anywhere without Nymeria,” said Sansa, eyes dark with humor.

Jon looked at her questioningly, and she sighed.

“Nymeria was in her- season. She tried to mate with the hounds.” She grinned. “I made it a point to complain every morning about how dogs were howling all night long. Arya couldn’t look me in the eye for hours, I tell you- and she hasn’t insisted on bringing Nymeria to a diplomatic meeting ever since.”

Jon threw his head back and laughed, loud, booming, as she’d never seen before- she could count on her fingers the time’s he’d looked so carefree.

Sansa leaned forwards, threading her fingers through his. Jon looked at her, startled, and she let her smile soften into something truer.

“When we go back,” she murmured, “what do you say we play a game on them?”

...

They returned to Winterfell, and their linked hands got so many raised brows that Sansa was hard-pressed to keep from giggling. Jon, in a vain attempt to stop his own amusement from showing, had adopted such a stormy look on his face that it made her even more amused- to which he turned grimmer. It was a vicious cycle.

“You took longer than expected,” said Arya, as they approached the keep. Her smug smile only made Sansa grin wider.

Jon pulled away, leaves crunching under his feet as he turned, slowly, to meet Arya’s. 

“I’m going to kill you,” he said, perfectly pleasantly. Arya’s face went a little stiffer. “Or at least, you’re going to wish you were dead, by the time I’m finished with you.”

She chanced a pleading look at Sansa.

“No, don’t look at me,” said Sansa, smiling placidly at her sister, the frosting from her lunch still smeared stickily across her fingers. “I’m just going to sit here and, oh, I don’t know, stuff my face with lemoncakes.”

Arya’s eyes narrowed, and she turned, meeting Jon’s gimlet gaze with a defiant one of her own. Sansa smiled and settled in for a good show.

[hermanwatts]

Fantasy New Release: 26 October, 2019

Cops chasing magical criminals, airship baronesses, embattled chi cultivating martial artists, and unwilling heroes feature in this week’s collection of fantasy’s newest releases.

Bad Dreams and Broken Hearts (The Case Files of Erik Rugar #1) – Misha Burnett 

It’s hard to fight wizards and demons when all you have is a gun and a badge.

The use of magic in the Sovereign City of Dracoheim is regulated by the Lord Mayor’s Committee For Public Safety. From the licensing of magi, to the health and safety requirements for magical manufacturing, to the import and export of goods to the Realms of Nightmare, dedicated civil servants ensure that the metropolitan area stays safe from magical mayhem.

Most of the time, anyway.

My name is Erik Rugar. I’m an agent of the Criminal Investigation Division of CPS. We operate outside of the authority of Parliament and are answerable only to the Lord Mayor himself. We get involved when the regular beat cops are out of their depth. If a magic shop gets robbed by junkies, or someone gets vaporized by a fireball, or shapechanging creatures start infiltrating the city, I get the call.

But I’m not a mage; I’m just a cop. I face down magical threats with my keen investigative skills and a trusty revolver.

Welcome to my world.

CivCEO (The Accidental Champion #1) – Andrew Karevik

When Charles Morris is forced into retirement, the old multinational company CEO has to accept that it is all over. The days of running his financial empire have finally come to an end.  While Charles is attending a fundraiser, however, something happens and he’s transported into a strange medieval world where magic is real and legendary heroes coexist with mythical monsters.

As it turns out, he’s been snatched by a goddess who was in need of a Champion to grow her village.

Relying on a lifetime of business expertise and the Topsight—an ability that allows him to see and manage the entire village from above—he will have to start back from the bottom and find how to bring this measly Level 1 village to prosperity.

And so, they give him an ultimatum: he has one month to prove himself and improve Tine, otherwise it’s the hangman’s noose.

Divine Madness (Way of the Immortals #2) – Harmon Cooper

Things are only starting to heat up for Nick Barnette.

Upon escaping the city of Nagchu, Nick and his companions barely manage to survive a surprise attack from an incredibly powerful being, one clearly not of their world.

And that isn’t the only thing after them.

With Lhandon’s monastery under siege, Nick’s group must head toward the Darkhan Mountains, to the snow lion village of Dornod, in search of training and to officially reset of the Path of the Divine. Through meditation, combat, and study, Nick and his companions continue to cultivate their powers while in the village of Dornod. Their ultimate goal is to reach the Island Kingdom of Jonang, where Nick hopes to find his Marine friend Hugo, and Lhandon hopes to locate the reincarnation of the Exonerated One.

But their enemies are also growing stronger.

And it is through sheer treachery that Nick and Lhandon find themselves in a life or death situation, one that could end their epic saga before it has a chance to even start.

The Glauerdoom Moor (Super Dungeon #3) – David West

The evil Baron Von Drakk has no problem defeating an entire army and kidnapping their leader—the great Princess Citrine. Now Princess Citrine’s only hope lies in a thief that just got caught.

Sai doesn’t want to be a hero. She wants to steal the greatest jewel in Crystalia. But when she is captured by the king’s men in the perfect trap, Sai is forced to take a job from King Jasper himself—to rescue his daughter Princess Citrine from the evil Von Drakk. Escape should be easy for an accomplished thief, but the Royal Warden refuses to let her out of his sight until they find the kidnapped princess.

Sai thrives in the unsavory places of Castletown, but those pale in comparison to the Glauerdoom Moor. Witches and zombies lurk around every corner, and the swamp itself seems against them. Even worse is the tyrant who rules the Moor. The undead Baron Von Drakk has a host of evil creatures at his command, not to mention nearly unstoppable dark magic of his own.

How can Sai defeat someone who took out an entire army?

The Iron Wedding (Adventures of Baron Von Monocle #4) – Jon Del Arroz

She must marry an evil tyrant…

…in order to end the war.

Zaira von Monocle is on the verge of sacrificing her life as an airship commander, because the ruler of Wyranth Empire demands her as a bride.

The war has devastated Zaira’s home country, leaving her little choice but to do as the Iron Emperor wishes. But a new threat looms over the horizon as she tries to bring about peace between these two warring countries, one which neither the Wyranth nor Rislandia are prepared to encounter.

The #1 Bestselling steampunk adventure series takes a bold new turn in The Iron Wedding, bringing new wonders and dangers like you’ve never seen before. Read it today!

The Rise of the Demon Prince (The Counterfeit Sorcerer #2) – Robert Kroese

A terrifying demon has come from the shadow world to threaten the land of Orszag. Flanked by a horde of ghostly specters, the demon intends to lay waste to the city of Nagyvaros, and only one man can stop him: Konrad the sorcerer. To defeat the demon, Konrad must learn to master the power of the warlock’s brand. But with enemies all around him and no time to lose, Konrad finds himself playing one foe against another in a desperate attempt to stay alive, hoping one day to wreak his vengeance on the man who destroyed his life….

THE RISE OF THE DEMON PRINCE is the second book in the five-book series THE COUNTERFEIT SORCERER.

The Rising of the Shield Hero 14 – Aneko Yusagi   

The Heavenly Emperor of Q’ten Lo is after Raphtalia’s life! To ensure her saftey, Naofumi must team up with the country’s revolutionaries to overthrow him! But when they go about fixing the problems of the country’s misrule, it drives the emperor even further into a corner. Nevertheless, Naofumi decides to add fuel to the fire by capturing the country’s former capital! But he learns that someone is pulling the strings from behind the curtain.

“Whatever. Our only choice is to keep pushing forward. There’s no stopping now.”

Just before Naofumi’s party reaches the former capital, they come face to face with the emperor���s ultimate line of defense: Sadeena’s sister?! Faced with Q’ten Lo thrown into chaos by family feuds, what will Naofumi do?! Lead its people to revolution!? Join the battle in volume fourteen of this otherworldly revenge fantasy!

Sages of the Underpass (Battle Artists #1) – Aaron Michael Ritchey

In a world where everyone has power, Nikodemus Kowalczyk was always destined to be an underdog.

Nikko has long since given up on his dreams of being a world class Battle Artist. Thanks to his damaged core and crazy family, he never stood a chance anyway. With money, fame, and untold power on the line, the corporations decide who wins. End of story.

But when a mysterious group, calling themselves the Sages of the Underpass, threaten to upend the entire system with their unorthodox training and cultivation methods, Nikko soon learns that what was once a handicap might be his greatest asset. The only thing standing in his way is a bitter, hard-hearted veteran, who would like nothing more than to see Niko stay in his place. Right at the bottom.

Fantasy New Release: 26 October, 2019 published first on https://sixchexus.weebly.com/

[grailfinders]

Fate and Phantasms #97: Nightingale

Today on Fate and Phantasms, we’re making everyone’s favorite medical practitioner and biting enthusiast, Florence Nightingale! The good Ms. Flo is the most skilled nurse in Chaldea, with a variety of techniques to deal with disease and ill health on and off the battlefield. She’s not afraid to use them, so try not to get sick.

Check out her build breakdown below the cut, or her character sheet over here!

Next up: RUN! It’s a creature legally distinct from Godzilla!

Race and Background

Nightingale’s a Human, and the variant version gives her +1 Wisdom and Charisma, as well as Insight proficiency and the Crossbow Expert feat. Some settings allow for pistols, but some don’t, and we’re playing it safe here. That feat means you can attack multiple times in a turn with a crossbow, attack within melee range without disadvantage, and if you’re holding a crossbow in your off hand and another weapon in your main hand, you can attack with the weapon as an action and the crossbow as a bonus action.

Nightingale might be a nurse, but she spent most of her time patching up wounds in the army, and the Soldier background gives her proficiency with Athletics and Intimidation, both things she pretty good at.

Ability Scores

Make sure your Wisdom is as high as possible for the best medicine checks and spellcasting. Make your Dexterity the second highest to multiclassing, damage, and to keep your AC up (that’s not exactly heavy armor). Your Charisma is next, you can be “persuasive” when you want to be. And by that I mean you’re terrifying. You may be pretty lucid, but you’re still a berserker; that means you’re hard to take down, and that means your Constitution should be next. Your Strength is pretty low. We don’t need it, but you’re still a berserker, so we’re dropping Intelligence instead. You don’t really care about topics other than medicine, so it’s not like you’ll be using it that much.

Class Levels

1. Cleric 1: Shockingly, the nurse is a Cleric. However, you know the best way to avoid infections to kill anything that could infect you, which definitely makes you more of a War cleric than a life one. As a war cleric, you start out proficient in martial weapons, which means we don’t have to jump through hoops to get your hand crossbow like we did with Shirou’s weapon. You’re also a War Priest, meaning a number of times per day equal to your wisdom modifier you can attack as a bonus action after attacking with your main action. This means you can still have two attacks per turn without having to dual wield like your feat wants you to.

You also learn Spells that you can cast and prepare using your Wisdom. You also get Domain Spells, which always count as prepared and you don’t have to spend prep time getting, like Divine Favor and Shield of Faith. The former makes your gun run a little hotter with radiant damage for up to a minute, and the latter gives a creature extra combat awareness, boosting their AC for up to 10 minutes.

You can also prepare spells outside your domain; healing spells are an obvious choice, but you should also check out Detect Poison and Disease and Purify food and Drink to make sure you have some antidotes on you.

Finally, you also get cantrips. Guidance adds 1d4 to an ability score, so long as they follow your directions for fluids and bedrest. Mending puts two things back together (it’s intended for nonliving things, but I’m sure it works fine on limbs too). Spare the Dying is what you’re actually supposed to use when people’s limbs come off, stabilizing creatures at 0 hp so they don’t have to worry about death saves.

2. Cleric 2: Second level clerics can Channel Divinity, either Turning Undead to make those that fail a wisdom save of DC 8 plus your wisdom modifier plus your proficiency, or making a Guided Strike, adding 10 to your attack roll. Some times the most effective way to end a disease is to end the person it’s afflicting.

3. Cleric 3: At third level you get second level spells, like Magic Weapon and Spiritual Weapon. Despite the similar names, the former improves your existing weapon a bit and makes it magical to avoid resistances, and the latter makes a brand new weapon that you control as a bonus action each turn. Along with your domain spells, you also get the performance enhancing drug Enhance Ability, the tranquilizer Hold Person, and more Protection from Poison.

4. Cleric 4: Use your first Ability Score Improvement to become a Healer. Now when you stabilize a creature using a healer’s kit they regain 1 HP, and you can spend a use of a healers kit to heal a creature for 1d6+4 HP, plus an extra amount of HP equal to their maximum number of hit dice. This healing can only be done once per short rest for each creature. Doctors gonna doctor.

Also grab Thaumaturgy so your Angel’s Yell can carry further.

5. Fighter 1: Bouncing over to fighter gives you a fighting style, like Unarmed Fighting, which gives you unarmed attacks that deal bludgeoning damage, but more so if you’re not holding your crossbow at the same time. Guns are nice, but sometimes you’ll have to get physical. You also gain a Second Wind, letting you heal yourself as a bonus action. This means you can save your regular materials for your party members.

6. Fighter 2: Second level fighters get an Action Surge, making it a lot easier to heal and shoot people at the same time once per short rest by adding an extra action to your turn.

7. Fighter 3: Grab the Banneret as your subclass to gain a Rallying Cry. Now using your Second Wind also heals your party members for a little bit as well! It’s not much compared to healing spells, but sometimes you run out of slots.

8. Cleric 5: Back in cleric now, your Turn Undead becomes Destroy Undead, instantly killing any undead monsters with a CR of less than 1/2 when they fail their save. You also get third level spells like Crusader’s Mantle and Spirit Guardians. The former causes everyone’s guns to run hot with radiant damage even if they’re using a sword, and the latter summons a couple angelic guards to protect your patients. If you find yourself in a lot of close-quarters combat, you can also use Spirit Shroud for some extra enemy control and damage.

9. Cleric 6: At sixth level you can Channel Divinity twice per short rest, and gain an new option to do so. You can bestow your War God’s Blessing on nearby creatures, spending your reaction to add 10 to their attack roll.

10 Cleric 7: Seventh level clerics get fourth level spells, like your domain spells Freedom of Movement and Stoneskin. The former helps you gnaw off your arm like a rabid coyote to escape capture, and the latter gives you all the relevant benefits of raging without stopping you from casting spells. By that, I mean it gives a creature resistance to nonmagical physical damage types. But you’ll have plenty of competition for your concentration, because you can also cast Aura of Life and Aura of Purity this level. One gives creatures in it resistance to necrotic damage and instantly revives non-hostile creatures who’ve been downed, and the other prevents diseases, weakens poisons, and empowers your party against most status effects.

11. Cleric 8: At this level, you can finally use an ASI to improve an ability score, bumping up your Wisdom for better healing and more bonus action attacks. Your Destroy Undead also bumps up to CR 1, and your Divine Strike makes your weapon attacks a little stronger once per turn. Turns out guns are stronger than crossbows, who knew?

12. Cleric 9: Ninth level clerics get fifth level spells. Flame Strike can be one of those neat little bottle-shaped grenades, and you also get Hold Monster for an even stronger tranquilizer. Beyond that and some healing spells, there isn’t really much at fifth level that screams Nightingale to me, but feel free to play it by ear.

13. Cleric 10: At tenth level you can use Divine Intervention to ask God for a bit of assistance in keeping your dumbass party alive. You can use this once per long rest, but also have to wait a week after it succeeds. Since you’re a full level of spells behind regular spellcasters right now, calling in a favor from time to time might come in handy.

You also pick up your last cantrip; Toll the Dead is another solid way to finish off diseased or injured enemies before they can spread whatever’s affecting them to the party, dealing more damage to creatures who are missing HP.

14. Cleric 11: Eleventh level clerics get sixth level spells, and like last time there’s not much specifically at this level that caught my eye. But that’s only if you’re playing the character religiously close to canon, and you probably shouldn’t be if you want to jive with the rest of the party. Or maybe you’re all playing expies of other characters, idk live your life.

15. Cleric 12: Use this ASI to bump up your Dexterity for better gunplay and AC.

16. Cleric 13: Now you have seventh level spells, and unlike the last few levels, there’s spell outside of your usual healing you might want to check out. Temple of the Gods. lets you build your own temple within a cube of 120′. It lasts 24 hours per cast, but casting it once per day for a year in the same spot makes it permanent. Inside the temple, extraplanar entities can be kept out of it if they fail a charisma save, and they also get 1d4 subtracted from their attacks, checks, and saves while inside. The temple is immune to divinations spells, and the temple also boosts the power of healing spells cast inside of it. Great for giving your keep it’s own medical wing.

17. Cleric 14: Fourteenth level clerics have a Destroy Undead that affects creatures of CR 3 or lower, and their Divine Strike becomes a little more powerful as well. You just learned how to build hospitals from nothing, not every level can be a massive leap forward.

18. Cleric 15: You pick up eighth level spells this level. By this level, most spells are a bit too flashy to fit into Nightingale’s toolkit, but Holy Aura still manages to do it. Creatures within 30′ of you glow, and get advantage on all saves. On top of that, attacking creatures have disadvantage, and fiends and undead have to make a constitution save or become blinded for the duration of the spell.

19. Cleric 16: Use your last ASI to bump up your Constitution for more HP and better concentration saves.

20. Cleric 17: At seventeenth level, your Destroy Undead gets even stronger, you get ninth level spells, and most importantly, you become an Avatar of Battle, granting you a permanent resistance to nonmagical weapons. Effectively, you’re always raging, but still have access to your spells.

Pros:

You’re something of a tough nut to crack, especially for a healer. You’ve got quite a bit of health for a cleric, ways to heal yourself and the party at the same time, and a sort of permanent rage damage resistance going on at the end of it.

Despite being a healer, you’re also pretty skilled in ranged combat, with plenty of ways to add more damage to your crossbow bolts. You might not have multiple attacks like most fighters, but you make your shots count. This also means you don’t have to be quite as deep in combat as your standard “mace and shield” cleric.

The healer feat and your Rallying Cry give you access to nonmagical healing. This is most likely to be a niche skill, but sometimes you’ll have to deal with anti-magic zones or low-magic settings, in which case you’ll still be able to shine.

Cons:

Despite us putting several levels and feats into making your crossbow good, you’ll still always have to deal with the fact that it’s nowhere near as strong as a fighter’s would be. It’s fine for emergencies, but you probably won’t be the standout damage dealer of the group.

Bumping over to fighter for a couple levels also prevents you from getting the Cleric capstone, and they have a really good one. Guaranteed divine intervention is nothing to sneeze at.

You don’t really wear armor, and you don’t get anything like monks or barbarians do to offset that fact, so if you’re playing to character your AC is abysmal. Like I said earlier though, feel free to put on a breastplate or something, there’s no wrong way to play D&D. Except for in person, and not wearing a mask.

[zippdementia]

Part 56 Alignment May Vary: Interlude and Side Quest Suggestions

There is an uneasy feeling as the players stand next to the Ghost Lord in the Lion’s Maw. Where do we go from here? Tyrion, as usual, is the first to break the ice, and he does so bluntly:

“So, you gonna help us kick some ass on the horde now?”

The Ghost Lord laughs and tells the players that, no, he has no intention of joining their fight long term. “Guys like Nazragul, Acererak, they always want to take over the world,” he says. “And where does that get them? A lot of hassle and constant visits from adventurers and would-be do-gooders. Acererak can’t even stay on this plane of existence he has so many enemies. And Nazragul? He’s in a hole. I set my sights on simpler things. My experiments. Maybe being left alone isn’t a grand goal, but I’ll tell you, long after everyone else has died chasing their damned grand goals, I’ll still be here, laughing as I watch the world turn.”

The Ghost Lord does agree to help Nazragul reshape his soul jar into something more sensible than the giant mass of muscle and tissue and undead organs that is currently growing out of Lady Dagger’s tortured body in the Maaken Temple.

“He never was much of a craftsmen,” The Ghost Lord grouses.

So the party travels with the Ghost Lord back across the Thornwaste. With the Ghost Lord at their side the journey is quick. The land itself opens up before his passage, the myriad thorns and other hazards retreating at his approach. He truly is the master of this land.

At the edge of the Thornwaste the players come across a character they have not met since the early days of the campaign: Joachim, the elderly and mysterious Yellow Robed Elf. While the Ghost Lord and Trellara hang back, so as not to terrify the travelers, the three more normal companions (nevermind Tyrion’s blue skin) join Joachim and his troop of bodyguards at his fire and have a strange conversation with him. Joachim speaks directly to Aldric (when the knight takes a break from flirting with the female mercenary, who brushes him off by saying she’s been married for 367 years) who asks if the elf knows anything about the creature that attacked Adlric’s troop and whom he had tracked into the Thornwaste. 

Joachim does, in fact, know about it. It is a Behir, he tells Aldric, a creature that usually detests dragons yet for some reason is claiming to be the mother of the Dragonlord leading the Red Hand. This particular Behir is ancient, having plagued the Elsir Vale for a millenia. Whether Aldric will be the one to bring her down has not yet been seen in the stars.

Joachim also speaks to Nysyries, telling her that soon she will have to make a choice. She will know the moment when she is there and it will represent a cross roads in her life. What happens from that point forward will be up to her. They are cryptic words, and Nazragul shifts inside of her as they are spoken.

Finally, Joachim tells them that they are on the very edge of greatness, that there are three weapons very nearby that can be used to help them secure victory over the hoard. They used to reside in old Rhest and contributed to the land’s downfall in civil strife. He tells them that these weapons now reside with the dwarves in the southern mountains and that these weapons will be instrumental in fighting and defeating the Red Hand. With a flourish, he spreads a special powder into the fire and the flames rear up black and ominous as he looks at Aldric and speaks of the first weapon.

As Joachim speaks, the three grow more and more tired and suddenly realize that Joachim has placed a sleeping powder in the fire. The three pass out then awaken in the morning to find the others gone... except for one male mercenary left tied up like a hog for slaughter--a gift from Joachim to Nysyries, a gift that casts his alignment and goals in an even deeper mystery.

Setting the Side Quest: White Plume Mountain

The three weapons that Joachim tells them of are from White Plume Mountain.

One consistent problem with the original Red Hand of Doom module is its transitions between chapters. The best D&D adventures have either plot hooks that pull its character inexorably towards the next big thing after each chapter or have a hub city or NPC where more quests can be given. Red Hand has the problem of its hub city getting destroyed in the first chapter and, for the most part, of lacking compelling hooks. This problem is tied into the fact that every major adventure in the campaign is essentially a big side quest. Going to Rhest and going to the Ghost Lord’s lair does have an effect on the final battle and does bring players in direct conflict with their foe, the Red Hand, but it also leads to a dead end each time, always returning players to the “let’s get to Brindol” plot line afterwards. Because players know about Brindol from the start and don’t find out about this plan gradually, the plot can get a little stale as the main goal never changes. 

I didn’t notice some of these problems until recently. The campaign gets touted so often as one of the best that I went in with some blinders on. Also, it is constantly complained about for being too easy, a complaint that I took to heart in my redesign but one which I’m not sure I actually agree with any more. Or rather, I do think as built it is an easy campaign, but I also think that is part of what makes it work. I think this campaign is supposed to make the players feel like they are stomping through the horde at each turn, bringing down dragons and lieutenants of the horde. You can tell this was the intent because at each step of the way, players are punished for not doing this! If they aren’t aggressive enough, the horde marshals its full strength at the Battle of Brindol and is much harder to defeat. If you take these victories away from the players or make them too challenging, then what you end up with is a campaign where the players are doing things to systemically make the horde weaker, but they are not doing anything to make themselves feel stronger.

Some of the problems I mentioned with the campaign I’ve addressed. Nazragul’s Maakengorge became my stand-in hub to keep the story moving. And I’ve pretty much eschewed the in-book timer to countdown to the horde’s arrival at Brindol. It’s a cool idea, but there just isn’t enough exciting things to do in all the time the module gives you to make this work. Chasing the horde across the land discourages players from going to Rhest and the Thornwaste and isn’t very much fun besides, mostly a series of random encounters with the horde. So get rid of that time system and just go with “the horde travels at plot speed.”

The one problem I didn’t address, and in fact probably contributed to creating, was the feeling of player weakness. Red Hand doesn’t need to be harder. At least pieces of it don’t. The Ghost Lord should be near impossible to fight. And taking on the whole horde at once should be a death sentence. Doing stupid things in Rhest and bringing the whole place down on you should be a bad idea. But the rank and file should feel easy and the lieutenants and dragons should be defeatable. It’s not individual encounters like this that are impressive about the horde: it’s their sheer size. Let the players feel like they are way above these fights but anytime they get close to the main army, its sheer size should turn them away. That’s when you shouldn’t be afraid to throw six chimera and two dozen hobgoblins at them (buff their health and proficiencies here if you need to to make them a bigger threat).

In any case, it’s not like my campaign has been a failure because of this. The players respect the horde and they’ve become good villains for them, too. They are really eager to defeat them at Brindol and I’m very much looking forward to that clash. We’ve also got to have some very tactical battles because of the challenge and some incredible close calls, like Nysyries blowing up the bridge. But because of the difficulty I made the campaign overall, it’s time to give the players something back, to make them feel like more than pawns on this chess board. They should at least be rooks *wink*

To that end, one final side quest before Brindol is in order. And the dwarves make a great catalyst for it. Honestly, I was surprised when the original module didn’t offer up the Dwarves in the Wyvernwatch mountains as a side quest post-Thornwaste. I literally thought I was missing a piece of the book. The mountains are right next to the Thornwaste and the Dwarves have already been given a plot hook back in the Witchwood where the payment for their services as mercenaries to Brindol had been waylaid. I thought that plot hook would be followed up by a short Dwarven adventure later on, maybe something that involved delving deep into the mountain to kill a Dragon and seize its treasure or recover some material to help the dwaves forge a mighty weapon to fight the Horde.

What I’m basically saying is that you should add a dwarven adventure into your own campaign at this point in the campaign. It’s too good of an opportunity to flesh out the world and as a story beat it creates a wonderful mirror of the “ally gathering” that happened in Rhest. That was an elvish adventure, now they get a dwarven adventure. If the players manage to recruit both races to the cause than it feels like a true alliance of good vs. evil, where all races have put aside their differences to face the Red Horde. It really builds up that final confrontation well!

As far as actual adventures go, make up your own if you’d like, or select something appropriate from the plethora of choices in DnD’s back catalog or from third-party creators on DMs Guild. Some suggestions include:

Anything from a suitable adventure’s league. These adventures are always easy to fit into any campaign. Just find one of the appropriate level that interests you and *bam* you have a two to three hour session ready to go. You can easily change major NPCs to dwarves and the location to match the Wyvernatch.

Glitterdoom, from Goodman Games. It’s a nice little Dwarven mine adventure. You’ll probably have to change out some of the encounters to make it level appropriate, though: it’s too easy at level 3.

Forge of Fury, from Tales of the Yawning Portal, especially if your party is a little bit less leveled than mine. You might still have to bump up some encounters to match the challenge you want, but this is a perfectly themed adventure.

A side quest from Rise of Tiamet. That book is basically made up of side adventures, just grab one that feels good and change the setting and NPCs to dwarves. It’s already dragon-themed and is basically the redux of Red Hand of Doom already. They should already be pretty much level appropriate.

For myself, I chose White Plume Mountain from Tales of the Yawning Portal. I think it is the perfect side quest for this campaign and we will get into why, and some of the changes I’ve made to it, next time.

Other suggestions are welcome, for good side adventures! Just post a reply. I’m always looking for good side adventures.

[adambstingus]

5 True Stories That Put Every Horror Movie To Shame

Show a group of people a randomly picked news article, and three personality types will emerge. Some ask themselves: “How does this affect me?” Others query: “What can I learn from this?” And then there’s a third group, which rarely wears pants and only wants to know: “What kind of horror movie would this be?” I’m firmly in that last group, and judging by how you clicked on this article, I’m guessing that so are you. So come — let’s grab a bunch of truly creepy news stories and give those stupid, rational types a sample of what the inside of our collective head looks like.

5

Boats Full Of Corpses Keep Washing Up In Japan

There are many horror plots you’d associate with Japan: creepy ghost girls, giant monsters, the lingering farts of long-gone otakus still haunting their apartment complexes. You wouldn’t necessarily include the classic “ghost ship” story in that list … which is why Japan, being Japan, has taken that trope and cranked it up to 11.

Instead of the traditional version where a ship is found with its crew mysteriously missing (and may or may not make its finders disappear as well, thanks to the vengeful sea ghosts haunting it), the country has opted for a real-life version where mysterious boats full of decomposing and mutilated corpses keep washing up on the country’s shores. That’s insane. Even the most visceral of ghost ship-themed horror movies tend to start with an empty ship, singular. Here, we have a whole bunch, turning up with some alarming regularity, and complete with a ton of well-worn corpses to bring some extra gore to the tale. Is … is this going to be a zombie situation somewhere down the line? Is this how the whole “undead pirate” thing from Pirates Of The Caribbean would really play out?

In the interest of accurate reporting, it should be mentioned that one of the boats has been connected to a unit of North Korea’s army, along with Kim Jong-un’s apparent insistence on fishing as a source of food and foreign income. So the leading boring theory is that these are North Korean ships, risking literal life and limb in order to catch a mackerel or six for the Great Leader.

Wait, hold on. That’s … actually even more terrifying than a dark saltwater god stealing fishermen’s faces or whatever. Imagine that your entire lot in life is sailing notoriously stormy and awful seas in a barely equipped vessel, only for your crew to face the unspeakable horrors of the ocean. Maybe things get so bad that you end up with a Donner Party situation. Finally, after the inevitable gory climax, you wash up in a foreign land, where your badly decomposed mortal remains are collected and cremated by stoic Japanese coast guards who have at this point seen way too much of this shit to give a damn.

Around Act Two of that story, having your soul eaten by a horde of ravenous ocean witches would probably be a welcome respite.

4

A Company Had A Secret Nuclear Reactor For Decades

Let’s say you’re a resident of Rochester, New York. You’re just minding your own business, pretending your city has famous people who are not Ryan Lochte and Kristen Wiig, when one day, your neighborhood is full of dudes in hazmat suits. Because a company next door had a goddamned secret nuclear reactor in their basement. But what kind of real-life Umbrella Corporation would go and pull a stunt like that … ?

… K-Kodak? The photography company?

What the fuck?

shurik/Pixabay Who knew a Kodak moment has a half-life of 24,110 years?

It’s hard for a corporate entity to seem sympathetic, but Kodak — a company most notorious for manufacturing film — is probably as close as it comes in an era where everyone has a camera in their cell phone. Finding out a firm like that has been gleefully playing with Fallout tech all along is like discovering that your sweet grandpa’s house has a secret dungeon for a 16-foot fuck doll constructed entirely out of rotting ham. Still, Kodak totally had a nuclear reactor. It was called “californium neutron flux multiplier,” and they started messing around with it in 1974. The company is quick to mention that the reactor was just a relatively small one, they were operating it remotely behind two feet of concrete, and they only used it for non-nefarious purposes such as testing chemicals for impurities. They might even point out that they themselves were, in fact, the ones who revealed that they had one in the first place.

To all that I say: Poppycock.

You know what kind of company just abruptly up and goes, “Hey, guys, did we ever tell you the story of this doom machine we’ve had in our basement for decades? We didn’t? Well, how about that, ha-ha!”? One that’s doing damage control, that’s what. I can imagine around least a dozen reasons for Kodak needing an unsanctioned, rarely mentioned nuclear reactor that was suddenly decommissioned in collaboration with the government in 2007. None of those reasons include the words “making photography shit better,” and absolutely all of them include the term “super mutant.”

I’m calling it: They were totally running a nuclear-themed supervillain plot on the side, and something happened in 2007. Maybe their scientists finally managed to create a film that could capture future events, and were driven to homicidal insanity when every image persistently featured forests of flaming skeletons where trees should be. Or maybe, just maybe, they finally managed to recreate my favorite Masters Of The Universe failure Fearless Photog, who proceeded to tear through the facility like the Demogorgon in Stranger Things.

Mattel If nothing else, he’d take found-footage movies to another level.

3

Family Flees Their Dream House Because Of A Mysterious “Watcher”

The “mysterious stalker in the shadows” trope is present in roughly 95 percent of all horror movies, but in real life, that particular plot device can usually be solved with a call to police, a restraining order, or a swift dropkick right in the dick.

Which makes it all the more intriguing that in 2015, a creepy entity known as “The Watcher” actually managed to stalk a family out of their New Jersey home. And wait, it gets better — said home happened to look like this:

There’s a reason our villain was called the Watcher and not, say, the Melon Baller Eyeball Collector — as befits the majesty of his preferred stalking grounds, he was all about psychological terror. The name of his particular game was threatening letters. And although that could technically put him in a “disgruntled dude who lost the bidding war” or “guy who really hates neighbors” category, he pushed his way into horror movie territory with his … peculiar methods. Here are some choice quotes from his messages:

“The windows and doors allow me to watch you and track you as you move through the house. Who I am? I am the Watcher.”

“Have they found out what is in the walls yet? In time they will.”

Or, in reference to the family’s children:

“I am pleased to know your names now, and the name of the young blood you have brought to me.”

Hahahahaha! That’s awesome … ly, uh, awful for the family, that is. The letters kept coming, and as they included apt “young blood” references and hints that the writer actually did keep uncomfortably close tabs on the house and its renovations, the family was too afraid to make the house their home. In fact, they never dared to properly move in.

What really makes this one for me is that as a horror movie, it’s clearly a sequel. Not only does the family heavily insinuate that the previous owners who sold the house to them were already all too aware of The Watcher, the Watcher himself started his campaign of terror (a mere three days after they bought the house in 2014) with a statement that his grandfather and father had watched the house before him, and it now fell on him to “wait for its second coming.”

A real creepy, haunted-looking mansion where every owner is stalked by generations of unknown, hostile entities? Say that sentence out loud three times, and Wes Craven’s ghost will appear to high five you, because you just got yourself a horror franchise.

2

A Family Finds The Walls Of Their House Are Filled With Animal Carcasses

The Watcher may or may not have been hurling empty threats about “things in the walls,” but in Auburn, MA, one villain damn well delivered … a good 70-80 years in advance.

In 2011, the Bretzius family bought a house. They were thorough in what they were looking for. They had it inspected, looked for radon, the whole nine yards. Everything went well, and they moved in … which is when the dead animals started coming out of the walls.

In 2012, the family discovered to their horror that the walls were full of dead animals, spices, and assorted trinkets, all wrapped up in newspapers from 1930s and 1940s. Intrigued by the what-the-fuckedness of it all, they sent dozens of the carcasses and other finds to experts, who concluded that they likely had something to do with pow-wowing, a peculiar form of Amish folk magic where tricks like this were used to “heal” ailments.

Personally, I call bullshit. It’s one thing to perform a little ceremony for health, like sacrificing a goat whenever you pass through a doorway for the first time (you guys do that too, right?). Stuffing all your walls full of death and spices is the work of a serial killer who wants to show the devil who the boss really is. With that logic, and in the context of Pennsylvania Dutch magic being at play here, I’m forced to assume that the house is haunted by buckriders — demons who ride flying goats from Satan’s flock. Have those guys ever featured in a horror movie? They’re about to!

Still, before the spirits of Bokkenrijders inevitably rise and possess them, the residents of the house are a good example of how haunted houses really screw up a person’s life. Although they are on record for having been adequately “shocked, horrified, and disgusted” when they first found the terror-spell ingredients hiding in their walls, they are more concerned with the fact that this has forced them to do a buttload of expensive renovation their insurance company wants to hear nothing about, and the mold and terrifying smell of the animals has tainted the whole house. That, friend, is the true, mundane yet long-term, horror you’ll face the next time your ceiling starts weeping ectoplasm.

1

Man Arrested For Smuggling Roasted Black-Magic Fetuses

Wait, what?

I’m … That’s … What?

The Telegraph SIX?

Gold leaf. Jesus.

Look, creepy babies are generally a pretty safe course for any horror movie worth its salt. But it’s one thing to go full Rosemary’s Baby, and completely another to roast fetuses, cover them in gold, and waltz off to the airport with a bunch in your luggage while attempting to whistle innocuously. That’s not the plot of a horror movie — that’s what gets you kicked out of the villain treehouse for creeping out Pennywise The Clown. Even the fact that the guy probably didn’t personally make the horror babies like a good, old-fashioned maniac doesn’t help matters; instead, he bought them from someone else for $6,000 and intended to sell them for profit as black-magic good-luck charms known as kuman thong.

Gilded. Roasted. Fetus. Black. Magic. Good luck charms. That someone out there is actively manufacturing for sale.

You know what? Fuck it. I’m out. I hope you’re proud of yourself, fetus guy. You can’t be spun into a horror movie, because you already are something way, way creepier. In other circumstances, I might say that you won, but I think we can agree that we all lost something precious today. Now, who’s hogging the brain bleach?

Pauli Poisuo is a Cracked columnist and freelance editor. Here he is on Facebook and Twitter.

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from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/2017/06/23/5-true-stories-that-put-every-horror-movie-to-shame/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/162144044077