#parcel weight prices

[disgustingtwitches]

MDNI

141 as your drug dealer boyfriend

Ghost- Let's be real with ourselves, Ghost is not a good man. He doesn't care who he hurts, as long as he gets his. He will do anything to get what he wants and there is no stopping him. It's what made him a great soldier, and it's what makes him a great kingpin. He moves weight to put it lightly. There isn't a moment where an uncut key is unmoving; from a warehouse, to a plane (or car, or train), to a distributor, to a pusher, to up someone's nose. He'll try to do some damage control, make sure things aren't cut with fent, but that's only to make sure customers keep coming back. He likes to keep his hands clean, in the sense that he'll never be the one to pull the trigger on anyone that's out of line. Living up to his name, no one knows what he looks like. Hell, a lot of people don't even think he's real.

But when it comes to you, Simon's a different man. No talk about work, just you and him. Other than the multiple hidden guns around the house and Glock he sleeps with, life is normal with you. Holiday homes in the French countryside and Bahamas. Designer everything. Sports cars in all your favorite colors. You want for nothing. It's the life he wanted for you. After all those years of crying and hurt when he was away for weeks or months, you deserved the world. Want the new Hermès bag? You got it. Can't choose between the black or white louboutins? Get both. Stop eating you out because you can't feel your toes anymore? Sorry love, only thing he can't do for you.

Soap- Johnny is a small business owner. Weighs everything out by his own hand. Presses his own pills. Let's you help baggie everything up. A social butterfly, this man is at every concert, rave, or music festival. Sometimes he has a friend help push his stuff when he just wants to stay home with you, but for the most part he's his own salesman. And a damn good one. Never has overstock. No matter how much he brings with him, he'll always sellout.

Has a supernatural sense of being shorted. Can tell if a bag is even a few grams off just by holding it.

"Ye'r an idiot if ye think ye kin short me."

And when the other party denies, he always keeps a pocket scale on him, setting the parcel on it. And sure enough, he's always right.

He'll come home with a few grand, the only job you have is to sit there and look pretty. And roll his spliffs. Sitting in his lap, tucking the rolling paper into itself and licking it closed while he counts out a fat wad of cash. He hands you a fat stack,

"A've never bin good wi' money. Ye know how to spend it better than me."

He never touches the stuff he sells, no need to when all the dopamine he needs is right between your legs.

"Ten times better than any o tha' shite, anyways."

He pants in your ear while folding you in half, firm grip on your throat.

Gaz- When it comes to psychedelics, Kyle is your go-to man. He's a fucking genius, synthesizes his own DMT and LSD in a lab. It's a state of the art facility, clean with the latest and greatest equipment available. He supplies the whole Northeast. If it's a hallucinogen, it's most likely Gaz's product. And if it's good, it's definitely his. He has a cozy set up with some "organization" that he cooks for. Steers clear of actually selling to people, no need to when his clients line his pockets so well. Never brings work home, he even wears different clothes when he's in the lab.

He has a set schedule he has to adhere to but sometimes he's able to take vacations with you. And that's how you ended up bent over a balcony watching the sunset in Punta Cana,

"I work so hard to make you happy, now it's my turn yeah?"

A breeze sends a shiver up your spine while he kisses your shoulder,

"I know a private beach where you can even out those tan lines,"

Of course he doesn't give a shit about that, he just wants to fuck you silly on the seaside (and show off to anyone who might be watching.)

Price- Caring and nurturing, the man naturally has a green thumb. And alongside his prized heirloom tomatoes, he grows really, really good weed. Has a whole growroom in his basement, decked out with proper ventilation, ACs, UV lights, the works. The man grows medical grade weed that private clinics buy from him. He's legit. And of course he serves the public as well under the table, sells only to people he knows and established clients can refer others to him. He treats his plants like his babies, even going as far as to play music for them (according to him classical music helps them grow better???). You don't know where he finds the time, but he also made you rose garden for your anniversary. He brings up the idea of a family every so often. He'll finish as deep inside of you as possible,

"Let's replace that plant nursery for a real one, yeah love?"

Gonna write actual stories for each one if y'all like this ( . * 3 * . )/`

[ceilidho]

prompt: price/reader bear shifter fic. PART 2. (part 1 here)

-

The urge sits right under his skin.

It’s a month out from hibernation, the torpor not quite sunk in all the way just yet. Plenty of time still to stockpile supplies, train the new rangers before his leave of absence, and chop all the firewood needed for the winter months. Plenty of time on the surface, that is—with only a month left to go, John quietly acknowledges to himself that maybe he bit off more than he could chew this time around. 

It’s exhausting work though. The new batch of recruits are fresh-faced, hardly experienced enough yet to last the season without him, but he hadn’t had much choice with Gaz taking the year off to go back to school. He’s been regularly putting in sixty to seventy hour weeks, hardly leaving him any time to cook or clean or prep for hibernation. Time goes by in a flash. He hasn’t even done a quarter of the repairs around the house that he’d wanted to finish before slipping into the winter torpor.

Hard to figure it out. He’s been putting it off without a real reason, getting lost in the forest for long swaths of time, trudging through the new snow up high in the mountains. Hardly ever in his bear form, conscious of not totally giving over to the animal, but occasionally he can’t help slipping into like tumbling down a snowbank, just losing his footing for a moment and sliding, sliding, sliding until hours have passed and he finally hears his own chuffs and feels branches crack under the weight of his paws.

He winces when he turns back, bones creaking and cracking back into place. 

John has been smelling something around town for weeks now, something sweet and delicate like sap over a branch, but work has left him too busy to start anything. Instead he stops by the grocers every other day, where the scent is strongest, to pick up miscellaneous items. Canned soup here, steaks there. He stockpiles canned and tinned goods in his den, preparing for the long winter when he’s lulled into sleep for extended periods of time, but every time he enters his den, it feels oddly bereft. Empty. Missing something.

The month or so before hibernation always leaves him feeling groggy and laconic; it makes his eyes go half-lidded and his speech descend into grunts and one-worded answers. He spends so many weeks hoarding food and blankets and firewood for the brief moments when he wakes that he can’t stop himself from eyeing even the pretty cashier like another thing to hoard.

He holds himself back, but just.

John wakes up on the couch after a particularly rough shift, groggy and out of sorts. Flecks of sleep stuck in the corners of his eyes still. He’d run into another bear (a real one) on the trail hassling a couple hikers during his shift and it’d taken a couple stressful minutes to gently guide the hikers away before dealing with the bear himself. It’s easier to deal with them in his bear skin, but he generally avoids shifting in the month leading up to hibernation for a reason. It settles him deeper into his bear, draws the sleep closer.

He’s full of cuts and bruises, his side covered in a barely healed, particularly nasty gash, the flesh knitting itself together slowly. His stomach growls. He hadn’t had a chance to cook himself any supper when he got home before collapsing on the couch—had barely eaten lunch as well. That’s part and parcel of his way of life; even during the summer, the days had been long, extending well into the twilight hours. 

And bears need food. John burns calories faster than most, an enormous amount of energy expended when shifting into his other form. He’s a familiar face at every restaurant, grocery store, and market in town for a reason, even if that reason isn’t widely known. In the summer, there was at least some time during the day to gorge himself on berries or fish from a nearby stream, but the berries and fish have long disappeared with the coming of winter. It shouldn’t come as a surprise—hunger dominates his mind during the months leading up to winter—but it’s somehow caught him off guard this year. 

His head perks up when the doorbell rings. 

It doesn’t ring again, but he can hear someone on the other side of his front door, shifting from foot to foot. John isn’t expecting anyone and doesn’t remember inviting anyone over, but he gets up anyway to answer the door. 

There’s a pretty little thing waiting for him on his front porch with a bowl of stew and homemade sourdough bread. He recognizes her from the grocery store, the sweet smelling thing always looking over at him from the till. 

“Sorry to trouble you,” she says, peeking around him. Probably trying to be inconspicuous. 

It slots something in his chest into the right place. He shifts slightly to let her peer over his shoulder into the empty house; no wife or kids scurrying behind him. It eases some of the tension in her shoulders.

“No trouble,” John says. “What’s got you on my doorstep after hours bringing over supper?”

She’s exquisitely shy, almost nervous when she steps from foot to foot before holding the food out closer to him. He takes it, if only to avoid watching her strain. In his hands, it smells entirely too good; makes his mouth water. His bear huffs in his head. John can’t remember the last time he had a home-cooked meal. Certainly not since well before his mother passed. 

“You seemed like—I saw you come home. You looked dead on your feet, so I thought…well, I’d already made soup, so it wasn’t much trouble.”

“You saw me come home?” he repeats.

“Oh, I, uh—I live next door.”

“That so?”

She flushes prettily, just the slightest deepening of the colour over her cheekbones. “Yeah. Six months now. Moved in just before the summer. Anyway, I, well…sorry if you were in the middle of supper, I wasn’t sure if—I heard from Kate that you’ve been busy, so I thought you might appreciate not having to cook.”

“That’s mighty kind of you,” he says. There’s a pause where neither of them say anything. “Can I—I have, uh, a bowl in the kitchen if you want—”

She holds up her hands at that, taking a step back. “Oh no, sorry, I don’t want to…I don’t mean to intrude. I just thought I’d…you know…friendly neighbour and all.”

“It’s no trouble, really. Come inside.”

“No, I—I really have to get going,” she insists, finally turning away from him and descending back down the stairs. “Enjoy your supper!”

He watches her turn and scurry off back to her house, glancing down back once only to give a little start when she catches him still watching her. His nose twitches when he notices that even with the tupperware stacked in his hands, the distinct sweetness that had been hovering outside his door gradually dissipates in his neighbour’s absence. 

His bear rumbles inside his chest. 

In the mountains, he ruminates on his neighbour’s small kindness. It builds in his chest like a slow burning fire when he stands in the brisk cold and stares down into the valley below. The snow squeaks under his boots on the hike back down. The ache of hunger echoes through him again; he thinks of tupperware offered to him in two soft hands. Next time, he’ll invite her in. 

He’s pleasantly surprised when she comes by again not a few days later, this time bringing along with her a pan filled with berry cobbler, tinfoil crinkling under her fingers when she hands him the entire pan. The next day, she stops by with a jar of homemade apple cider. 

It takes awhile for John to coax her inside. She brushes off his invitations to join him for supper for days before he notices the cracks in her resolve. She lingers on the porch for longer than she should, body oriented towards his house even when she says that she has to go. John considers for all of a few seconds just dragging her inside, but there’s something immensely rewarding in reeling her in slowly. A slow hunt and the promise of a meal so decadent that it leaves his tongue heavy in his mouth.

When she finally concedes, his blood roars hot, the beast in his chest thickly nuzzled under his skin, satisfied. 

She’s skittish in his house. Hardly stays for more than ten minutes the first time he succeeds in getting her in. Just long enough to take a couple bites out of the gingerbread loaf that she’d brought over and he’d cut a few slices off before retracing her steps back to the front door. John holds back the instinctive urge to follow her and trap her in with a hand flat on the door when she tries to open it. It’s better to earn her trust. 

His interest just goes up and up as she continues feeding him throughout the week. Perfect mate keeping his belly full, keeping him nourished after a hard day’s work. She keeps him company on the couch when he invites her over on the weekend, dragging her little socked feet over the carpet and snuggling up on the other side of the couch like he might reach out and grab her. He might.

Part of John can’t believe that he’s been living beside this girl for going on six months and never scented her before. It permeates his house now, baked into the walls and carpet. He wishes sometimes she’d stop by and use his bed for a nap, if only so that he could come home to a bed smelling of her; he’d wrap a firm hand around his cock with the scent of her under his nose and tug himself off with his face pressed to his pillow, imagining her trapped under him, the plush pillows of her ass turned up to let him rut between her thighs. 

Her feeding him and spending time with him is confusing though. It confuses his bear, who associates all those things with mate. It’s nature to want to keep the thing feeding him. 

So he can’t help the way his bear expects her now. When he wakes up in his bed without a smaller body tucked away in his arms, it leaves him foul-tempered, short with his men. Picking up groceries becomes more difficult than ever when he instinctively beelines to her when he walks through the automatic doors, pleasure coiling in his chest at the sight of her staring wide-eyed at him. Always a bit shy, even as it slowly melts from her like old snow. Timidity from a season ago, still frosted over but shrinking. 

He doesn’t stop himself from dragging her into his lap before passing out on the couch after a long day at work, leaving her befuddled and uncertain. His arms don’t let her up though; they keep her pinned to his chest until he wakes back up an hour later, nuzzling the bristles of his beard over the soft skin of her neck and dragging a big palm up the inside of her thigh, seeking out the warmth between her legs even half-asleep.

His hand pauses its upward trajectory when she shifts. He’s slow to come back to consciousness, but far slower to move his hand. Mate, his bear rumbles in his chest when his fingers dig into the clutch of her thighs and John hears her muffle a yip. She should be soft and pliable for him, should let him drag his hand up into the space between her legs that she’s kept hot and tender for his touch. 

John lets her pretend at sleep until he finally moves his hand away, moving to sit up and leaving her curled up on the couch. He goes off to the kitchen to put on the kettle and comes back to find her awake, stammering out an apology for falling asleep. 

“None of that,” he grumbles, setting two mugs down on the coffee table. He sits beside her before she gets the bright idea to get up and leave. 

“Sorry, I didn’t plan on staying this long. I should get back—”

“Someone waiting for you at home?” John interrupts, curt despite himself. 

The idea of her going home to someone instantly aggravates him. Even knowing for a fact that there isn’t a man living in her house doesn’t tamp down the anger. He’s scented the exterior of her house once or twice; John would’ve caught the smell of another man by now if there had ever been one living in her house. He’s held off marking her house with come or piss, but that might have to change if she keeps dangling the possibility of there being another man over his head.

It’s his fault for not marking her yet. The trees in the mountains have been marked up over the years that he’s lived in this town, deep gouges in the bark marking the forest as his territory, but he hasn’t yet rubbed his scent into his mate’s skin. It’s his fault she’s still acting like an unattached sow. 

She hesitates; risks lying to him. He can see it plain on her face. “…No.”

His face softens, eyebrows pulling together sympathetically. “I’m not such bad company, am I? Stay for a little longer—all that food’s gonna go to waste otherwise.”

“I—I guess I can.”

“Brilliant. Drink your tea, honey.”

She picks up her mug and sips it quietly while John shifts her feet into his lap and digs his thumbs into her right sole. He shushes her when she jolts and tries to sit up, digging this thumb harder into the arch of her foot. 

“Enough of that. Back down,” he scolds.

“You, but you shouldn’t—you don’t have to do that,” she stammers, trying to pull her foot away and moaning inadvertently when he digs into a sore spot. Her hand clamps down on her mouth.

“Don’t give me that, aren’t you on your feet all day? And then baking for me after a long shift? It’s the least I can do, honey.”

She’s reluctant at first, but then squeaks again he rubs his thumb over the ball of her foot. Hardly able to deny the truth. It isn’t long until her little squeaks and moans start coming out unbidden, exhaustion opening her up. He can smell her sex leaking if he breathes in deep enough. 

“Promise to stay here and wait until I fix up supper?” he murmurs, keeping his voice low. 

She hums, eyes having slid shut. Without even really moving her lips, she mumbles, “Promise.”

“Good girl.”

Sleep warm, she finally settles into his house like she belongs, like she’ll be spending the long winter here as well. Her scent is as imbued in the couch as his. It’s cinnamon sweet. 

“Why do you even…buy so much food if you aren’t gonna use it?” she asks, drowsy enough that even if he were to respond, there’s a chance she wouldn’t hear it. “You hibernating or something?”

John smiles. “Something like that.”

[sticksandsharks]

Hello! I'm a huge fan of Sacred Bodies (despite never having read it!) and I was wondering how much you believe the physical copy may cost in the future? I'm trying to decide if I should wait for the physical release or if I should go ahead and get the PDF now. Also, I'm in the US, so I'm not sure where you're based and how much shipping would be. Thank you for your awesome art and storytelling!!

Hello! I'm in the proofing stage so I don't have a per unit cost figured out yet, but given general printing/paper costs for self-publishing and the price ranges of the other two books I have, I think SCRB will be around £13 - 14 online. I'm based in the UK, so shipping to the US is anywhere between £7 - 9.5 depending on the parcel weight; and because I don't have those final books yet, I don't know what the weight per unit will be to calculate that.

This is not accounting for any additional customs tax or fees that may be incured depending on local laws and regulations. I don't think the USA has any such fees for books, but don't take my word for it-- I am one guy sending out books from my office, so I don't really know much about any of that. 🧍‍♂️💦

[haruka-vii]

Help request to Rayman and retrogaming fans

Unfortunately, as much as I’m making efforts in solving my long-term unemployment situation there are things out of my control and I reached a point I really, really, need help.

Besides my grandma’s recent passing, there’s been a collection of unlucky events happening to me and my family in a small time interval. Both our dish washing machine and my Nintendo Switch Lite need to be repaired. The console stopped turning on regardless what I do and it’s out of warranty already. The console’s fixing, alone, can be up to 103€ according to the Iberian Nintendo support page).

But the worst case was our car’s “death”. Days after my grandma’s funeral, the car burnt its electronic system to the point of replacing that system being more expensive than the current value of the car of the same model without problems, meaning we were forced to replace the whole vehicle to a different model. The car is essential for our quotidian lives even for simple things such as doing groceries and buying food and cat litter for our seven small felines that we own. The latter unpredictable expense is very costly and adds a bigger layer of problems on my family’s end about financial management given that my mother is also jobless and there’s the bed replacement (done in January 2024) funds I want to also return to her whenever I manage.

2025 is going to be a difficult year for me and I already recently had to shrink down my Crash Bandicoot collection to a single item for a start but it’s still not enough. Now I had to make a very difficult decision of selecting personal items from my private Rayman collection and make them available to anyone in the Rayman and retrogaming fan community to be able to purchase in case they show interest in any particular object.

Please note the following details:

Products that are shown alongside with other product or more in the same photograph square means that those items are only sold as a pack/batch and not separately. I can clarify which ones by DM if you aren’t sure through the photographs.

I ship to most countries in the world, and always with tracking code so we’re both able to know its whereabouts. I won’t accept other types of shipping due to safety reasons.

The shipping address and other sensitive information will be exclusively used to ship the parcel.

Prices will be always discussed by DM, as well shipping costs as these vary depending on the destination country and parcel weight.

PayPal only for payments. While I prefer EUR currency I can also accept GBP and USD.

I’m conscious of how a good portion of the list contains particularly rare and valuable collectibles.

Some items prices are negotiable, especially if someone is interested in acquiring at least 3 different items or more that combined make up a significant total.

All items work 100%, including the Playstation accessories.

The Rayman memory card will be formatted if it gets a new onwer.

MS-DOS era games require emulation techniques to work on modern computers and there are community projects like Rayman Control Panel that help with that.

All games are complete in the box and between very good condition to like new.

The Rayman memory card is in good overall state.

The statues are like new and will be packed carefully to avoid transportation damage.

I can consider including the matching Switch videogame to the pack if I get a fair offer.

I reserve the right to not accept a sale for reasons not mentioned here.

List of items available in the photos:

Rayman Gold [PC/MS-DOS] (Rare, Original Big Boxed United Kingdom Edition)

Rayman For Ever [PC/MS-DOS] (Rare, Original Big Boxed France Edition, it even includes a Ubisoft catalogue with unique Rayman drawings)

Quick CD-ROM Demo Nº2 - Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc [PC/Windows]

Rayman M [PC/Windows] (United Kingdom Edition, still factory sealed!)

Rayman Rush [Sony PlayStation] + DualShock Controller [Sony PlayStation]

Rayman 2: The Great Escape [PC/Windows] (Very rare, Original Big Boxed United States of America Edition; I only saw maybe not more than 2 copies like this for sale online in over 15 years)

Rayman 100 Niveaux Inédits [PC/Windows] (Rare, Original Big Boxed France Edition)

Rayman Designer [PC/Windows] (Rare, Original Big Boxed France Edition)

Rayman 1 [PC/Windows] (Rare, Original Big Boxed European Edition)

Rayman Gold [PC/Windows] (Rare, Original Big Boxed France Edition)

Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc [PC/Windows] (The manual is translated in Portuguese but the games are in multilanguage)

Rayman 2: The Great Escape Sony Playstation Memory Card (Guillemot brand, uncommon item)

Rayman Raving Rabbids [PC/Windows] (Original United Kingdom Edition)

Rayman Raving Rabbids Activity Centre [PC/Windows] (Original United Kingdom Edition)

Rayman 2: The Great Escape [Sony Playstation] (Original France and Germany Edition)

Full collection of 4 medium-sized PVC statues of Mario+Rabbids: Kingdom Battle characters

Other alternative ways to help me that don’t involve buying my Rayman items:

Ko-Fi donations (https://ko-fi.com/haruka_vii)

Currently opened with the goal I’ve referred earlier of collecting enough funds of the bed replacement expenses to return to my mother combined with the needed funds to be able to send my Nintendo Switch Lite for repair.

Art commissions

I can open a limited number of slots and draw single or groups of characters in a single digital or traditional drawing. Details can be discussed through DM!

Reblogging and sharing

If you know anyone who could be potentially interested in getting anything please share them, it’s also a help!

I don’t like to ask help but it’s been a rough timeline for me. Thank you for reading in advance, any help is greatly appreciated while I don’t manage to find a job. 🙏

[inkformyblood]

guess (COD Kinktober 2024 Day 14)

Canon Era, Soap x Ghost x Price x Gaz, (Poly141). Sex toys. Lime.

“Package for you, Cap. And one for you, Lieutenant.” Gaz’s arms are loaded high with the recent mail delivery; backlogged for three months with their recent spate of missions and Soap can barely remember half the items he’d ordered while he’d been on leave. Some fresh paints possibly, a new sketchbook given that he was starting to run out of space in his current one and layering fresh drawings over old. 

Gaz drops a handful of parcels onto the table in front of Soap, a few letters mixed in, and Soap grabs for them before Gaz’s words could register.

Between the five of them, Gaz receives the most mail — a combination of a larger family and a minor addiction to the late night shopping channels — then Soap — his own family fairly well-spread, if disorganised, and his artistic hobbies lending themselves to infrequent purchases — but Price almost never receives mail, same as Ghost.

“What did you get?” Soap leans forwards, his own mail abandoned and tips Ghost’s package towards himself, peering at the shipping label. He only gets a glimpse, simplistic text on a plain background, nothing more than a company name, before it’s pulled away, Ghost snapping his fingers in front of his face. 

Gaz nudges Soap back into his seat, dropping onto his lap with a sigh. He’s a solid weight, Soap’s arms falling to his hips then wrapping around Gaz’s belly and squeezing him tight as he presses his forehead to the back of Gaz’s neck. The other man smells like the cheap toiletries in the communal showers, a lingering hit of rich smoke from Price’s cigars, and Soap lifts his face to bite at Gaz’s shoulder, just for something else to do as his mind races. 

Gaz sinks further down, tips his head back to allow Soap better access to his skin. “Same parcel that Price has got,” he murmurs, his gaze darting between the other two men. There’s something brewing between them, the parcels opened just enough to slide the invoices free and they have swapped them, dragging their fingers over the small text. Price is holding his far enough away that it could be grabbed easily…

“Don’t even think about it, lad.”

Fair enough. 

Ghost glances over his invoice, his eyes dark, and a shiver rolls up Soap’s spine, his teeth tight in the fabric of Gaz’s shirt. “Might as well test them out now.” Ghost tears his parcel open without another thought and crooks his fingers at them both. “Doors locked so bend over the desk and you’ll see what we’ve got.”

There’s a strange thrill to being any degree of naked in the main areas of the base, Soap and Gaz folded over the meeting room table and their trousers drawn down to the ankles. 

“Opening scene to a porno ain’t we, Gaz.”

Gaz catches his eye, grins wide. “Have we been naughty boys, sirs?”

A broad hand smacks against Soap’s arse first, low enough to catch the meat of his thigh, and he yelps, jerking forward on the table. Gaz groans into the second impact, burying his face into his hands and raising his hips up. Something rests against Soap’s spine, cool but not metal, a slightly tacky sensation as he shivers and it moves. 

“Eyes front,” Price barks. “Got a surprise for you, lads. Couple of toys for you to test out, but.”

“But, sir?” Gaz asks, chewing over his lower lip, slightly shifting against Soap as he sways his arse, raised high in the air once more. 

“You’re going to guess the size of the toy we are fucking you with. At stake are bragging rights and you can pick the movie tonight.”

[envythemouse]

All-time Hannibal extended universe recs

Will/Nigel from Charlie Countryman

Heart of Spades by WaffleBunny13

Summary: Will pauses when he sees the face of the man in front of him then the cup of coffee slips from his hand.

“N-Nigel?”

Hannibal's neck nearly snaps to look at Will with a frown on his face then the doppelganger, Nigel, steps forward to Will with a smirk on his face and his hands casually resting in his pockets.

“Hello, gorgeous”

Envy’s notes: Nigel and Hannibal are not related. Nigel shows up at a crime scene. Everyone thinks he’s Hannibal. Then Will and Hannibal arrive, Hannibal finds out his look-alike is Will’s ex from the time he was on a scholarship in Romania.

Unconventional Therapy by DarkmoonSigel, sku7314977

Summary: Upon noticing that Will has been having some difficulty separating his mind from the monsters he’s made to chase, Hannibal makes a rather unexpected suggestion for some uncommon therapy to help the empath unwind.

Envy’s notes: Hannibal suggests sex as a form of therapy thinking he could finally get close to Will. Will instead goes out and stumbles upon Hannibal’s brother Nigel, they proceed to fuck in Hannibal’s house which makes for an awkward morning after.

Behave by sourweather

Summary: Nigel and Hannibal are sharing their Omega. Taking Turns, so to speak. Today, Nigel is to accompany Will to a crime scene. Will isn't looking forward to it. He loves Nigel, but he doesn't exactly play well with others.

He's proven right to worry when Nigel makes a less than perfect first impression on Jack Crawford.

Envy’s notes: Protective!Nigel. Nigel defends Will from Jack the way I always wished Hannibal would have done in canon.

"Two women are dead," Jack says, growl distorting his usual voice.

"And Will is alive!" Nigel snarls in response. "You'd think keeping him that way might be more important to you, but here you are running him into the fuckin' ground."

Will/Clifford from Death Stranding

The Beauty of the Rain by EarthsickWithoutYou

Summary: Part one of my Deathgram AU -- in which Hannibal discovers that Will has taken a lover who resembles him strikingly, an ex from his past in New Orleans. A man named Clifford Unger who bears the weight of the world on his shoulders, riddled with self-doubt, regret, trauma and grief. But he considers it his mission in life beyond all else to cherish and protect Will Graham, the light of his life, his redeeming soulmate.

Now that he has Will back in his arms, Cliff won't let anyone hurt his boy, even a clever, scheming, crazy-shocked-jealous therapist/cannibal who has been playing with fire and may now pay the price.

Envy’s notes: Hannibal comes over unannounced and discovers Will has Clifford as his lover. Clifford finds out about Will being sick lately so he takes him straight to the hospital and later gets revenge on Hannibal because there’s no way the former doctor didn’t know about Will’s sickness.

Will/Lucas from Jagten|The Hunt

Organ by CarnivalMirai

Summary: A week after the funeral, Lucas gets a parcel from one W. Graham. At first, he thinks it’s a wrong delivery. But the parcel is addressed directly to him. So curiously, he opens it.

Inside the box is another box. This time, in the shape of a small house or kennel— it’s a build-a-bear bear. He pulls the box out to see a card slipped in the box, again, addressed to Lucas. So he opens it.

Dear Lucas, I’m sorry for the loss of your son. He saved my life. I thought maybe you’d enjoy his heart beat. I hope you enjoy the bear. Kindly yours, Will Graham

Envy’s notes: Very interesting concept, imagine falling in love with a man who carries your son’s heart. No Hannigram, though Hannibal is one of Will’s doctors.

Sanctuary by Astromeda, tinypurpleghost

Summary: In the aftermath of a plunge that claimed one monster but spared another, Will Graham seeks refuge in a small Danish town. There, he meets Lucas, a kindergarten teacher with a heart of gold, and the spark between them is immediate and undeniable. When Lucas is falsely accused of a heinous crime, the monster inside Will yearns for blood. Even as Will tries to support Lucas in the way he needs, he realizes that he will stop at nothing to protect what’s his.

Envy’s notes: A post-fall fic where Hannibal dies and Will survives. He moves to Denmark and falls in love with Lucas pre-movie. Then canon happens except Will will do anything to protect the man he loves (and their dogs). Will is still in contact with Jack and there’s a man in town who knows of Will’s past. Lucas eventually finds out and accepts Will’s darker side.

Prince Charmont/One Eye (Ella Enchanted|Valhalla Rising)

Perfect Stranger by victorine

Summary: Char doesn't know Frank. Frank doesn't know Char. So how the hell did they wind up hugging in the middle of a park at midnight on Valentine's Day? And what will Char do when he realises it's not actually his best friend Ella rubbing soothing circles into his back?

Envy’s notes: Prince Charming is upset and a stranger (though he doesn’t know it’s a stranger) comforts him.  Oh and it’s Valentine’s day.

Just look at his smile. ⬆ How can you not like that? Lucas is adorable. I only wish I could see the movie without having to pay extra for it, damn it Amazon.

Nigel makes smoking and cussing look attractive somehow.

@principesorosado

[landgraabbed]

it's been a while since i last shared the game that currently has my attention, and currently that is outward: definitive edition (dev: nine dot studios). this got long, so i'll put it under the cut. the short of it is that i am in love with this game that is catered to freaks like me in every way!

the game was first released in 2019, and the definitive edition including all dlcs came out in 2022, and i'd say this game was on my radar since 2020-2022, but i never really played it until now. i've been enjoying my time with this game, and what a game it is! it makes me feel like most of my favorites do: scrabbling for victories, being forced to get by the skin of my neck, and having to always play past my mistakes. in many ways it reminds me of favorites such as dragon's dogma, morrowind my heavily modded skyrim, and souls games to an extent, but with survival elements added on to it.

to set the stage, this game puts you in the boots of a gender neutral Just A Guy™ who is saddled with debt incurred by their grandmother and is on the verge of losing their lighthouse home. in aurai, actions that damage the community may incur what is called a blood price, meaning a bloodline may have to pay the price of said actions even decades or centuries removed from the action. the first chapter of your adventure sees you attempting to repay a parcel of the blood price on your bloodline by whatever means possible within 5 days, after your hard work was lost in the same shipwreck that nearly took your life. and off you go to do that. you can approach this goal by whatever means you can come up with and you can also fail to do so, and the game will continue. where i am currently, i managed to barely make the deadline and have been exploring the world. there are currently four factions i can approach in order to advance the plot, but i am taking my time to meet all of them before i make a decision. they each are tackling different issues in aurai at the moment, such as the holy mission's quest to fight against the scourge.

the moment to moment gameplay is very engaging to me. it really is a game that anyone who knows me knows that of course it will appeal to me. navigation reminds me of morrowind with npcs giving you directions and a complete lack of quest markers (or even an indication of where you are in the map! you need to orient yourself using landmarks and road signs). combat is brutal and best avoided at most times. you need to manage your inventory and loadout for the climate and your needs, as well as what you expect to encounter in your journeys, where the weight of your inventory is very important. your stats will become burnt (i.e., you will have a temporarily reduced maximum stamina until rest) the more you use them, greatly emphasizing how you're just a rando. there is magic in this world, but you don't start out with mana needed to cast spells and must perform a difficult pilgrimage to the center of the mountain that dominates the landscape of the first area. and even then, you must sacrifice your precious hp and stamina to build a mana pool. the tradeoff: magic has been absolutely fun and op in my experience. the game rewards preparation and knowing when the fuck to leg it most of all. and if you meet your untimely demise, you're not sent to the last checkpoint. instead, the game rolls one of the appropriate defeat scenarios appropriate to your current situation which can be a boon or a curse (and honestly must have been the inspiration to the alternative death system part of this skyrim mod). the game constantly autosaves, so savescumming isn't a possibility. most of all, you wander in a lovely environment to the sound of bangers.

pictures were only edited to add some small grain and are at the native resolution of the steam deck since it's where i've been playing! i do want to look at it on my laptop too. it also features online and splitscreen co-op, but i haven't tried that out. i do hear it's a great way to approach the game. another thing i really enjoyed learning about is the studio's investment in promoting a crunch-free, ethical philosophy to game development, and extending that over their publishing efforts in order to foster the development of more indie niche games developped ethically.

[flappyhappystim]

Why don’t you just put the shipping prices in the product priced like most companies instead of misleading everyone with cheap prices but expensive shipping?

The reason is because the shipping does not increase per product and actually hits a maximum amount it can hit. It increases per weight or if a product suddenly has to go parcel. If we put it into products, our spinner rings would cost three times as much so if people wanted to buy two, they’d end up paying for shipping twice whereas the way we do it, it’s paid for once.

We don’t mean for it to be misleading but we do it that way because overall, customers save more money. I usually find people buy multiple spinner rings for example (most people grab an average of 4-5 and it goes through at our lowest shipping cost) and they wouldn’t be able to if we put shipping into their costs.

I know a lot of people are used to free shipping these days, but the only way we could offer that would be to mark our products up more and that would cost people more money overall.

[errantsquam]

Singapore Cheap Shipping Ratings

Going to be starting a series of reviews for merch manufacturing 'n stuff from Singapore. Tag is #merch hell.

As always, I go into detail on my process in my newsletter, which comes with free bird facts, so check it out if you haven't.

Introducing: Singapore Couriers

Shipping is expensive, especially overseas to the other side of the world. If you're in Southeast Asia, trying to get a half decent shipping rate for your international buyers is...painful. So, without further ado, here are my reviews:

Singpost

Go-to government mailing service.

Recommended:

- Local: Yes

- International: No

Pros:

- You can use stamps on these, and if you have a grandparent who left behind their huge collection or some free handouts, you can subsidize shipping to be pretty cheap.

- Post offices are everywhere, so it's usually a 5 minute walk to drop off your stuff.

Cons:

- You still have to drop your parcels off since there's no door to door pick up

- International tracking disappears off the face of the earth the moment it hits the destination country, which is not ideal. I sent two acrylic charms to the US, and one to Canada....

One caused my friend to go through the effort of calling his post office and dealing with a lot of customer service hell. Another one went missing. That is a pretty bad failure rate. This awful tracking is also well-documented.

Conclusion: If you love your customers, please don't use Singpost as a tracked service. Put disclaimers if you really want discounted tracking.

Justship

Newer shipping startup with competitive prices.

Recommended:

Local: Haven't tried, but there are more well known services (like Ninjavan).

International: Yes! Absolutely! But for smaller parcels, only US/UK is supported at the moment.

Pros:

- Really damn good customer service. Quick responses, friendly, and most importantly, *transparent*.

- Lets you set up a spreadsheet for bulk shipping, and provides integrations with storefronts like Shopify (sadly not BigCartel)

- Tracking in the destination country instead of disappearing

- Door to door pickup

- Parcels don't seem to be tampered with much? At least from what I've seen.

Cons:

- At the moment, there is no tracking while the parcels are being delivered to the destination country. So the opposite of Singpost, but still preferable. (However, they have told me they will be looking into it.)

- For smaller parcels like acrylic charms, cheap shipping only works for the US/UK. For everything else, it automatically defaults to the pricing of a higher volumetric weight, which is way more pricey than Qxpress. (Same as previous bullet point, they have told me they will try to support other countries in the future.)

- Door to door pickup is only for 5 or more deliveries. Otherwise, they expect you to drop it off at their warehouse, which for me is pretty far away.

Conclusion: Easily the best service here. Unfortunately they're a bit limited since they're a smaller company, and bulk orders are better, but the consistent quality is good, especially if you want to provide a good service to your customers (who are already paying 11USD minimum).

Qxpress

Cheap mailing service with a lot of existing big boi infrastructure in place.

Recommended:

- Local: There's better, there's worse. Eh.

- International: Yes for smaller batches (<5) or non US/UK countries

Pros:

- Ships damn near everywhere

- Door to door pickup regardless of order size, parcels, etc. They have dropoff stations too.

Cons:

- Tampers with your packages.

Smaller envelopes are safe, but they also paste a shitton of shipping labels over your stuff, some which may have truncated addresses.

Others have reported that they might open and repack larger parcels. Not exactly the best thing for privacy, or stuff in the parcels remaining intact.

- Door to door pickup takes their sweet time. Again, there are also reports of them missing the pickup.

- Doesn't appear to have a convenient option for bulk shipping, but I may not have noticed it?

Conclusion: Comparable prices to the other two, more flexible, but comes with standard shittiness of a large company cutting costs. Only use this for smaller shipments if Justship won't cut it. Your packages won't get lost, but they sure will get fucked with.

Tl;dr Justship is the GOAT.

[wolfhidewinter]

I was wondering how does shipping work? I thought I read 10 pounds worldwide, but is that limited to some countries, or is it a case to case thing? I'm from south america and was considering ordering one to arrive on the usa when I visit for holiday, but if it's the same price, I might simply have it to my house. It does sound strange though that the fee stays the same, so I'm asking here

Hello, worldwide is anywhere outwith the UK or Europe. The shipping cost ranges anywhere from £7 - £11+ depending on the country I send it to as it's weight specific. Due to sending packages of varying weights and covering the costs of packaging materials and time, I made worldwide a blanket £10 which covers the vast majority of overseas countries. It would be too difficult to guesstimate per country the exact cost involved down to a tee due to parcels fluctuating depending on what products people buy. They all do fit in the 'large letter' category though across the board which starts the shipping at a higher amount. Hope that helps :) if you have any more questions feel free to ask! Edit: The USA for instance averages about £9.20 (if more than a book is bought), just for shipping, without including packaging etc ________________________________________________________ On the topic of shipping costs as this was totally new to me. Depending on the service you use here you have weight categories and the lowest (and cheapest) weight here caps out at 100g (the book weighs more than that lol), so I'm pushed into the next category which has an upper limit of 750g and a height of 1 inch on packages. They also add on costs for the type of delivery after you've worked out their base charge and the weight charge. I opted for heavy duty cardboard mailers because I know the postal service isn't overly kind in transit to things that look like they shouldn't be bent (which also adds extra weight). The absolute cheapest I can send things for would be via standard economy which is basically 'your parcel might arrive in the next 90 days, who knows'. I go for the higher cost for Standard delivery which has a 3-5 busines day aim for Europe and 6-7 days for the rest of the world. It's still often over this aim just due to backlog in certain countries and strikes etc. I know this is a lot of waffle for a simple question but I like to be as transparent as possible and also help people understand shipping processes :D This is just my personal experience with it so far this year. Also the packing process is done by meeee by myself. I have to manually take the info from the shop to open online address labels, fill in a spreadsheet with the items from the order to make sure everything is correct before I take it to the other room to pack it all, weigh each parcel, then come back to sort the postage and customs information for each order to make sure it satisfies a countries importing criteria. then I pay and print the labels and have to go back through to match them all up. And my favourite part is where I go stand in the post office and watch a grumpy af worker lament their frustration at having to scan and enter the post codes of each parcel cause of course I only exist to make their job harder.

[madmarchhare]

When the Times Change Chapter 4

This is the fourth chapter of my post-apocalyptic story. I hope you all enjoy it!

Verdant: What lies beneath

/////

                Rock and I left Lemoni to his business, though both of us were trepid to do so. Not eager to, even temporarily, de muzzle the hyena we guarded, and I was unsure if my threat was enough to discourage him from going about his cruelty. The street we wandered down was set low to the ground, slumping under the heavy weight of the baking sun that hung above in idle cruelty. People were spotted about in the street, collected under the few parcels of shade created by verandas and moth-eaten parasols - tarp pulled across the street in odd angles to create some small purchase of shade. We found the shop someone near the streets’ entrance had told us about, nicely enough, and walked over to it.

                Like the other buildings it was short, only one storey tall, walled with mud bricks and roofed with slatted boards that let a few long rays of light glare into the building, keeping it illuminated. The man inside was dressed in a stained white headdress that extended down to his shoulders, tied around his brow with what looked like old extension cord. The face below it was well toned and wrinkled, his eyes sunken deep into his head, his mouth bent into a stiff smile - one part resilience part contentment. As we approached, he straightened up, now at attention, his dusty white shirt hanging loose over his frame.

“Good afternoon my friends, how are you? With what can I offer you on this fine day from my humble store?” he asked smilingly, spreading his arms wide as he did so, his tone quite friendly, at odds slightly with his voice, which hissed and rasped like it was through a microphone rather than a throat.

“Ammunition, food, ethanol and oil, general supplies really,” Rock answered. The shopkeeper nodded to him, though as he was doing so, he placed a few roughly made tins with ‘Purified water’ scrawled on them in blocky letters onto the counter, then retrieved a pale red book, thinned at its corners, and placed it on the counter before us, spinning it around with his bony hands, his skin looking like drawn tissue paper, a pair of steel rings on his left hand.

“I keep lists of stock in here, you can either peruse the shelves behind me or check the book for what you need,” the shopkeeper explained simply. Rock leaned over the book and started flicking through the pages, gently, the paper looking thin from age, tattooed with the strict yet slanted writing of the man. I stood to the side for a moment and let my eyes drift across the street. Adults and children lingered, pressed close under covers and in shade. Many were caked in dust that looked like it had been there for years, their lips slightly cracked and their faces dry, the lack of water ever present. Tourists walked by, not turning head to the thirsty of the town. Giving a quick glance into their faces then turning away, sometimes with an almost mirthful look, as if this was their fault, or punishment. To be stranded without water or good food, and pelted so endlessly by the sun’s heat which they all hid from.

It was despicable.

I was interrupted from my brooding by Rock nudging me in the side, making me snap around to him, caught off guard. “Lil’ I said I’ve got everything. You have the money on you,” he repeated as I gave a slight exclamation of surprise and embarrassment and got out the money, ready to pay. 

“How much?” I asked the shopkeeper.

He looked at me quickly from the corner of his eye and said plainly, “fourty thousand, neat,” I looked at him surprised and Rock matched my expression, apparently not having heard the price either. He regarded us flatly rolling his head to look at us plainly resting it on his fist as he leaned on the counter. “Don’t look so surprised, we can’t get most of those items ourselves so they run a premium here, I already nocked a few thousand Note off for you since you’re buying so much!”

I looked at him angrily, letting my emotions show on my face, but the man had little reaction, or at least felt no need to show it on his face. “People are dying of hunger and thirst and you’re here trying to make a ‘markup’, or whatever it’s called?! What is wrong with you, you should be giving it away to help these people, what did they ever do to deserve it, you and all those people who just walk right past it have something wrong with you.”

“Yet most of those people you say are now suffering acted exactly the same way when other places, including those who sell to us now, begged for water from this town,” the shopkeeper curtly replied. I was taken aback slightly not having expected that answer, and he continued before I could retort.

“That’s why those who come here don’t lend a hand, they feel it is comeuppance for this places’ old greed,” he explained, looking at me for a second before he continued. “They don’t need help or pity, they need to learn and be humbled, and hardship does that best. And I know that from experience,” he snapped, looking at me harshly as I was cowed into silence, not knowing what to say.

“Fourty-three thousand Note,” he corrected flatly, holding out a thin arm, his tanned skin pulled even thinner over it. I handed him the money in a small bundle, not feeling I could complain. He lifted the supplies up onto the counter and we bundled them into sacks which we hefted onto our backs. We were about to go back to the car and load them up when I noticed someone running up to us down the street. She was a tall woman with hair like rusty wire, but with a warm and excited expression, rather apart from the dulled faces of the others milling about in the street.

“Oh, yes, you look good. Hello, I was hoping you could spare a moment?” she asked, leaning close as she angled herself to the side as she talked, bouncing about in her movements like she was struggling to stay still.

“Sure, what for?” I replied, her smile widening at my answer, looking ecstatic.

“I was wondering, if you would be willing to help me with an invention of mine,” she elaborated. I studied her for a moment before I responded, she was dressed in a white, though from the dust of the town really ‘light red’ was a more apt description, lab coat, over a stretched blue top, bleached and dusty, along with some pale khaki shorts and a pair of tattered trainers with mismatched laces.

“What kind of invention?” I asked causing her to give a start and launch excitedly into a response, like a puppy when its being played with.

“A water purifier! It should allow me to clean up the underground water source below the city so people can drink from it again and not have to worry about things like it giving you a third leg, or burning a hole through your stomach,” the woman moved around vigorously as she spoke, my face turning into a smile, getting excited myself at the prospect. “If you’re concerned about money, I don’t have much, but I’m sure everyone in town would be grateful and you would help so many people which should be reward en-”

“We’ll do it!” I declared, cutting her off, happily shaking her hand, pleased to find someone kind in this town, and not as cruel and selfish as the others I had met so far here, and was typical in the wastes. She looked slightly surprised herself at my agreement, but happy, smiling as broadly as her face would allow. Rock however was stood off to the side, not quite as pleased as me and cleared his throat to catch our attention.

“So, what are we doing excalty?” Rock broke in, being the first to ask the bare minimum of questions, making me feel slightly embarrassed for not asking before I agreed, a blush coming on my cheeks.

“Oh, right. What I need you to do is help carry the device through the cave to the head of the underground river, and fend off any beasties down there that might try and have us for a light snack,” she answered almost flippantly. I turned to her quickly at the mention of creatures, I didn’t quite know what was down there, but I presumed they wouldn’t be too much to deal with. Rock gave a slow nod, thinking about what she said with an unimpressed look on his face.

“So, where is your invention?” he inquired, raising an eyebrow as he leaned to the side, trying to look behind her, his eyes flicking about around her, trying to see how much the thing would take to carry.

“Oh, I don’t have it with me, it’s at my workshop, it’s too precious to just lug about everywhere. And too heavy for me as well,” a slight sardonic look came on Rocks face as she said that. I looked at him with an encouraging smile and he rolled his eyes and let her continue. “I’ll go get it and then you can put away your supplies, or whatever it is you’re carrying, and then you can meet me at the Watershed at the other end of town, you can’t miss it, small cinderblock building that’s sloped down into the ground with a steel door on the front!” she yelled to us, walking away quickly, then spun around in a twirl and kept walking backwards away from us as she called back, “and take the ring-road, it’s faster!”

I stood there with Rock for a moment and then we started walking to the car. “I’m not sure about it,” he stated firmly, his voice dark as he walked.

“What do you mean? We can help all the people of this town in one fell swoop! And they could probably trade it out so people could get some clean water finally,” I argued earnestly, slightly confused about why he was opposed to the idea. He looked at me painfully like he wanted to agree but didn’t.

“That may be true, but don’t forget we’ve left that conning hyena unleashed here. We can’t leave him alone for too long or who knows what he’ll do,” Rock remined, a brooding look falling across his tanned features. I felt slightly embarrassed that I had forgotten about Azzy for a moment, an edge of panic entrenched within the emotion. But I didn’t let it show, though he probably already knew.

“Don’t worry, it won’t take too long, we’ll be in and out and then we’ll get back to make sure he behaves, besides, if he attracts too much attention here the guards here might pick him up so it will be fine,” I replied, trying to reassure him, but he regarded me sceptically, still unconvinced. “Come on, we can help so many people, it’s got to be worth it,” looking at him pleadingly as I spoke, before he sighed heavily and threw up his arms in surrender.

“Fine, I can’t say no when you’re like this you won’t let it alone, especially with those puppy dog eyes,” he yelled out half-bitterly.

I smiled broadly at him, chuckling slightly. “Thanks, now let’s go put this all away and go and meet up with, uh, did she give a name? Doesn’t matter, lets’ go,” I declared, striding forward in the direction of where our cars parked.

“You are such a bleeding-heart Lil’,” Rock said chuckling as he followed on after me.

We left everything in the car and then made our way round the ring-road as she said. The streets were the same, with tussled red sand milling about like a bloody fog at our heels, the sun still pounding down o’er head. Yet the streets still kept a mild buzz of people and trade. The sections of road canopied under old tarps and bed sheets were the busiest, with people darting between them, madly trying to avoid the sun.

The town was surviving. Not grandly, but surviving nonetheless, despite everything.

It would be inspiring if it weren’t for the accompanied presence of the reddish-brown uniformed guards, carrying rifles as they patrolled through the streets, levying hard gazes on traders and visitors, a number focusing much more on Quazi’s than the rest. A lingering prejudice or hatred well wrapped in their eyes.

Hope and suppression, the duality that was the truth of the wastes.

We got to the water shed before our employer, for lack of a name to call her, and Rock and I sat on the edge of the doorframe, pleased for what small grace the shade gave. The water shed was a pale building made of sun-bleached cinderblocks, it was chipped and pitted in places, pockmarked with rifle and pistol rounds on its surface where someone had either used it as a target for practice, or for a firing squad, but it stood firm nonetheless. It was built low, the back sloping down into the ground at a 45-degree angle and the front face of it only just taller than a man, filled mostly with a heavy steel door, covered in a freckling of patina, as rust was beginning to take its corners.

She arrived after a few minutes walking like she was just about to break into a sprint but didn’t quite. On her back she was carrying a large boxy device made with shiny steel, almost galvanised, welded awkwardly but toughly together, covered in dials, switches, meters, and filters, wrapped over her shoulders with a twisted rope of reddish cable. “Thanks for waiting, ready to go?” she called to us, a grand smile on her face as she placed the machine down onto the ground, wheezing slightly from the exertion.

“Yeah, but could I ask your name, I forgot to ask earlier,” I asked simply, she looked embarrassed for a second and responded.

“Oh, how silly of me. Dr Meire, but most people call me Dr Merry, lovely to formally meet you miss?”

“Lil’,” I answered simply.

“That’s a good name, anyway, shall we begin?” we gave her a nod, pulling out our weapons, Rock with his sub-machine gun and me with my Browning as I picked up the device as she motioned to it. She gave an excited smile, looking us in the eyes as she spun the valve on the door to unlock it, then swung it open, its old hinges protesting to the sudden rude abuse with a rumbling squeal. “Into the unknown!” she declared boldly.

The watershed’s door opened up to a set of stairs that led down into darkness. They were made of concrete, but didn’t have any seams where bricks were joined together like the walls, until suddenly they too transitioned into solid concrete. The steps soon became damp with mildew as we went down, the edges of the steps tinted a deeper colour from its presence. The walls were the same, cabling roughly pinned to it, sagging heavily where the braces had pulled away from the wall from the weight of their burden and the weakness of the rotting walls.

There wasn’t any light, old lamps, probably pre-war, hung dead from the walls like crucified corpses, either burst or burnt out after decades of age. There was a wild bite to the air, a coldness mixed with the taste of copper and damp. As we descended Meire turned on a torch that she had pinned to the breast of her coat, then handed us a pair of salvaged torches made from a soup tin, an old lens, a bulb and a square battery, connected to a pump handle to charge it. We went deeper down the stairwell, our steps echoing clearly around us, making it sound like we were being followed by twenty more. Then the stair suddenly widened out, the walls diffusing from concrete into the stone walls of a cave.

The cavern we had stepped into was wide and tall, the walls formed from a rough black stone, with streaks of other rocks squashed in-between it, all dressed in odd carpets and drapes of moss,  and fungi. And from the growth came a dimmish light emanating from the moss and some of the vines that were all over the cave. Finally, splitting the centre of the tunnel, was the river that ran oddly through its floor. It flowed quickly, babbling as it ran past us, yet when Rock looked over the edge of the river and shone his light on it, the wite light did not penetrate more than the rough surface of the water.

“How is it so bright down here?” Rock ejaculated, gazing around the cave, and letting his light follow it, shivering slightly from the chill air, not used to the cold, especially considering his reptilian roots.

“Bio-luminescent plants!” Meire said, striding out in front of us and crouching down in front of a collection of the glowing moss and a wide capped mushroom that was a sickly green colour growing on top of it. “They grow well around verdant for some reason, only underground though, there’s actually one particular mushroom that has it, that actually makes your eyes hair and nails glow temporarily when you eat it! They’re quite sought after as a cosmetic, but they might possibly be toxic… No one really knows, so they banned selling it or even the purchase of it.”

She strode ahead of us after the explanation, Rock and I following behind, occasionally having to duck or weave between the odd vine or stalactite or stalagmite that stabbed down from the ceiling, or that thrusted up from the floor, not that I knew which was which. But aside from that the cavern was mostly empty only with the occasional burst of plant life spattered around the cavern. As we walked our footsteps made odd, jagged, echoes off the cave walls, muffled slightly by the rush of water that drove impatiently past us. We continued forwards with a light-footed assuredness, our weapons out, but held at our hips, casual of any threat. I doubted there was anything now, and what Meire heard about creatures probably wasn’t anything worth worrying about.

“So, do you know what caused the water to go bad?” Rock probed, ducking under a low hanging vine which dressed him in a gritty looking pollen as he went under it, spluttering and spitting irately after, both Meire and I snickering at him. Meire kept sniggering for a second longer, but then calmed down and replied after a moment.

“We don’t really know, no. There are theories sure; nuclear waste bleeding in from some ancient disposal site; some mutant making this place its home, or personal toilet, upstream; some weird breed of plant or simply some good ol’ human foul play fuelled by envy. No way to tell really, and when I set up my machine it won’t matter,” she finished in a self-confident tone as she dismissed the line of thought. Rock gave a slight roll of the eyes at her boast but flashed a small smile nonetheless, and nodded in agreement as we continued walking forward.

After a while, we began to hear an odd noise, a sort of skittering, clicking noise. At first, we just thought it was the ground shifting, re-settling as creatures moved high above, but then it started to happen more often, and got closer. “Wait,” I said quietly keeping my voice just above a whisper, putting my arm out to halt them, “listen.” We all stopped and began looking around, Rock and I bringing up our rifles, swirling them around, searching for the sound, a cold trickle of dread making its’ way into my mind. The sound lingered for multiple long, dread filled minutes then it suddenly and abruptly stopped, not a trace of it left in the air.

We stood still for a moment, waiting for it to leap then we relaxed slightly straightening back up, lowering our guns down from our shoulders. “I guess, it’s gone now?” Rock uttered keeping his tone hesitant. Another long moment passed filled with a suffocating stillness, then we lowered our weapons again so they hung slack in our arms, a sense of calm attempting to resurface.

A horrific screech like the whining of metal on metal pierced the air, echoing thought the tunnel, as a writhing mass burst from the opposite wall, flinging stone chips outward at us, niching out any exposed skin. The mass flung itself at us, its chattering, snow plough like jaws opening wide to snap at us. It was a Mili’, a horrible creature resembling a millipede the size of an over-fed python, as dangerous as it was ugly. I opened fire on it just as it had leapt halfway across the river, the heavy .30 calibre rounds thumping hard into its body, hardly slowing its’ charge at all, the roaring boom of the bullets cascading down the tunnel, reverberating around its walls. Rock’s SMG soon followed, the rapid snapping of the weapons muzzle flash illuminating the creature in snapshots as it zigged and zagged about in the dark of the cavern around us, lashing out at us with unseen claws or flinging sharp stones and brush at us, along with bile it spat out at us that stung and made the skin itch where it landed.

The air started to fill with stone dust, falling down from where rounds had missed their mark and dug into the rock, or was shaken down by the dense rifle fire. Finally, as it went over us again, we got our torches over it, seeing it illuminated, twisting in-between the jagged spikes on the ceiling as a round from my rifle dug itself between a gap in its armour near its neck, causing it to give a blood curdling screech, more like a sound you would hear in your nightmares than one in nature. It fell heavily to the floor, scrambling about on its back, its grotesque mouth flat against the ground. Rock then walked over to it, trepid, I think that is the right word, in his step. He fired a pair of rounds into its underside, causing the mass to violently writhe on the cavern floor for a trio of unsettling moments then slump, its numerous legs twitching, not content to be idle even in death.

“Better safe than sorry,” he said, turning to me, his face slightly pale, swallowing hard as he did so. I nodded, knowing what could happen if you didn’t finish one of those things off, when it was just playing dead. Then, almost as soon as that thought had entered my head a cacophony of chattering, blood freezing screeches echoed again and again in waves around us.

“What, the fuck, was that?!” I yelled, panicked, swapping out the magazines for my rifle, fumbling with them slightly as I tried to shove a fresh magazine in.

“I think,” Meire uttered, causing me and Rock to quickly turn to her, “that the thing that you both just killed, managed to call its friends,” her voice quavering slightly as she spoke. Me and Rock exchanging worried glances. “And they are not happy…”

We ran, dashing through the tunnels, our footfalls thumping against the hard stone floor, sending silt and loose rock chips flying, clacking down like mashing teeth as they landed. We streaked past the odd plants and mushrooms along the path, ducking under stalactites and vines.

“Why do they have to have friends?! What’s the problem with going it alone, being their own bugs!” Rock complained hoarsely, fitting his words in-between each of his strides.

“So that they can take on bigger, and stronger prey, and to protect them from potential predators,” I responded, to which he gave me a hot look and yelled back.

“Rhetorical question Lil’. Rhe-tor-rih-cal!” stressing each syllable of the word.

A Mili suddenly burst out from the ground right in front of me, twisting up and around my leg, wrapping itself around my trousers and sinking its teeth into the guard around it, the thinnish metal buckling under its bite, the long teeth scraping the skin beneath it. I whipped out a blade from its sheath on my vest and plunged it into a gap in the monster’s plated shell, wrenching it up from my leg, leaving it to fall back onto the floor, before skittering away into the dark, the jagged blade not enough to take it down, but making it leave behind a brown pattern of blood as it fled.

“Huddle up, Doc, get between us,” I ordered Meire, she squeaked out a petrified noise of compliance and shoved herself in between us, trying to make herself as small a target as possible. I shouldered my BAR, Rock doing the same with his own weapon behind me. The monsters leapt from the ground, flinging chips of stone and soil into the air, and we opened fire, not letting them have a moment of rest as we brought our weapons to bear upon them, rapidly slamming fresh magazines into the body of my automatic rifle, silently cursing their small capacity. Whether most of our shots actually hit was unintelligible, the only light coming from the muzzle flash of us firing, illuminating the battle in stills, not able to reach for my torch that dangled uselessly on my wrist, shining the ground at my feet. Despite the occasional sight of one falling to the ground or crying out in a warbled death cry, their numbers never seemed to decay.

“Go further down the cave, keep in formation!” I called out over the rifle fire and cacophonous cries of the monsters, slamming in again a fresh magazine into my rifle. We began to advance slowly into the cave, raining fire over the Milis ahead, blind firing rounds into the darkness behind us as we ran, the bioluminescent plants from earlier in the cave long gone. But we ran out of breath after an unknowable time running, deciding to instead hold them off, stopping in an area where the glowing vines suddenly sprang back into life, giving us at least some form of light, even if it was dim. We didn’t have to wait long for them to arrive, bursting from the walls around us, surrounding us almost instantly, corralling us. Now placed under the light of the vines we could properly see their numbers. Though they were not as numerous as I had thought, but they still had overwhelmingly the numbers advantage, a great writhing, twitching, clicking mass of jaws and clawed-insect like legs. It also showed the poorness of our shots, the only wounds being dents and flesh wounds upon the creatures’ armoured skin. “How is it that we didn’t kill any of them?!” I roared out in irate anxiety.

“They eat their dead and wounded,” Rock answered. I gave him a disturbed look at this information then turned back to the creatures. But just as we were about to open fire, they started to stir and back away from us. Scared. We didn’t have time to wonder why, nor needed to. Weird, almost spider like things began to push themselves out from the rock. Their legs were spindly, covered on one side with jagged barbs like a cockroach, four on each side of their thin oval like body, squished flat like a drum lid.

One swaddled up to one of the Millis and started making this guttural, rough growling, gargling sound, to which the Milli started making its own, raising itself up slightly. We watched perplexed as the scene went on, slowly shifting ourselves backwards away from the scene, trying not to get them to refocus on us. Then it suddenly buckled its two front legs showing the top of its head to the Milli, almost as it was bowing to them, and the top of its body split open across the breadth of it into a horrific cookie-cutter shaped maw, filled with jagged teeth, and let loose a horrifying scream, which was added to by the screams of the others. It leapt onto the back of the Milli it had been facing and wrapped its legs backward over the Milis carapace and cracked into its armour with its horrific teeth. The gaggle of creatures broke into a screeching melee.

“Maybe they won’t attack us?” Meire offered weakly over the din, backing away with us. Then one of the larger plate-spider things leapt at her face, spitting out a brownish sack from its mouth as it did so. Rock quickly swung round his SMG and planted a burst into the creature, the snap of the small calibre rounds echoing out through the chamber as the creature was flung to the ground. “I guess not,” she muttered nervously, chuckling slightly, a sheepish look pressed into her face. We started half running forward, turning back every few paces to fire behind us blindly, keeping close together as we ran, trying to escape the melee. They flooded after us still, but their numbers were greatly subdued compared to the start of this chase, the spiders (easiest name) and Millis tearing into each other even as they chased us, fighting viciously over who deserved to take us as their prey.

We kept close, our focus poured into cutting down the creatures as we retreated slowly further into the cavern, not wanting to be boxed in by them. Occasionally we had to stomp down hard on any that decided to burrow under us, turning on our torches during the brief pauses. “Look out! There’s one above us!” Meire called out pointing up at the jagged roof. I peeked quickly up, not wanting to take my eyes off the swarm ahead of me for too long. It was the largest of the spiders, with a body as broad as my shoulders, with two more legs than the others, mostly shrouded by the dark, lit up only by our muzzle flashes and the edges of our torch light. But, before I could raise my rifle to shoot it down, the spiders began to charge with greater furiosity than before, mostly ignoring the Millis, even as the latter attacked them, but then they as well started to charge, not wanting the Massive spider to take the kill. I kept my rifle down on them, hosing fire at them, my shoulder starting to ache as I drowned them under the heavy rounds, quickly slamming fresh magazines into the well of the rifle as they ran dry, fewer and fewer loaded magazines being left in the satchel on my back. Rock did the same behind me, likely having the same situation, not that I could turn round and check, his rifle snapping out small barks of rounds.

“It’s still coming!” Meire squawked panickiedly tugging frightfully at the netting around my vest.

“I’m well aware, but I’m a little busy right now!” I called back, plunging a knife into a milli that had burst out of the ground in front of me, still firing my B.A.R as I did so before re-grasping firmly the foregrip again, not bothering to let go of the knife.

“What do I do?!” she yelled again, straining her voice over the suffocating noise. “It’s right above us!” she cried, pressing herself against my back, trying to make herself smaller as she stared upward to the spider.

“Grab my pistol out of the holster on my left hip, use it! The safety’s off, just shoot!” I ordered. She whisked it out of its holster as I felt its weight leaving my hip, and I saw out of the side of my eye as I turned my head slightly to her as she raised it up at the monster and fired - on an empty chamber.

Meire pulled the pistol down into her stomach and tried with some difficulty to rack the slide. Then the big spider jumped spewing out its brownish sack as it began to fall just as Meire managed to rack the slide, the  primitive mechanism shoving a 10mm round into the chamber, and snappily brought up the pistol above her head and fired two quick shots, the light pistol rocking massively in her hands from the heavy bullet.

The first round whizzed past the side of the spider, but the second shot tore straight through the middle of it, making it give a short screech as it fell and landed limply on the ground. The spiders suddenly stopped, turning towards us en-masse, but stood still, silent, letting me stop firing for a second, the Millis having stilled as well.

After that the biggest Milli, one with an oddly shaped carapace on its head reared up and made a sort of chattering noise that almost resembled chuckling, apparently pleased at its enemy’s death, what I now presumed to be the leader of the spiders. A short-lived victory however, as Rock fired a shot into the exposed underside of the Mili, his weapon locking open on the empty magazine right after. The contents of its head splattered backwards behind it, the viscera landing on the Millis flanking the now dead leader, its body falling to the ground with a hard, meaty thump. The Millis then copied the silence of the spiders.

After a long, drawn-out silence, both sides retreated. Burrowing into the walls and ground of the cave either side of us, or scaling the wall and disappearing from sight. After a few minutes, the only remains of the struggle were the bodies of the two champions.

We all stood still for a moment, breathing hard. “I guess, we win,” I said exasperatedly, forcing it out between hard breaths tasting copper and salt on my tongue, Rock gave a sigh of relief, looking up at the ceiling and then slumping down against the wall, gulping down air. Meire stood still, clasping the pistol in her hands tightly, shaking as she took quick panicked breaths, sweat pouring off her brow, making circlets around her eyes, wiping away the orange dust that she was otherwise caked in. “Meire, sweetie, you can put the pistol down now, it’s gone,” she jumped at my voice, almost as if she was snapping out from something then went ever so slightly red.

“Oh, yes, yes…uhm. D-do you mind if I just hold it - j-just while we’re down here I mean?” she asked, attempting to sound composed, gripping even tighter on the pistol with her comparatively smaller hands, though notably keeping her finger out of the trigger guard, showing she knew what she was doing with it, at least minimally. I gave her a look for a moment, concerned, taking a moment to inspect her further.

“Ok,” I replied, nicely, her flashing a quick smile, “But keep the safety…” Reaching over and flicking the pistols safety back on. “On, while we’re not fighting.” She gave a rigid sort of nod, a slight fleck of fear in her eyes, but keeping her face stern. Well, I had a second pistol anyway. I turned round and slumped slightly and took a deep breath, straightening up as I did, and finally gave a long exhale. “You ready to go?” turning to Rock, still sat spreadeagle on the cave floor. He raised up his hand to signal to give him a second, in which he took one more deep breath and then exhaled hard, groaning as he arched his back, looking up at the ceiling.

“All right,” he responded, slightly hoarsely, “let’s go,” and jumped onto his feet. As he stood up, he picked his submachine gun from the floor and twisted the neck of it, and tipped out the glowing barrel letting it slide out of the body of the gun and collide loudly with the rocks, sending some sparks flying about in the air, then twisting in a new barrel after fishing about in his satchel for a second, locking it in before loading it again.

We plodded forward, slightly less energetically than before. The adrenaline was draining from our minds, awakening us to bruises and wounds we had ignored or not noticed, our muscles drained of their previous vigour. The cavern had sunken into silence, the wash of the river becoming the only noise we heard aside from our own breathing and the repetitious sounds of our equipment shifting about on our person as we advanced forward in our tired column.

The creatures were mostly absent from this section, aside from an assortment of docile things like small insects, water krill and crabs in rockpools where water from the river had dribbled over its edges. But they were all docile, laying still, twitching slightly as we moved. Aside from an angry crab, snipping and snapping at my boot when I accidently stepped in a rockpool due to the darkness, which was becoming more suffocating now as we went further, the glowing plants seeming to be dying off. After another half hour of much the same we arrived at what we presumed was the head of the stream. It was a great heavy wall of deep black stone, stripes of white rock and what looked like crystals of some sort raked across its face like fresh scars. And directly in its centre was a jagged crack, reaching almost from floor to ceiling of the cave, gushing out a flood of water. A small shelf of stone sat underneath the spout, dipped down at one side where the water ran off it, suddenly becoming opaque as soon as it hit the streams surface.

“Is this it?” I asked Meire, leaning close to her as we stared at the rockface. She gave a nod, then quickly refocused herself.

“Right,” clapping her hands together and walking closer to the spout. “Place the device on the ledge there and connect the white hose onto the crack, I’ve got a drill to set in the bolts. Then attach the nozzle onto the rock using the bolts attached to it,” she explained brusquely. I set the machine down on the ledge, glad to have it off my back - it weighed a ton - then lifted the whitish hose off its back, its mouth fitted with a tin enamelled funnel. Meire stepped out in front of me with the drill, a bulky looking thing with a dozen or so wires looping around it, and started boring into the rockface around the crack, Rock moving to stand guard behind us as we did our work. “You don’t’ have to hold the hose for the whole time Lil’. I’ll be a while.”

“Oh yeah, right,” I muttered, rubbing the back of my head slightly then putting the funnel down on the ground. Then after a few minutes, along with the whine of the drill’s motors and the crunch of the drilling stone, another sound suddenly was added to the atmosphere. Not a chattering noise like the Millis, or a ticking one like the spiders but a crunching, grinding sound, like falling and snapping stone.

The ground split open. Dust and debris were flung about effortlessly. A massive pale scorp stood over the hole, its gaze locked onto us, angry. Before any of us could do anything, its stinger launched at me, slamming into my side getting stuck in my vest, winding me, then it clambered over on top of me snapping at me with its’ ugly jaws, taking all my strength to keep it back as I shoved against its underbelly.

I saw Rock bring up his submachine gun and fire, but the rifle made a weak bang noise then erupted into an explosion in his hands, causing him to shout out, clawing his hands in pain, dropping the thing quickly but reached for my BAR, a gash on his forehead from a bit of shrapnel dribbling blood into his eye. But before he could, a familiar crack rang out and a bullet ripped through the creatures’ mouth and out through the back of its head, dousing me with odd coloured viscera, its body going limp a moment after. Both me and Rock stared at the Scorps’ body and then turned back to look at Meire, her pistol raised in a death grip, the barrel breathing out a wandering thread of smoke.

“Thank you,” I uttered breathlessly, shoving the thing’s body off me and pulling myself up to stand.

“Don’t mention it,” she whispered, a gilding of shock in her voice, flicking the pistols safety back on as she responded breathlessly. We leered at the pale beast again and looked it over.

“What even is it, it doesn’t look like the other ones I’ve seen. Granted that only really counts for two others both at a distance, but still,” I asked aloud, getting an odd look from Rock, but he just rolled his eyes and gave a small smile, pulling a bit of plaster from his pack and put it over his forehead after washing it with some water from his satchel, the same for his hands.

“It looks like a softshell, but that’s quite unusual. They really aren’t found this far south, they keep up north in the Wets. No clue how this one came here, might’ve floated down stream when it was young and just grown…” Rock turned back to Meire, now all bandaged up. “Do you think he caused the contamination?” she shook her head at his question.

“I don’t think it had the means to. And I’m not sure it would have even been around when it started,” she dismissed. Rock nodded then got a knife out of his pocket and dug around under the head of the thing then popped of an odd, kite shaped piece of its carapace, chalk white and smooth, and scraped the meat off the back of it, flicking it onto the ground.

“Here,” he said flatly, handing the plate to Meire, to which she gave a confused, if not slightly disturbed look as Rock wiped the knife on his shirt sleeve then put it back in his pocket. “Hunters take this off these things as a trophy to show they killed one. A badge of honour if you like, like keeping a horn or a tooth or tail,” he smiled at her broadly, his face half in shadow from the torches. “You killed it. So you get the trophy,” he declared enthused. She looked at it fascinated and thanked him as she slid it into her coat.

“Well, now that that’s sorted, lets finish installing this,” the scientist declared,0 Gesturing to the device and walking back over to it, picking up her drill from the floor, squeezing the trigger twice in the air then resumed drilling into the rock. Rock took a beat-up looking revolver from his hip, the frame just made from bent steel with the grips being uncovered bar for thin sheet metal covering the springs, and stood guard for us again. Meire drilled into the stone for another half an hour then finished all four holes, now caked in grey stone dust not just the orange sand of Verdant. “Alright, now, Lil’ put the funnel over the crack and those holes, and then screw in these bolts, I’ll hold the funnel in place while you do it, here’s a wrench. use the loop end,” Meire explained simply. I took the wrench she handed to me in one hand then picked up the funnel, pressing the wrench to it with one hand then manoeuvred it over the crack and in line with the holes, dripples of water leaking out around it.

“Alright got it in place.”

“Great,” Meire said, shifting herself around me and holding the funnel in place then shoving in one of the long bolts through the holes on the funnel into the rock, “now tighten that one while I hold it then do the same for the rest.”

“Right,” I replied, nodding my head as I put the loop of the wrench over the bolt head and tightened it into place. I then repeated that for all the others.

“And now,” fishing a white mason pot from her pack as she spoke before handing it to me along with a wooden stick, “paste this on the gaps to seal it, it’s water activated so don’t worry about getting it wet, and while you do that, I’ll nail down the device onto the stone, then put the hose to put the water in the river,” pulling our four steel stakes and a mallet as she spoke, then started pounding them into the stone through some loops on the bottom of the device. I finished pasting the sealant onto the funnel, the tacky fluid quite stiff, and a yellowish blue colour, smelling of kerosene and grease, but it sealed the funnel to the wall well, no water managing to get past.

“I finished sealing up the funnel, Meire,” I called, re-sealing the lid of the sealant pot.

“Great, now, the output hose is already attached and in the water, so now all that’s left,” she said, mostly talking to herself, stood up and brushed off her knees, “is to turn it on!” she announced grandly, not hiding the excitement in her voice, a massive grin spreading across what sections of her face I could see through the dark as she faced away from us. She leant over the device, grasping a large orange switch and twisting it upwards, the switch producing a loud snap as it turned the other way and electricity burst through it, sending the machine scurrying to work, water bursting out of the exit hose, the pressure nearly forcing it out of the water for a moment before it settled down.

“It’s working!” Meire burst out, her voice giddy, bouncing on the balls of her feet. Then she put her hands together a moment and said, slightly hushed over the river side. “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning, and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life, freely. Amen.” I let her be, leaving her to enjoy her accomplishment.

“Now… how do we get out of here?” Rock said, looking back down the tunnel. “Because, forgive me if this sounds whingy, but I didn’t like the route we took the first time,” I nodded to him, my face giving an unseen grimace, almost on cue our torches began to flicker, both me and rock stopping to re-charge them with the handle, but that still did little to cut through the dark, the blades of light dull on the stony blackness. “I think I did see a split in the path a little ways back,” Rock continued, walking forward into my torchlight and gesturing down the cave path. “I think we could get out if we go through there, but it’s not a given,” I gave him a considering look, not that anyone could tell, least of all him, not quite sure what to do. “’S better than having to fight our way back the way we came.”

I thought about it for another moment before murmuring an agreement, still somewhat pensive, and beckoned for Meire to follow us, and she hopped forward in line with us. We made our way back, I felt tired, aching all over, my shoulder having nearly locked itself together in shock. But felt a great feeling of accomplishment, somewhat masking the stinging pain my wounds constantly telegraphed to my exhausted brain.

After a dozen or so minutes of wandering back down the tunnel we came to the split that Rock had seen, it was sunk into the cave wall at an angle, so that could only really be seen when returning back this way, how Rock saw it I wasn’t sure. We stepped into it and within a few paces the uneven rocky floor of the cave turned to concrete, mildewed and chipped like the entrance staircase, and seam less as well. However, unlike the entrance stairs there were doors set into the sides of it every few paces - great steel doors, wrapped in pistons and locking bolts unaffected by either age or rust, whatever they were holding being of value enough to warrant them.

But curiosity could not hold us in its spring-loaded jaws here. We continued down the corridor, weaving through drooping cables and collapsed vents, the floor spattered with old blood and stagnant water, pale bones crunching under our feet. Whether vermin or man, I didn’t know, and didn’t really wish to. Spent brass and shattered glass clinked and snapped beneath our feet as we continued forwards, the weapons that had dispensed all of the former nowhere in sight, lost to time or thieves. Finally, we came to a door at the end of the hall. It was… odd, compared to all the other doors in this place so far. It was thin looking, made of a grimy wite plastic covered aluminium, with a simple push bar across it to unlock it with the word ‘EXIT’ still displayed on a grimy green sticker on the bar, that stuck to my hand when I pushed on it to go through.

It opened stiffly, the old hinges finally snapping as we got it half open, the door clattering loudly to the floor as both Rock and I stumbled into the room, put off balance. I steadied myself and looked up into the room. It was still, in a hanging silence, an old solitude loudly broken into. On the other side of the room a ladder began up the wall before crumbling away, red rebar stuck out at odd angles, their ends like shards of old bones from a broken arm.

“Well, now what?” posing the question as I turned to Rock, my voice showing my exhaustion.

“That is the question!” Rock replied walking about the room, I pinched my brow for a moment then slumped up against the wall, the cold concrete sending a welcome chill down through my back, sweat sticking my vest to the wall slightly. I turned and saw a skeleton slumped against the wall, dressed in a brown tattered jacket, ribs poking through where mould or moth had burrowed through his shirt, and around his neck was a faded string of ribbon with a card on its bottom held by a rusted little hook. The card was faded and had mildew eating at its corner in its plastic holder: the only characters visible being ‘W-H-E-A-F-F’. I shifted myself closer and lifted up the card to my face, wanting to see if I could make out anything more.

“Hey! I think we found a way out!” Rock suddenly called out, making me jump, jerking the card in my grip, the skeletons head rocking and falling off. I caught it before it hit the ground and put it gingerly in his lap, feeling my face flush in embarrassment.

“Sorry, sorry,” I got up and walked over to Rock, forcing my face to go back to normal, forgetting again the near pitch black we were in.  Both Rock and Meire were stood next to a lipped platform surrounded by rusty yellow railing, half of it slumped over down onto the ground. It was triangular in shape, nestled between two corners, each wall on two sides of it having a pair of deep steel tracks with notches etched into them. Both of them were grinning massively.

“So… Where is it?” I asked, tiredly. Rock’s smile broke out even wider under my torchlight.

“Here,” both he and Meire gestured to the platform, though him much more grandly than her. I gave him a blank look, hoping for the end of the joke so we could get out of here. “No, really, it is. It’s a freight elevator!” I looked at the platform again and noticed in the corner near the wall a raised panel with a trio of buttons supporting his claim.

“Will it work though?” I asked, grabbing onto one of the railings and wiggling it slightly to test it, the steel frame being surprisingly firm. Rock smiled and put up a single finger then gestured to Meire who handed him something off the floor and he hefted it into a bin like port in the floor. It sunk heavily into it, whistling as it forced out the air in its way. As soon as it landed, the lights that still remained in the room plinked into life and the panel lit up foggily. He turned to me with a smile on his face, now illuminated by the light of the room.

“I think it will yes,” he started to chuckle and I soon followed on, Meire joining us with a light little laugh. We all got on the elevator after our little chuckle and I walked over to the panel, wiping the grime off it with my palm, then prodded hard at the squishy button that I assumed meant up, the old rubber sticky to the touch, making a clicking squelch as I depressed it. The elavator jerked suddenly to life, whisking itself a small way upward then stopping, knocking us off balance, then after a moment began slowly dragging itself up the wall, accompanied by a soft clink of gears and the low whine of old motors.

“I like this way much better I think,” I declared, giving a dry laugh as I sat down on the steel floor of the elevator.

“Yep,” Rock agreed also sitting down, Meire doing the same next to him, sitting on her knees

“Nearly out of here. If I ever see another cave, it will be too soon…” I moaned, tipping my head back to look up at the approaching roof, feeling sweat drip off my neck and forehead.

“Yes, but as soon as we get out, we’ve got the scammer to deal with remember,” Rock reminded, a bulb on the wall bursting as he spoke, almost at the mention of that hyena, taking our attention for a second.

“What scammer?” Meire broke in.

Rock sighed heavily then turned to her. “We picked one up before we came here, thinking he was being enslaved. But it turned out he was being incarcerated, and we couldn’t let him loose, after all it’s our fault that hyena is unshackled,” he replied spitting out his words when he mentioned Asriel. Meire looked consideringly at the both of us then smiled.

“You keep helping, even when you don’t have to. Thank you, both of you for what you do. Oh, here, it’s not much but, take it,” she pulled out a tied wad of paper and a small pocketbook sized tin canister that rattled slightly as she forced it into my hands.

“There is five hundred and fifty Note and a tin of some ammunition. Apparently, some places use it as currency rather than Note, not sure where though, I just heard that some places do?” I opened my mouth to protest and she raised her hand to stop me. “Just take it, if you don’t feel you need it for helping with the purifier, think of it as to cover all the ammunition you just used, or just a gift,” she explained, smiling kindly at me as she tried to ease my guilt. I nodded after a moment still uncertain but stuffed the notes roughly into my vest pocket, Rock taking the tin.

“Where did you get these?” Rock asked idly rattling the tin. Meire made a small noise and the tips of her hears suddenly went red.

“Oh, a man visiting the city gave them to me along with a component for the purifier as payment for a… favour I did him,” she answered, waiving her hand nervously, trying to dismiss the subject.

“What kind of favour?” Rock pursued further, either not picking up her hints, or not caring, Meire’s face getting slightly red.

“I don’t really feel I need to talk about it,” her face stiffening quickly. Rock took on a confused expression for a moment, not quite getting it, then suddenly it hit him and he burst out red in a blush, his eyes shrinking in slight panic.

“O-of course, it’s none of our business to pry into your personal life,” the Quazi rambled out quickly, chuckling nervously at the end. He leaned back against the railing, looking everywhere but at Meire, the latter fiddling with the wiring of her torch, distracting herself that way. After a few more minutes of silence, exhaustion finally began to swallow us, the elevator reached the top of its track and suddenly stopped, jostling us slightly, then the stop was followed by the loud clang of some braces at the edges of the elevator slamming into its sides to hold it still. The room was pitch black, the power from the downstairs room not carrying up this far apparently, we all turned our torches back on and were met with a small room, full of old boxes rotten through with age, almost disintegrated into the floor and a small ramp at the far end, a door at its crest, a trickle of dim light dripping down it from the cracks in the doorframe.

“Finally,” I said as I walked up to the door and pushed against it, working the handle as I did so, but was stopped, bashing myself on it. I tried again, and again, and again then I started pounding on the door with Rock yelling, hoping for someone to hear us and to open the door - but no one answered. “Ok, so, no one’s there, alright, alright. Time. Time for plan B,” I repeated clicking my neck slightly and pushing both Meire and Rock behind me. I took a few steps back, and charged towards the door with my shoulder forwards, to bash through it with my weight, even if it took a few tries.

 But just before I slammed into it, I heard a hard shift of metal, like a bolt being moved.

I hit the door and it now near weightlessly flung itself out of my way, leaving me charging forward without a stop, I tripped on the lip of the door and landed flat on my front, managing to get my arms underneath me before I faceplanted into the orange ground. I laid there for half a second, winded before I heard an unpleasantly familiar flat tone speak above me.

“I was hoping for someone else,” I pushed myself of the floor groaning and turned my head up quickly, knowing already who I would be facing. Asriel, dressed in blue, his lips pressed in a flat expression, his off-colour eyes, stuck in pinpricks, assembled stiffly under a somewhat bouncy mess of golden blonde hair. I looked to the ground again as I pulled myself up. “I don’t suppose this makes us even now does it?” I snapped my head around to give him a glare, but then just decided to leave him be, too exhausted from the tunnels to give a retort.

[dharmafox]

Hello! I’m incredibly late to the party, but YouTube recommendations notified me there’s a new Mononoke movie coming out next year! I’m so excited, and glad that the community is still alive and kicking after all this time. That said, I noticed you sharing links to various shopfronts for new merch. I’m tempted to preorder a few things but the unknown shipping price is rather intimidating. Do you have experiences with these types of preorder purchases?

Hi and thanks for the ask! I can't claim a ton of experience in this area, but I'm happy to share what I do know. I was also pretty spooked by unknown international shipping prices when I started.

If you're in the U.S. and looking to pre-order the plushies, folding screens, or shoulder bag, there's good news! You can order them via Good Smile, which has a U.S. branch and will give you a U.S. shipping quote when you place your order. GS might also ship to other countries from their global shop, but unfortunately I'm not sure where, or how they would calculate shipping costs for pre-orders.

I haven't received any pre-order merchandise from Japan, but I have ordered and received a couple of already-released items. For those, I went through Neokyo, which is a proxy buying service located in Japan. They can't provide international shipping quotes until they receive and pack your items, but they do provide a shipping cost estimator. If you more or less know the weight and dimensions of what you want to order, the estimator can give you ballpark quotes for multiple shipping services. The one time I used it, the quotes it gave me were pretty close to what I ended up paying. For small packages weighing very little, e.g. one postcard, most costs to ship from Japan to the U.S. are around $30. If your package qualifies for small parcel airmail, it can be cheaper, but it is slooooow (6-10 days). I've ordered one very small package that was basically just a piece of paper, and a second slightly larger package containing a postcard and a cup, and both cost around $30 for speedy shipping. The first qualified for small parcel airmail, which was $12.

You can also save on international shipping costs with Neokyo if you order multiple items, since they can then pack and ship those items together after they are delivered domestically to their warehouse.

If your heart is set on the fragrance set I linked here, which I'm pretty sure will not ship outside Japan directly from the seller, you could try reaching out to Neokyo via their contact form and asking if they handle pre-order purchases. They will (in theory) allow you to buy from any store in Japan if you provide them with a link to the item you want via their buy request form, but I haven't attempted a purchase by this method. Neokyo may or may not handle pre-orders, but I have seen some sellers on their partner marketplaces (Mercari, etc.) listing pre-order items (e.g. the Kusu plushies).

Some newer items like the can badges and wall scrolls are already released, but their availability seems to be limited. I had to try multiple sellers for these before I found ones that actually had them in stock.

If you're interested in ordering stuff via Neokyo, I can tell you about a couple other things to know. There are also other proxy services, but theirs seems to be the least intimating of the ones I looked at.

Good hunting!

[myondolls]

How do y'all calculate shipping for your destash posts?? This is a nightmare

Like everything depends on size and weight. I might have to just do it in a "aight let me actually measure and weight it before i charge you" basis, because without knowing the content its useless...

Looks like royal mail is pushing the "just enter the size if your parcel haha" system on their site. I cant find an actual price chart

I am going to only offer signed or tracked delivery that's for sure.

The custom declaration is going to be painful too.

Do i count a doll head as one doll ? Haha

[prosebrne-arc]

@heartwilled asked, "Looks like you've been pretty good this year, Lysithea, since the winter festival envoy has sent me to pass along a gift. You do still believe in the winter festival envoy, right?" He's teasing her, but he really does have a gift, one he picked out himself. Inside a parcel wrapped with purple paper and tied with white ribbon, Lysithea will find a hand-written journal containing the recipes of some Almyran sweets that he thinks she'll like and a much thicker tome on magical theory he'd seen her eyeing in the market.

lysithea scoffed, her petulance horribly at odds with the excitement gleaming in her eyes, ❛ pretty good? please, as if my efforts this academic year could be simplified in two words. ❜ she does not have the heart to remember what once ruined her belief in something as wishful as the winter festival envoy. so, instead, she rolled her eyes and held out her hands, palms up, almost trembling with eagerness.

❛ hmph, starting off on the wrong foot so early? i'm surprised the envoy trusts you, claude. ❜ not because she wouldn't, too, if the situation called for it.

but any worries she once held are, swiftly, softened into innocent curiosities. lysithea's hands were slow as she pulled back the purple wrapping paper, noting the excessive weight of whatever lay beneath it. ( if she took to pocketing the ribbon after undoing its ties / then she had not given the impulse light. ) she expected books, perhaps with one picked from the low shelves of a storefront, or a stupid note of some kind. but with claude, there were always opportunities for wonder.

❛ you... you handwrote these...? ❜ even if blind, she would be able to recognize her house leader's hand at calligraphy. thus, lysithea gaped at him, blinking profusely between the inked pages & back up to his face before the number of entries struck her attention. ❛ dear saint, just how many recipes did you make note of?! i mean, everything's included... even━━━ even what other foods can be paired with them! ❜

her delighted shock almost kept her from recognizing the second gift, but the engravings on its cover were noticeable, of course, they were. oh how gentle, her whisper left her in a soft exhale, ❛ wait, claude, this was hardly cheap... ❜ it had been the main factor that made her refuse the renowned scholar's offered sales pitch; &, though claude was the higher noble of the two, any price was one too many. her gratitude was expressed incredulously, face red as she clutched both journal & tome close against her chest.

❛ thank you, claude. seriously. i... hm, actually, your effort to please me will not go to waste! wait here. surely, i can find you a gift that expresses my appreciation. ❜

[tokofii]

❤️OSOMATSU-SAN MERCH FOR SALE❤️

***UPDATED VERSION***

✨All prices are shown in USD

✨Payment via Paypal G&S

✨Shipping with Tracking included with purchase of Bundle for US/Canada (can ship worldwide)

✨Shipped from Canada

✨FREE Holographic Acrylic Keychain x 2 with purchase of Bundle

✨Items can be purchased alone at their listed price in the picture + shipping

✨Bundle prices will written down below for each character

❤️OSOMATSU BUNDLE $35

💙KARAMATSU BUNDLE $30

💚CHOROMATSU BUNDLE $45

💜ICHIMATSU BUNDLE $25

💛JYUSHIMATSU BUNDLE $40

💗TODOMATSU BUNDLE $40

The Bundles include the TOTAL cost of all items shown for each character, your choice of 2 Holographic Acrylic Keychains free of charge(can substitute for an item on the misc merch), and shipping with tracking for US or Canada. For those outside North America please inquire. There may be an additional charge for the difference in shipping cost.

You may purchase items in the Bundles individually with their listed price shown in the pictures(the dollar amounts written by each item). If you want to purchase a Bundle along with any extra items from other Bundles please note that shipping costs may reflect the new weight/size of the parcel. It will be the cost of the Bundle, plus any items at their “retail price”, and if necessary additional shipping costs, if any.

For any items purchased from Bundles the price will be adjusted to reflect the changes. Those interested will be notified promptly.

Please let me know if you have any questions!

[forwardaircargo]

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