#they are both equip spell users and loud

[morimonchi]

OSUCURRY!

Rovian Kirishima and Zeyet from Yugioh Go Rush!

[hrexandro]

OSR session 1

4th day of the first month of spring, Year of the Rat

Tomb of the Serpent Kings, ran with OSE, using the Death & Dismemberment Table from GLOG.

Player characters:

Pier, Magic-User

Jessica, Thief

Priest, Cleric

The adventurers, lured by the prospect of buried riches, followed a map bought by Priest from an old wanderer and ventured a day’s travel distance from the town of Torsfeld, into the hilly wilderness to the Northeast.

They arrived in the early evening. Upon entering the dungeon’s corridor, they investigated the first room to the right. The party huddled around a clay statue depicting a snake-man. Priest decided to do what came naturally to him, as an Iconoclastic zealot, and promptly smashed the monstrous image with his warhammer. As they were placed around pretty tightly, none escaped the toxic poison gas exploding from within. Pier became sickly from the toxin. Jessica, however, was hit hardest – the poison ravaged her body, her left leg and right eye became numb and useless.

The party brought her out and stabilized her. Afterwards, Priest scoured the remains, recovering a golden amulet and smashing the skeletal remains within the pile. They decided to hole up in the chamber to spend the next day to recuperate, after gathering enough firewood to keep them with ample light and warmth, and scattering dry wood around the corridor to warn them of anyone who might be approaching. They discuss whether to cut off Jessica’s numb leg, which remained useless, making it necessary for the party to assist her in movement, but decide against it.

The next day (evening) they cursorily investigated the other rooms branching from the corridor and approached the Sorcerer’s Tomb, containing another clay statue with the image of a snake-man sorcerer. Priest wanted to pry off a silver ring from the figure’s finger. Wary of poison gas, he carefully used a crowbar to remove the item, whilst being tied with a rope and held by the others to pull him out at the first sign of poison gas. They succeeded.

After that they used a sling to destroy the statues in the remaining two rooms, removing their amulets and smashing the snake-men bones within. Moving on to the barred door at the end of the corridor, when they figured two of them weren’t strong enough to lift the stone bar blocking the entrance, they decided to move it sideways. After the bar moved past one of the iron pegs on which it rested, it clicked and moved upwards. Upon noticing that, they ran away immediately. Causing the bar to partly fall to the side. However it still partly weighted down on the other peg, so the hammer trap hiding in the ceiling remained unsprung.

Then they tied a rope to the bar and working in unison, pulled it off the peg from a safe distance. Activating the hammer trap and smashing the stone door. They entered a large chamber  with another three clay statues to the North, an exit to the South, and piles of rotten grave goods in the middle. After having the limping Jessica check the walls of the room, they pierced the leftmost statue with a sling shot. A skeletal hand appeared in the hole. When they enlarged the hole with another shot, a skeletal Snakeoid head emerged, which was quickly blown off with Pier’s magic missile spell, the skeleton still pursued them, however, but they managed to quickly defeat it. It yielded them no treasure.

After that they went back to the chamber they spent the last day in, and slept the night, enabling Pier to regenerate his spell. They moved on to smash the rightmost statue. The emerging skeleton was promptly turned by Priest’s holy symbol. The skeleton escaped deeper into the tomb. The party heard various loud and intriguing sounds from the direction it went and decided to follow it, ignoring the remaining middle coffin.

The next small room had a statue of a horrid snake-man god (“resembling a cross between a toad, a heap of intestines, and a melted candle”) and a hole in the floor, eroded by flowing water. They investigated the statue and the hole, tied a rope to the statue and ventured down.

The corridor below was filled with six statues of snake-men warriors, upon noticing that one of them was out of alignment, they moved it so that it stood straight. When that did nothing, they moved it back the way it was, but no further, then abandoned it and moved on.

The corridor led to an octagonal chamber with a black pond in the middle, and a stone door on each wall, except the SE one, that had a wooden door, and the SW one, that had an open corridor. Each of the doors had a pair of snake-men statues on each side, each wielding various instruments of war, torture, agriculture or science. They diligently noted what each of the statues was holding and Pier threw a dagger into the pond (from a safe distance), figuring that one of the statues held a dagger, perhaps throwing a dagger would cause the stone door next to it to open.

When Priest approached the pond, a mummified hand crawled out of it, but was immediately smashed by Priest’s hammer. However, a second hand emerged from the pond and scratched his leg, before being zapped by Pier’s magic missile. While they were trying to patch-up bleeding and screaming Priest, the turned skeletal snake-man crawled out of the pond and escaped to the SW corridor.

They did not manage to stabilize Priest, he bled out from his leg and died. Jessica and Pier took some of his equipment, including the silver ring and golden amulet, then threw his body into the pond. They were disappointed that this “sacrifice” did not cause any of the doors (which they did not investigate, even cursorily) to open.

Priest’s body was thrown into the pond still bearing his, backpack, waterskin, tinderbox, rations, holy symbol, 12 torches, oil, hammer, dagger, sling, leather armor, 20 pieces of gold, and notably, the map that led them to the dungeon.

Jessica and Pier decide to return to town. The journey lasts notably longer due to Jessica’s limp. On their way they meet an Acolyte (random encounter), lost in the woods after avoiding a marauding tribe of troglodytes. They talk with him a bit, but remain suspicious.

Finally they reach the town of Torsfeld. Jessica buys a salve to treat her leg, paying with one of the golden amulets, but sees no immediate improvement. Pier makes use of a bathhouse, then leaves the remaining amulets and silver ring to the local wizard, Antymon, to identify whether they are magical. The wizard can keep one of the amulets as payment for the service. The turns out to be magical, the amulets, not.

They wait in town until Pier’s sickness comes to an end. Jessica puts on the silver ring, her finger becomes longer, her nail turns into a bifurcated claw. She is unable to remove the ring. At that moment, Jessica has a blind right eye, numb left leg and a double-clawed right ring finger. The next day they recruit a fighter found in a dark alley, he calls himself Swordsman. While they are talking, the ring’s poison takes effect. Jessica panics and demand Swordsman to quickly cut off the finger, he obliges. While she is suffering from the poison and bleeding from the amputation, Pier and Swordsman prove unable to stabilize her, made worse by the fact that they spent one round on cutting the finger off. Jessica dies. Pier and Swordsman take all her stuff and leave her dead in the dark alley where she bled out.

They attempt to sell the silver ring to dwarven cloth merchants staying at the local tavern, but they’re not happy with the price offered. Swordsman takes the ring to Antymon and manages to sell it, after divulging the magical properties of the cursed ring, that he himself was witness to.

They find the Acolyte that they met earlier to join them on an adventure for their next venture into the Tomb. His name is Bogumił. Pier visits the bathhouse again, while Swordsman stays at the tavern. Swordsman is approached by five men-at-arms and brought to the local Horka (baron). He is interrogated on the dead girl and answers truthfully, that the death was not his doing, but caused by a cursed ring. However, he admitted to taking Jessica’s belongings, and during interrogation mentioned that he is not a Christian. He is disarmed, stripped naked, and brought to a dungeon. Meanwhile Pier returns to the tavern, and after learning from the innkeeper that Swordsman was taken by the Horka’s men, goes to the noble’s residence, where he is also promptly arrested, tied, interrogated (he corroborates the Swordsman’s story), then stripped naked and imprisoned.

After an undisclosed period of time, Swordsman is brought out and offered baptism, to which he agrees. He is baptized, then brought back to the dungeon.

Both characters are taken to the Horka, he states that the local wizard Antymon confirmed what they said about the cursed ring. However, for the crime of robbing a dead person, they are sentenced to have both their hands cut off and then lashed 50 times.

Pier perished during the lashing.

Swordsman perished during the amputation, then was lashed post-mortem.

Bogumił, not knowing the way to the Tomb, as all the adventurers who have ventured there ended up dead, and not having a map (which was left with Priest’s body), decides to forego adventuring, for now.

Entries into the Book of the Dead:

†Priest, killed by a demonic hand in the Serpent Tomb.

†Jessica, perished from poison and blood loss In a dark alley of Torsfeld

†Pier, perished whilst being lashed for robbing a deceased person

†Swordsman, perished while having his hands amputated for robbing a deceased person

[reverseblackholeofwords]

Magician and Moon (pt. 1)

The Tower and the Star

(August 3, 2017)

    Marvin shuffles his deck in the quiet of his room. Without his mask on, he can’t see the otherwise invisible markings on the cards that let him know what each one is before he turns it over. He uses those markings to tell others their fortune, but for himself, he never wears the mask. After a moment, he flips over a card and winces.

    The Tower, disaster.

    He draws another card, hoping this one will somehow be more encouraging. It isn’t.

    The Chariot, Henrik’s card.

    His stomach sinks, and he tucks the cards away again, getting up from the table. His cape swishes behind him as he goes to the door, grabs his mask hanging from his dresser, and puts it in place before stalking into the hallway. Something is wrong, he can feel it. The cabin is darker than normal, like the lights are dimmed, like there’s one too many electronics plugged in, like…

    Like something is draining the power. Or someone.

    “Schneep?” Marvin strides into the den to find Chase making tea.

    “Marv? What’s up?”

    The magician feels an uncomfortable buzzing in the back of his skull, a tightening feeling around his throat, and by the way that Chase seems to blanch suddenly tells Marvin that he feels it, too. “I need to find Schneep. I think he’s in trouble.”

    Marvin hears a strangled cry and suddenly, “I need your help! Save him!” Chase and Marvin share just a second-long glance before they both bolt in the direction of the recording room. Marvin hits the door hard. It’s locked.

    “Schneep! Let us in! Let us in!” He beats his fists against the door. He needs a spell, something to get him inside, but the buzzing in his skull washes away any coherent thoughts. “Henrik!”

    “Nothing I do is helping! Nothing is saving him, nothing! Jack, no, no my friend!” Henrik’s voice is gripped with fear, breaking with glitches and static. “No!” There’s loud beeping, and Marvin can feel the hairs on his arm raise with electricity in the air, and then… silence.

    Chase, trembling and eyes filling with tears, reaches for the door knob. “Henrik?” The handle turns with ease. They push inside and find Henrik’s set-up in pace, with the medical equipment gathered around an operating table. And they find Jack, eyes closed as the heart monitor sings a long, flat tone, but Schneep is gone. Green electric sparks fall from the recording equipment as flashes of red, green, and blue scatter across the screens before they go black.

    And then a message from Anti. To the fans, to the Egos, Marvin can’t tell. It feels like Anti is speaking directly to him. When the glitch’s image cuts out again, he feels Chase take his hand from behind as the final words grate through the speakers, “See you soon.”

    Chase goes to Jack’s side then, smoothing a hand over his hair, damp with sweat from his fever, but now his skin is cold. “M-Marvin?”

    The magician’s vision has gone blurry staring into the void of the camera lense, but when he hears his name called, he shakes his head and goes to Chase. Jack is dead, and it takes a moment for Marvin to fully wrap his mind around it.

    Anti won.

    Reaching into his cape, Marvin summons his tarot deck into his hand, and he doesn’t even have to look to pull out the card he has in mind.

    The Star, a card of hope and renewal. He places it on Jack’s chest and moves his old friend’s hands to cross them over the card, leaving his own hand on top for a moment as he mutters a quiet spell. A golden shimmer bubbles beneath Jack’s skin, and just a touch of warmth is returned. “He’ll sleep,” Marvin tells Chase. “I don’t know if he’ll wake up, but… there’s always hope.”

    Chase, tears dripping freely down his cheeks now, nods his head and then glances towards the discarded blue hat and face mask lying on the floor. “Wh-what about Schneep?”

    Marvin kneels down and picks up the doctor’s effects. They’re still warm. “I can use these to locate him, but it will take a few hours.” He stands, looking anywhere but at Chase. “You should tell Jackie when he gets home.”

    The magician begins to walk away before he feels Chase’s arms wrap around his middle and squeeze him tight. “We’ll get him back. We will, and then he can fix Jack. And it’ll all be okay again.”

    Marvin smiles ruefully. Chase always was the one with the most hope. If anyone could make that Star card work for Jack, it would be him. “You stay here with Jack in the meantime, and I’ll start my spell.” He glances back over his shoulder at the table where Jack is sleeping. “Just talk to him a little, maybe he’ll hear you.”

    Chase draws back and nods. “Yeah, I can talk to him. I can do that.” He pulls up a chair beside Jack and sits down, resting a hand on Jack’s arm. “Don’t worry, Jack. We’ll have you better in no time! Just wait and see.”

    Marvin leaves the recording room and stumbles back to him room where he falls to the floor, the cap and mask flying onto the floor in front of him. Panic chokes his cries from leaving his throat so he folds in on himself there on his knees and trembles until the attack subsides on its own. It doesn’t matter, does it, if he finds where Schneep is or not? None of them are strong enough to take on Anti, maybe not even all of them together.

    They’d just be walking right into a trap.

    When Marvin looks around, his eyes light on a particular tome on his shelf of magical books, The Book of Phantom, to be exact. He knows of a spell that he looked over briefly before, one of the darkest ones in the entire book. It’s a modified version of the spell that Phantom himself uses to trap people’s souls within the orb on the end of his cane.

    A spell for sending people to the mirror dimension.

    Marvin knows the cost of that spell is high, leaving the user marked in some way forever, but to get his friend back? It seems like a small price to pay. So, as he starts the simple locator spell, he snatches the book off of the shelf and turns to the correct page. Even if it takes months, he’s going to learn how to do this, and when it comes time to face Anti again, Marvin will be ready.

[chemicalmagecraft]

The Gamer Hero, Deku Chapter 3

A/N: We got over 2,000 views in... what, like a month? That's good, right? Thanks for that and all the likes and stuff. Also, some of you left really funny reviews, so thanks for that.

xoxoxo

"Your Quirk is really weird," the green-haired doctor said. He didn't act too serious, so that didn't surprise me, but...

"Shouldn't you be a little more professional about this?" I asked. I was actually really excited. Who'd have thought that I'd get taken to a Quirk counselor!

"Alright," he said, then adjusted his glasses. "In my professional opinion, your Quirk is really weird. I think it's probably Mutant because it's always on, but it doesn't seem to have any effect on your appearance and manifested very late, even though most Mutant Quirks are usually present from the beginning. So you say you can see titles? Tell me what it says about me, please.

Bamboo Doctor

LV 10

Takenaka Saburou

"Bamboo Doctor, level ten, Takenaka Saburou," I recited.

"Interesting," he said, then turned his fingers into bamboo. "The title even provided a clue to my Quirk, Bamboo Shoot... What's yours say?"

"The Gamer, level six, Midoriya Izuku. It used to be level five, but I got a level up off a quest." He wrote something down on his clipboard.

"Okay. So you said that you have a main menu?"

"Yeah. I've only looked at one of the menus on it yet, but it looked like it worked like a game.

"Can you open it?"

"Sure. Main Menu!" I found out after telling my mom about my Quirk that I could trigger my skills and things by saying them out loud, too.

Status Screen

Skill List

Skill Grimoir

Inventory

Party Options

Map

Quest Log

Options

"Huh," I said.

"What is it?" Takenaka-sensei asked me.

"I have a new menu that I didn't have before called Skill Grimoir. I got something called the Skill Grimoir system as the reward for a quest, so I guess that's what that is."

"Okay... why don't you just tell me what they are?"

"Status Screen, Skill List, Skill Grimoir, Inventory, Party Options, Map, Quest Log, and Options."

"Y'know what, just open all the menus and tell me whatever you think's important. You seem like a smart kid. I trust you"

"Thanks, I think." I heard a ping.

A quest has been created!

Tutorial Level

You really should learn what your new Quirk can do. Open up all the menus.

Completion: 500 EXP, 100 Skill Fragments, Increased closeness with Bakugou

That last one was a little out there, but... "I just got a tutorial quest."

"What?"

"I got a quest telling me to look at my menus.”

"Well then do that."

"Alright." I clicked the Status Screen button. "First I have the Status Screen."

Name: Midoriya Izuku

Title: The Gamer

Level: 6

HP: 325/325

MP: 400/400

STR: 10

VIT: 12

DEX: 11

INT: 30

WIS: 12

LUK: 11

POINTS: 5

MONEY: 0 Yen

SKILL FRAGMENTS: 3500

"It shows all of the things that my title shows, though it lists them name, title, level instead of title, level, name. After that, it shows my current HP, MP, some stats, points that I think I get five of per level and can be used to raise my stats, money, and Skill Fragments. I got the Skill Fragments when I unlocked the Skill Grimoir, so I think that they're linked. I can also raise my stats by doing activities that you would expect them to be used. For example, studying raises INT and stamina exercise raises VIT"

"Alright." He handed me a piece of paper. "Write down your current stats so the readers don't have to read you repeating those, too." What? "Next menu?"

"Skill List." The Skill List opened. "A list of my skills appeared with little icons representing them."

"Skills?"

"I got some things called skills. I guess you could say that they're like spells in a game? That's not exactly right, but I don't know what else to call them. I get them by doing certain things and they seem to be able to level up if I use them enough."

"Alright, so what skills do you have?"

"There's Observe, which gives me a text box with a bunch of information on what I use it on."

"Scan, cool. Do you get, like, a background or just what it is?"

"I only get a description of objects, but when I use it on people, it gives me a box a little like my Status Screen, only for them."

"Okay, can you use it on me, then write my Observe thing on the back of that paper?" I used Observe.

Name: Takenaka Saburou

Title: Bamboo Doctor

Level: 10

HP: 600/600

MP: 650/650

STR: 10

VIT: 12

DEX: 13

INT: 32

WIS: 49

LUC: 14

Quirk: Bamboo Shoot

Emotions: Interested, curious

"I also have Meditate, which I got by meditating."

"As one does."

"It allows me to restore my HP and MP as well as train my WIS."

"As one does."

"I got three skills called Sense Danger, Sense Bloodthirst, and Physical Endurance when I got attacked by a villain. Those three are..." I tapped on their skills, opening their windows.

Sense Danger (Passive) LV1 EXP 99.99%

A skill that allows one to sense impending danger in one's surroundings.

Sense Bloodthirst (Passive) LV1 EXP 51.08%

A skill that allows one to sense other's ill will towards one.

Physical Endurance (Passive) LV1 EXP 35.24%

The body's toughness increases, reducing damage from physical attacks.

3% decrease in damage taken by physical attacks.

"Different. They say they're passive."

"So they're always on?"

"I guess. I have a skill called Tear that lets me tear things and..." I noticed that I had no idea what the first two were. "Two skills called Gamer's Body and Gamer's Mind. Hang on, I'll see what those two do."

Gamer's Body (Passive) LV MAX

Grants a body that allows the user to live life like a game.

Gamer's Mind (Passive) LV MAX

Allows the user to calmly think things through. Allows a peaceful state of mind. Grants immunity to psychological status effects.

"Both passive. One gives me the body to live life like a game, which I think might be why I didn't have a bruise after the villain attack, and the other makes me constantly calm. Both are at max level. They're probably a manifestation of my Quirk."

"Okay. Sounds legit. What next?" I completed the copies of the text boxes that he'd asked of me. "I feel like I should feel insulted by the fact that I have the strength of a fifteen-year-old, but I've literally never touched a weight before so I can't really complain. So what's the next menu thing?"

"It's the Skill Grimoir that I got from a quest."

"Okay, crack that baby open!"

"Skill Grimoir," I said. A glowing ball of green light appeared in front of me and shifted into the shape of a book. It then dulled, turning into a book with a blank green cover. "It's a book," I said.

"I can see that," he told me, then wrote something down.

"You can see the book?" I asked.

"Yup. Weird, I wasn't able to see any of the other things... Open that thing and see what's inside." I opened the book and saw a list of skills with a short description of what they were and the words "Skill Fragments" followed by a number for each of them.

"I think it's a skill shop. There's a list of skills and what's probably a Skill Fragment price."

"Well the best way to test that hypothesis would be to try and buy one," he told me.

"Okay," I said. I looked over the skills for one that looked interesting within my price range and immediately saw one that was worth exactly as much Skill Fragments as the Quest was going to give me.

Mana Bolt (Active) Skill Fragments: 100

A skill that attacks by shooting a ball of mana.

Attack power increases with INT

Range 10m

Hello, beautiful. I tapped it. A blue box appeared.

You are attempting to learn the skill 'Mana Bolt.' This will cost you 100 Skill Fragments. Confirm purchase?

YES/NO

"It's definitely a skill shop. I just got a message telling me to confirm my purchase of Mana Bolt," I told him.

"Well now we should see what happens when you purchase a skill." I tapped yes. The words on the Mana Bolt section began to glow, then the light shot into me. I felt the knowledge enter my head as the words were erased. When they were fully gone, the rest of the text shifted so that there wasn't a gap where Mana Bolt was.

Mana Bolt (Active) LV1 EXP 0.00% MP 5

A skill that attacks by shooting a ball of mana.

Attack power increases with INT and skill level.

Range 10m

"I learned it. I can now shoot mana out of my palms as an attack."

"Mana?"

"MP, I'm pretty sure. The skill seemed good because it has more power the higher my INT is and I have thirty INT. It also only costs five MP."

He sighed. "Well I'm going to have to get some targets for you to test that out on. What next?"

"I'd like to know what happens if I try to open my Skill Grimoir while my Skill Grimoir's already open. I can't close it like my other windows. Or I just haven't found the X. Skill Grimoir." The current Skill Grimoir burst into motes of light that faded from existence as a second Skill Grimoir appeared with the same animation. I looked through it and it was identical to the other one. "I guess it just gives me a new one. That's good to know in case I lose it."

"What happens if you damage it?" Takenaka-sensei asked. I ripped the corner off of one of the pages. The book immediately burst into motes of light, like the old book. "Found the X," he said, and wrote some more things down. "Next menu?"

"Inventory," I said. A box appeared in front of me. This one didn't have any text and instead consisted of a grid and a separate box showing a silhouette of a person with a bunch of boxes that had my clothing in it. "I'm pretty sure that it works like a video game inventory. There's also an equipment screen, which I'm sure is what it is because it has my clothes for the equipment."

He tossed me his pen. "Only one way to find out about the other one, though," he told me. I touched the pen to the box and it was swallowed by a distortion of space... or something. "That looked so cool from my point of view." He held up his clipboard as if to write something down. He stared at it for a second, then looked up and said, "Can I have my pen back?" I handed him his pen and he said, "Right, now why don't you just mess around with it for a bit and see what happens. Maybe start by seeing if you can store something big, like that chair." I got up and focused. As I'd hoped, the inventory box moved where I commanded it to without me having to touch it. It swallowed up the chair, then spat it back out when I told it to. I tested to see how far away from me it would go and found that it stopped just over my arm's length away from my body. I then made it shrink down to one slot (with the equipment screen disappearing) and expand until it fully blocked my body from Takenaka-sensei's. Thankfully it was translucent, so I could still see him.

"Try throwing the pen at me again, " I said. He threw the pen and it was intercepted by my inventory, vanishing. I pulled the pen out of the inventory, closed the box, and threw the pen back to him. "I'm pretty sure I could catch projectiles with this."

"You're probably right, though you might want to be careful with it. Just in case. Next menu?"

"Party Options," I said. I looked at the resulting box. "It just brought up a box telling me that I need to form a party to get party options."

"Well then try inviting me to your party."

"Invite Takenaka Saburou to party," I intoned. He immediately jumped out of his chair and started protecting his face with his arms, the forearms of which turned into bamboo. "Are you okay?" I asked him.

"There's a box! It's blue and floaty and 2-D and appeared out of nowhere!" After a bit, he calmed down enough to sit back down and return his arms to normal. He cleared his throat, adjusted his glasses, and said, "That never happened. Right, so it says 'Midoriya Izuku has invited you to the party. Accept?' then 'Yes' or 'No.' I'm guessing I should press the yes button." He pressed what I assumed was the yes button. I couldn't see his box for some weird reason. I immediately got a notification that he had accepted a party invite. "Right, so I'm going to try to do stuff that being in a party would logically allow me to do while you look into the party options," he told me.

"Okay," I said. I opened up the Party Options box again. "I can see all the members, send them messages, bring them up on the map, and kick them." I noticed a button at the top and pressed it. "There's also a second tab for other options. Looks like I can change the party name and turn on experience sharing, though that one has a warning that it won't work if there's a level difference of ten or higher. What did you-" I was interrupted by a ping.

Takenaka: sup bro

"I found party chat," he told me. "It says that there're options for sending messages to one person or a whole group and also a voice chat. So I guess you're also a telepath of sorts. I can also open up a status menu that implies I can get points from leveling up like you, though I'm assuming I have to be in your party to get that. That's probably it for parties, which is a sentence I thought I'd never say. Leave party." A box showed up telling me that Takenaka Saburou left the party. "Next thing?"

"Map," I said. "I feel like I shouldn't have to say that I got a map. It shows me where I am and has dots that I'm pretty sure are people. Quest Log now?" He wrote something down and nodded. "It's also pretty straightforward. It has a tab for completed quests and ongoing quests. They both work like MMO quests, even have checklists of what I have to do." He wrote it down. "Onto the Options. I can mess with sound, which is interesting because I apparently have background music that's currently muted." I turned the music on. It was actually really nice. It was relaxed, just the kind of music you'd expect in a tutorial level. "I could listen to this for a while. Apparently I have an option between retro-sounding and orchestral music, which is nice of my Quirk to provide. Says here I can open my music up to party members or everyone." I pressed the everyone button. "Do you hear it?"

He bobbed his head. "Yup, that's tutorial music. You should probably switch that back to just you before you leave, by the way."

I switched it back and continued. "I can invert the Y-axis, which I will never ever do ever. Oh, those are subtitles. I can turn subtitles on." I did it. "I don't suppose you know any other languages so I can see if it translates it?" I saw that even my words had subtitles. Despite the fact that they were at the bottom of my vision and there was no way I should've been able to read them, I could see them perfectly fine, like with my health bar. He said some things in... was that Spanish? At any rate, I was able to read the subtitles giving me first what he said and then in parentheses the translation (I'm Spanish on my mother's side). "I saw the translation, which is awesome. That's about it. What now?"

"Well we've gotta see what that Mana Bolt skill ya got was, but first I've gotta tell you some things. I'm a Quirk counselor, remember? Your Quirk is pretty geared toward heroics, which is good because you said you're trying for Yuuei, right?"

"Yes, I'm really hoping to get into Yuuei even with my late start."

"Right, well I'm going to send them a letter of recommendation. It won't be enough on its own to get you into Yuuei or even get one of the recommended spots, but they're probably going to be looking out for you in the entrance exam. You'll still have to actually try, but doing your best should be enough. Next, public Quirk usage laws. You haven't had to deal with these so far, but you're going to have to remember not to use your Quirk in public. At least, don't make it obvious you're using your Quirk." He winked at me. "'Course, those laws only apply to active Quirk usage. You shouldn't have to worry too much about passive skills, though if they're really obvious like, say, super speed then you might want to exercise caution."

"I feel like super speed would be an active skill that drains a lot of MP," I said.

"That's beside the point. Another thing you shouldn't have to worry about is your Skill Grimoir. While you can't make it in public, Quirk usage laws state that Quirk-created objects are fine to bring into the public if they aren't something really out there like a glowing magical sword, so long as you don't purposefully use any anomalous effects that the object in question might have. In other words, you can't buy anything and don't break it on purpose, but nobody can do anything about you looking through the pages."

"Got it," I said.

"Right, I'm also supposed to recommend what I think is the best way to develop your Quirk. You don't actually have to listen to this, but I suggest you do. You should save your points for now. They'll probably be more useful in the future when you're trying to go from one hundred to one hundred and one than now when you're going from ten to eleven. Just save them for a rainy day or something. I suggest you also only spend Skill Fragments on skills you're absolutely sure about. Something tells me that it won't be as bad with those, but you should still spend them wisely. I also think you should get a healing spell and something defensive, like a barrier. Another great thing to get would be something like elemental manipulation which can have a lot of uses. Try also to see if you can make new skills by doing something to your old skills, like seeing if you can charge mana bolt or maybe trying to release the mana differently. That's about all I can think of right now, except maybe grind your stats some more before taking the entrance exam, so let's move on to seeing what Mana Bolt can do." He got up and had me follow him. We walked to a sort of gymnasium that was reinforced. "This," he said, gesturing around the room, "is the practical testing area. It's designed to withstand the punishment some of the more drastic Quirks can dish out." He pointed at an archery target standing in one corner of the room. "Give it a shot. We'll test what happens at different lengths away from the target to see the range on that thing."

"Actually, it's ten meters. The skill said so," I told him.

He sighed. "Well then just hit it at ten meters and see what happens."

I took aim. I held out my right hand, palm facing the target. I'd never done it before, but channeling my mana to my hand felt so natural. "Mana Bolt!" I shouted. A ball of sky blue light shot from my hand and hit the target dead-on, blasting a hole in the center of the target. Takenaka-sensei whistled. I thought back to what he said about trying to make new skills with my existing skills. I closed my eyes, focusing. Getting Mana Bolt didn't just let me shoot mana from my palms. It gave me the ability to feel and use mana. So instead of releasing the mana this time when I used Mana Bolt, I let it pool up. When it felt ready to burst, I opened my eyes and looked at my creation. It was a giant ball of blue light. I narrowed my eyes in thought. "It doesn't feel quite right," I muttered. "Maybe if I..." I started spinning the ball. After a few seconds, I released it and it flew at the target. When it hit the target, it exploded violently, destroying the target completely and making a crater in the floor. "Oops," I said.

"Don't worry about it, that happens a lot," Takenaka-sensei told me. "You're not in trouble or anything, though this is certainly one of the more impressive craters I've seen. Did you just make a new skill?"

"Yeah," I said. I looked at the text box that popped up after I threw the skill.

You have made a new skill. What would you like to name it?

"Spiral Mana Bomb," I said. Now that I had named it, a proper skill box popped up

Spiral Mana Bomb (Active) LV1 EXP 4.27% MP 25

A skill that pools mana and spins it for increased damage.

20% defense penetration.

600% damage increase

4 second charge time.

Can be charged for an additional 10 seconds to increase damage.

Additional 25 MP used per second.

"It's powerful, but it has a charge time so I won't be able to use it on the fly. It also eats a lot more mana than Mana Bolt. I can only just barely use it at the highest power when at full mana."

"You mean that wasn't full power?" he asked incredulously.

"That was about four seconds, which is the minimum charge time," I replied.

"I know I said it was fine that you blew up the floor, but could you please not do that in here? Also you should be really careful with that."

"I figured that giant bombs are a good thing not to throw around everywhere."

"Right, good. That's about everything for today. If you ever think of any questions or concerns about your Quirk, remember that my job is literally to help you with that, so..."

"Got it. Goodbye, and thanks for everything."

"Bye kid. I expect to hear about you doing hero stuff soon." I smiled at him as I left.

xoxoxo

I couldn't sleep the previous night. Today was the first day that All Might was going to teach me hero work! I ended up staying up all night grinding my INT, WIS, LUC, and seeing if I could increase Physical Endurance by biting myself.

Through repeated studying, your INT has increased by one!

Through repeated meditation, your WIS has increased by one! (x3)

Through repeated games of chance, your LUC has increased by one! (x5)

The level of the skill Physical Endurance has increased by one! (x8)

A skill has been created through special action! By repeatedly biting things, the skill 'Bite' has been created!

The level of the skill Bite has increased by one! (x8)

That was a productive night and yet I somehow didn't feel tired at all. It was pretty obvious that it'd be harder to upgrade stats as they increased in level, but I was prepared to deal with that. When the alarm I'd set to go off when I was supposed to wake up went off I got up from my desk and went downstairs to make myself breakfast. After I was done getting ready for the morning, I went to wait by the door and started meditating. Right after my WIS increased by one again, I heard a knock at the door. "I'll get it," I yelled at my mom excitedly. This was it! All Might was going to train me! I opened my door to see...

"Hey, ya shitty Deku!" Kacchan yelled at me. I almost laughed with how suddenly the music changed from calm, homey music to heavy metal. He didn't look like he was too angry, so I used Observe on him.

Emotions: Relieved, regretful

What? "What do you want?" I asked him cautiously.

"The hag told me she heard from your mom that you finally got your Quirk. Took you fucking long enough. I figured that even if we haven't been the best of friends in a while, that's the sort of thing you're supposed to celebrate, so I... wanted to take you to the arcade or something. Maybe blow stuff up and whatever you can do later." Was he blushing? The emotions thing changed to also include embarrased, so probably.

"You certainly changed your tone about me pretty fast. Why do you want to be my friend now?"

"Shut the fuck up, shitty Deku!" Kacchan shouted. "It's not like I was worried about a Quirkless loser like you getting himself killed 'cause he can't do anything like blow shit up or punch the air so hard it makes shockwaves!" Huh, that was actually pretty sweet for him. Still, though...

"So you were worried about me and wanted to discourage me from being a hero because I didn't have a Quirk," I realized. "You do realize that there are heroes who can get by totally fine without using their Quirks, right? The pro hero Mandalay has Telepath, which lets her send one-way telepathic messages to people, and yet I've seen videos of her taking down villains. Eraserhead's Quirk doesn't work at all on Mutant Quirks, yet I've still heard about him taking down Mutant villains. I've also heard about villains still giving him trouble with his Quirk being used on them, meaning that they were skilled enough to fight without their Quirks. Recovery Girl was in the top twenty at one point and her Quirk heals people, which has negative use in most one-on-one fights. There are even more examples of people with Quirks that are useless or finicky in combat who can beat villains. Heck, a relative of mine who is Quirkless used to be a vigilante, and actually took down villains! A Quirkless person could totally be a hero, though me being a Quirkless hero is kind of not an issue anymore."

"Alright, alright, I'm sorry! There, I fucking said it! Now why don't we go blow shit up to blow off steam? I bet you could use some practice with your Quirk," he said.

"I'd like to, surprisingly enough, but I already made plans for today."

"What kind of plans?"

"Uhhh-" I was very glad to be interrupted by a familiar voice.

"Young Midoriya, is that a friend of yours?" All Might asked as he walked up in his civilian form.

"Yeah, I guess so, this is Kacchan," I told him.

"Well hello, young Kacchan!" he greeted.

"Deku I swear to God don't get everyone to start calling me Kacchan again," Kacchan growled at me. "It took half a year for everyone in first grade to stop calling me Kacchan." All Might started laughing. "And don't you dare start, fucking Skeletor! My name is Bakugou Katsuki, got that?"

"Got it memorized?" I said, with the appropriate gesture.

"Deku stop making fucking videogame references you fucking nerd. And what are you doing here, Papyrus?" What was that about videogame references, Kacchan?

"I was impressed by young Midoriya's courage in the sludge villain attack, so I decided to train him when he told me he wanted to go to Yuuei," All Might explained.

Kacchan burst out into laughter. "Deku's going to actually train for Yuuei? Fucking finally!"

"I thought you didn't want me to go to Yuuei when we thought I didn't have a Quirk?" I said.

"Yeah, but I thought that you just saying that you wanted to be a hero and then doing nothing to accomplish that except take fucking notes about everybody's Quirks, like that'll SOMEHOW MAKE YOU INVINCIBLE WAS FUCKING STUPID FUCKING DEKU!"

"Well why didn't you say anything?"

"I was already trying to get you to give up. Telling you to take karate lessons would've been a mixed message!"

All Might cleared his throat. Then started coughing up blood again. I really needed to see if I could fix that a bit with a healing spell or something. "As I said, I decided to train young Midoriya. My name is Yagi Toshinori."

"How the fuck does a fucking beanpole like you know anything about fitness anyway?" Kacchan asked.

"I used to be in quite good shape," All Might explained. "I was in a very unfortunate accident and while I did survive, parts of my internal organs, unfortunately, did not. Now, I'm afraid that Young Midoriya and I must be leaving. It will take a lot of effort to get Midoriya in shape for Yuuei and I would also like to help him with his Quirk."

"You two got room for one more? I'm going to Yuuei too, so being in better shape'll probably be a good idea. Plus, this way I get to see what Deku's Quirk is too."

"If young Midoriya is fine with it, I would be glad to help develop another hero in the making."

"It's fine," I said. It actually felt really nice knowing that I could be friends with Kacchan again. "Let's go."

On the way there, All Might asked about both of our Quirks. Kacchan answered first, then looked at me like he really wanted to hear what mine was. When I was finished, he snorted and said, "Your Quirk is really fucking weird. I guess I shouldn't be too surprised that a video game nerd like you would have a Quirk like that."

"Be kind, young Bakugou. Though I must say, it is really weird," All Might said. "I'll probably have to move some things around with the training, but this could actually be really good." He stopped. "We're here." Kacchan and I looked up at the huge piles of trash strewn across the beach. "Trash gets washed in by the current on this beach, and people just dump their stuff here because there's already so much trash. Fighting villains might be a part of hero work, but so is community service. By the end of these ten months, this beach will be spotless. That will be part of your training. I also have the paperwork necessary to be a Quirk tutor, so a secluded place like this with no people will be fine for the two of you to train your Quirks."

"So we gotta clean this shit up, right? Got it!" Kacchan exclaimed, then did that exploding fist punch thing that he really likes to do.

"You go ahead, Kacchan. I have to talk to Yagi-sensei about my Quirk," I told him. I walked over to All Might and pulled out my Skill Grimoir. Once Kacchan was out of earshot I said, "I think Kacchan would be okay if you told him everything, All Might. He's a big fan of yours too, so he'd probably keep it a secret if you told him. Also, could you please look this over while we're training?"

"Alright, young Midoriya. Is this that Skill Grimoir that you spoke of?"

"Yes. I discovered that if you say bookmark while holding it open to a page, a bookmark will appear on that page. Would it be possible for you to read some of it and bookmark anything that you think I might find useful? Be sure to pay close attention to anything to do with healing, defense, barriers, movement enhancement, strength enhancement, elemental manipulation, teleportation, flight, and anything that uses the words 'super mode' and 'limit break.'"

"Don't worry, young Midoriya. It may seem odd to know that an old man like myself has played video games, but I have played quite a few. I still know some cool 'strats' and 'hax,'" he said, giving me the thumbs up as he accepted the book. There was something really hilarious about All Might talking video games. "Now perhaps we should fill in young Bakugou." We walked over to where Kacchan was lifting a tire. "Young Bakugou, I must speak to you."

Kacchan looked up from his tire. "What is it?" he asked.

"I haven't exactly been entirely honest with you. It is true that I wanted to train young Midoriya because he impressed me, but that isn't the only thing. I was also going to pass my Quirk on to him."

Kacchan blinked. "I'd call that a load of crap, but Deku's Quirk makes him a fucking video game, so now I'm just curious about why the fuck Deku would want that."

"I am, believe it or not, a pro hero. The accident that I told you about that left me like this was the attack of a powerful villain. My Quirk allows me to stockpile massive amounts of energy, which lets me still do hero work for three hours each day."

"WHY THE EVERLOVING FUCK WOULD YOU DO THAT TO YOURSELF YOU FUCKING MORON?!" Kacchan shouted. "IF YOU'RE SO FUCKING BANGED UP WHY COULD YOU POSSIBLY THINK THAT FUCKING HERO WORK IS A GOOD FUCKING IDEA!?"

"Because," All Might said, "my hero name is All Might." With that, he went into his muscle form. Kacchan's mouth dropped. "If I, the symbol of peace, were to retire, there would be chaos! That is why I would like to train young Midoriya here to be my successor!"

"Dammit, this is going to have to be a secret, isn't it?" Kacchan grumbled.

"Exactly, young Bakugou!" All Might said, then reverted back to his regular form. "At least, until such time as I retire. Then I'm going to probably have to reveal to everyone why I retired."

"Okay, fine. Your secret's safe with me. Now why haven't you given Deku your Quirk yet? Shouldn't he have enough time to practice with it?"

"About that... my Quirk, One For All, is rather... powerful. The backlash would blow young Midoriya's limbs off unless he gains enough muscle to properly contain it. As such, the training is necessary to prevent that."

I blinked. "You mean I could blow my arms and legs off if I don't train hard enough?" Ping.

A quest has been created!

Roaring Muscles

As you are now, the power of One For All would immediately destroy you. Get at least 50 ViT before the Yuuei entrance exam or do it without One For All.

Completion: One For All, 5000 EXP, 5000 Skiil Fragments, Increased closeness with Bakugou, Increased closeness with Toshinori.

Failure: Decreased closeness with Bakugou, Decreased closeness with Toshinori.

"I just got a Quest to get fifty VIT in ten months with One For All listed as a reward. That's probably sufficient, right?"

"I suppose that if your Quest says it's okay, I'll just give you One For All then. That being said, perhaps the two of you should start working now?"

"Right!" we both said at the same time, then went off to pick up junk.

xoxoxo

A/N: Yeah I'm trash for fics where Bakugou is Midoriya's friend. That being said, I'd like to say that after the time skip, Midoriya will most likely have stats close to or over fifty in all categories. It just makes sense to me that he'd be a jack-of-all-stats with his intelligence and All Might's training. I unfortunately can't think of any good skills that he'd get for getting fifty aside from Mana Affinity from The Gamer and the other stat increase skills from Ryuuji's The Games We Play, and I feel a little leery about just taking the skills from The Games We Play, no matter how awesome that fic was. I'd also like to put some focus on Elementals, but that would involve having a system a bit like TGWP, too. I was wondering what to do about those issues, then I realized that you guys might be able to help me there. So please tell me if you're fine with more things like TGWP, or if you just want me to flat-out make sure I'm not copying anything aside from The Gamer and BNHA. I figure that if you guys say it's okay, then I don't have to worry about you guys getting mad at me about it. Also, for those of you who haven't read TGWP, you really should. It's what got me into The Gamer in the first place and it's actually way better than The Gamer, at least in my opinion. That being said, I'll see you guys next time!

[jorjag625797-blog]

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[erwr03]

The Unwilling Avenger

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Warnings: None so far!

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FORWARD: https://erwr03.tumblr.com/post/184695469399/the-unwilling-avenger   (Starts you at the begining)

Previous Part: https://erwr03.tumblr.com/post/184697203449/the-unwilling-avenger

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Wattpad: https://www.wattpad.com/user/erwr03

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 The Unwilling Avenger

Chapter Two: Midtown High

             I got up really early Monday to do my hair and makeup. After I had finished, I grabbed my backpack, and left. I had practiced driving to Midtown three times since I had left the football field, but I still put it in my GPS just in case. There was more traffic in the morning, which I had planned for. I arrived about two hours before school officially started, which was my plan. I enter the school building at 6:15. I head for the front office and tell the lady I’m a new student. In forty-five minutes, I’m walking back out with a fresh, official schedule. I still have over an hour before school starts, so I ask for directions to the training room. The lady tells me, and I thank her before trudging my way towards the other end of the school. I find what I’m looking for, the name ‘Sydney Baker, AT’ printed on the door tells me I’ve found the right place. I knock before placing my hand on the door handle.

           “Come in!” I hear, and I push open the door to see the biggest training room I’ve ever been in.

           “Woah.” I say, looking around.

           A tall woman approaches me, with a I-need-more-coffee face on. “Can I help you?” She asks, eyeing me.

           “Hi yes, my name is Raine, I just transferred in this morning and I-“

           She turns, pulling a paper packet off her desk. “Fill these out and have a doctor fill them and sign off and then we can get you playing. What sports do you play?” She asks, sitting down at her desk and booting up her computer.

           “Oh no, you misunderstand. I’m here to see if you need any football trainers,” I shuffle around in my bag until I find the paper I’m looking for, “this is a letter of recommendation from my former head trainer in Tennessee.” She takes the paper from me, reading silently. I look around as she reads, taking in all their equipment. It all looks state of the art, brand-new. I’m focusing in on their ice machine when she clears her throat.

           “You come very highly recommended.” She states, looking over the letter once again. “If you’re as good as they say you are then you can come work for me. We don’t get a lot of kids who come to train so it’d just be me and you.” I nod, grinning.

           “Thank you so much. I love training, it’s my entire life to be honest.” I say, shifting the weight of my backpack.

           “The only requirements are that you have good grades, come to practice twice a week, and of course all games, here and away.” I nod, expecting no less.

           “I’ll be here. Do you need me today?” I ask, eager to get my hands on all the new equipment I’m spying.

           “If you want. Practice starts as soon as the school day is over.” I nod and shake her hand.

           “I’ll be here.” I say, turning to leave.

               I get to the front entrance with ten minutes to spare. I see Ned and Peter standing with a tall girl. Ned sees me first, waving. “Hey!” He yells, causing Peter and the girl to turn and wave at me too.

           “Hey!” I say, jogging to close the distance between all of us. “Sorry I’m late. I had somethings to do before school started.”

           “It’s cool. MJ, this is Raine. Raine, MJ.” Ned says, nodding towards the girl.

           She sticks her hand out. “So, you’re the pretty truck girl these guys couldn’t shut up about all weekend. Well they weren’t wrong about you being pretty. I’m MJ.” I take her hand as the boys both protest.

           “Hey!”

           “We did not talk about her all weekend!”

           I laugh at them both while MJ smiles.

           “Oh yeah, you all didn’t tell me about her milk chocolate eyes, perfect teeth, and perfectly curly hair? Did I dream you all telling me that stuff? Because it all seems to be true.” Her eyebrows raise, and I laugh some more.

           “MJ!” Peter groans, and Ned nervously chuckles.

           “Hey, I’m more than okay to hear about her over Liiiiiz, Parker.” MJ teases. This time Ned laughs.

           “Wait who’s Liz?” I ask, looking between them all.

           “No one!” Peter quickly quips up, turning red. “Will you please not say that so loud?” He asks, looking over his shoulders.

           “Liz,” Peter makes shushing noise towards MJ, but she continues, “is the love of Peter’s life. He’s had a crush on her since freshman year, but she’s popular, a senior, and doesn’t know that Peter even exists. So, him and Ned stalk her every chance they get.” MJ dishes, much to Peter’s horror.

           “Ooo well then I feel special if I made such an impression on you two if I trumped Liz.” I say, grinning, Peter smiles at me. MJ asks for my schedule and I hand it over to her, we all start walking in what I guess is the direction of my class.

           “I have second period general physics with you. These two both have advanced physics.” She says jerking her finger towards the boys who have fallen in step behind us. They’re whispering to each other but nod when she mentions them. She stops walking, and we all come to a grinding halt. “This is your class room Raine, Algebra II with Lackluster. I’ll pick you up after and take you to physics.” I nod but the boys both start to kick up a storm.

           “Hey, I can come get her no problem!” Ned says, while Peter nods.

           “You two both have class on the other side of the school. And I have our next class with her, so it makes sense. You two can drool over her later.” MJ replies, and the boys complain again.

           “Thanks guys, but I really don’t need y’all to make an extra trip just for me. I’ll be fine with MJ.” They both look disappointed but agree. We all say our goodbyes as the bell rings. I duck into the class and quickly scan the room. There seems to be two seats left, one in the front where a bunch of the stoners seem to be, and one near the middle where a bunch of popular kids seem to be sitting. I take my chances on the popular kids, taking my seat.

               By the time my last three classes roll around I’m already tired. But as soon as I see Peter I perk back up. I see him waiting near the door for my last class, presumably to pick me up. But his eyes seemed trained on something out of my range of vision. I walk towards him looking in the direction he is. I get nearer to him when I see a pretty girl around the corner. She is pulling books out of her locker the front of the locker has magnetic letters that spell ��Liz’ out on the front. And suddenly, what he’s staring at makes sense. I sneak up by him, whispering “Whatcha looking at Peter?” In his ear, scaring him.

           “Oh! Huh? I wasn’t staring at her-anything! I wasn’t staring at anything!” He says, all jumpy. A soft smile plays on my lips.

           “She really is pretty. Do you talk to her? Like have you tried?” I ask, falling in step with him.

           “Oh no. I think she likes Flash, they’re together a lot.” He says, shrugging. “Besides MJ was over playing it. I didn’t have a huge crush on her.”

           “Did? That’s past tense Pete.” He shrugs, his fingers looped through his backpack straps.

           “She’s pretty, but you know as time goes on, I realize being pretty doesn’t add up to everything. Personality is a lot of it. We’re here.” He says, opening the door for me.

           I nod, following him to his seat. “Here, the seat beside me is free. Ned was originally in here, but he dropped it to take Comp Shop.” Peter pats the seat next to him. I put my backpack on the floor and take my seat. Soon the teacher enters, and my mouth hangs open. I was expecting and older lady, but the woman in front of me can’t possibly be thirty yet, but she is strikingly beautiful.

           “Peter how do you not pay attention to that?” I ask, dumb founded. She flicks her blonde hair over her shoulder writing ‘Mesopotamia’ on the board.

           The boy shrugs his shoulders. “I guess she’s not my type. Besides, every boy in here degrades her and the things they say about her, it’s sick.” I smile at him softly. Almost as if to make his point, she drops her marker. She hasn’t even bent over to pick it up and the boys in the back whoop and holler at the prospect of her having to bend over. She casts an icy gaze on the boys with her blue green eyes, kicks the marker under her desk and then pulls a new one out of her desk. I grin at her antics, knowing full well that she’s doing it on purpose.

           The bell rings, and she begins to take attendance. She gets towards the bottom of her attendance sheet when she pauses. “Elizabeth Workapick?” She calls out scanning the room. The boys in the back all make a fuss over my name. Believe me I’ve heard every play on the name Workapick.

           I stand up, and one of the boys let out a whistle. Peter turns and glares at them. “Hey baby, you come back here, sit with me and I’ll let you work this pick.” They all laugh as he motions to his groin.

           Peter almost comes out of his seat, fuming. I simply roll my eyes. “Sorry man, I don’t they’ve invented enough equipment to find your,” I motion to my groin, “try someone with microscopes for eyes.” The guys friends lose it, yelling out “OH BURN!” “MAN, SHE JUST FLAMED YOU!” among other things. I look down at Peter, who is grinning ear to ear, mouth slightly agape. They guys in the back are still yelling when I turn my attention back to the teacher. “I’m Elizabeth Workapick. But I go by middle name, Raine. I just moved hear from Tennessee.” I say, and she nods, trying not to smile at me. She marks me present, tells the boys to settle down and then begins teaching.

             Soon enough I’m sitting in my last class of the day, junior English. The rest of the class is preparing their final drafts on ‘Of Mice and Men’. I sit in the corner, watching Ned and Peter type their essays, as I’ve been exempt since they’re almost done.

The final bell rings, signaling the end of the day, and I pick my backpack up, shouldering it. We meet up with MJ.

           “Hey guys.” She greets us.

           “Hey MJ.” I say, shuffling through my bag to put my schedule in there.

           “Hey Raine, do you wanna come and play Mario Cart with us at my house? We usually study after words, if Pete doesn’t ditch us.” Ned asks, taking a drink from his water bottle.

           “I wish I could but one; I’ve never played Mario Cart, and two; I have to go to football practice.” I make a face, while everyone stares at me. They continue staring so I start to wipe my face. “What? Do I have something on my face?” I ask, looking at them. But now they’re paying no attention to me, glancing at each other.

           “What do you mean you have football practice? Like you’re going go watch football practice?” MJ asks, cocking her head to the side.

           “No, I, I’m like a football nurse. It’s called football training. I go to practice and games. I’m medical team if they get hurt. And a water girl when they need it.” I explain, but they still look confused. “Okay, if you all want to see what I do you’re welcome to come watch practice or a game sometime. But I gotta go, I don’t wanna be late on my first day.” I say, waving and walking off from them. As I turn away from them, they are still standing there, looking dumbstruck.

               An hour later I have three crates made with ice and water, two full sized coolers with ice and water, and one mini with just ice. I load all of that, and the training bag, AED, and helmet bag into the golf cart. I get the keys from Sydney, and drive onto the field. I’ve changed out of my school clothes and into some athletic shorts, and old shirt, a hat with my hair pulled into a ponytail, and tennis shoes. I pull onto the field and start unloading, starting with the big coolers. I flex my muscles a bit as I unload them, setting the first one on the table.

           “Here let me help you with that!” I hear a male voice say from behind me. I turn to see a boy wearing the number 28 jogging towards me, his helmet in his hands. “You new?” He asks, and I nod as he unloads the second big cooler.

           “Yeah I transferred in this morning. I’m a student athletic trainer.” He nods, reaching for the smaller cooler. I watch his bicep ripple, and before I can warn him it’s not as heavy, he uses his full strength to lift it and socks himself in the eye, cooler and all. The cooler crashes to the ground as he grabs his eye.

           “Son of a bitch!” He yells, clutching his left eye. Immediately I go to his side, putting my one of my hands over his, the other on his back.

           “Hey let me see. C’mon quit hopping around like that and let me look.” I say, he stops hopping around, but is still clutching his eye. His right pierces me.

           “A warning would’ve been nice man.” I chuckle, tapping his hands still covering his eye.

           “If you hadn’t been flexing and showing off you wouldn’t have needed a warning. C’mon.” He moves his hands, sitting his butt on the table so my 5’1 frame can get a good look at his eye. It’s red, swelling, and watering.

           He smirks at me. “So, you noticed I was flexing? Did you like the view?” He wiggles his eyebrows at me, and I laugh again.

           “Oh, you think you’re smooth. You probably orchestrated all of that so you could stare into my eyes.” I say, turning to pick the ice cooler back up. About half of its left, the other half strewn across the turf and track.

           “You’ve got me figured out short stop. But I’m not hearing a no about the view.” I smirk, trying not to smile. I grab a bag and toss some ice in before sucking the air out.

           “Here, put this on your eye. It’s gonna to be black. You’ve got one hell of an arm. Let me guess, quarter back?” I guess, handing him the ice pack. He obediently places it on his left eye.

           “Most people call me Jacob Sanderson, but you’re not wrong. I am in fact the first-string quarter back.” I nod, picking the cooler up and setting it on the table. The coaches whistle, and he attempts to wink at me although with his left eye still closed all him manages is a very predominate blink in my direction. “Damn. Forget I did that, remember the awesome flexing muscles, okay short stop? I’ll be seeing ya.” I laugh again, giving him a thumbs up as he jogs away.

           “Raine!” I hear someone yell behind me, and see Peter, MJ, and Ned in the bleachers. I wave at them, looking to make sure no ones running on the track before I jog across it and climb up to where they are.

           “Hey guys, what’s up?” I ask, stealing a chip out of MJ’s bag. I crunch on it happily.

           “We decided that you taking care of dumbass football players is more interesting than Mario Cart.” Ned announces, taking a bite out of his sandwich.

           “What did Sanderson want? He try to immediately get in your pants?” MJ asks, shaking her head. “He’s so predictable. He sees pretty girl; he sleeps with pretty girl. Or at least attempts to.” The way she says it, I wonder how many times she had to turn him down.

           “Oh, they aren’t that bad. Not most of them. It’s just when they see any pair of boobs walking around, they have to flirt. It’s like they can’t help it. Doesn’t matter is she’s ugly or not. There only half-hearted attempts anyways.” I say, leaning on the railing. I hear another whistle blow, “Hey guys I gotta go, you don’t have to stay. It’s mostly boring. Bye!” I yell, then stop and turn around. “Oh, do you all want my number?” Pete stops, Ned nods enthusiastically, and MJ hands me her phone. I put my number in and then descend the steps, going back to practice.

   Next Part: COMING SOON!

[areeta9]

A Tale of a Sleeping Beauty Part 2

“Sir, we’ve searched all night, the men are exhausted,” said one of the soldiers.

Forte looked to the sky, it was well past daybreak and yet there was no sign of the mage who had taken Princess Frey. By all means the knight should have been exhausted as well, but her rage and worry for her friend fueled her.

“If you need rest, by all means return, but as for me, I will press on,” she said with determination.

The men looked at each other before deciding to continue on. With a leader so gallant and so steadfast, how could they not?

The group pressed onward for what must have been a mile until they came to a break in the trees.

“Vishnal!” Forte called out as she spotted the butler in training standing with his back toward her. “Have you found any sign of them?” she asked as she ran to his side.

Vishnal hung his head and shook it dejectedly. “I lost their trail.” Vishnal choked.”I lost her,” he said quietly as he trembled. “I have no idea where he went with her.”

Forte saw a teardrop hit the forest floor. She grit her teeth in frustration before placing a firm hand on the butler’s shoulder and looking to her squadron of soldiers.

“We need to return and regroup. The search will be resumed with fresh troops and with Hunter Wolves.” she said in a commanding tone.

The troops nodded in understanding.

She leaned in closer to Vishnal and spoke quietly to him. “Vishnal, we have to turn back.”

Vishnal’s fists clenched in frustration. “Okay,” he said.

The group teleported back to Selphia’s gates. As Forte walked through, she felt all her energy drain out of her and fatigue begin to take over. It took all her willpower not to stumble as she entered Town Square.

Town Square was crowded with townspeople. Margaret was the first to spot the squadron’s return.

“Forte!” she called out, running towards her best friend. She was quickly followed by the large crowd of townspeople who formed a semi-circle around the returning troops.

“Did you...find her?” she asked, hands clasped together in hope. The rest of the crowd waited for her answer with baited breath.

Vishnal bit his lip and looked away in shame. Many of the soldiers behind Forte also looked away.

Forte, in a loud and clear voice answered the question. “No we have not found her. Her kidnapper is still at large.”

It was then that the crowd exploded into gasps and worried conversation.

Forte sighed and turned to her troops. “You all head to the barracks. While your at it, send over the next group of troops as well as the Hunter Wolves, I’m heading out again.”

“Forte! Vishnal!” called out Volcanon as he approached with Clorica in tow.

Vishnal gave an expression of renewed pain before falling onto his hands and knees before his mentor.

“Mr. Volcanon! Clorica! I’m sorry! I was supposed to protect the princess and I-”

“Raise your head Vishnal,” said Volcanon. “You did your best. What matters now is that we retrieve Ms. Frey and punish the brute that took her.” The man’s face was set in grim determination as he said this. “Forte, allow me to join you in the search for her,” he said as he pulled on the sleeves of his gloves and flexed his fingers.

“Myself as well,” said Clorica as she brandished a lance on her back.

“I’ll go as well,” said Vishnal, getting up from the ground.

“No Vishnal,” said Volcanon. “You rest, you’ve been out all night and haven’t slept for even longer.”

“Forte, you should rest too! You didn’t get any sleep last night either,” butted in Margaret.

“You are right, but someone has to lead the soldiers and as Dragon Knight, it’s my duty to do so. I’ll rest when we bring Frey home,” Forte replied.

Forte heard the sound of barking as the fresh troops approached with the Hunter Wolves.

“Volcanon, Clorica, do you have any items that Frey has used?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Clorica. She took out a few items. “I have her towel, a pair of her socks, one of her scarves, and a pair of her gloves. It’s a good thing we hadn’t done the laundry yet.”

“Good,” said Forte before shouting to her troops in a loud voice. “We’re splitting up into five groups! Each group takes one of Frey’s articles and heads in a different direction. Your goal is to find Frey! If you find the man that has taken her, capture him alive! Am I clear?”

“Yes, sir!” shouted the soldiers before taken their items and taking off.

Forte took one of the gloves from Clorica and ushered over a Hunter Wolf to her and Volcanon. “Take this wolf. Pray that when we find Frey she is safe and sound,” she said before running off with her new group of troops.

………………..

Clorica felt a raindrop fall on her head. She looked up and held her hand out. The sky was a dark shade of gray and the temperature had dropped.

“This doesn’t look good,” she stated as more raindrops fell into her open hand.

Volcanon followed her gaze and looked up.

Within moments, what started as a light drizzle turned into a fierce deluge. The  two butlers were soaked in an instant.

“Can you still follow the scent, Mr. Wolf?” asked Clorica, putting the scarf closer to the hunter wolf’s face.

The wolf sniffed it then sniffed the ground around it. It lifted its head and snuffed before shaking its whole body.

Clorica shielded her face from the water that flew off the wolf and frowned. “We’ve lost the scent.”

Volcanon grit his teeth and clenched his fists in the pouring rain. “Then it looks like we have no choice. We’ll have to return to town. It doesn’t make sense for us to keep moving forward when we have no idea what direction that man went with Frey. We’ll have to find another way.”

The two returned to the town in the pouring rain. They weren’t surprised to see many of the soldiers who had left town to search gathered in Town Square.

Volcanon and Clorica approached Forte, who was standing at the center of the soldiers with a frown deep set frown on her face. One of the soldiers took the Hunter Wolf from them.

“Why’d it have to rain today of all days?” Forte murmured as the falling rain caused echoes within her armor.

“Yes, the weather is quite unfortunate. The wolves can no longer track Miss Frey by her scent. Is there another way we can track her?” asked Volcanon.

“What’s going on here?”

The group turned around.

“Mr. Barret, it’s good to see you again,” said Volcanon.

The long haired Alvarnian approached the group in smooth strides.

“Good to see you too ,Volcanon,” Barrett shook the hand of the elder Butler. “The mood of the town seems to be different today.”

The others frowned. “That is because Frey has been taken from us,” said Volcanon.

”What? How?!” Barrett asked in surprise.

“A cloaked man appeared in town yesterday. At sunset we heard a scream and when we came out to see what happened, both Frey and Vishnal were paralyzed and while they were both incapacitated, the man ran off with Frey,” replied Clorica.

“We went after them, even sent the wolves out but before we could find them, the rain washed away their scent,” finished Forte.

“I see, that is a problem. Have you found another way to search for her?” Barrett asked.

Forte shook her head. “No, and we have no clues as to where they went either.”

“Hm….” Barret put his hand to his chin. “You said Frey and Vishnal were paralyzed before she was kidnapped right?”

“Yes,” said Volcanon.

“And how did the man escape?”

“He disappeared in a puff of smoke,” replied Forte.

“Puff of smoke? Does that mean he used magic while he was in town?”

“That would explain how both Frey and Vishnal got paralyzed. Vishnal said that the man hadn’t him when he suddenly wasn’t able to move,” said Clorica.

Barrett thought for a moment before speaking. “There may be a way to track down this man.”

“Really? Tell us!” insisted Forte.

“It’s a magic spell one of my colleagues at Alvarna developed not too long a go. It’s a spell that can track down magic users. As one can locate a spot or object where magic was used recently, one can track down the caster. I believe I have a copy of their notes back at the Bell Hotel.”

“Please go get it, Mr. Barrett! Time is of the essence! Who knows what that scoundrel is doing to Miss Frey!” exclaimed Volcanon.

“Let me finish. The spell requires a LOT of Rune Power. To cast it, we’d need either an extremely powerful mage or a good sized group of weaker ones.”

Forte turned to her troops and barked her orders.”Gather all the mages in town. If they ask why, tell them it’s for Frey’s sake!”

The soldiers rushed off in different directions.

“I’ll go get the notes,” said Barrett before running to the Bell Hotel.

…………………..

All of Selphia’s magic users stood gathered  in the center of towm reading the runes that Barrett had presented to them.

“Oof, I’m not used to this kind of magic,” said Margaret, as she scanned the papers. “All of the spells I know are music based…”

“I use most of my magic for gardening,”Amber added dishearteningly.

“I mostly use battle magic,” added Leon.

“Then I suppose that we're all in the same boat,” said Arthur. “Mr. Barret, your colleague must certainly be a mage of immense skill.”

“Well, whether we’ve done this kind of magic or not, we have to cast the spell,” said Dolce as she equipped her Stave.

“Dolce’s right!,” said Kiel. “We won’t be able to find Frey if we don’t...right?” he finished quietly, eyes becoming downcaste.

“As of now, this is the best chance we have. If we don’t do it now, Frey could be taken out of our reach,” said Forte.

“You still haven’t slept,” observed Margaret.

“And I won’t sleep, not until we find Frey. When Lady Ventuswill passed, her duties were passed on to Frey. When her duties passed onto Frey, protecting Frey became one of my duties. I will not rest until we capture that villain and bring her back,” said the Dragon Knight with absolute conviction.

Forte turned the casters. “Cast the spell. The more time that goes by the further Frey could be taken away from us.”

“She’s right. Do you all have your strongest staves equipped?” asked Barrett.

The mages nodded and brandished their staves.

“Good. I have to warn you though. The spell requires a lot of rune power. There’s a good chance that even with how many of you are here, the spells will still eat into your health. We have tea to replenish your health and rune power however, we can’t give it to you until the spell is complete. The spell is of a high level. It requires intense focus on your purpose to cast. If one of you is distracted, the spell will fail. Do you all understand?”

They nodded.

“Then let’s begin.”

The mages stood in a semicircle in front of the area where the mystery man disappeared with Frey and each took a deep breath. Closing their eyes, they began to cast.

As they let the magic flow out of them, the spot where the man disappeared began to glow. The wind began to pick up and whirl around them. As the seconds passed, a tendril of light began to flow outside of the circle. It stretched itself outward, growing until it went outside the gates and into Selphia Plains. It wasn’t long before the trees obscured its path as it continued to stretch outwards towards an unknown location.

Minutes passed. Leon, Arthur, Kiel, Margaret, Dolce, and Amber were sweating now. Their breathing had become heavier.

“Just a little bit longer…” murmured Barrett.

“Ugh!” exclaimed Amber.

The circle of light began to blink before its light settled into a light blue color.

The mages gasped and opened their eyes.

“W-we found him,” gasped Dolce.

“Where is he?” asked Forte.

“Miles from here. About 30,” said Leon, taking a knee.

“You’ll have to get there by airship,” added Arthur, as he leaned on his stave to remain upright.

“Uh…” Margaret fell backwards. Forte was quick to catch her friend.

“Tea!” she ordered.

One of the soldiers rushed forward with the in hand. Forte took it and tilted the cup towards Margaret’s mouth. Margaret drank gratefully before pushing the cup away from her. “Be careful Forte. Bring Frey back,” she murmured.

“I will,” Forte promised as she helped Margaret stand back up. She turned to her soldiers. “Alright! The spell has given us a way to find Frey and her kidnapper. We’re boarding an airship and following the light trail to where they are. Arm yourselves and be ready to depart!”

“Yes sir!”

“We will be coming with you,” said Volcanon, stepping forward with Clorica and the refreshed Vishnal at his sides.

Forte nodded. “Let’s go!”

[bestrenew728]

Best Mac Laptop For Coding

Apple MacBook (2017) Less is more with this MacBook With updated components and a couple design tweaks, the 12-inch MacBook is a great choice for an everyday laptop.

I personally suggest this awesome programming laptop.I use the apple macbook pro for programming purpose. If you are having high budget for programming laptop and really like to spend good amount for coding laptop then i must say that this laptop is for you.

Apple Laptops Ideal for Programmers Apple MMGF2LL/A MacBook Air 13.3-Inch Laptop. The Apple MMGF2LL/A is one of the best Apple laptops for coding. It comes equipped with a 1.6GHz Intel Core i5 processor, which features Turbo Boost technology. When an application requires a boost in processing power, the Intel Core i5 CPU can turbo boost up to 2.7GHz.

Coding On Mac

Best Mac Laptop For College Students

Coding Programs For Macs

If there is one best laptop for programming, then it must be the Apple Macbook Pro. The Apple Macbook Pro comes with two version: 13 inches and 15 inches. For those who prefer working on a large workspace, always choose the 15 inches version. The MacBook Pro from 2016 doesn't come with cutting-edge features such as the touchbar or USB-C ports, but it is still a fantastic laptop that offers plenty of power for all your programming needs.

Developers can develop websites and apps on any laptop or desktop computer, but that is not always the case. Laptops for developers should have a portable design and powerful specifications that can carry the load of any programming or development software. Every year, there are a lot of new laptops releasing that have newer processors and graphics cards that consume less power and are more powerful than their predecessors. We have selected 10 best laptops for developers and programmers for coding and compiling in 2019.

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If you are a programmer or developer, then having a laptop with enough hardware specification is necessary for your coding and compiling work. Having the great combination of hardware and excellent keyboard are most important aspects when you select the best laptop or notebook for programming.​

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Our Top 3 Picks of Best Laptops for Developers for Programming

Expensive

Only two USB Type-C ports

Fans can get loud under load

Pre-installed bloatware

Expensive

Speaker is very weak

Quick Access to the Best Laptops for Developers and Programmers

What do Programmers and Developers Need in a Laptop?

CPU and RAM

Clearly labeled keyboard shortcuts at the bottom of the screen make these tasks easy to accomplish. It’s IMAP-only, and setting up your account ranges from simple (Gmail) to tricky (Outlook, although the program’s great help files spelled out exactly what I needed.) Once your mail’s in place, Mail Pilot offers lots of different options to navigate message threads. Mail Pilot treats your inbox as a to-do list. Best email app for windows 10. Each message is a task that you can check off right away, set aside until you’ve got the time for it, or ask to be reminded about on a certain date.

Make sure you are getting the latest processor in the market under your budget. That will allow you to keep your laptop for next 5 years and run any latest programming or developing tools in future. Processing power may needed in some cases when you compile your codes. Getting an i5 or i7 processor with latest 8th generation and higher speed would be ideal in this case.

RAM is another major hardware component that should be selected while selecting the laptop. Try to get the higher capacity RAM with higher frequency. Since DDR4 is available in the market right now, try to get the DDR4 RAM if it is under your budget. Get 8+ GB RAM when you get the laptop. Make sure to check your main programming or developing software recommended hardware requirements and buy accordingly. Keeping a free memory slot will allow you to upgrade the RAM in future.

Graphics Card/Display/HDD/Battery Life

Though we are not buying the laptop for gaming, but it depends on your program or app you are developing to find out the graphics card requirement. Some programs and tools may need GPU (Display memory and processor), in this case get the best laptop for developers with dedicated latest display card. Screen size could be larger, that will allow you to do the coding and development work in multiple windows on same screen.

It is better to go with SSD laptop. You really need higher disk I/O laptop that could respond to your queries and commands quickly. You could go for hybrid hard disk setup or cloud storage to store more data. But it is highly recommended to have main Operating System and your development/programming application on SSD hard drive.

As a developer you might be moving around frequently, get the laptop which has good battery life.

Selection of Top 10 Best Laptops for Developers in 2019

10. Lenovo ThinkPad E580 – Budget Friendly Laptop for Developers

Lenovo ThinkPad laptops have the most sturdy build quality and this one, the Lenovo ThinkPad E580 has very durable build quality, and it is also a very budget friendly laptop for developers. With the price around 1000 dollars, it comes with the excellent hardware configuration any programmer can expect. Inside is a latest 8th Gen Intel Core i7 processor and whopping 16GB of RAM which are enough for web developers or mobile app developers.

You can easily upgrade the disk and memory if you feel that they are not up to your needs. The laptop is available in many variables of specifications while purchasing it. The hard disk type is faster SSD which is an added advantage for the price. The 256GB SSD should be enough to store many of the programs and codings. The Lenovo ThinkPad E580 is powerful enough for developers and has the good build quality that doesn’t break the bank.

The Lenovo ThinkPad E580 is a budget-friendly laptop for developers with the good hardware configuration to compile programs.

The Lenovo ThinkPad E580 comes with these hardware specifications:

8th Gen Intel Core i7

16GB RAM

256GB SSD

15.6-inch Full HD 1920x1080 display

good

Impressive build quality

Budget-Friendly

Storage and RAM is easy to upgrade

Coding On Mac

Come installed with a lot of bloatware

No Dedicated Display Card

The Acer Aspire E 15 is a good cheap laptop for developers in 2019 with a thin and light design. Indeed there are other thin and light laptops like this one, but the Acer Aspire E15 has its own pros. It has a plastic chassis which feels good to touch, and it has a thin design which keeps it lightweight and portable so that you can carry it around with you everywhere. For developers, this is a very good laptop since it has an 8th Gen Intel Core i5 processor and 8GB RAM that provides power to this laptop. Its portability is also another advantage for developers in 2019.

If you work in a dimly lit room, the Acer Aspire E 15 has a backlit keyboard so that you can type easily. Acer Aspire E15 has great battery life with Windows 10, that is more suitable for portability and long working hours from your desk. The slimness, good battery usage, and full HD screen will suit for most of the programmers and developers who look for the cheap and best laptop for programming.

The Acer Aspire E15 comes with:

8th Gen Intel Core i5-8250 (Up to 3.4 GHz) processor

256GB SSD

8GB DDR3 RAM

1080p Full HD display with 15.6-inch screen

Bright and clear IPS display

Thin, light and portability

Up to 15 hours battery life

Touchpad is not up to the mark

Pre-installed bloatware

8. Dell Inspiron 7572 - Budget Friendly Laptop for Developers

Best Mac Laptop For College Students

Dell Inspiron 7572 is a great option for programmers. This laptop comes with amazing features. It comes with good quality construction. The base of the laptop is made from metal shells. The lid is made from light-weight aluminum. This laptop comes with a brushed metal finish.

It is available in two colors which are jingled gold and theoretical grey. Dell Inspiron 7572 comes with a modern look. The narrow screen borders make it look quite unique and stylish. This is an 8th generation laptop which is suitable for programming and developing software.

It comes with various specifications which serve your purpose right if you are looking for a laptop to build websites and create applications. This laptop is powered by Core i5-8250U Quad Core Processor. The keyboard of the laptop is made from plastic and comes with a rubber finish. You might be a little surprised to see that there is no numeric keypad.

The keys are quite springy which makes typing easier for you. It comes with a backlit keyboard and HD Webcam. All in all, this is the best laptop for programmers and comes with an ergonomic design. It is suitable for programmers, students, and home users.

This configuration of the Dell Inspiron 7572 comes with:

8th Gen Intel Core i5 (1.6GHz, turbo up to 3.4GHz)

8GB DDR4 RAM

128GB SSD + 1TB HDD

15.6-inch FHD

Ergonomic design

Good specifications for its price range

HDD + SSD

Comes pre-installed with bloatware

Chassis flexes at some points

The ASUS VivoBook is another thin and lightweight laptop for programmers who are looking for a budget laptop with the nice build quality and simple design. ASUS VivoBook is a very simple mid-ranged laptop with a thin design, NanoEdge Technology and an 8th Gen Intel Core i7 1.6 GHz (Turbo Boost up to 3.4GHz) processor and 8GB RAM that is great for developers on a budget. 128GB SSD+1TB hybrid hard disk inside to manage the disk writing and reading well with the larger space. You can easily run your web developing applications or simulation applications easily without breaking a sweat. ASUS offers the “Best-in-class connectivity” with USB Type-C for fast transfer speeds to USB Type-C devices and both HDMI and VGA for connecting to external displays.

Best password managers for ios. The ASUS VivoBook is a great laptop for developers under $700. It is lightweight, slim and its glossy plastic build with champagne color makes it look very beautiful.

This configuration of the ASUS VivoBook comes with:

Latest 8th Gen Intel Core i5 Processor

8GB DDR4 RAM

128Gb SSD + 1TB HDD

15.6- inch 1080p display

i7 Processor under budget

Excellent Display

Light and sleek build

Keyboard is not backlit

Unwanted Pre-installed Apps that can slow down

6. HP X360 Full HD - Best Touch Screen Laptop for Developers

The HP Envy laptops are known for their slim designs and premium looks. The HP X360 is a slim and sleek touchscreen laptop that has small features here and there which makes it a very good laptop for coding. It has the latest 8th Gen Quad Core i7 processor to run any programming applications and languages and run the compiling quickly with the powerful processor. First, it has a nice slim aluminum body that makes it very light and portable, which is desired by many developers. Second, it is a touchscreen laptop that can be converted to tablet easily. The 360 rotation help any programmers to use this laptop as a tablet for coding. Third, the backlit keyboard along with the lid hinge is best when you are working in a dimly lit room.

It has a dedicated 2GB display card, so if you are a gaming developer or programmer, you can utilize this dedicated display card for gaming purpose as well. Developing your applications and simulations will be no problem, and with its long battery life, you can take your work portable without any worry. The full HD screen can make sure that you see the every pixel of your app/program that you are developing.

https://bestrenew728.tumblr.com/post/653978414719614976/best-photo-collage-software-for-mac. TurboCollage - photo collage editor software. Make collages, picture piles, picture grids, montages, and mosaics on your Mac or Windows PC. Download a free trial now! Photo Collage for Mac is a Mac Photo Collage Maker software which helps you make customized greeting cards, scrapbooks, desktop wallpapers, CD Covers, calendars and comics from premade templates. • Simply drag and drop to make photo collage on Mac from templates; • Select from 200 + free occasional collage templates for wedding, baby, family, etc. We've tested photo collage software for the past seven years. This year alone, we spent over 35 hours comparing editing tools, creative features, export choices and support options. MyMemories came out on top due to its vast creative library and editing options.

The HP X360 comes with:

8th Gen Intel Core i7-8550 ( 1.8GHz, turbo up to 4.0GHz)

8GB DDR4 RAM

128GB SSD

2GB Dedicated Display Card

15.6-inch 1080p touch display

Latest 8th Gen Processor

Slim and lightweight design

Responsive glass touch pad

Radeon 2GB Dedicated Display

Coding Programs For Macs

Comes with pre-installed bloatware

RAM is not user upgradeable

Glossy screen is not ideal for using outdoors

5. Microsoft Surface Book 2 – Best Convertible Laptop for Developers in 2019

Microsoft new surface book 2 is a massively powerful laptop which is perfect for programmers. This laptop comes with new and improved features if we compare it with the previous model. You’d love the versatility of the new surface book 2.

It is a 2-in-1 notebook. You can use it as a tablet to read the important news or surf the net. You can even use it as a laptop for watching a movie or playing a game in your leisure time.

This Surface Book 2 comes with the latest version of Windows. It allows you to enhance your productivity while creating a website for developing a program. This laptop provides you an ample amount of space to store your work. It comes with a RAM of 8GB and SSD hard drive storage space of 256GB. It comes with a powerful processor which goes up to 3.6 GHz.

The Microsoft new Surface Book 2 comes with good battery life. You’d be amazed to use it for longer periods of time, it can last up to 17 hours. In addition, it offers you faster internet connectivity. It also comes with a Bluetooth connectivity option. The major issue with the book is that it does not come with stereo speakers.

The Microsoft Surface Book comes with these hardware specifications:

Intel Core i5 8th Gen

8GB DDR3 RAM ( 1866GHz)

256GB SSD

Intel HD Graphics 620 with 2GB VRAM

13.5-inch 3000x2000 PixelSense touchscreen display

Best touchscreen in any Windows tablet/laptop

Great performance for the hardware installed inside

Crystal clear and sharp screen

17 Hours Battery Life

Long charging time

Expensive

Nothing shows off the innovation and technological advancement in laptops better than, Dell XPS 9360. This laptop comes with outstanding features and specifications. It is perfect for programmers and gamers. It gives you an unbeatable display.

Dell XPS 13 9360 comes with a unique design. The build quality is sturdy and strong. Dell has rubberized the interior of this machine. The screen of the laptop is 13 inches; it gives you the edge to edge display. It gives you a screen resolution 3200X1800. There was a time when Dell was popular for producing heavy laptops; however, it has now shifted its focus on offering thin and sleek laptops. This laptop comes with a minimalistic design which is light-weight. The battery life of Dell XPS 13 9360 gives it a competitive edge. It gives you prolonged hours of usage.

The keyboard of the laptop is also quite satisfactory. The keywords are at a distance of 1.2mm. The smooth sliding finish gives you the pleasure of moving your fingers across. This is an 8th generation laptop which comes with a powerful Intel Core i7-8550U Processor.

This configuration of the Dell XPS 13 9360 comes with:

8th Gen Intel i7 (Up to 4.0GHz)

16GB DDR3 RAM

512GB solid state drive

13.3-inch 1080p InfinityEdge display

Amazing build quality

Thin and light design

Excellent InfinityEdge display

Less number of ports daily usage

Expensive

We decided to list this laptop because of its portability, battery life, and power of the hardware. If you are a programmer or developer who is on the move most of the time, consider this laptop to buy. 19 hours of battery life for a Windows laptop is unbelievable. Specifically built for better portability without compromising the hardware specs. Even the students who are learning programming and app development in the colleges can treat this laptop as the best choice.

It equipped with the latest 8th Gen i7 processor, 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD to provide the faster disk. With these three main hardware combination, you should be able to run any programming applications. It has passed the several durability tests to remain the strongest candidate in our list. It comes with all ports you may require as a developer to connect your external hard disks, smartphones, and tablets.

This configuration of the LG Gram comes with these hardware specifications:

8th Gen Intel Core i5-8250U

8GB DDR4

256GB SSD

15.6-inch

19 Hours of Battery Life

Light weight

Proven Durability

Less RAM

No LAN port, USB-C Network only 100Mbps

If you are looking for a laptop which gives you good value for money ASUS Strix Star is the best choice for you. Although this laptop is not very pricey, you don’t have to worry about its performance. This is the 8th generation laptop which comes with Core Intel i7-8750H. This laptop gives you high-resolution and smooth display without any hiccups.

No matter what type of content you want to visualize, ASUS VivoBook gives you optimal visualization. It shows you every frame and pixel quite clearly. It offers you greater accuracy and sharpness. No matter what your source is, it gives you closer to real images.

If you are looking for a sleek and compact laptop design, ASUS VivoBook is the best choice for you. You can easily sling it in your carrying bag and take it wherever you want. This is an UltraBook which comes with the power of a magnificent laptop.

It is ideal for gamers and programmers. Moreover, it offers you efficient connectivity. It comes with USB 3.1 connector which simplifies it for you to connect with different projectors and displays. All in all, this is a powerful and budget-friendly laptop for programmers and gamers.

The ASUS ROG STRIX Scar II comes with these hardware specifications:

8th Gen Hexa-Core Intel Core i7

16GB DDR4 RAM

512GB

NVIDIA GTX 2070 with 8GB GDDR6 VRAM

15.6-inch 1080p display

Latest hardware gives an impressive performance

8GB Dedicated Display for PC games development

Has plenty ports for connecting different devices

The Price

Comes installed with a lot of bloatware

1. Apple MacBook Pro Laptop (Retina, Touch Bar) – Best Laptop for Developers in 2019

This Apple MacBook Pro 13 is the latest Apple MacBook Pro and this one specifically is the best laptop for app developers and programmers if you really do not need Windows Operating System. Though you could find few MacBook cheaper than this model, but this model is worth investment as a programmer. MacBook Pro laptops have always been praised for their build quality, display quality and for developers and programmers, the stability of MacOS. This UNIX based operating system is why developers and programmers prefer MacBook Pro laptops because it is very stable and works very well with the hardware that comes with them.

This MacBook Pro comes with an latest 8th Gen 6-Core Intel Core i5 processor, 8GB RAM (not user upgradeable) and a very fast 256GB of flash storage. Even though the processor is only i5 but with its 6-Cores and 8th Gen technology, MacBook Pro 13 still performs very well as the best laptop for iOS and macOS developers. Since there are several ways available to install Windows OS on Mac laptops, you can use this laptop for multi purpose programming in cross platform.

This configuration of the Apple MacBook Pro 13 comes with:

8th Gen 6-Core Intel Core i5 (Turbo up to 3.8GHz)

8GB RAM

256GB SSD (512GB Option available)

Intel Iris Graphics 655

13.3-inch 2560x1600 resolution Retina display

Excellent build quality and light design

Impressive Retina display

Stable OS for iOS and macOS App programming

Long battery life

Expensive

Only two USB Type-C ports

Different adapters will be required to connect USB, HDMI etc. devices

These were the top 10 best laptops for developers and programmers in 2019 under your budget. This year is the great year for developers because there are a lot of new laptops coming up with amazing hardware like the new NVIDIA graphics cards and Intel i9 processors that consume less power and deliver better performance. Best photo editing tools for mac.

[excelbusinesssystems]

Importance Of Using Office Printer Service In Virginia And Ely, MN

It is essential to equip one's office with several devices that make daily work manageable. A printer, scanner, and copier become necessary for most offices that regularly need to deal with hundreds of hard copies of documents. Marketing offices and billing counters have to print thousands of receipts and bills by the hour as well. Having one's printer malfunction in the middle of a busy day can be a nightmarish experience. It certainly makes sense to read the tell-tale signs that indicate the immediate need for printer repairs in Grand Rapids and Hoy Lakes, MN.

While many employees who utilize the office printer every day may try a few DIY tricks and tips, it is of utmost importance to have the device repaired by an experienced professional to remain functional for an extended period after that.

The alarm bells should begin to ring loud and clear on finding any of the following as the device continues to print:

· Lines & Blots- Finding the printed document with multiple lines printed on top of the words is a downer. Not only will the user have to redo the task, but this may occur once again. The technicians reveal that such an occurrence points to loose ink rollers or breakage of the rollers. The problem can be rectified by removing the faulty rollers and replacing them at the earliest.

· Paper Jam- It is not unusual to find multiple sheets being jammed inside the printer. Removing each sheet with extreme caution and then taking care to have them appropriately aligned is sure to solve this issue. Unfortunately, it spells trouble when it becomes a common occurrence. It is essential to check the source of obstruction inside the printer and address it immediately. The best way to do it would be to hire a seasoned technician to repair the printer ASAP. This can save both money and time for the office workers.

· Strange Noises- A good printer should function smoothly and silently. It is indeed time to be alarmed when the printer begins to make weird sounds such as a rattle, grinding noise, or whirring sound whenever it is switched on. The user may pull out the paper and find the noise persisting too. This is a sign of mechanical failure and needs the intervention of a skilled technician without delay.

· Performance- A printer may need immediate repairs when it refuses to start or begin printing. An exceedingly slow pace of printing also indicates something wrong. Furthermore, it becomes the office management's responsibility to contact a professional to make printer repairs when printing stops midway with the device failing to print afterward.

It is of paramount importance to source the right office equipment from a reputed dealer. The process is not only about paying money and taking the device to one's workplace, however. Inquiring about the types of available office printer service in Virginia and Ely, MN can help an office to function correctly without work being held up suddenly.

[ask-de-writer]

DARING DO and THE GRYPHON’S QUEST! : MLP Fan Fiction : Part 17 of 19

Return to the Master Story Index

Return to MLP Fan Fiction

DARING DO

and

THE GRYPHON’S QUEST!

by

De Writer (Glen Ten-Eyck)

and

Carmen Pondiego

Cover art by Aranel the Cyborg, now  Wind the Mama Cat

29584 words

© 2020 by Glen Ten-Eyck

Writing begun 03/29/16

All rights reserved.  This document may not be copied or distributed on or to any medium or placed in any mass storage system except by the express written consent of the author.

This is a Fan Fiction based on My Little Pony.  Canterlot, Princess Luna and the name Daring Do are owned by Hasboro Inc.

//////////////

Copyright fair use rules for Tumblr users

Users of Tumblr.com are specifically granted the following rights.  They may reblog the story.  They may use the characters or original characters in my settings for fan fiction, fan art works, cosplay, or fan musical compositions, provided that such things are done without charge.  I will allow those who do commission art works to charge for their images.  

All sorts of fan art, cosplay, music or fictions is actively encouraged.

///////////////////////

Chapter 17. The Coward’s Weapon!

Daring Do was pleasantly surprised at just how good her half brother Blendin was at specimen preparation.  There was another surprise for her too.

Friend spent much of her time crooning to her Eagle eggs.  She did frequently leave her nest and lend her green magic to the task, usually greatly simplifying the work.  It was the greatest assistance at particularly difficult or delicate times in the preparation of the failed nymphs that she had loved so dearly and watched over for so many centuries.

Almost any time that they took a break from the arduous task before them, Friend would leave the eggs and nest protected by a nearly invisible glow of green magic.  She would take a place beside Daring Do and purr/croon softly.  Daring Do found real rest and comfort in the love that Friend shared with her.  She often rested her head against the changeling’s horn and shared thought and memory.

It was from that sharing that she learned something surprising about Friend. When her hive was attacked by war equipped and battle ready unicorns, Friend defended the hive’s precious eggs.  

She slaughtered ten of the enemy, literally tearing them to pieces in the defense of those eggs.  When her shared hive mind felt the Queen die, she went briefly berserk.  Four of the ten attacking unicorns that she killed fell in those few moments.

It was duty and love for the eggs that she tended that brought her back to something resembling sanity.  Taking all of the eggs that she could carry, she fled into the night.

The world outside of the hive was a strange and confusing place at first.  By luck alone, she found a long disused road that led to the mountains.  She did the best that she could but it was not enough.  One by one, she felt the spark of returned love die out of each of the eggs.  Her heart was torn asunder by the loss.

Daring Do knew the rest of the story.  What she did not know was the sheer depth of feeling that Friend had developed for her.  She meant it when she said that Daring Do was Matunen,  Hive Queen, in the ancient tongue of Early Middle Equestrian.

Friend was totally contented for the first time in ages.  That in no way interfered with any whit of her egg tending.

Blendin saw his half sister’s serene relaxation around Friend and was glad. The Apprentice Librarian of the Great Library in him was glad too.  He was learning things about conservation of irreplaceable delicate artifacts and relics that would apply to his work in the Great Library.  

Once everything was ready, he stared at the results of their work in wonder.  He had not only helped to prepare the whole foundation for the creation of an entire intelligent species, he had it and all of his half sister’s notes cataloged for the Great Library!

Together, they sent a note of their progress to the Empress.

The door, upon opening, showed the Empress, Grata, and Hisst, the Right Wing of the Imperial Throne.  The hallway was blocked by heavily armed Imperial Guards in full battle armor.

Daring Do was about to ask if such precautions were necessary when a loud, harsh voice from up the hallway demanded, “This is all Blasphemous!  Even if it were the truth and showed our  ancient roots, it would still be blasphemy!  The Holy Legends declare that Faith alone is sufficient and seeking truth beyond its holy pages undermines Faith!

“Whatever is here must be destroyed!”

The Empress responded, “What is about to be destroyed is YOU, Krapper!  You have fifteen seconds to be around the curve and out of OUR sight before I order my troops to open fire!”

“You would not dare!”

“Nine seconds left, Krapper.”

There was a clatter of claws on stone as the speaker retreated!

The Empress drew a deep breath, her crest showing disgust.  “The entire lot of First Creation Idiots want to destroy the only real history that our kind has.”

Friend spoke up, “Your Majesty, they are wrong.  This I/we know.  Before I/we loved the eggs that became the nymphs of your kind, I/we saw changelings.  I/we saw unicorns.  I/we saw Eagles. I/we saw pegassi.

“I/we helped matunen Daring Do and brother Blendin to be sure that these failed nymphs truly show how I/we loved the eggs that became the nymphs that are your kind.”

The Empress, crest showing deep thought, began tracing the development of her kind.  She was reading the placards set by each step of the way. Looking over to the true mother of her whole species, she asked, “Why did you go from pony to big cat for our hindquarters?”

Friend crowded over to point as she spoke.  “Not all big cat.  See how these bones go?  That is from the pegassus.  The head was carnivore, Eagle. The hindquarters had to eat meat too or fail.  I/we did see a lion in mountains once, close enough to feel its insides by loving it.  I/we used what I/we knew.”

Grata, crest rippling in laughter, exclaimed, “We are so lucky that she didn’t see a bear!”

After the fit of laughter passed around the room, the Empress asked, “How will this all be presented, Doctor Do?”

Daring Do sketched rapidly.  “The case, to be portable must be of stout woodwork.  The front viewing window should be made of glass that has been spell strengthened like a Magic Net mirror.”

The Empress nodded, crest showing some concern.  “You mentioned not risking the real relics and that is a good idea.  

“We have General Iron Hooves here with some of his munitions experts.  The team that they are consulting with is known to you, though we know that you do not like them much.

“V.I.L.E. Is here.  They have sent Carmen Pondiego, Baron Von Nighthoof, Marehem Skadefryd, and Kiros Asbhy.  I understand that they have also got a number of Agents here too.”

Crest smiling, the Empress went on, “I was warned to be sure that I still have both mandibles of my beak after dealing with them.  However, they will be absolutely honest with family.

“They have several missions.  One is being worked on now with General Ironhooves and his aides.  Another is to be the agency for creating your cases and making the copies for display.  I will be ordering twenty sets.”

Daring Do, looking doubtful, did agree, “I have to admit that when it comes to museum quality duplication, Mom’s company is unexcelled.”  

An all too familiar voice caroled from the doorway, “So sweet to hear you actually say something nice about my company!  Of course we are honest!  V.I.L.E. has never been caught or proved to be guilty of ANY crime at all!

“Suspicions?  Poof!  Suspicion and a cup of tea will get you anything from a nice Bergamont to bag of Lupton’s Worst!

Carmen Pondiego strutted into the room in her trademark porkpie hat and fire engine red dress.  She called over her shoulder, “General, Dear, would you please come in and see for yourself what my daughter found that is causing all this mess?”

General Ironhooves entered the door.  He was in his simple field uniform.

He tipped his Campaign Hat to the Empress and her Wings.  He approached the study tables, examining the relics with care.  He picked up Daring Do’s voluminous field notes and sketches, seeming to leaf through them, except that once in a while he stopped long enough to separate pages that stuck together.

He put down the books and turned to the Empress.  “Ma'am, you have chosen your battlefield perfectly. Better, you have the enemy in the sights of your artillery.

“I hope that it does not come to armed conflict, but if it does, after consulting with Carmen here, I think that you will have a LOT of surprises for them!”

Daring Do managed to look skeptical.  “Only them?”

Before Carmen could snark back, Marehem wandered in, right past the security detail.  He grinned.  “Helps to be a misfortune changel …”

His eyes bugged out.  It was the first time that Daring Do could remember that her uncle Marehem was caught totally off guard!

“An Egg-tender, HERE?  How did that happen?  How can she live without a hive?”

Friend looked up from serenely turning the eggs in the nest.  She smiled as she said, “Matunen Daring Do.”

Uncle M stopped like he’d hit a brick wall headfirst.  “Adora, Matunen?  A queen?”

The Empress nodded, crest rippling amusement.  “It hit us like that too, when we realized that Friend is OVER two thousand years old.  She was the sole survivor of a destroyed hive.

“Tending eggs kept her sane.  She is the Mother who loved an unstable and fatal hybridization into becoming our strong race.  I gather that for her, loving means something other than a simple feeling.”

Marehem got it together to say, “It sure does.  The eggs a queen lays are sort of neutral.  They will develop as random kinds of changelings.  Give them to an Egg-tender and tell her how many of which sort, worker, other egg-tenders, drones, even a queen, and that is what you will get. Their love is a very complex magic that no other kind can do.”

Daring Do, eyes twinkling, suggested, “Make the order for V.I.L.E. twenty one copies.  We will donate one to the Nightmare Wars Collection of the Royal Museum!”

General Ironhooves grinned hugely.  “You really want to shaft those First Creationists, don’t you?”

Daring Do simply said, “Yes.  They defile and deny the history that I have devoted my life to.”

Carmen pointed to the work tables and said, “Will you take a real compliment from your mother, Adora?  This, notes, restorations, preparation and all is a fantastic piece of work.

V.I.L.E. will duplicate it with the greatest of care.  With your permission, we will keep a copy for our own private museum.”

Mutely, Daring Do nodded.

She saw Uncle M talking to a Magic Net mirror and turning it to show everything.

Carmen pointed to an especially fragile relic and said, “Be especially careful of this one, Baron.”

One by one, the laboriously prepared relics, notes and all quietly vanished. General Ironhooves simply noted, “Handy trick, that!”

Daring Do, Friend, with her nest, and Blendin were brought to a large suite with an open airy feeling.  One Gryphon port was open enough for the Eagles to get in and out but not Gryphons.  The rooms were swarmed with Eagles.

Friend immediately shared that soft green magic of hers to include all of the waiting Eagles.  The way that they crowded close about the nest, it was clear that they had been waiting for Friend’s loving magic.  Several shuffled aside and one reached out a beak and snagged Daring Do’s tunic, making her join or get a torn tunic.  She joined the Eagles in luxuriating in the literal glow of Friend’s shared love.

After a few days of resting up, Rahak came by.  Crest at attention, he requested, “Doctor Do, master Blendin, would you come please?  The display copies are ready for examination.”

They followed the Wing Commander back down to the workroom.  There were twenty one large cases of fine solid woodwork, each faced by stout glass armored by a spell to the toughness of steel.  The contents were beautifully displayed to make the whole progression from hippogriff to Gryphon utterly clear.  Each item of the display had its explanatory placard.

Neatly done on each placard was an exact copy of a reference to the actual original Legend Document, with translation. After that part was a clear, simple note explaining the item.

Central to the whole display was Daring Do’s detailed sketch of the remains of the failed nymphs in place, as they were found.

The whole thing had such an impact that Daring Do’s breath drew in, in a way that she had heard so many times as a child riding her mother’s back in a knapsack, when her mother saw some beautiful thing that she was about to steal.

Turning to an equally awestruck Blendin, Daring Do said, “Tell Carmen that this is the best display preparation that I have ever seen.”

“Thank you, dear,” said a familiar voice.  A khaki colored unicorn mare in a form fitting fire engine red dress stepped out of the shadows.  Daring Do was shocked to see bags under her eyes.

Carmen Pondiego told her, “The General is sleeping now.  I have been working along with every agent that I have available.  I cannot tell you what we have been doing.  Imperial Security is involved.  I only hope that it has been enough to prevent the war.”

Rahak suggested, “Let us all prepare for this evening’s banquet.  That is when you will make your presentation, Doctor Do.”

Daring Do was looking around the Imperial Banquet Hall, at the many war banners that fluttered in the light breeze.  There were also the banners of the provinces of the Empire.  The wood and stonework was outstanding for its solidity and rich carving.

Perched on every place that they could find claw room were hundreds of Eagles, looking expectantly at Friend. Her nest had been placed conveniently close to Daring Do’s place.

The dining tables were all set so that every diner could see the big glass fronted case with its display. There were two  small books by each place.

One was a copy of the original document of the Legends, written some time shortly before 54 Post Nightmare Wars.  It had an exact copy of the document itself, a line by line literal translation and a third line in modern Gryphon with notes to explain the meaning of idioms used when the original was written.  No commentaries.  No editing.  Only a foreword explaining that this was a true copy of the Legends that they all revered and tried to follow.  Commentaries were dispensed with in the hope that the reader could understand what the words said and form their own opinions based on solid fact.

It was signed and sealed by the Empress herself.

The other small book contained copies of Daring Do’s expedition notes and sketches that were relevant to the display showing the origin of their species.

The First Created believers started to scream, “Blasphemy!”

The Empress herself cut them off.  “Silence, Krapper!  These are the Legends that you CLAIM to revere!”

“You have left out the rich and ancient commentaries!”

Her crest rippling with laughter, the Empress exclaimed, “Ancient? Krapper, the FIRST commentary was inserted into a small book like this only thirty five years ago!  It had a note that it WAS NOT HOLY WRIT, only opinion.  That note was removed and further commentaries added. More than half of the mass of your book has been added in just the last five years!

“It must be wonderful to be able to write up whatever you please, insert it into the next edition of your book and have it called HOLY WRIT!”

“Our Book is the true Law!  Holy Word is higher than mere secular law!”

“NO, Krapper!  That is direct sedition!  Guards!  Stand behind Krapper!  If he utters one more word of sedition, cut his wing tendons at once.  He will be given the LONG DROP at sunrise for the crime.”

The Empress paused for effect and added, “Now, we have a banquet laid before us.  Let not Krapper’s ill manners spoil your appetite.  After we have eaten, we will hear from Doctor Daring Do, whose actual facts, well documented and proven may provide you with much food for thought.”

The server placed a plate in front of Daring Do, commenting, “I hope that we got it to your taste.  It is a sauced alfalfa steak.  We don’t eat such fare, so we are not much used to cooking it.”

Daring Do replied with a smile, “I am sure that it will be fine.  You have been doing well the last few days.”

She cut a bite and began to chew.  Numbness spread from her mouth.  She gasped and could draw no air.  Her vision was fading slowly.

She heard, “The Blasphemer has been struck down!  Any means to strike at blasphemy is honorable, the Holy Writ is clear!”

The voice of the Empress cried, “Poison is the Coward’s Weapon!  Seize them!  Do not wait for the Long Drop!  Kill them now!”

The voice of Friend cut across the fading din, “No!  Matunen still has love.  I/we need them!  They will wish for your long drop!  I/we promise …”

Then no sight.  No sound.  No touch.  No taste.  Nothing …

<==PREVIOUS   NEXT==>

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[josephlrushing]

Upgrade Your Kitchen Gear with the Ankarsrum Assistent Original Stand Mixer

The Ankarsrum Assistent Original is a beautiful machine that’s ready to help complete many kitchen tasks. Best known as a high-end mixer that’s perfect for mixing and kneading bread dough, it can also mix cake batter, churn butter, mix cookie dough, whip cream, and much more all without any additional accessories. This powerful mixer with an excellent warranty may be the last one you ever need to buy.

Here is everything that comes in the box.

I was first introduced to the Ankarsrum Assistent (yes “Assistent” is spelled correctly, it’s Swedish) while researching my review of the Challenger Bread Pan. Challenger Breadware only carries the best equipment for home bread baking, so I was instantly intrigued. The Ankarsrum, or “Ank” as it’s affectionately referred to by its users, is made out of chrome and steel, and it is built to last. The 600-watt motor is strong enough to mix up to 5kg (or 11 pounds!) of dough in the 7-liter stainless steel bowl.

Ank with the roller and scraper

The Ank with its plastic bowl and double beater.

The Ank comes with a 7L steel bowl as well as a 3.5L clear plastic bowl. The large stainless bowl is to be used for bread doughs while the smaller plastic bowl is to be used for cake batter, cookie dough, whisking meringue, making icing, etc. With the stainless steel bowl, you can use the included dough hook, roller, scraper, and cover. With the plastic bowl, you will use the included double beaters. You get two sets of whisks, one set of balloon whisks, and one set of pastry whisks.

Shiny control knobs

The back of the unit.

The Ankarsrum Assistent is uniquely engineered so that the motor is located at the bottom of the unit, and the bowl itself spins. This design provides for a completely open top, which makes it easy to add flour, water, etc. as the mixer is spinning. The open top also allows you to see and feel the dough much easier than competitors. There is a movable steel arm that spans over the bowl, which holds the roller, while the scraper attaches to the side of the bowl and remains stationary while the bowl spins. This design simultaneously rolls and kneads the dough, making it similar to kneading with human hands. You also use a dough hook instead of the roller arm, which leads to a little more tearing while kneading, but many people use it with great success.

Kneading my first dough, NY Style pizza dough.

The same pizza dough

NY Style pizza dough rolled into balls and ready to ferment in the fridge for a few days.

The setup with the plastic bowl is pretty nifty. The bowl has a hole in the middle that allows a central shaft to connect to the motor assembly. The double beater assembly then connects to the top of the shaft and spins using the internal gears. It’s a cool setup that works well but requires a lot of small parts and pieces to use.

The Ank is controlled using two knobs. The left knob is the on/off/timer. You turn the knob one click to turn it on, and if you keep going past “on,” you can select a timer setting where the Ank will turn off automatically after up to 12 minutes. The speed is controlled using the right knob, and it’s completely adjustable, unlike most mixers that have specific speed settings. You can take the Ank from 45 to 130 rpm and adjust it anywhere in between. Surprisingly, it’s a fairly quiet motor, which is nice considering I share the house with my wife and kids, and they’d get annoyed with a loud motor.

A look at the recipes included in the hardcover recipe book.

Ankarsrum kindly provides a nicely designed, hardcover recipe book with each Assistent. Recipes include everything from hamburger buns, focaccia, and standard bread loaves, to desserts, cookies, pasta, smoothies, milkshakes, and more. The recipe book is surprisingly well-designed and photographed, and the recipes are specifically formulated for use in the Ank.

One more advantage that Ankarsrum carries over its competitors is it’s a serious warranty, boasting a SEVEN-year warranty on the motor base and a one year warranty on accessories. The warranty only applies to the original purchaser, however, so be forewarned in the secondary market. This is a massive advantage over comparable units that carry a mere two-year warranty.

A look at the crumb of my NY Style pizza dough.

My pizza, because who doesn’t like pizza?

So let’s talk about my experience testing the Ankarsrum Assistent. Keep in mind that I’ve been using a KitchenAid Artisan series, tilt-head mixer for years, so that’s my basis for comparison. While I feel like a KitchenAid Pro Series bowl-lift stand mixer is a more apt comparison spec-wise, I haven’t used one myself. There’s certainly a learning curve when going from a KA mixer to the Ankarsrum Assistent, and it took some time for me to feel confident, but the huge bowl and powerful motor were appreciated early and often.

Homemade sourdough bagels, mixed and kneaded in the Ank.

They were awesome. Come to think of it; I think I still have some in the freezer!

With the Ank, you’re supposed to put in all of the liquid ingredients first, then add your flour slowly until your dough comes together. I’ve watched a lot of videos recommending that the Ank allows you to use slightly less flour than a recipe calls for; however, I’m a bit anal when it comes to recipes, especially when baking, so I typically used the recommended amount of flour. I used the roller the most when mixing my bread dough since that’s supposed to be the closest way to mimic hand kneading. When mixing the water, oil, yeast, etc., I pushed the arm toward the center and back to help the ingredients mingle, then I added the flour slowly until it all combined into a nice dough. The experience of being able to dump all the ingredients in while it was spinning, without having to lower the bowl, tilt the head back, or try to sneak in between the head and the bowl, was fantastic.

Once the dough was formed, I reduced the speed to allow it to knead gently. The dough rolls around inside the bowl, getting lightly squeezed between the roller and the side of the bowl, then kicked back by the scraper. It’s an efficient way to keep the dough moving while gently kneading it. The perimeter of the roller itself is scalloped, mimicking the shape of human fingers. As mentioned, there’s a learning curve when using the Ank, and I wasn’t always sure that my dough was properly kneaded, however, my final products always came out great.

M&M cookie dough in progress

We made a few different types of bread in the stainless bowl, including pizza dough (my favorite) a few times, challah, and sourdough bagels. The process, while different than what I’m used to, was reasonably easy to adapt to. I found that the combination of the roller and scraper did seem like human hands were kneading the dough, and it definitely felt more gentle than I’m used to with a KA dough hook. The dough was adequately kneaded to develop the gluten in the bread, though it took slightly longer than I expected, approximately 10 minutes or so. Each turned out as expected: the challah was light and soft, the bagels were chewy on the inside and crisp on the outside, while the pizza dough had great oven spring and was crisp on the outside and soft on the inside.

Delicious, who doesn’t want some M&M cookies?

We also made M&M cookies using the plastic bowl and double beaters. We used the balloon (cookie) whisks to cream the room temperature butter before adding the sugar. The cookies came out great, as they were well mixed using the plastic bowl and double beaters. It was actually mesmerizing watching the double beaters work. Butter is a point worth mentioning. The Ankarsrum doesn’t have a solid “paddle” beater like KitchenAid mixers do, so it doesn’t have the ability to cream butter from the fridge. Ankarsrum makes it very clear that all butter must be room temperature before creaming. This may be an inconvenience to some, as it requires some forethought, but it’s not the end of the world.

After a few weeks of testing and many uses, I can confidently say that the Ankarsrum Assistent Original is an excellent mixer for those home bakers who are looking to level-up their kitchen equipment. The 7L bowl and 600W motor make it especially great if you’re going to be making a lot of dough at one time. There’s absolutely a learning curve, so you’ll want to go into your purchase expecting some time getting used to your device, but once you dedicate yourself to it, you’ll be making great food for years and years to come. The Ank is built like a tank, and it has the 7-year warranty to back it up. I’ve seen posts on the Ankarsrum Facebook group from people showing off their 20+-year-old mixers (previously called Electrolux Assistent, DLX, Verona Magic Mill).

Challah dough about to be kneaded by the dough hook; please excuse the messy counter.

Challah!

The Ankarsrum Assistent is beautifully designed, from both an engineering and aesthetic perspective. It’s available in 12 colors, enough to coordinate with any kitchen while it’s stainless steel bowl and curved lines would look good sitting on your counter, assuming you have the counter space. It has a removable power cord, so you can store it away easier, as well as a bowl cover that doubles as an accessory bowl while the Assistent is in use. They thought of everything.

Ankarsrum also has several accessories available to extend the uses for your Assistent. These nifty accessories include a spaghetti roller/cutter, lasagna sheet roller, grain/spice/coffee mill, slicer/shredder, meat grinder, juicer, and even a blender. There so many accessories I’m not going to name them all here. You can check out the full list online.

As I said, if you’re looking for an upgrade to your kitchen gear, check out the Ankarsrum Assistent Original, expect a learning curve, but your patience will be rewarded with delicious baked goods for years to come. Stay tuned for an update later this summer, where I’ll be checking out some of Ankarsrum’s most popular accessories as well as a review video, showing a lot of footage from my testing.

The Ankarsrum Assistent Original Stand Mixer sells for $699, and you can purchase it directly from the manufacturer.  

Source: Manufacturer supplied review sample

What I Like: Ingeniously engineered; Strong motor; Large bowl; Kneads similar to human hands; Super-versatile, especially when taking accessories into account; Comes in a ton of different colors; Outstanding warranty protection; Timeless retro design

What Needs Improvement: There’s a learning curve; It’s a bit large, so it may be hard to find storage for it in a small kitchen

from Joseph Rushing https://geardiary.com/2020/08/04/upgrade-your-kitchen-gear-with-the-ankarsrum-assistent-original-stand-mixer/

[the-dreamer-traveller]

The Fall of Capital City of Chrysanthemia

This is it.

A battle against a magically advanced capital city.

The dream, in its entirety, is a massive war against the capital city of Chrysanthemia, a shining white and advanced city with powerful magic-based military strength that acts as the Empire in this dream. Despite its great strength and advance achievements, the City of Chrysanthemia garnered plenty of enemies, many of them people that have been suffered from their reign as well as having some rebels of their own. This dream is about a major rebellion attack, a major blow of Chrysanthemia and an outsider thief who stole plenty from the Chrysanthemian citizens before flipping off and run away to another reality.

All as portrayed by three different loops, each of them slightly different from each other but all of them carry the same theme.

LOOP 1 (The Rebels):

The dream sets in a small building with white fancy stones, which remains unused and is left to slowly rot due to its construction being cancelled. The rebels of Chrysanthemia stationed here quietly, slowly plotting for the attack. I join in with them, as I am portrayed as a young girl who wishes to strike vengeance against the city and her people itself for crimes that the dream didn’t reveal.

As the rebel party slowly gather around, the leader of the troops, a burly man with red hair, walks around at the little campfire that they prepared for themselves. The building’s front walls are covered enough that the guards had no idea what will be coming for them. “Okay, I would like to have all of your attention for the moment.” He said, raising his hand to attract the whole group’s attention. Meanwhile, I am busy idly watching through the holes of the front wall, looking over at a large fancy courtyard with exquisite white stone design that looks like the bottom end of bird’s plume resting by the side.

“I would like to thank you gentlemen for coming here today. As you would have it known that today is our day that we will strike vengeance against the people of Chrysanthemia, for the crimes that they have done to our ancestors as well as to yours. At the very moment, we will first strike and make chaos within the courtyard of this area of the city, to drive the soldiers to our position. This should be enough for the opposing warriors and army to start fighting by their walls, all while we make ourselves a distraction until the army had just arrived.”

“Sir, we are almost ready.” I said, looking at the leader. “Shall we begin with our assault, my liege?”

“Go.”

With a quick signal in his hand to move forward, the rebels quickly move in forward. There are some Chrysanthemian guards stationed in here, dressed in black robes with armored shoulder pads, body armour, obscuring helmet and metallic boots, and they either brought along swords, lances or nothing but their magic with them. A small group of soldiers would have deal with us far more easily, but they were all surprised that they left themselves unguarded, due to the rebels using the unfinished constructed building as their hiding place.

The battle goes on. With our axes, swords and halberds, we class against the guards of Chrysanthemia. Despite of them possessing some sort of superior equipment as well as being well-armed, the rebels proved themselves to be far more efficient, due to the guards surprised and are in a short state of panic. I jump in forward and deliver a fatal slash in the chest with my sword with axe blade combination, watching as the guard quickly fell to the ground with a loud thud. Two other guards quickly move in for the kill, but I prove them that I am far more dangerous than they would think, as I flip off away before I smash my blade into one of their shoulders, with the blade deep enough that it severs the vein in his neck that his blood quickly went out really fast, letting him drop to the floor. The other guard is in a state of shock, only for another of the rebels to plunge a spearhead into his heart.

In the midst of the chaos in the battle, I stop by a small open area, without minding of a nearby corpse of a Chrysanthemian guard with blood slowly flowing from his open neck, to take a rest as well as to prepare and stock on the equipment that I would need. As I stood up and look at my side, I notice that there is a woman within the battle. It is an elegant woman with fancy feathery dress, making her look like a bird by the far distance. She wears a distinctive headdress that have two extending arches with white feathers, resembling like wings. The headdress connects to her white form-fitting dress, and the skirt is a bit tight from the upper but slowly lessens so and extends as it goes down. She looks like a saintly woman in white with feathers adorned and she looks at me in shock, clutching a large gold staff with a blue orb at the tip.

That face, with blonde hair tucked in but still apparent by her eyebrows. That face speaks of a depth that I am familiar with.

Without any hesitation, I quickly plunge the blade on her chest, with it sticking out of her back.

As I watch her body slowly fall into the ground, a single tear rolls down from my eye.

I remember who she is.

When I am but a young girl, this very woman is actually a kind caretaker of the orphanage of where I used to live. Everyday and night, she is like a mother figure to me when I have no parents, a supporting light and a paragon of virtues in my eyes. Even when I am no longer living in the orphanage and decided to strike on my own, I never think badly for her as she is a supportive figure in my childhood years.

Now, in the battle that determines the fate of Chrysanthemia, in two sides against each other as enemies. She is with the enemy side and I am in my side, I have nothing but remorse, sadness and bitterness in my heart as I killed her with that blade for the sake of the future of our children. Her cold body lies on the floor, with her dress ruined with blood from her open chest and her pale skin becoming paler than the color white, as if devoid of color and life from her

I’m sorry…

=================================

The battle within Chrysanthemia rages on for a whole day. With the guards of Chrysanthemia slowly being outmatched by the rebels and the hard push-on attack by the enemy factions, the loyal citizenry of Chrysanthemia are being divided in their course of actions. Some of the citizens would remain to be neutral or will attempt to flee from the city, not wanting to do anything and fear for their lives. However, some of her citizens would rather fight and remain loyal to Chrysanthemia, even if it will cost them their own lives.

I am with a small group of the rebels moving by the coastal section of the city of Chrysanthemia, where some of the buildings are being built by the cliffsides. By our own fortune, we are being given with some soldiers from the invading army so that we will not be dealt easily by any resistance from the loyalist. As we move by the balconies, we are stopped by four civilian mages. One of them is clothed in white so she is a white mage and three of them are in black robes, signifying that they are Elder (Dark) mages. One of them, however, is a little child, joining in with his parents to fight to death.

In a way that would make the scene from Star Wars blush, my units quickly move in and cut down the adult mages, putting the child in a tight position of surrender-or-die. However, he puts his loyalty to Chrysanthemia and begins to slowly cast a spell of Dark Thunder. Before he could stand a chance, I move in and struck him down by the sword, defeating him. This is one of the worse things that I have ever done in this campaign, but then I know that it is for the greater good of the future, anyone who stands in our way will be cut down with no ounce of mercy.

As the enemies are killed, we continue to move forward, to fight for our future.

LOOP 2 (The Assault):

The same thing happens but then it diverts from the POV of rebels and into a soldier, who jumps in to the battle between the rebels far more earlier.

With the assistance of the rebels in timing, we are thrown into the battle between the opposing forces, those who defend the city Chrysanthemia and those who fought against it. The whole garden, which is once filled with beautifully trimmed grass, fancy trees and exquisite stone white sculptures and cement structures, is wrecked with dead bodies, burnt marks and blood. Both sides, this time, performed well, dealing with close combat with each while trying to kill each of the other. Some of the mages come in, but there are also other rebels who are adept to magic, balancing things out.

Together with my squad, which consists of well-armored men and women, quickly join in to assist the battle. We are a four-person squad of well-trained soldiers, with one is a female spear user/mage hybrid, a buffed up man with a large halberd, another man with a combat staff with sharpened tips and another man, which is my spot, who has a sword and shield in accord. All of us wear heavy armor, even for the female who wears what looks like a long metallic skirt open in the center in a style like a mage. Since our armor is covered throughout our body, we are thoroughly protected from as much possible attacks as possible.

We face against our opponents, a group of four enemy soldiers. There are three enemy soldiers, who carry swords and are also heavy armored. One of them, however, is the same kind-hearted caretaker, the mage who wears feathers in her dress. Because I remember on what I have dreamed in the previous loop, I began to feel uncertain and nervous, especially since I am going to kill the woman again.

Can’t handle with the subconscious guilt in my stomach, I turn to my teammates and told them, “Guys, can we not kill that woman over there? I know it maybe be hard to believe, but I remember her as a kindly woman in an orphanage. Please don’t kill her as the children would still need her.” My group is a bit confused, but they understand and would try to incapacitate her.

The woman hears it, surprised. “Attack them!” She ordered, pointing her staff to us.

Great, this is going to make the battle even more harder to accomplish.

Because we have to fight against her, I decided to order out on the plan of our battle. Since I wish to spare with the orphanage caretaker, we have to carefully carry out our attacks. For the main attackers (the halberd-wielder and I), we will take out the enemy soldiers while the support crew (the spear/mage and the combat staff user) will either buff us or to debuff our foes. This way, we could take out only those who stand in our way while we incapacitate the orphanage caretaker, effectively sparing her.

We’ll hope to see if this plan works.

LOOP 3 (The Thief):

The loop, presumably, takes place in the same area, but how it happens is completely different from the previous loops. Here, a section of the city’s neighborhood is mixed up with the garden, effectively turning it into a street. Still, the signature white sculpture and the trimmed vegetation remains.

Apparently, this loop is already in the middle of the battle, but the main action is in a different part of Chrysanthemia, while the loop places me somewhere else. This place seems to be near to a school of magic, where I see plenty of students in black robes being forced to evacuate from their classes while leading them to the nearest evacuation route as fast as possible. Many of the people, aside from the students, were coming out from their houses as well, either panicking or scared or confused on what is going on.

I push aside a civilian male, while I pass by open and raging flames from a house that is literally on fire. I am wearing black fireproof cloak that protects me from the heat and fire, preventing myself from getting some serious burns. However, I accidentally bump into a guard and almost fell into the ground, while the guard look at me and eyed suspiciously.

“Where do you think your going, runt?” He snapped, angrily.

“Hey, I’m trying to get out of the fire!” I replied, annoyed. I sigh and dusted off my clothes. With taking a few steps, I stood next to a trimmed tree while silently gazing at the wall, frowning while I browse on my items. Sure, I did manage to steal a couple of valuable shit, but then the time hasn’t come yet.

Then it happened.

The wall explodes, showering debris and rubble. The general populace begins to panic really hard that they start fleeing in all directions, while the guards could barely hold any order. Before they could, several of the invading soldiers, enemy rebels and Chrysanthemian soldiers pour from the other side, engaging into combat. And, apparently, a nearby zoo also busts open, releasing all sorts of animals that also let them escape from their cells and into the streets.

This is my call to run.

With holding on my cloak and turning to the general direction, I quickly run with my quick feet and into my freedom. Some of the guards who aren’t fighting against the rebels and soldiers saw me and instantly recognize me as a legendary thief, who steals from random people and escapes uncaught. They all quickly try to catch me, but I am too fast for them and their hands, as I have a trick in my sleeves; with the use of slowing down time!

As my running activates my ability, time itself slows down, but not me. While my running speed is more or less slightly halted by the ability, I am still faster than the guards. With just a few meters from where I should be, I can finally activate another of my ability; travelling to another universe. While I am running, I begin to notice that some of the animals that are running in the city are also Pokémon, such as Horseas. I noticed that one of the Horseas fell to one of the benches, motionless. I poke a few times on it but then realized that it is dead from exhaustion. I cringe silently and continue on my running.

Once I manage to see a different universe all together, a small town with tricycles and cars moving by the road, I quickly turn my back to look at my would-be captors, who are trying to reach for me. They are desperate to really want to catch and bring me down to their justice, but they are so far away that they could do nothing more but try to run after me in vain. I laughed victoriously and stick out my tongue before a jump over and held at the roof of a tricycle before time goes back to normal and I speed away, completely in another universe and having leaving Chrysanthemia behind.

This is victorious.

[marlutterianae]

The Exploration in the Lost City of Ith.

- Extracted from the mind of a Demon Slayer -

It was about damn time something was done about that breach in the condemned city of Dismalia. However…

It’s been weeks since the praised survivor Rokyu slayers came back from there after their entire squadron of supposedly elite warriors was massacred, along side with 90% of the civilian population. Of course they were treated with praise and rewards. Those entitled pricks always get the credit for the “hardest missions”. But no one bats an eye when it comes to us. The Reclaimers. We are giving the continuous task of taking back Lost territory from the demons. Deployed all year when reality is stable, when the demons and witches are at their weakest, and usually brought back after the Unrrall Season starts. Then it’s time for the slayers from other guilds do their job. But sometimes our troops are summoned for extreme cases even when we are supposed to be on duty somewhere else. My unit and I were dealing with the recovery of a northern sector near the Yurthland desert border. It was one of the outposts that connects both realms. Yet somehow our commanders decided to prioritize this newly found territory under the most awful of places in the kingdom. But that’s not all. This was a special mission, on which we would be accompanied by some members of the Magal, and their weird battle Wizards, for unspecified reasons at the moment.

We were the first to arrive, of course. In case more demons were roaming the abandoned town. No sign of demonic life so far. Our unit had to be small in numbers since this wasn’t a typical reclamation in the field. And maybe the underground could make difficult to mobilize a large troop. I had to pick my best for the job. 19 of my best soldiers, led by me. Sergeant Fátima. I never liked to work with a reduce squad, no matter how much value each member has on their own. But if  we are truly going to be fighting alongside those flashy, grim wizards, then I guess we won’t be decimated so easily.

They arrived a couple hours later after we guarded the entrance to the cavernous breach. The Magal indeed make you feel quite uneasy with their presence. There’s something about them that causes a disturbance among my men. At first glance it’s their grotesque scars. All of them had gruesome scars. Wouldn’t expected them to be people of rough combat. They don’t even look at you directly most of the time. They always seem to be examining their surroundings.

From that moment on, they will be in charge of this expedition. I reserved most of my doubts so I could ask only the essentials. They explained to us that this was both a scientific expedition as well as a cleansing of whatever lies under the town. Their unnamed sources informed them that there is an entire necropolis hidden below. And that it was still plagued with ancient demons, trapped from long ago. Our specific job was to secure the ruins of any demonic presence and allow the wizards to collect any artifacts, reliques and information they can gather from there. Even if it’s just drawings in the walls. Everything is valuable. They speak to us so condescendingly that it sickens me. As if we didn’t understood the value of research from the ancient world. They probably see us as a bunch of expendable brutes. After all preparations were done, we traversed the enormous cavern into the dark tunnels below.

I was the one closest to the wizards as they analyze the environment with their strange equipment and by somehow sensing the walls. I notice how the space around us gets narrower, and the stone starts to look and feel more like metal. The strange metal that most ruins from the time of Berelith seems to be made of. It doesn’t take long before we are stripped away from daylight, so we proceed with lanterns while the wizards only used some glowing talismans just so we don’t lose track of them, since apparently they can see in the dark. The ones that outstand the most are the three battle casters that came with them, who wore strange armor different to ours but that seemed quite defensive. “Hey, why does a wizard need armor?” I asked one of them. A cold feminine voice responded. “It’s a specially made for magic users, specifically for combat. You simply don’t go into battle with magic wearing robes”. After that she accelerated her pace and left me behind. It was the first time in the whole day that one of them spoke. They surely were the most silent of the bunch.

The descend from the narrow corridor led us into an large open space. With the roof seemingly way higher. We were ordered to stop by the he leading wizard. “So it is a city…” I heard him whisper. The rest started to talk to each other as they looked in distress around us. “We are not alone, at all”, hissed one of the armored ones. I cannot see anything beyond the illuminated radius of my lantern. It’s all darkness and vague silhouettes of columns from afar. I order my squad to take a defensive position, surrounding the team of wizards. Weapons ready. The armored ones come out from from the circle, serving as the first line of attack. Logical, since they can actually see what’s happening.

“I can hear them getting angrier by the second, my masters.” says the caster standing tall and firm in front of me. How can she hear them? It’s all a maddening silence for us. “Permission to balance the odds for our escort” sentenced with a cold tone. I hold tight my battle axe and try to calm my breathing. “Permission granted, my child” responded the leading wizard, in a similarly cold way. “Blink!” Said the armored one. She then took her arm above her head and from it a flash of light exploded. I blinked, and when I opened my eyes I saw them. Rows and rows of demons, of all sizes and shapes, climbing on top of towers and house like structures surrounding us. The bright light turned into a more tenuous red. As I look up, a the glowing sphere of fire illuminated our stance. I thank the gods silently, and as I take my eyes at front once again, I tell the armored wizard “Thank you”.

What followed where the horrendous screeching of the fiends, as they opened their grotesque maws and prepared their respective killing appendages before charging against us. We make our battle cries be heard, and began with slashing the first fiends that approached us. The three armored wizards began casting their crazy spells. I saw for a moment blasts of bright energy come out of the wizard’s hands, blowing up entire rows of demons. Some were even sent flying by that. But that didn’t stopped the rest. A quicker trio of demons crawled towards her, while she continued to blast the non stopping hoards in front of her. With a fast swing of my axe I cut off the head of one of them, stop the smaller one under me with a crushing stomp and push punch the third one with a massive blow to the face with my elbow. Some of my soldiers finish it off after it fell, while I continued to chop and slash anything that came close to me, to her and the group. Our warriors bearing firearms manage to stop the rapid advance of the larger fiends, and the rest dealt direct damage with their melee weapons. The magical blasts of the wizards are way more devastating than any of our high calibre guns, of course. With the speed at which the demons are coming out from the dark, this strategy seems to be our only chance of survival.

The armored wizard and I make a good pair in the battle. She stuns the fiends coming at our way with force waves, and lets me finish them off with my axe. But she suddenly collapsed after a powerful attack, so I pull out my handgun and shoot to give her some time while she recovers. After killing the nearest demon, I approach her. “What happened?! Are you hurt?!” She denies with a hand sign, while trying to recover her breath. “Cannot… Overheat… Too much…” before she could go on I pat her in the shoulder, which seemed to startle her a little. “Take your time! We’ll give you space!”. I call for the nearest warriors to aid me. And we managed to keep the fiends at good distance from the wizard in recovery. I cannot look back at how the other points of our formation are doing, but I remain focused on my position. I see briefly some of my men being taken down brutally by the demons. Too fast to react properly. I carry on fighting. After being almost blinded by the splatters of blood I feel a pat on the shoulder, coming from the armored wizard. “Good now. Stand back, please…” she says in a surprisingly soft tone, compared to what’s happening around us.

I follow suit, never losing the grip of my axe and wait for her to do her thing. She extends her arms widely at both sides and in a blink of an eye she summoned a bunch of little spheres of bright energy that surrounded her. I look at it amazed, a moment before being brought back by the nasty roar of another pack of fiends. The luminous spheres started to spin around her, gaining rapid momentum in no time. Those demons that were too close got their flesh melted and extremities exploded. They took their distance and the spheres around her now looked more like flashing blurs. With a coordinated gesture of both hands, pointing forward, all the energy blurs are thrown at the demons, melting through the monstrous mob. I can still see them glow far into the distance between the metallic structures and pillars, before tehy exploded with a bright flash, one after the other. The wounded demons in front of us where squirming in what appeared to be agonizing pain, unable to regrow their melted flesh. “Those will not cause much trouble now” she said while looking at me. I contemplate her path of destruction, and all I could do at that moment was smiling at her.

But suddenly, we hear a loud, deafening scream. Like if a banshee was inside our brains. Even between the mess of roars and screeches, that managed to startle the entire troop. The mob of demons coming from all sides came to a halt, and we looked at what caused such awful sound. To our horrid surprise, when we gaze at the abominable creature, it had already impaled one of the armored wizards through his entire body, while still holding him in his long sharp leg. The abhorrent arachnid started to walk a couple of meters away from us, lurking just far away enough from the crimson light above. I can see multiple eyes of different sizes in what seemed to be the head. It stopped, and then it started to to push itself upward to gain stature. It finally came into the light. Revealing a large head filled with eyes, with a drooling mouth and a jaw sliced in two. It takes four of its multiple legs upwards. I can’t see how many it has. It hisses at us, while the remaining fiends farther away hold their position, motionless.

I take a look at our formation. We had lost that wizard, and at least 9 Reclaimers. Despite everything, the path to the surface is still clear. I can see some semblance of horror in the faces of the wizard leaders. “Master… Orders?!” my armored companion ask, sounding more worried than ever before. The group remains speechless, looking around, trying to find a solution to this predicament. My team hold their position. I was right in picking them. I look at them in the eyes. Without needing words, we agree on one single thing. Whatever comes next, we will not be diminished by them. I look at my partner, and she nods, clenching her fists, emanating electricity around them. I am ready, and I hope those weird scientists make the right choice next.

- - - 

Alright! This was really fun to do! The most action packed of the bunch so far. And I’m continuing this weird plot of the underground ruins discovered below other cities around Dorok. The prompt was “Lurking” and I planned to write this as something less intense and more ominous and with more suspense. This group exploring the Lost City and getting hunted down by the demons one by one. But it turned into an action sequence. Oh well. I still had a lot of fun with it. And I hope you do as well!  

[ask-de-writer]

DARING DO and the Gryphon’s Quest! : MLP Fan Fiction : Chapter 17 of 19

Return to the Master Story Index

Return to MLP Fan Fiction

DARING DO

and

The Gryphon’s Quest!

Chapter 17

by

De Writer (Glen Ten-Eyck)

and

Carmen Pondiego

Cover art by Wind the Mama Cat

29584 words

© 2016 by Glen Ten-Eyck

Writing begun 03/29/16

All rights reserved.  This document may not be copied or distributed on or to any medium or placed in any mass storage system except by the express written consent of the author.

This is a Fan Fiction based on My Little Pony.  Canterlot, Princess Luna and the name Daring Do are owned by Hasboro Inc.

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For new readers, this link leads to the beginning of  

Daring Do and the Gryphon’s Quest!

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Chapter 17. The Coward’s Weapon!

Daring Do was pleasantly surprised at just how good her half brother Blendin was at specimen preparation.  There was another surprise for her too.

Friend spent much of her time crooning to her Eagle eggs.  She did frequently leave her nest and lend her green magic to the task, usually greatly simplifying the work.  It was the greatest assistance at particularly difficult or delicate times in the preparation of the failed nymphs that she had loved so dearly and watched over for so many centuries.

Almost any time that they took a break from the arduous task before them, Friend would leave the eggs and nest protected by a nearly invisible glow of green magic.  She would take a place beside Daring Do and purr/croon softly.  Daring Do found real rest and comfort in the love that Friend shared with her.  She often rested her head against the changeling’s horn and shared thought and memory.

It was from that sharing that she learned something surprising about Friend. When her hive was attacked by war equipped and battle ready unicorns, Friend defended the hive’s precious eggs. 

She slaughtered ten of the enemy, literally tearing them to pieces in the defense of those eggs.  When her shared hive mind felt the Queen die, she went briefly berserk.  Four of the ten attacking unicorns that she killed fell in those few moments.

It was duty and love for the eggs that she tended that brought her back to something resembling sanity.  Taking all of the eggs that she could carry, she fled into the night.

The world outside of the hive was a strange and confusing place at first.  By luck alone, she found a long disused road that led to the mountains.  She did the best that she could but it was not enough.  One by one, she felt the spark of returned love die out of each of the eggs.  Her heart was torn asunder by the loss.

Daring Do knew the rest of the story.  What she did not know was the sheer depth of feeling that Friend had developed for her.  She meant it when she said that Daring Do was Matunen,  Hive Queen, in the ancient tongue of Early Middle Equestrian.

Friend was totally contented for the first time in ages.  That in no way interfered with any whit of her egg tending.

Blendin saw his half sister’s serene relaxation around Friend and was glad. The Apprentice Librarian of the Great Library in him was glad too.  He was learning things about conservation of irreplaceable delicate artifacts and relics that would apply to his work in the Great Library.  

Once everything was ready, he stared at the results of their work in wonder.  He had not only helped to prepare the whole foundation for the creation of an entire intelligent species, he had it and all of his half sister’s notes cataloged for the Great Library!

Together, they sent a note of their progress to the Empress.

The door, upon opening, showed the Empress, Grata, and the Right Wing of the Imperial Throne.  The hallway was blocked by heavily armed Imperial Guards in full battle armor.

Daring Do was about to ask if such precautions were necessary when a loud, harsh voice from up the hallway demanded, “This is all Blasphemous!  Even if it were the truth and showed our  ancient roots, it would still be blasphemy!  The Holy Legends declare that Faith alone is sufficient and seeking truth beyond its holy pages undermines Faith!

“Whatever is here must be destroyed!”

The Empress responded, “What is about to be destroyed is YOU, Krapper!  You have fifteen seconds to be around the curve and out of OUR sight before I order my troops to open fire!”

“You would not dare!”

“Nine seconds left, Krapper.”

There was a clatter of claws on stone as the speaker retreated!

The Empress drew a deep breath, her crest showing disgust.  “The entire lot of First Creation Idiots want to destroy the only real history that our kind has.”

Friend spoke up, “Your Majesty, they are wrong.  This I/we know.  Before I/we loved the eggs that became the nymphs of your kind, I/we saw changelings.  I/we saw unicorns.  I/we saw Eagles. I/we saw pegassi.

“I/we helped matunen Daring Do and brother Blendin to be sure that these failed nymphs truly show how I/we loved the eggs that became the nymphs that are your kind.”

The Empress, crest showing deep thought, began tracing the development of her kind.  She was reading the placards set by each step of the way. Looking over to the true mother of her whole species, she asked, “Why did you go from pony to big cat for our hindquarters?”

Friend crowded over to point as she spoke.  “Not all big cat.  See how these bones go?  That is from the pegassus.  The head was carnivore, Eagle. The hindquarters had to eat meat too or fail.  I/we did see a lion in mountains once, close enough to feel its insides by loving it.  I/we used what I/we knew.”

Grata, crest rippling in laughter, exclaimed, “We are so lucky that she didn’t see a bear!”

After the fit of laughter passed around the room, the Empress asked, “How will this all be presented, Doctor Do?”

Daring Do sketched rapidly.  “The case, to be portable must be of stout woodwork.  The front viewing window should be made of glass that has been spell strengthened like a Magic Net mirror.”

The Empress nodded, crest showing some concern.  “You mentioned not risking the real relics and that is a good idea.  

“We have General Iron Hooves here with some of his munitions experts.  The team that they are consulting with is known to you, though we know that you do not like them much.

“V.I.L.E. Is here.  They have sent Carmen Pondiego, Baron Von Nighthoof, Marehem Skadefryd, and Kiros Asbhy.  I understand that they have also got a number of Agents here too.”

Crest smiling, the Empress went on, “I was warned to be sure that I still have both mandibles of my beak after dealing with them.  However, they will be absolutely honest with family.

“They have several missions.  One is being worked on now with General Ironhooves and his aides.  Another is to be the agency for creating your cases and making the copies for display.  I will be ordering twenty sets.”

Daring Do, looking doubtful, did agree, “I have to admit that when it comes to museum quality duplication, Mom’s company is unexcelled.”  

An all too familiar voice caroled from the doorway, “So sweet to hear you actually say something nice about my company!  Of course we are honest!  V.I.L.E. has never been caught or proved to be guilty of ANY crime at all!

“Suspicions?  Poof!  Suspicion and a cup of tea will get you anything from a nice Bergamont to bag of Lupton’s Worst!

Carmen Pondiego strutted into the room in her trademark porkpie hat and fire engine red dress.  She called over her shoulder, “General, Dear, would you please come in and see for yourself what my daughter found that is causing all this mess?”

General Ironhooves entered the door.  He was in his simple field uniform.

He tipped his Campaign Hat to the Empress and her Wings.  He approached the study tables, examining the relics with care.  He picked up Daring Do’s voluminous field notes and sketches, seeming to leaf through them, except that once in a while he stopped long enough to separate pages that stuck together.

He put down the books and turned to the Empress.  “Ma'am, you have chosen your battlefield perfectly. Better, you have the enemy in the sights of your artillery.

“I hope that it does not come to armed conflict, but if it does, after consulting with Carmen here, I think that you will have a LOT of surprises for them!”

Daring Do managed to look skeptical.  “Only them?”

Before Carmen could snark back, Marehem wandered in, right past the security detail.  He grinned.  “Helps to be a misfortune changel …”

His eyes bugged out.  It was the first time that Daring Do could remember that her uncle Marehem was caught totally off guard!

“An Egg-tender, HERE?  How did that happen?  How can she live without a hive?”

Friend looked up from serenely turning the eggs in the nest.  She smiled as she said, “Matunen Daring Do.”

Uncle M stopped like he’d hit a brick wall headfirst.  “Adora, Matunen?  A queen?”

The Empress nodded, crest rippling amusement.  “It hit us like that too, when we realized that Friend is OVER two thousand years old.  She was the sole survivor of a destroyed hive.

“Tending eggs kept her sane.  She is the Mother who loved an unstable and fatal hybridization into becoming our strong race.  I gather that for her, loving means something other than a simple feeling.”

Marehem got it together to say, “It sure does.  The eggs a queen lays are sort of neutral.  They will develop as random kinds of changelings.  Give them to an Egg-tender and tell her how many of which sort, worker, other egg-tenders, drones, even a queen, and that is what you will get. Their love is a very complex magic that no other kind can do.”

Daring Do, eyes twinkling, suggested, “Make the order for V.I.L.E. twenty one copies.  We will donate one to the Nightmare Wars Collection of the Royal Museum!”

General Ironhooves grinned hugely.  “You really want to shaft those First Creationists, don’t you?”

Daring Do simply said, “Yes.  They defile and deny the history that I have devoted my life to.”

Carmen pointed to the work tables and said, “Will you take a real compliment from your mother, Adora?  This, notes, restorations, preparation and all is a fantastic piece of work.

“V.I.L.E. will duplicate it with the greatest of care.  With your permission, we will keep a copy for our own private museum.”

Mutely, Daring Do nodded.

She saw Uncle M talking to a Magic Net mirror and turning it to show everything.

Carmen pointed to an especially fragile relic and said, “Be especially careful of this one, Baron.”

One by one, the laboriously prepared relics, notes and all quietly vanished. General Ironhooves simply noted, “Handy trick, that!”

Daring Do, Friend, with her nest, and Blendin were brought to a large suite with an open airy feeling.  One Gryphon port was open enough for the Eagles to get in and out but not Gryphons.  The rooms were swarmed with Eagles.

Friend immediately shared that soft green magic of hers to include all of the waiting Eagles.  The way that they crowded close about the nest, it was clear that they had been waiting for Friend’s loving magic.  Several shuffled aside and one reached out a beak and snagged Daring Do’s tunic, making her join or get a torn tunic.  She joined the Eagles in luxuriating in the literal glow of Friend’s shared love.

After a few days of resting up, Rahak came by.  Crest at attention, he requested, “Doctor Do, master Blendin, would you come please?  The display copies are ready for examination.”

They followed the Wing Commander back down to the workroom.  There were twenty one large cases of fine solid woodwork, each faced by stout glass armored by a spell to the toughness of steel.  The contents were beautifully displayed to make the whole progression from hippogriff to Gryphon utterly clear.  Each item of the display had its explanatory placard.

Neatly done on each placard was an exact copy of a reference to the actual original Legend Document, with translation. After that part was a clear, simple note explaining the item.

Central to the whole display was Daring Do’s detailed sketch of the remains of the failed nymphs in place, as they were found.

The whole thing had such an impact that Daring Do’s breath drew in, in a way that she had heard so many times as a child riding her mother’s back in a knapsack, when her mother saw some beautiful thing that she was about to steal.

Turning to an equally awestruck Blendin, Daring Do said, “Tell Carmen that this is the best display preparation that I have ever seen.”

“Thank you, dear,” said a familiar voice.  A khaki colored unicorn mare in a form fitting fire engine red dress stepped out of the shadows.  Daring Do was shocked to see bags under her eyes.

Carmen Pondiego told her, “The General is sleeping now.  I have been working along with every agent that I have available.  I cannot tell you what we have been doing.  Imperial Security is involved.  I only hope that it has been enough to prevent the war.”

Rahak suggested, “Let us all prepare for this evening’s banquet.  That is when you will make your presentation, Doctor Do.”

Daring Do was looking around the Imperial Banquet Hall, at the many war banners that fluttered in the light breeze.  There were also the banners of the provinces of the Empire.  The wood and stonework was outstanding for its solidity and rich carving.

Perched on every place that they could find claw room were hundreds of Eagles, looking expectantly at Friend. Her nest had been placed conveniently close to Daring Do’s place.

The dining tables were all set so that every diner could see the big glass fronted case with its display. There were two  small books by each place.

One was a copy of the original document of the Legends, written some time shortly before 54 Post Nightmare Wars.  It had an exact copy of the document itself, a line by line literal translation and a third line in modern Gryphon with notes to explain the meaning of idioms used when the original was written.  No commentaries.  No editing.  Only a foreword explaining that this was a true copy of the Legends that they all revered and tried to follow.  Commentaries were dispensed with in the hope that the reader could understand what the words said and form their own opinions based on solid fact.

It was signed and sealed by the Empress herself.

The other small book contained copies of Daring Do’s expedition notes and sketches that were relevant to the display showing the origin of their species.

The First Created believers started to scream, “Blasphemy!”

The Empress herself cut them off.  “Silence, Krapper!  These are the Legends that you CLAIM to revere!”

“You have left out the rich and ancient commentaries!”

Her crest rippling with laughter, the Empress exclaimed, “Ancient? Krapper, the FIRST commentary was inserted into a small book like this only thirty five years ago!  It had a note that it WAS NOT HOLY WRIT, only opinion.  That note was removed and further commentaries added. More than half of the mass of your book has been added in just the last five years!

“It must be wonderful to be able to write up whatever you please, insert it into the next edition of your book and have it called HOLY WRIT!”

“Our Book is the true Law!  Holy Word is higher than mere secular law!”

“NO, Krapper!  That is direct sedition!  Guards!  Stand behind Krapper!  If he utters one more word of sedition, cut his wing tendons at once.  He will be given the LONG DROP at sunrise for the crime.”

The Empress paused for effect and added, “Now, we have a banquet laid before us.  Let not Krapper’s ill manners spoil your appetite.  After we have eaten, we will hear from Doctor Daring Do, whose actual facts, well documented and proven may provide you with much food for thought.”

The server placed a plate in front of Daring Do, commenting, “I hope that we got it to your taste.  It is a sauced alfalfa steak.  We don’t eat such fare, so we are not much used to cooking it.”

Daring Do replied with a smile, “I am sure that it will be fine.  You have been doing well the last few days.”

She cut a bite and began to chew.  Numbness spread from her mouth.  She gasped and could draw no air.  Her vision was fading slowly.

She heard, “The Blasphemer has been struck down!  Any means to strike at blasphemy is honorable, the Holy Writ is clear!”

The voice of the Empress cried, “Poison is the Coward’s Weapon!  Seize them!  Do not wait for the Long Drop!  Kill them now!”

The voice of Friend cut across the fading din, “No!  Matunen still has love.  I/we need them!  They will wish for your long drop!  I/we promise …”

Then no sight.  No sound.  No touch.  No taste.  Nothing …

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