#unscout

[donutholeshame]

it seems that ive been unscouted on newgrounds, i assume this is because i broke the rules too many times by marking smut with m ratings instead of a ratings

and i feel a little bad about that

[christiansorrell]

Play-By-Blog #15: The Isle by Luke Gearing

Welcome to my ongoing play-by-blog of The Isle by Luke Gearing! We are playing this adventure with its original system, The Vanilla Game (adjusted somewhat to fit the format). You can check out the Play-By-Blog Repository to get all caught up if you wish.

How Play-By-Blog works:

I write up the situation, NPCs, and more, just like a DM.

You vote in the poll to help decide the character's course of action.

I roll the dice, resolve actions, and write them up next week.

So on and so forth for the rest of the adventure!

Notation:

[Text in brackets is out-of-character/GM text!] "Non-italicized quotes denote text from the original adventure!" "Italicized quotations denotes NPC dialogue."

Our character: Medon Girou - Magic Cutpurse

Our maps: The Isle, The Dungeon (so far)

[You can use the links above to find Medon's Character Sheet and map of the Isle and the so far uncovered portions below the surface. On the Dungeon map, you are currently in Floor 2, in the hall to the west of Room 19.]

Now, back to the adventure!

Sludge be damned, you came here for treasure and anything under that kind of foul protection must be worth something considerable.

You head back down the hall, out of the oozes path, and take several minutes to cast Teleport as a ritual, focusing on the raised dias holding the knife inside the sludge chamber [Room 19]. [Because you have seen but not studied the destination, there is a 5-in-6 chance of success. 1d6 Roll: 4 - Success!]

You are the in the hall one moment and in the next you are standing atop the dias in the stench and sludge-filled room. Your mind takes a moment to re-orient itself to your suddenly new surroundings.

At your feet rests a witch-knife carved from a stag's antler. You pick it up and flick off the last bits of goo before holding it in both hands and feeling its energy. There is something arcane about this knife.

You sense the power within. A slaughtered royal stag, poached in a distant land. Vague shapes, long since lost in time. Those the knife struck. A connection. You can sense their slumber, now dreamless and eternal, as well as your own mind, your own intentions. With this knife, you may forever send dreams to those you have struck at lease once. This is a dark but powerful tool to those in the proper position to use it.

You slide the witch-knife [Small, 1d6-1 damage, -1 enemy AC, value unknown] into your belt and look around the room.

The walls and what bits of exposed floor you can see now that the ooze has fully spread out down the open doorway and hall to the west are sheer, carved stone. This was a chamber seemingly built for one purpose: the guard the witch-knife.

To the east, another stone door is closed but is accessible via careful steps to avoid the remaining bits of noxious sludge. You push it open and hop back to the dias, letting the remaining sludge pooled on that side flow and spread out into the eastern hall. After several moments, the ooze stands less than an inch deep in the area and you feel safe to travel through it. Still, your head pounds from the thick, disgusting fumes hanging in the air.

You step down the hall and can smell something burning, not too far off. The hall branches off to the south and leads into a larger chamber, now out of sight. The burning smell is coming from this direction. Further to the east, the hall bends twice, doubling back on itself. You don't approach too closely, knowing that this hall must connect back with the room you viewed with your arcane eye, room with the strange, dismembered ponies. You can hear their shuffling through the door.

[You are currently in the halls to the west of Room 19.]

With some artifact of worth on your belt and being not much worse for wear, you take stock of your options. You can travel down the unscouted, burnt smelling room to the southeast of the knife chamber [Room 19]. You can enter the room housing the disgusting ball of roving teeth and hooves [Room 16] and attempt to see what lays beyond. You can enter the emaciated pony chamber [Room 21] and explore further north. Still, you do not know if either of the horse creatures will react hostilely towards you. You cannot say for sure this far below ground, but you'd estimate it being mid-morning.

[It is worth noting that you do gain XP from successfully AVOIDING monsters as well as defeating them so scouting out Rooms 16 and 21 as you have and choose to move around them going forward will still award you XP. Obviously, anything else in the chamber will be lost to you though, so as always, it's a possible trade-off.]

[Sorry for the delay! I've spent most of the new year sick unfortunately with an infection I can't seem to shake, but I'm on the mend now (hopefully). I appreciate your patience! Next entry should be coming on Sunday as regularly scheduled! - Christian]

[cherrysmokesaconha]

apparently i got unscouted from NG. Idk why (probably i broek a rule or something) but being honest, i knew that was going to happen lol

I will try reading the guidelines more and being more careful from now on :P

[val-victory]

Some people practically live in victory road, give some respect to those trying to make it not just a obscure way to get to the Pokémon league, but a home.

How did they get the Wi-Fi Cable so far down the Cave? And like honestly maybe you shouldn't live in an unscouted Cave? like i mean theres literally 0 Garantuee that it won't collapse.

Trust me. if you have Pokémon Battles with like Earthquakes happening on the Higher Floors you will fucking Feel that down there. i have First hand experience.

Maybe ill try going deeper Tomorrow. My Escape Rope isn't long enough for this kind of Trip.

[emo-rabbit]

guess who got scouted then unscouted on New Grounds because they forgot to categorize their drawing of Rayman smoking 🍃 as a sketch😒

[legendfur]

#Unicorn #time . . . . #scout #scouts #scoutsdecolombia #scautismo #escultimo #escultismoeducaciónparalavida #scouter #love #instagood #photooftheday #cute #followme #like4like #superlike #life #vida #estilodevida #unscout #styleoftheday #lifestyle (en Santiago de cali) https://www.instagram.com/p/BrVanxFHaOP/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=jb28187cau2h

[prompt-master]

There was a light novel showing that Makoto was in fact the Ultimate Unlucky Student, and that bumping into a former Ultimate Lucky Student blew up the mail van containing the letter to the original Ultimate Lucky Student, with Makoto’s name being the next one chosen.

Hodkckdkxkf is this from the secret file? I remember the names being switched up because the first students letter got returned so Jin said "fu-ck her lmao lets pick a new one" but I don't remember an explosion or Naegi being Ultimate Unlucky Student

[jadeazora]

Fucking FINALLY.

I was fairly convinced he just flat-out was unscoutable on his own bloody banner. (Note, this was over 300 scout points in, half-saved/half-bought gems.)

[tealin]

Basler to the Beardmore 4: And Back Again

As usual, the properly formatted post is up at the official blog – caught this too late as usual!

Having had the grand tour of the Beardmore Glacier, we set our course to return to McMurdo.  There was one waypoint we were to hit on the way back, but the first part of the journey was just peaceful ice and cloud as far as the eye could see.

After about an hour of abstract land- and skyscapes, we approached our rendezvous point with history: 79°29'S 170°E – One Ton Depot.  There it is!

One Ton Depot was the name given to the final cache of food and supplies taken out along the route to the pole in the summer of 1911, so that not everything would have to be hauled from base when they set out to reach the South Pole the next summer. It was supposed to be laid at 80°S, but due to a spell of bad weather, the condition of the ponies, and the imminence of the end of the safe travel season, they decided that 79°29’S was far enough. In 1911 that was the prudent decision; they could not have known that, the following year, the last three survivors of the five who reached the Pole would get within that 35½ statute mile margin and could really have done with the extra food and fuel. It is one of the great ‘what if’s of polar history.

Another ‘what if’ hovers around Apsley Cherry-Garrard’s trip to One Ton in March 1912. In Scott’s plans, he called for the dog teams to meet the returning Polar Party out on the ice shelf. Due to extenuating circumstances at base, the dogs were sent out later than called for, and under the command of Apsley Cherry-Garrard, who had never been in a leadership position before and could not navigate with a sextant as the Navy men could. The Polar Party was reported to be in good condition by the last people who had seen them, and, time having passed since the planned rendezvous, were likely to be nearer One Ton than the original rendezvous, he was instructed to go there and then decide what to do.

Just as it had when the depot was originally laid, the weather was starting to break up – Antarctica moves very quickly from summer into winter, and it takes no prisoners. Cherry and the dogs arrived at One Ton on March 4th; over the following week only two days were clear enough to travel, and all were bitterly cold. The dogs were short of food and losing condition, so taking them further would have been a significant risk. On March 10th, Cherry left the extra rations and turned back north. Again, an apparently prudent decision at the time, but one that would haunt him for the rest of his life.

It was a completely unscouted location so we couldn't land, but we did a low tight turn so that I could see the terrain and, more importantly, what was visible on the horizon.  I had heard that One Ton was the furthest south one could reliably navigate by landmarks alone – a convenient location for a young explorer who had failed to get his head around celestial navigation.  The view would be different from a few hundred feet up than it would be from ground level, but with the clear day and calm conditions I could at least guess what might be seen. The impression I had was that the top of Erebus would just poke up from the horizon, there, but as far as I could tell from the plane, one was more likely to see Mt Discovery, which was closer and darker.  

This is a fully zoomed-out view of Ross Island from that loop:

We were closer to Minna Bluff and Mt Discovery; the latter is a smaller mountain than Erebus, but being closer and with more exposed rock, the atmospheric perspective would not blot it out so much.

This is not a fair photo to judge against the previous one for distance, as I have zoomed in here, but you can see how the contrast is much higher on these nearer landmarks.  I think the only way you'd locate Erebus more easily than Mt Discovery from here is if there was enough of an eruption to make a large smoke plume.

When planning this trip with the fixed-wing coordinators, alternatives had been discussed in case the Basler flight didn't work out.  I would get views of the Beardmore from a turnaround flight to Pole, and for a recce of One Ton might join one of the regular maintenance trips out to an automated weather station called Alexander Tall Tower, which is only 25km from the location of One Ton.  All the automated weather stations have names, hence ‘Alexander’; 'Tall Tower' is because it's 30m high with instruments at regular intervals all the way up, to measure what's happening in different layers of air.  

As it happened, the Basler trip came off, but we paid a visit to Tall Tower anyway – in fact we buzzed it: one of the other Kenn Borek planes was out there, having brought its attendant meteorologist plus one of the other media outfits, a film crew making the second series of One Strange Rock.  This crew were my best friends at McMurdo so it was really fun to see them at work, not least because their luck with flights had been much poorer than mine.

Just as One Ton was on the 'Southern Road' in Scott's time, so Tall Tower is on the Southern Road now – a slightly different route, taken by the South Pole Traverse convoy taking supplies from McMurdo to Pole, oriented to go up a different glacier than the Beardmore.  We followed this some of the way back, so I got a good appreciation of the road as a scratch on the cue-ball surface of the ice shelf.  Returning parties tried to use their outbound tracks as much as possible to navigate home; sometimes the light was bad and sometimes they were covered by drift, but they'd often cross the tracks again once celestial navigation straightened them out, and that would put them back on course.  A team of sledges with dogs and ponies is going to leave a fainter scratch than multi-ton tractors hauling vast bladders of fuel, but in a vista of windblown snow, a manmade disturbance can really stand out.

Rather than following the road all the way back, as terrestrial creatures would do, we flew over White Island!  This is the side which catches the wind from the south and east, so is not as white as the side you see from McMurdo.

And as we approached Williams Field, the light was just right to show off the sea ice/Barrier interface south of Cape Armitage.

When we finally piled out of the plane, I thanked Steve enthusiastically for what had been by far the best flight of my entire life.  'Yeah, sorry about the turbulence back there,' he said.

'Oh that was nothing! I've had much worse coming in to Edmonton.'  Which is true; I once made peace with death on a flight into Edmonton through a storm which, later that afternoon, spawned a tornado.

'Yeah, but's that's because you were flying into Edmonton.'

I can't argue with that: the Beardmore is definitely not Edmonton.

An article in the October 1911 edition of the South Polar Times – the magazine whose writing and publication kept the men happily occupied during the dark and crowded months of winter – posited Antarctica as a holiday destination in the distant future when global warming had rendered it balmy.  In this antipodean Switzerland, tourists would travel comfortably by aeroplane over the geography which the men reading the magazine were, at that point, yet to walk across themselves.  Wilson illustrated this article with a gauzy cloudscape and a wonderful spindly yellow biplane like the Wright brothers'.  Cherry, writing on the other side of a war which saw the rapid development of aircraft into nimble and efficient vehicles, knew the future of Antarctic travel was in the air, and thought that sensible.  I wonder if either of them could have imagined such a jolly picnic in the sky, going most of the route to the Pole and back in one day, in time for a nice hot dinner in the Galley.

[nereiarts]

Preview: The Fair Ones

So as I might have mentioned this before, but I’ve got another longer Amnesia fic in the works atm. It’s about 50% done and I’ll start releasing it on AO3 sometime in the autumn, but here’s a short preview (under the Keep Reading cut) for those of you who are curious about it.

Rating: general audiences (preview), mature (finished work) Characters: Daniel, Alexander, Hazel Pairing: eventual Alexander/Daniel - there’s nothing shippy in the preview, though, as it’s from the 1st chapter

Summary: September 1839. Daniel and Hazel are travelling the unscouted Swedish wilderness with the intention of investigating old burial grounds and rune stones for Daniel’s university. Alexander, a benefactor of the expedition, travels with them as guide and interpreter, much to Daniel’s annoyance.

“I left scarcely an hour ago,” Alexander interrupted coolly. “And I can promise you, she was still in the camp then.” Daniel gaped at him, then turned to look at Hazel again. Her cheeks were smudged with dirt, her hair tangled. Now that it was lighter he could finally see her properly, and she looked as though she'd been rolling around in a pit somewhere; there were cobwebs and traces of moss stuck to her dress and her hair. “That's ridiculous. She can't possibly have… I mean, look at her, you don't get like this from a little walk in the woods,“ Daniel protested. Alexander ignored him, looking directly at Hazel. His gaze was imploring. “What made you leave the camp?” Hazel sighed. “It was those flames in the darkness. I heard them calling for me – that's what woke me up – and I think I must have pursued them. I can't really remember it. Danny caught me before I got too close.” Daniel was expecting the baron to laugh at her and tell her she'd been dreaming, but the man nodded seriously. He walked up to her and knelt down, gently removing twigs and leaves from her hair. “You have been put under an enchantment,” he told the shivering girl. “They were trying to lure you into the marshes. Time passes differently under their spell. Your brother may very well be right in saying that you were gone for far longer than we perceived.” A look of understanding passed between him and Hazel, like a flash of lightning. “You mean that I was pulled through the veil?” “Yes, I think so,” Alexander replied. “But only momentarily.” “What were those things?” Daniel asked in a hushed voice. He sank down next to Hazel again, wrapping an arm around her protectively. “Did you see them, too?” the baron asked him. “Yes. Cold flames from the marshes. It was almost as if… as if...” “It almost looked like something human-shaped, but much smaller,” Hazel continued for him, and Daniel nodded. “Yes, but only for a moment. They vanished as soon as I realised they were there.”

[allalonesblog]

Day 380

Windy morning.  Fewer walkers this morning.  Disturbing trend of dogs with walkers continue.

Some luck on yesterday’s night patrol.   I had eyed a fallen tree that I thought would make a suitable replacement for one of the stakes protecting my vehicle.  It has fallen to the ground.  I stashed it in a safe place but I still have to attach it.  A canvas and straps are still needed to ensure the vehicle is protected through the summer.  The canvas will mean an excursion.   Danger needs one for his own car so I am hoping he will  take mine as well.   The straps I can gather myself.

Nick’s diary was a dud.  Didn’t even remotely come close to the fall. Turned out to be about a woman faking her death and setting up her husband for murder.   I remember it was a big story a few years back.  Shame on me, I got caught up in the story and didn’t get any work done yesterday.

Oh!  Then there was the transmission from Cat...God bless her.   Cat and I have been communicating by long-range walkies since the beginning of the fall. However, our approach to survival is very...ummm....different.   We had a fallout a couple a weeks ago about what I thought was a huge misuse of medical supplies.   After ignoring her three attempts at contact yesterday, I finally answered the walkie.   Once again, she had engaged in a dangerous situation; an attempted meetup with another survivor at an unscouted location.   The other survivor didn’t show. (She’s lucky that’s all that happened)   Now she’s stuck for three days and doesn’t know how to survive.  Fucking A.    I had to play I’m not mad at you and walk her through how to safely survive until she can return to her own shelter.  Then she dares to contact me again at Midnight when part of the plan falls through which wouldn’t of happened if she listened closely the first time.   I often wonder how many of the situations are real and the rest are simple manipulations of my mind.  Why do I keep communicating?  Loneliness and emotional support. Pretty sure she was some kind of therapist before the fall.  She just seems to use “those” words.

Yeah, I found the razor.  No hair on this head!  Scared myself in the mirror a few times.  Gonna start reading a new journal today.   There was a lot of the walkers “screaming” last night....hopefully tonight will be more peaceful.

[mono-red-menace]

imagine you organise your room every day, placing everything neatly in each drawer and make it look nice, and you feel accomplished. you're doing it.

and then someone messes up your room they just pull everything out of all the cabinets every time you try to organise it and just throw it on the floor. and they keep doing it until you stop trying to organise it or force them to leave.

and then you have this huge mess on your hands and you just feel so bad afterwards that you can't reorganise your room. and then you just continue on. the next day you still feel too bad. your environment won't improve on its own but your mood won't improve because your environment won't.

and people are telling you "you have to fix it, you can't just leave it like this" and you understand them like obviously you can't, but you can't fix it right now.

and it just keeps going and getting worse and worse, and then finally someone offers to help you clean it up. and slowly, day by day, trey build your trust. they help you pick up at a slow pace, just enough that instead of getting worse or stagnating you're progressing slowly, but not too much that you get burnt out and scared.

and little by little your room gets more and more organised, they encourage you, they ensure your trust, so even when they can't help you directly, you feel strong enough to help yourself. and little by little, you're improving almost on your own, with only their moral support to guide you.

and then you're separated. even though you've been able to work on your own, your safety net is gone. you're shaky, but you continue. they're still there for you emotionally, but they can't be there for you to lean on physically, their can't come in to help you when you can't help yourself.

and even though you no longer felt like you Needed their help to continue, the fact that you can't get their help for the foreseeable future weighs on you.

you continue, slower, weaker, more afraid. you feel like you can't be protected, like you'll fall back to how it used to be, like someone will mess everything up again.

and your organising slows more and more until you're nearly stagnant again. you feel so close to being done, but you just can't put in the strength to continue like that.

and then something awful happens. like, let's say, your dog dies (i can't think of anything except what actually happened.) this breaks you. you've already felt abandoned by your safety net even though they had no choice in the matter, and now you're abandoned again.

you feel like you're losing everything, you're more scared than ever that you'll fall back to how you were, you don't notice yourself picking up those old habits in the background. you throw your clothes on the floor at the end of the day, you don't tuck your sheets in anymore, you eat in bed, little things, adding up slowly, before you notice that your room is getting worse, not better.

everything is starting to pile back up, because you feel too weak to fix it. you get scared. you feel alone. you've been hurt and abandoned and now you're alone again, and now you're falling back to that uncomfortable disorder because it's easy

you check in every day to see if your safety net can come back because you feel so alone and abandoned. you can't bear to look in the back yard anymore because that's where your dog is.

you're alone. the only people around you have hurt you in the past, purposely messing up your room because they're angry themselves, or unknown variables, untreaded paths, unscouted waters. if you were stronger you could solve them, feel safe around them, but you can't feel strong anymore.

you feel week, and fragile, like the brittlest glass, you know you couldn't handle that stress.

what do you do?

you don't have the strength. you don't have the ability to trust. your abandonment issues are getting stronger, you feel like you're on track to become worse than ever before, but you still can't allow yourself to trust.

how do you fix yourself?

how do you allow yourself to trust?

how do you open yourself up to people when most everyone you've met just hurts you?

how do you open yourself up when you feel like all you can do is hurt others???

there is no trust left, no faith in oneself, just a desire to stop hurting and a desire for a return, but no strength to bring it about and no net to build oneself back.

you weren't ready for the training wheels to be taken off and now you're going downhill on the interstate

you're swimming in the ocean in a seal costume

you're in a rocket ship to mars with no oxygen tank

you're on a plane with no parachutes and you're running low on fuel

you're trying to stop a fire with gasoline

it keeps building and you're scared you don't see an end

and you beg for things to happen that could harm others because you can't handle it and you can't bear to hurt your parachute your life vest your safety net your guardian angel your training wheels your oxygen tank the one person you feel like you can trust by ending yourself but you feel evil and iredeemable for wishing the border could open during the pandemic because you know it could kill people but you can't care about others anymore how could you when you've been hurt so much but why would you be hurt so much if you weren't so evil and iredeemable?

so now you're in your pig pen of a room crying every night because you're so scared you'll go back to your horrible old self you're so scared of others again you isolate yourself you believe you're evil so you hurt yourself you feel like you're slowly reversing back to square one and on course to take square one back with you.

and after you write this all out you realise that you feel better. LMAO thanks y'all for following me it feels nice to know that at least one person i don't know might read this or at least part of it because it makes me feel understood by the unknown variable

and what's more comforting than being understood by the unknown?

because if the unknown can understand you then maybe you can understand it.

[claudeng80]

Shadow in a Glass, Ch. 7 (Philautia)

Previously

Sano trails at Obi’s heels, running on determination and the memory of having been in better shape at one point in his life. It’s been some time since he’s been in Obi’s kind of trim, given the way he puffs and wobbles, and every delay makes Obi even more irritable.

The woman he’s been in love with for years, whom he thought he’d die loving in silence, might have just expressed an interest in him. He thinks she did, if he can trust the piece of his brain still celebrating the memory, but an angry mob, too many miles of road, and his slowpoke brother stand between him and clarity on the subject.

So by the time they arrive at the guard tower, at what used to be the border, there’s little left of Obi but anger and exposed nerves. “How many men do you have?” He barks at the guard on duty in his best Lyrias trainer voice.

The guard, whose halberd leans against the building nearly ten feet away, balks. “Who wants to know?” He settles in place, the very image of inefficiency and delay.

Obi’s never been one to shy away from using the power of others to achieve his own ends, no matter how much less satisfying it is to actually use it legitimately. As much as he hates having to trade on the king’s authority, any time spent here is already too much. He should be on his way back to Shirayuki’s side. “I’m Sir Obi, immediate knight to the prince,” he snaps, regretting that he can’t take his eyes off the guard to watch Sano’s reaction.

The guard isn't that easy to cow. “To hear the Lyrias guys tell it, Sir Obi is ten feet tall and invincible.” He looks Obi up and down from his ever-so-slightly superior height. “I’m going to need to see some identification.”

The pendant is already jangling angrily in Obi’s fist before he realizes his mistake. This one doesn’t say immediate knight.

Faking his own authority is a new experience for him, and it takes far too long to convince them, even with Sano’s silver tongue on his side. Of course Sano would tell any lie that would save his skin, but for once he’s using his power on the side of truth. Obi has no idea whether he believes that or not. For Obi’s part, he pretends he’s Shirayuki, someone the word “no” just doesn’t stick to, and bulls through their arguments. He’s a bit offended at how effective a team he and Sano make.

And in the end, all it gets him is a minor detachment, six half-asleep guards barely out of their teens and displaying little evidence that they know how to use the halberds they’re toting. Zakura is going to be getting a full report on this, Obi’s already composing it in his head as they run back toward the cliffs. He can’t think about how they might already be too late, so he’s trying to fit in all the big words he can. Profoundly unprepared. Ignoramus. He might add in a paragraph for the king’s benefit about sending them into an unscouted area with no backup nearby, but to be fair, nobody expected explosives and mobs.

Maybe they should have.

At least the kids can run, and they’re making far better time without Sano in tow. He and the sergeant can enjoy themselves back at the post while Obi and six guards stop a mass murder. Somehow. He probably should have said goodbye to his brother, because there’s no way he’ll be seeing him again anytime soon. The sergeant thinks he���s holding him for investigation, but Obi knows better.

He halts his army just short of the town, and they group up, a little forest of arms and legs and blades. He’s not sure how exactly this is going to go down, how they’re going to use their weapons to stop a mob fired up about the use of weapons. “Drop the halberds,” he says, finally. “We’re going to have to convince them without them.”

One of the kids, a little less hapless than the others, has a bow as well. He squeaks up, pulling it from where he’s had it settled on his back. “Do I need to leave this too?”

“Stop!” There’s a shout from nearby, and everyone whirls to look. Obi’s heart is pounding with relief, she’s alive, she’s nearby, but he realizes too late that the guards don’t know. The bowman nocks his arrow at the sound of running feet. Obi whirls, a hand stretched out to stop him, but all he can read in the boy’s face is terror. “You need to go back!” He hears her voice again, closer now, and the buzz of a released string.

The terror is his now. That’s Shirayuki’s voice, making that sound like a wounded animal, her feet shuffling in the effort to stay standing. “Go back,” she begs again, even as she teeters and he catches her against him. She pushes off, straight and as tall as she can make herself, the arrow standing out from her shoulder even now. “I got them calmed down, the caravan is packing up to go, but if they see you they’ll think I’ve lied. You have to go.”

The little clump of guards has pulled in on itself. One guy’s picked up his halberd again, and the bowman looks like he's about to cry. Good. He’ll be crying again when Obi's done talking to him, later. Right now they can go, they should. “Do what she says, go back to the post.”

Shirayuki's trying to stay up, so hard, but after the guards take off in a rattling mass, she sags. An arm under her thighs, another behind her back, and she's curling against his chest, giving in to the pain she's been fighting. She won't hide it in front of him, not when she's spent so long begging him to trust her with his.

And for the first time, Obi is glad for this mission, glad they took away his identification and made him study. Because now he knows what to do, he's ready to take care of her.

Elio looks startled when Obi kicks open the door. Good, he’s back. He’s probably about to make some kind of cutting remark about making themselves at home, but instead he sees the arrow shaft, the pain in Shirayuki’s face. “You see nothing,” Obi snarls, and Elio’s mouth shuts with a snap.

Shirayuki’s so small on the examining table, curling in on herself with her hands clenched in fists. Even that must hurt. “Easy, easy,” he whispers, and even though it sounds to him like he’s talking to his horse, her hands uncurl. Obi pulls her right arm across to her left hip, stroking her hand on the way, and she grabs at his. Her nails leave arcs in his skin.

“Here.” Elio hands him a glass. He sniffs it, and the sweetness of poppy tells him it’s for Shirayuki. He holds it to her lips, and she tries her best to take it down, only whimpering when her arm shifts.

There’s a bit of time to kill before it takes hold. “We’re going to match, miss,” he points out. “Should be a good test of what I’ve learned, my shoulder against yours. Hard to imagine I can mess yours up any worse than I did mine, at least.” That’s probably not the best approach here, but it makes her smile. Only she would find that funny. She blinks, fuzzy, and it’s time.

The arrow shaft slips off the head, no surprise there. It would have been far too easy, otherwise. Elio hands him the graspers and it hits him that he’s really doing this. The actual doctor is assisting him, and it never occurred to either of them that it should be the other way around. He’s about to use a precision instrument to pull a sharp piece of metal out of a bloody hole in Shirayuki.

It doesn’t feel like a very precise operation, but it’s surprisingly fast. It’s lodged in the bone, but not hard, and when it shifts and he pulls it out, there’s no barbs and no broken pieces. There’s no sudden gushes of blood, and even her shirt is intact, no fibers loose. He couldn’t ask for a better arrow wound, save for the victim. And even there, she tries so hard to hold herself together, to hold still and keep her mouth closed and not be a bother. Finally he understands why she always categorizes him as difficult.

“Somebody needs to make sure the caravan makes it out all right,” she whispers as he’s tying off the last of her stitches. It’s detail work, hard on his fingers, and he really needs to be paying attention. But apparently a grunt isn’t a specific enough answer for her. “You should go, Obi.”

“Fulvio can see to it. I’m not leaving my patient, miss. You taught me that.” If he were the one with the bleeding wound, she’d probably find some way to be in both places at once, but he’s only one man, and he’s not her.

“Can’t you call me my name now?” Her lips purse with annoyance, then tighten as he puts pressure on the dressing he’s wrapping around her shoulder. “You’ve had your fingers in me now, surely there’s not much closer we can be.”

Obi bites his tongue, and her eyes narrow at the look on his face. It’s not what she means, but if only he could tease her right now. He holds out another second before the chortle breaks through. Really, a man would have to be a saint not to react to that. He’s halfway there keeping his mouth shut, honestly.

She persists. “You saved my life. Surely that merits a name.” He still hasn’t quite mastered his giggles, and she’s looking irritated again. “I won’t sleep until you say it.” And there it is, his ruthless mistress. It’s a wonder she didn’t hit on this years ago.

“Just once. And then you sleep.” He gently lifts her head to slide the sling into position, and she nuzzles her cheek into his hand.

“It’ll do for now. Once you test for master herbalist, you can’t go addressing a colleague as miss, though.” Her lips pull against his skin, pleased with herself. Her faith in him is a hell of a drug, but nothing will ever make that happen. They both know it.

He still has to turn away from her hazy gaze. There’s cleaning to do-

Elio has been busy while Obi was distracted. There’s no cleaning to do, and he waves them off in the direction of the inn.

She’s not going to be be able to put off sleep much longer, no matter what threats she makes. But he wants to, wants to free the name that’s been nothing more than a forbidden whisper on his tongue for so many years. Her body’s more relaxed when he picks her up this time, and she curls into his chest like a cat. He bends down, as close to her as he can reach like this, and says, “sleep well, Shirayuki.”

*

Shirayuki wakes to a throbbing pain in her shoulder and Obi's sleeping face not even a foot away. In fact, the weight across her chest is his arm, and her twitch of surprise as she realizes this sends his eyes flying open.

Emotions flicker across his face, surprise, worry, and something tender she doesn't know how to name, before he gets himself under control. She's always liked those first moments when he wakes up, on the rare chances she catches them. He settles on looking concerned, snatching his arm away from her skin and leaving it hovering above her, lost. “You were thrashing in your sleep. We never covered how to restrain a patient in an in room with no supplies, so I did my best.”

She wasn't complaining. He's just as warm as she'd imagined. But she doesn't have any good excuses for why he should put his arm back around her and go back to sleep. They have a lot to catch up on.

All the medical personnel agree that as much as Shirayuki should stay in bed, getting out of town is a higher priority. Elio, with a worried glance at Obi's belt where last night his knives hung, thanks them for everything and wishes them a safe trip back.

It'll certainly be a long one. Their horses are gone with the caravan, swept up in the panicked flight last night. It would be nice if they left them at the guard post, but they're not counting on it. For now, it's foot travel all the way. Shirayuki starts out a bit wobbly, but as they get into a rhythm and the fog of early morning lifts, revealing an endless vista of blue, her spirits lift and the pain is bearable.

Not that it stops Obi from watching her like a hawk. He'd be offering to carry her, if his back weren't already burdened with all their supplies.

“I'll be fine, Obi,” she reassures him for the tenth time as they stop out of the sun for a short rest and a check of her stitches. “You did a good job.”

The lines on his forehead barely ease, but he's run out of complications and side effects to worry about. Shirayuki knows one or two he hasn't brought up yet, but the last thing she's going to do is make his argument for him.

Instead, he changes the subject. “The king's going to think you're a bad omen, miss. Two missions, two plots against his life.”

He should talk, he was right there in the thick of things both times. She never wants that to change. “He can stop sending me, then. I'll stay right in the pharmacy where there won't be any plots.”

“I wonder,” says Obi, then his shell of seriousness cracks and he's laughing, free and clear like she hasn't heard him for days, and that's the last straw. He's still beside her, where he's always been, where he belongs, but it's too far away now. The distance itches at her like a splinter, and she needs to pull it out.

He looks up from his pack when she tugs at his coat. “What-” His eyes are confused, gold and pale in the brightness of the morning. She shifts her hand to the back of his neck, fingertips in the hair he still won't let her trim, and pulls him down to her.

It's a risk, that even now he would back away, throw Zen and their past between them and apologize for last night. But he doesn't.

Metal clinks as Obi’s pack slides to the ground, and his arms fold around her, so careful of her injured shoulder. He knows her far too well, understands the language of her every hum and sigh and answers her with more, with the press and slide of his lips and the catch of his fingers against her back. It makes her want to forget every other kiss she’s ever had, file them all in the past and fill the spaces in her memory with this one over and over. She’s floating, pressing herself against him, clutching at his head and his back to hold him closer, and he moans against her lips.

“Please,” he whispers, pulling back just enough for a breath, and his eyes are closed. He looks fragile, mistrusting of his feelings, glowing and worried all at once.

The lines of his cheekbones call to her, and she’s ghosting her fingers across his skin to touch them when her shoulder reminds her of what she’s not supposed to be doing. Like lifting her arm. She squeaks with pain, and his eyes fly open as he catches her elbow, gently lowering the arm back to her side. “Do I need to make you a sling, miss?”

He may be trying to play it cool, but his voice is rough and his eyes are no less hungry for having had a taste of her. She can still feel the rasp of his chin against her own, the tantalizing press of his tongue at her lips. It’s not enough.

“I thought I said not to call me that anymore.” She’s no good at playing it cool, either.

“You remember that.”

“Some of it. Not the part where you actually said it.” He looks evasive, and she knows he’s going to try to wiggle his way out. “You're not going to try to convince me this isn't what I want, right?”

“No.” She’s known him long enough to understand his first reflex is always to evade. In words or with steel, Obi doesn’t wait around for the blow to hit home. So she prepares herself for a siege, ready for him to take refuge in some difference of station or worth or some wall he’s erected in his own head. At the heart of things he trusts her and she’ll wait him out-

In his eyes, the walls come tumbling down. He doesn’t have to say he accepts her, she can tell it in the softness of his expression, the gentleness of his hands. His mouth isn’t necessary for his answer, so he uses it for something else instead. “You're not going to make me keep studying, are you?” he asks the next time they come up for air.

She leans into his shoulder, and his arm settles across her back like it was meant to be there. “If you really don't want to. But I liked this, having you so close.”

“I want to be close to you. Always.” He stumbles over the words, hiding his face in her hair.

*

It’s rare that Sir Obi pulls out his rumored medical skills, but when guardsman Maeno stabs himself in the foot, he’s the first on site, applying pressure and calling for a stretcher as cool as you please. Maeno describes him covered in blood and completely unconcerned to everyone in earshot for days, with Garrack’s addition that he’d nicked an artery and owes Obi his life. Obi has nothing to say on the subject.

More often, the king calls Sir Obi and Pharmacist Shirayuki in for a conference, and then they disappear for a couple of weeks. Everyone’s learned that asking why only gets you cryptic comments about how nice it is that Clarines is such a peaceful place. It is, everyone knows that, and it doesn’t seem like much of an answer.

But Sir Obi’s love for Pharmacist Shirayuki is a perennial thing, obvious in his actions every single day. And hers for him, while quieter, is just as solid. Garrack and Zakura roll their eyes, but turn away with secret smiles. The trainees and apprentices wish for that kind of happiness. And the king, pleased with the outcome of his schemes and safe behind his walls, keeps his own counsel.

[woftd]

#TBT @bcmusic1st is without a doubt one of the few people I’ve met that has always matched my work ethic and pushed me to work smarter, not just harder. I snuck this photo right here after I watched him set up a whole set on the spot for this battle in #LA at an unscouted location. He spent hours in the sun, all the way into the night, filming each round. Then after that he filmed interviews, all with unwavering patience and enthusiasm. He made every artist feel their importance, on or off camera. It reminded me of how we started in this game knowing nothing more than that we wanted to learn just as much as we wanted to earn, and why were business partners today as @nootherwaynow Value is everything and we have both worked in our own unique ways to build that one step at a time. BC is living proof that in order to get it you have to be willing to give it your all without hesitation, and often for nothing more than the opportunity and experience to learn in return. Which is why these days if you see him on set any he’s not only getting paid, he’s gettin that respect. #NoOtherWay #NOW #RVA #WOFTD (at Los Angeles, California) https://www.instagram.com/p/CGGZ_qGDQ6j/?igshid=1991s8p1dzqpj

[legendfur]

Unconditional love . . . . #photolove #wolf #photographer #photography #sfw #foto #fursuit #fur #furryworld #photolove #furryencali #furrycolombia #edicion #practice #edit #estilodevida #unscout #styleoftheday #lifestyle (en Cali Valle del Cauca) https://www.instagram.com/p/B8LqTVyBicY/?igshid=hsal786gkyp7

[insecwrites]

the Story of Steven Sableye Stone

                                               > READ ON AO3 <                                             Fandom: Pokemon. Rating: Gen fic, T+ rated. Summary: During an Excavation in an unscouted cave, Steven unearths a gemstone unlike any he has ever seen before. But before he can bring it back to study, the cave he is in collapses.

When he wakes up, he is no longer in the same cave - or even in the same body for that matter!   Chapter one;

There was truly nothing more special than this, Steven thought to himself. Kneeling in the dust from his work, a mining light on his forehead, his face-mask hanging unsued around his neck, searching through his backpack for a snack - he was at his happiest.

Cradily was the only pokemon out of its pokeball today, quietly standing a bit behind him. As much as Steven loved his pokemon, he enjoyed the silence and solitude that came with his work, and Cradily shared his interests in fossil. Armaldo, Aggron and Skarmory much more enjoyed digging and testing their strength or speed.

Steven unwrapped his berry-bar and took a bite, the starchy taste of oran berry filling his mouth. It wasn’t a flavour he really cared for that much, but the bars were filling, and at this point he’d begun to associate them with his treks through the Hoenn mountainrange.

It had been a while since he’d last gone on one of his expeditions. Having become Champion of the League had really eaten away at his free time, and Steven had found himself in offices and meetings far too often for his liking. He could no longer pack up his rucksack and go out to look for a cave – he didn’t have the time.

Steven had been on his way to Granite cave when his father had called him with news. Someone had stumbled upon an undiscovered cave! Naturally, Steven <em> had </em> to go there right away, and here he was.

 The cave had turned out even better than Steven had hoped. After clearing out a few obstructions with Metagross’ help, it had been easy to navigate the tunnels. The Pokemon in the cave were mostly Onix and Steelix, the layout was straightforward, and there were a lot of spots fit for digging!

It would take a while to properly catalogue everything and protect the more intact specimens, but once that work was done, this cave could become a wonderful attraction. It wasn’t quite as other-worldly as the Meteor Falls, but it could become a great place for travellers to meet and battle.

 A soft touch jolted Steven out of his thoughts, and he looked at his Cradily. One of its petals had reached out to touch his cheek.

“What-...? Oh, you must be hungry-” Steven said, and he held out his berry-bar towards the pokemon. “Here you go, have a bite.”

 Cradily shook and nudged the bar away, pointing vaguely at Steven’s wrist. Ah, he should have known, it was already rather late. Cradily had a biological clock that could put watchmakers to shame. Steven stroked a few of its thick petals as he answered. “Yes, I know it is late, but I think I’m going to stay.”

 The Cradily made a rather offended sound.

 “If this is about my meeting with the Elite Four – I will cancel it. They should be used to it by now. I’m staying. It’s been too long time since we were in a new cave together, and I really don’t feel like getting any of you hurt during ‘training’.” Steven said. “Drake never bothered to teach that Salamence to watch out with its power.”

 Cradily bristled, shaking its leaves in denial, and Steven let out a half-amused huff. “Oh I see – this is about your tv-show isn’t it?

 Cradily rustled, a little softer, and Steven laughed as he rubbed his hands over the thick oily petals of his pokemon. “Don't worry, I made sure to tape it, just in case. And I taped Metagross's and Aggron's too.”

 Cradily rustled again, almost relieved, and Steven’s previous transgressions were forgiven as the large pokemon folded himself against Steven's back and over his shoulder. Steven patted the large pokemon absentmindedly, and finished the last few bites of his berry-bar.

“I’ll prepare some real food for us later, after I’m done with this.” He said to Cradily, and he scratched his fingers between the roots of Cradily’s thick leaves.

 The patch he was working on was somewhat of an oddity. It was a discoloured piece of sandstone, right between two earth-plates. The two kinds of stone were not created under the same circumstances and really shouldn’t be found together like this unless it was the work of a Pokemon.

Torkoal and Macargo liked to make their nests out of molten stone, and a lot of Pokemon used Earthquake to shift the crust of the earth but Steven hadn’t seen any of those pokemon since leaving Mt. Chimney.

 In short, this digging site was too interesting to leave unattended.

 Steven put his breathing mask back over his nose and mouth, and grabbed his tools. Slowly but surely he worked at the stone with his chisels, watching the stone slough off in thicker and thicker slabs. Some of the shards almost resembled modern types of wall-plaster, and Steven collected several samples in plastic bags to study back at home.

The stuff looked mundane, and was probably boring to anyone but fellow Geologists, but Steven had never heard of its kind before. The results would be interesting, if only for how it had been created and in which layer of the earth.

 Steven’s chisel hit a bad spot, and Steven startled backwards as the rest of the stone crumbled. A thick wave of fine dust blew in his face, and Steven shielded his eyes from the assault.

 “Ack!” He coughed. He hadn’t had his mask on exactly right, and a good whiff of dust had made it past. “Pleh- cough-cough! T-that never becomes any less surprising!”  

Steven wiped the dust from around his eyes as quickly and carefully as he could. His Cradily was making excited little sounds, and Steven knew that they had hit something interesting.

 A perfectly round gem sat embedded in the brittle stone, banded with swirls of yellow, red and purple. Steven let his fingers graze the surface, and jerked away when warmth touched his fingertips. His Cradily tried to look over his shoulder, and one of its massive flower-petals obstructed Steven's view.

 “Cradily, I can’t see-!”

 He pushed away Cradily's leaf, and scrutinised the stone. It looked almost impossibly whole and round, and it was polished to a shine as if an artist had created it. To an untrained eye, it would look like a marble, but Steven knew better. This was not glass.

“Cradily, step back for a bit please. This calls for precision.” Steven said, and he took out his smallest tools, carefully scraping at the sandstone to get the mysterious stone out of the wall.

 Almost too good to be true, the rock around it crumbled away easily. Within minutes, Steven held the impossibly perfect orb in his hand. It was still warm and almost clammy or oily, like it had been held on someone's hands.

Steven stood up, and held it up higher, angling his flashlight to shine more directly at the stone. “Cradily- have you ever seen something like this?”

 Cradily rustled. Negative.

 Steven angled the stone back and forth, studying the patterns inside. It looked beautiful, but Steven had no clue how it could have been shaped like this. The pattern itself was already impossible to have been created naturally, and the round perfect shape could not be a coincidence.

 “…Unless there’s more of them.” Steven finished. He looked back at the sandstone wall and the few traces of grey stone still left, and he knew that he would be skipping dinner tonight. Maybe even sleeping. It was a good thing he’d taken pre-made food and a sleeping bag with him.

 He carefully put the stone in his pocket, and zipped up the zipper.

 Now, Steven was adept at reading the sounds and sights in a cave. He had spent most of his childhood in the caves near his home, and most of his teenage years being dug out of collapsed tunnels of his own make. It was very common to hear disputes between big rock and ground pokemon. It was run of the mill to see churned earth and thrown boulders and cracked plates wherever there were big Pokemon. At the same time, any tunnel that showed signs of having been there for more than three years was a tunnel strong enough to explore.

 So when the sounds of grinding earth and stone began echoing down the tunnel, Steven was not worried. When a light layer of dust began raining down, he wasn’t worried. Cradily was silent. When a Stalactite crashed onto the cave floor only a few meters from where he was sitting, Steven jerked free from his focus on the stone.  

 For a moment he sat frozen, trying to judge if he should run or not. The far-off roar from a furious Steelix seemed to vibrate the very earth, and most worryingly – it didn’t stop after the roar stopped. The trembles in the stone got worse, and the telling cracks of stone sounding from further down the tunnel were what finally jumpstarted him into action.

 He practically pounced on his backpack, and fumbled to get his pokemon out of their balls.

 Cradily was staring up at the ceiling, leaves trembling and eyes as wide as they could go. There were more than a few cracks forming in the stone, snapping and groaning as they went, and dust rained down on top of them. Steven’s throat was already feeling as dry as a desert when he called out his pokemon. He didn’t want to know what happened to a pokemon if they ball was crushed while they were still in it.

“The tunnels are collapsing!” He yelled as soon as they were out of their pokeball. “Run! Follow me!” It was fortunate that he favoured ground and steel types, or the boulders that dropped from the ceiling might have crushed them

 They ran as fast as they could through the tunnels, accompanied by frantic geodudes and zubats. Steven’s eyes burned when the dust became too much to blink away, and he tried to block the dust from his lungs with one of his sleeves. His pokemon could have gone faster than him at this point, but they didn’t know the way out. Armaldo and Aggron were pushing and pawing at the ceiling of the tunnel, trying to hold it open by acting as support, and Cradily shielded Steven from falling rocks.

The tunnels were collapsing in on themselves, and Steven watched in a detached horror as the ceiling of the cave gave in and collapsed.

 It was Metagross that saved him from being squished under the stone, by throwing itself over Steven and taking the weight of the mountains on its back. Steven tasted the floor of the cave as sand and rocks slid over Metagross’ back and in between its legs.

More and more crumbled down, and slowly Steven and Metagross were buried underneath the rubble. Steven could hear the loud cracks of rocks hitting rocks becoming more muted, until they were nothing more than distant thumps – like he was hearing them through a wall.

 Finally, after what seemed like ages of rumbling and sharp dry breaths, the collapse came to a stop. Metagross didn’t move an inch, and Steven just breathed. Was he hurt? He couldn’t feel anything but soreness. He spat out the taste of mud. “Metagross- can you see the others?”

 His pokemon replied with a strained grunt. Without seeing its body language, the answer could be interpreted as anything. Steven took it as ‘I don’t know.’

“Of course not- we’re buried...” He said quietly. His pokemon were all rock, steel or ground types, but he didn’t know if they were built for a collapse like this. Technically speaking, pokemon like Skarmory didn’t live underground, and Cradily had been classified as bottom dwelling sea pokemon.

 Metagross let out a worried, strained sound, and Steven placed his hand on the pokemon’s closest leg. “The others- I don’t…. I don’t know how they’ll hold up in a collapse like this. Can you move?”

 Metagross rumbled uncertainly, and Steven could feel the pokemon’s body begin to tremble with strain. One of Metagross’ feet lifted off the ground -  and Metagross lost his balance. Steven had a heart-stopping moment where he thought that his pokemon would fall on him, but Metagross did not fall. It wobbled and grunted, and bled a small stream of silvery liquid, but it did not fall.  

The answer to his question was very clear. No, Metagross could not move.

 “Okay. You can’t move.” Steven breathed. “That’s okay- we’ll find a way out of this.”

 The space underneath Metagross was small, and Steven wiped the dust off his mining-light. He had to dig away some dirt to even reach his pocket, but in a small mercy his Pokenav was still intact. He flipped the thing open, and squinted at the harsh light from the screen. His father was on the first dial, and he tapped his name. He knew very well that reception in the caves was bad, but he had to try.

The Nav dialled one time, before it showed its error message.

 ‘Cannot connect to Hoenn network. Please try again later.’

 “No, come on...” Steven mumbled. He tried again, and again – and again- ... “I don’t have a signal.” He said. “….I’m not getting any signal at all.” Metagross let out a high, whimpering sound. Steven knew that sound intimately. Metagross had made those same sounds when he was still a Beldum – when he’d been scared, and hiding in Steven’s jacket.

Steven shifted a few uncomfortable rocks out from under his stomach and legs, and rolled onto his back. He rested a hand on the cool steel of Metagross’ belly, where he knew that Metagross’ could feel it. “Don’t worry.” Steven said. “We’ll be alright. I will start digging a way out, and we’ll be able to tunnel to the outside.”

 Metagross rumbled a little, and its high whimper faded away.

 “That’s my pal.” Steven said, and he turned back onto his stomach again. “All you need to do, is try to hold out as long as you can. We’ll find a part of the tunnel that hasn’t collapsed, and if we fail at that, we might get into range of the Hoenn Pokenav network.”

 Metagross rumbled, and Steven began digging.

 The first few rocks were easily dislodged, but it didn’t take long before his progress slowed down. For every rock he pulled away, another load of sand and grime would flow in place. For every scoop of sand he dug through, he’d find a boulder too large to move on his own.

He was running out of places to dig, and Steven didn’t want to think about what that meant.  

 It was getting harder and harder to breathe. Steven’s throat was as dry as paper, and he panted through his mouth as he worked. Metagross had started to tremble from strain, and was making its whimpering little noises again.

It wasn’t too long before Steven started to feel like there was no more air to breathe. His digging slowed down, and became clumsy. He grabbed the wrong rock and his efforts collapsed, blowing dust into their little hiding hole. Steven coughed, and gasped for air, grasping at Metagross’ body.

 “Metag-” Steven tried to speak, begging for the comfort and protection that his pokemon offered, but it came out like a gritty whisper. He had to cough again, because his lungs were itching and burning like he’d inhaled paralysing spores, but there was almost no more air to inhale.

 Steven couldn’t find the breath to dig for freedom, and deliriously he began to wonder if any of his pokemon would make it out.

Metagross was strong, but they had been so deep, and did it even remember how to dig?  Aggron could make it, but Scarmory, Cradily, the others-… They needed to breathe.

 “M-ta-gross” Steven rasped, and he pressed himself closer to his pokemon. He fought for air. His hand slipped away from Metagross’ flat underbelly, and his vision began turning black. Metagross was no longer attempting to be quiet in its whimpering, but there was nothing left in Steven that could offer comfort.

 He sank away, and did not wake up again.