On my way home the other day my HRV (2019 Sports turbo model - manual gearbox) suddenly lost a lot of power. It still seems ok at very low speeds in first and second gear, but when I tried to push up through third and fourth gear to speeds over 30/40mph there was suddenly no acceleration there. Luckily I was only 2 miles from home when it happened and managed to limp back to my driveway, but it was really struggling to get up the hills on the way.
Google says it might be a lot of things like a clogged fuel pump or filter or a problem with the driveshaft and I’ve booked it into the garage to be checked, although they can’t do it until next week.
In the meantime I’m tearing my hair out because I have places to go and people to see. Has anyone had this happen and if so, what was the solution?

My wonderful hairstylist who has done my hair for the last six years has moved out of state. I stayed at the salon with another stylist. At this point, I'm about to wear a wig.
Can anyone please recommend an excellent stylist who is good with color and is up-to-date with styles. I'm in the north of Pittsburgh, so would appreciate staying in the area.

Open to all reasonable offers! Shipping starts at $5 for the US and may increase with the weight. International, please pm me. FREE shipping on orders $50 or more! I will ship all items within 1 business day. BNIB = Brand New in Box.
Please don’t hesitate to ask me any questions or request additional photos! :)
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DS Samples and Travel Size Items All Brand New
Lips

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Face

• Milk Makeup Hydrogrip Primer -BNIB- $13
  
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• Bite Beauty Changemaker Skin-Optimizing Primer -BNIB- $5
  

Eyes and Brows

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MISC

• Drunk Elephant Sweet Pitti Deodorant Cream -Brand New- $8 $10

Hi there,
I would like to ask if anyone here knows where or which salons I can sell my hair. I did google it but it didn't give me any good results.
Thanks in advance.

Hi, I will be moving to Andersonville in about two weeks, curious to know if anyone has recommendations for a full service salon for Black/4C hair or a great braider up north who doesn’t do the “deposits down/cash app/venmo me” for service before the service or even a braider at a reasonable rate? I am looking to get faux locs, passion twists, or goddess locs if that helps. Thanks!

“I’m sorry; we’re going to astral travel to a flea market?” Charlotte asked incredulously as she watched Genevieve and I set up a meditation circle under the shade of a towering old willow tree in my cemetery. “What if we want to buy something? How will we bring it back?”
“We’re not going there to shop, Lottie. Samantha’s finally had a vision about Emrys,” Genevieve explained.
The Veil between the Physical and Astral Planes is exceptionally weak in my cemetery, especially at night and on hallowed days. When I sleep there, my subconscious mind is highly receptive to all manner of revelations from the Spirit World. When I saw a Blood Moon rise on the night of May fifth, the same night as a penumbral eclipse, I knew that my dreams would be prophetic.
“I had a dream about him last Friday,” I expounded. “He’s at some sort of otherworldly marketplace, one that’s not connected to the Crypto Chthonic Cuniculi, so it’s mostly inaccessible to the Ophion Occult Order. In my dream, Emrys invited us to come and speak with him while we were lucid. He drew a sigil for me, the same one I’ve drawn in the middle of the mediation circle. He said that all I’d have to do is toss an Undying Rose – the earthly effigy of the rose Persephone used to steal a drop of his blood – into the sigil and it will become an astral portal to where he is.”
I held up the deep purple rose that I had cut from its bush earlier that day. I don’t know for certain where the roses came from, but my best guess is that they were made by the same Occultist who hallowed my cemetery to Persephone; Artaxerxes Crow. They have some connection to Emrys as well, since the only other time I saw someone else use one was when his avatar was summoned into the Physical Plane on Halloween 2020.
Knowing that Emrys wouldn’t dare to set foot in a place that was sacred to the Goddess who was ultimately responsible for his cosmic defeat, I gently tossed the rose into the middle of the sigil.
“He invited all of us?” Charlotte asked with an incredulous raising of her eyebrow.
“He said me and my coven. If he had just meant me or me and Genevieve he would have said that,” I replied. “You and Elam are coming too. I want as many eyes on this place as possible so that we don’t miss anything. We may not get an opportunity like this again.”
“And this is safe? Visiting some random flea market between worlds?” Charlotte asked.
“Samantha and I have visited the Underworld and come back no problem,” Genevieve reminded her. “So long as we’re bound to our bodies and Elam is bound to Samantha, we can come back anytime. Don’t worry; this is going to be a blast! Adventures like these are the best part of being a Witch.”
“The only reason you were able to go to the Underworld is because Samantha’s cemetery came with an astral portal in the back,” Charlotte countered, gesticulating in the general direction of the archway that was still partially visible behind the light spring foliage. “Other than that, when have any of us ever done anything useful with our astral projection? This is still a physical place, right? We don’t have any of our physical senses available to us when we astral project, and I get extremely disoriented trying to navigate the mortal plane with clairvoyance alone.”
“It is a physical place, but one saturated with astral energy and full of occultists and occult artifacts. It will be extremely illuminated to our clairvoyance,” I assured her. “Elam will also be there to guide us. As a ghost, he’s much more practiced at traversing the mortal plane in an astral form.”
Charlotte folded her arms over her chest and turned to look at Elam, who was leaning up against the willow tree as he waited for us.
“I don’t suppose you could go and scout the place out for us ahead of time?” she asked.
“I can’t go too far from Samantha, and definitely not across planes,” he said with a shake of his head. “But Eve’s right. Your astral bodies will be in no danger, and you can return here in an instant whenever you want.”
“But what about Emrys? Didn’t that book Leon gave you say that he’s some sort of soul-flayer?” Charlotte asked me.
“It did,” I admitted. “Keep in mind though, that book was written by his enemies. I want to hear his side of things before this conflict of theirs spirals out of control.”
“Any update from Chamberlin about that?” Elam asked.
“Yeah, he said that after he failed to purify the Sigil Sand, Ivy’s onboard with negotiating some kind of truce with Emrys,” I replied. “The Grand Adderman’s still reticent, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s running out of options. I need to find out if Emrys will agree to peace talks.”
“Um, I get that, but I’m still kind of hung up on him potentially flaying our souls,” Charlotte reiterated.
“If Emrys and the Ophion Occult Order go to all-out war, there’ll be a lot of collateral damage and innocent souls caught in the crossfire,” Genevieve told her, gently grabbing hold of her and looking her straight in the eye. “Samantha, Elam, and I are doing this because if there’s any chance we can put an end to this before it starts, then it’s our responsibility to try. You don’t have to come with us, Lottie, but you’re still a member of our coven. Samantha and I would both feel a lot better with you there to help us.”
“Arghhh! All right, fine! I’ll come with you,” Charlotte gave in, plopping her butt down on the edge of the meditation circle. “If we’re holding hands, that will help keep our astral bodies together too, right?”
“I believe it should, yes,” I smiled at her, sitting down and reaching out for her hand.
Genevieve lit the incense and her bong filled with the entheogenic Delphi Dream, before sitting down to join us. She took a hit from the bong before passing it to me, and then to Charlotte before setting it aside out of the circle.
“Start with taking a deep breath, completely filling the lungs, and holding it for five heartbeats,” she guided us as she took hold of each of our hands. “Exhale completely, and wait five more heartbeats before breathing in again. Eyes closed, in through the nose, out through the mouth. Focus on the astral energies flowing through you with each breath, gently aligning each chakra until those energies are enough to lift you up and out of your body.”
In unison with one another, the three of us slowly breathed in and out, ignoring the material world around us and focusing upon the task at hand. Eve was first, as usual, and because we were all holding hands, Charlotte and I felt her eagerly tugging us up to speed us along.
I opened my eyes, and beheld the dull and muted Physical Plane through my clairvoyance, everything outshined by the radiant forms of my coven mates. I noted that Genevieve had eschewed her normal skyclad form when astral projecting and instead wore a cloak like Charlotte and I.
“Are you worried this place might have a no shirt, no shoes, no souls, no service policy?” I teased her.
“I just don’t want to risk a confrontation over it. I realize how important this is,” she answered. “Though I’m not actually wearing shoes, now that you mention it.”
“Christ, look at the sigil Samantha drew!” Charlotte said, pointing down at the meditation circle beneath us. The sigil wasn’t just glowing but flowing as well, churning the Aether around it in a misty, spectral vortex. “It’s an astral portal, isn’t it?”
“Oh yeah. It’s not stable, though. Good for one trip only,” Genevieve said with a delighted smile. “And Lottie, since we’re Neopagan Witches, try not to swear by Christ, okay?”
“Jesus!” she swore, both in defiance and in genuine annoyance.
“Elam! Elam, come join the circle! I don’t want to take any chances of severing our bond,” I instructed, letting go of Charlotte’s hand and waving him in between us.
Faithful Familiar that he was, he obeyed without hesitation. Despite my concerns, I think that he probably could have stayed behind if he had wanted. The fact that he was willing to follow me to an unknown otherworld without complaint really made me appreciate how devoted he was to me.
“We step in together on the count of three, got it?” I instructed, each of them nodding clearly in response. “One. Two. Three!”
We all extended our right feet into the vortex together, and the instant we did we were swept away, falling out of our own world and tumbling between the cracks of countless others. They weren’t real, I don’t think. At least, not as real as our world. They were potential realities, or realities that could have been once but now can never be, or fantasies that are so persistent in the minds of real people that in some sense or another, they become real themselves. I only saw glimmers of them, glimmers in nebulas made of primeval chaos and uttermost void.
It was outside of time, that place we travelled through, or at least we had no sense of it there. Our souls were haphazardly spat out upon a surreal landscape of earth, sea, and fire. Hilly plains of volcanic ash, incandescent calderas of lava and bubbling hot springs all intermeshed in a chaotic mosaic that didn’t seem to abide by any laws of geology or geography that I was familiar with. A strong but slow wind pushed fractal formations of dark silver clouds through a pale silver sky, illuminated by a single white orb which could have been either a bright moon or a faint sun.
While our spectral feet left no trace upon the ash we now stood upon, our presence nonetheless elicited a response from some of the local fauna. We were just able to catch a glimpse of some kind of shimmering scarabs burrowing themselves into the ash to escape the four otherworldly ghosts that had invaded their territory.
“Holy shit,” Charlotte murmured as we all gazed out upon the strange world we had found ourselves on. “This really isn’t on the Astral Plane. This is a real planet. This a real, alien planet! This is unbelievable!”
Genevieve glided over to one of the bubbling pools and peered into it, looking for any more signs of life.
“There’s some kind of bluish-grey algae growing on the rocks down there, and I think I can make out some small arthropods too. This planet’s alive!” she announced with glee, smiling and looking up at the alien sky.
Conjuring an astral approximation of my staff, I plunged it into a small mound of ash beside me. I watched curiously as the scarabs shot out in all directions, moving too quickly for me to get a good look at them, before scurrying back into the surrounding ash.
“These bugs can sense our presence,” I remarked. “How and why would clairvoyance evolve in insects on this world, and why would their first instinct be to flee?”
“Samantha!” Elam called out. “I think I found the Flea Market.”
We all gathered around him and looked where he was pointing. On a distant dune, we beheld the moulted carapace of a colossal insect, gleaming a brilliant, lustrous gold in the broken white light.
“That’s impossible!” Charlotte claimed. “That thing must be hundreds of meters long! No insect, no animal period could ever get that big on the Physical Plane!”
“It could be the Incarnation of some kind of Titan,” Genevieve suggested. “But… it’s dead. I can tell that even from here. It’s dead. It’s the corpse of a dead god, and now it’s being used as a swap meet with a punny name. Either whatever killed it just abandoned it, or…”
“Or is running the place,” I finished for her. “Well, we should see if we can find Emrys.”
In an instant, the world moved around us until we were at the entrance to the Flea Market. The colossal carapace was hollow inside, of course, and had been filled with a bustling city that looked like it had been created in the most ad hoc manner possible. There wasn’t a single straight street to be seen, and they converged with one another at random intervals. Stalls and buildings varied wildly in both design and materials, all imported from a plethora of different cultures across the planes.
Enormous shards of luminous glass levitated above the throng like a thousand Swords of Damocles, any or all of them seeming capable of succumbing to gravity at any moment. In the very center of the moulted husk dangled a great spiralling chrysalis or hive woven of iridescent silk, its function not being immediately apparent to me.
There must have been thousands of people there, and hundreds of merchants hawking their wares. Most of those who looked human still seemed a little off, like they were members of ethnicities that didn’t exist in our world. Some of the beings were near-human in appearance, many seemingly some kind of Fey or Seelie folk. There was even a small handful of people that weren’t remotely human at all.
The only thing they all had in common was that none were native to this world.
“Most of these people are here in person, aren’t they?” Charlotte asked.
“It would’ve been quite a feat for them to have built all of this while astral projecting,” Genevieve agreed.
“But if this place isn’t connected to the Cuniculi, then how did they get here?” Charlotte asked. “We’re on another planet, maybe even in another dimension. If getting here is beyond the Ooo’s abilities, then what sort of ungodly reality benders decided to turn it into a Flea Market?”
“Ladies, gentlemen, and any beings either too ancient and alien or too modern and alienated to settle on one or the other, come bear witness to one of the most astounding and atrocious abominations on this or any other world!” a fast-paced male voice rang out over the din of the crowd.
We turned to see a short, skinny, old-timey sort of carnival barker standing on a literal soap box, placed next to a large object draped in a black tarp.
“For the paltry price of a single three-headed coin, you can peer beneath the veil and behold with your own unbelieving eyes the mangled and mutilated monstrosity that lurks beneath!” the carnival barker continued. “But I must warn you, it is not possible to truly understand what dwells underneath without seeing it first! I cannot guarantee that you will still retain your sanity or will to live after witnessing the proverbial Mountains of Madness, for this low creature is truly like no other and serves only as a grim testament to the cruel sadism of the Lord Above! Anyone plagued by even the faintest lingering doubt as to their spiritual fortitude should not dare to even contemplate what might lie before me! But, for those brave, noble few who are truly dauntless of heart and incorrigible of spirit, I am proud to share with you this rare, unfathomable, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to witness sublime –”
The carnival barker was interrupted by a man yanking the sheet off the object beside him, revealing it to be a mirror.
“Whelp, that was a hell of an Im14andthisisdeep post, eh?” Charlotte mused.
Genevieve and I, however, were far too stunned to be amused; not by the mirror, but by the man who had unveiled it.
“It’s him, Lottie. That’s Emrys,” Genevieve whispered.
We had only seen him briefly once before, more than two-and-a-half years ago, but he was far from what anyone would call forgettable. He was tall and gaunt, with literal blue blood flowing beneath translucent skin. His long, receding hair and regal beard were pitch black, and dark miasma wafted from his eyes, nose, and mouth. He was dressed in dark sable robes with three overlapping Ouroboros’s tattooed on his forehead, with a pair of ophidian pupils lying in the spaces between them.
What stood out the most to us were the six silver Ouroboros chains bound around his wrists, ankles, waist, and neck. These were the chains the Ophion Occult Order had made to limit the power of his physical avatar, and it seemed he had not yet found a way to free himself from them.
“Are you still here?” Emrys asked in exasperation, tossing the veil back at the carnival barker in disdain.
“…Possibly,” the strange man replied evasively. “But not definitively, for purely legalistic reasons.”
“I believe Mathom-meister was quite clear when he said that your rather pitiful chicanery wasn’t welcomed here,” Emrys reminded him.
“And who is he to judge chicanery from cutthroat, capitalistic competition? Should not the Flea Market be a free market?” the charlatan demanded. “And while we’re on the topic of commerce, I don’t suppose you have enough three-headed coins to pay for all the poor souls you have so discourteously exposed to my exhibit against their will? I’d hate to have to start shaking people down to get my due.”
“Hard to believe your own circus threw you out,” Emrys said with a sardonic eye roll as he tossed him a small medallion. “You get one coin. Take it and get out of my sight.”
The charlatan flipped the coin in the air thrice, presumably to confirm it actually had three heads. Satisfied with its impossible dimensions, he shoved it into his pocket.
“It will cover the trolley ride home, at least,” he acquiesced, stepping off his soap box and turning to face his looking glass. “A shame though you can’t see the genius in my little avant-garde performance piece here, Emmy. Even I know that the monster in the mirror is often the hardest to recognize.”
As the man reached to pick up his mirror, his reflection’s arms shot through the glass and grabbed him by the wrists, pulling him in. Emrys immediately tried to chase after him, but bounced off the glass as if there was nothing supernatural about it at all.
“Bastard!” he cursed under his breath, before turning towards us and giving us a small apologetic smile. “I’m sorry you had to see that rather pathetic display. Unfortunately, the few meeting places I know of that are relatively safe from any Ophionic incursion also attract their fair share of other annoying miscreants.”
“If it didn’t attract a little bit of everything, it wouldn’t be a Flea Market, would it?” I asked rhetorically. “Thank you, Emrys, for inviting us. I’ve never been anywhere like this before.”
“And thank you for accepting. Samantha, Genevieve, it’s a pleasure to see you again, and a relief that you have not fallen under the auspices of the Ophion Occult Order,” he said with a gentle bow. “Elam, I remember you as well. Valiant but not reckless, you remained atop Pendragon Hill during my battle with the Darlings until your mistress was well out of harm’s way, and then you got the hell out of dodge yourself. Samantha couldn’t hope for a better Familiar. And Charlotte, any Witch that Samantha deemed worthy to induct into her coven is obviously someone whose acquaintance I am pleased to make. Welcome, all of you, to Mathom-meister’s Flea Market!”
“So this is where you’ve been hiding out the past two years?” Genevieve asked.
“Oh no. Far too Cosmopolitan for my tastes,” Emrys replied. “No, this is just a friendly place to meet those I consider friends – or potential friends, at least. I’d offer to show you around, but I know it’s difficult for you to astral travel for prolonged periods. Come with me to Mathom-meister’s house where we can talk freely, and we’ll discuss the situation with the Order.”
I gave him a small, single nod in response, and gestured with my staff that he should lead the way. He responded by pointing upwards, then vanished into his shadow form. When we looked up, we saw him waving at us from a balcony atop the great silken chrysalis.
We exchanged hesitant glances with one another, but ultimately followed him into the strange structure, moving from the ground to the balcony in an instant by will alone.
“How would an incarnate being get up here if they couldn’t fly or teleport?” Charlotte asked as she peered over the balcony’s teetering edge.
As though answering a summons, a humanoid creature apparated beside her in a flash of dark vapours. The hunched-back entity stood over six-and-a-half feet tall, and was clad in golden-brown erudite robes. Its squid-like skin was of a similar colour, and its entire face was a single gaping orifice that held a wispy, glowing orb in the center of its skull which I immediately recognized as its soul. A pair of long, fanged tentacles lined with pores and tendrils hung down from its head like a long, forked beard, and the seven digits shared by its two hands all bore wicked-looking talons, as did its two-toed, digitigrade feet.
“Not fly or teleport? What sort of pedestrian house guests do you think I entertain here?” the being asked wryly, its voice seeming to come from nowhere in particular.
Charlotte instinctively backed away from the creature and into the protective fold of our coven, but Emrys was quick to hold up his hand to plead for calm.
“Please, there’s no need for alarm. This is our host, Mathom-meister. He’s the only reason any of this is here in the first place,” Emrys informed us. “A year or two ago a companion of his unfortunately became one of the Darling Twin’s victims, and when he heard of my vendetta with them, he tracked me down; which is no small feat, I assure you.”
“It is for us. My people are a race of Planeswalkers. Traversing the many worlds of Creation is second nature to us,” Mathom-meister explained.
“I’ve… I’ve heard of your people, I think,” I said, softly and unsurely. “A friend of mine had an encounter with an artifact that gave her a vision of a race of strange and powerful sorcerers slaying their own god. I take it you’re the ones who slayed this Scarab Titan as well? That’s, that’s…”
“Horrifying, yes. That’s the idea,” he nodded. “You have nothing to worry about, young Witch. My people have no special interest in your world. This is purely personal. My friend is dead, and I want his murderers brought to justice; a goal which Emrys and I happen to have in common.”
“Feel free to share this information with the Ophion Occult Order, Samantha,” Emrys said. “I’d very much like for the Darling Twins to know what’s hunting them. Mathom-meister, please excuse me while I take my guests inside. We do have pressing business to discuss and their time is limited.”
The squid-cyclopes bowed gracefully, and my coven and I quickly scurried after Emrys as he led us inside through a towering hallway and into a large chamber that had been appointed as a living space.
I had thought that Emrys would want to speak with us alone, which was why I was surprised to see a young woman sitting cross-legged on a spongey yet chitinous object that I will for the sake of my sanity call a bean bag chair. Like Emrys, she was pale and blue-blooded, her choppy hair as black as coal. She wore a black robe and heavy black eyeliner, but these could not conceal the fact that she too had thin wisps of miasma emanating from her eyes.
“Is that your… daughter?” Charlotte asked, as baffled by her presence as any of us. The woman smiled warmly at the question.
“In a way. I was dead, and Emrys gave me new life. Now a part of the Outer Primordial Darkness he represents lives in me too,” she said serenely.
Hovering above her left palm were three small bluish-green orbs, lazily going around in a circle. They were translucent and held something inside them that I couldn’t make out, but the orbs themselves appeared to be melting and solidifying by the woman’s will.
“You’re Petra, aren’t you?” I asked as I cautiously approached her. “Chamberlin had mentioned that Emrys had taken an acolyte. I’m Samantha, and this is Genevieve, Elam, and Charlotte.”
“I know. The whole reason we’re here is to speak with you,” she nodded.
“The Ophion Occult Order calls me a soul-flayer, and I’m sure you were all wondering exactly what that meant before you came here,” Emrys said, standing proudly behind his acolyte. “Well, this is it. The Darkness Beyond is now a part of her, and a part of her now lives within the Darkness Beyond. She is not unchanged from what she was before, but neither has what she was been lost.”
“My interpretation of the term ‘soul-flaying’ was the complete removal of a person’s consciousness from their astral and physical bodies to be subsumed by your Darkness,” I countered. “They told me that what you’ve done with Petra here is just the limit of your power while you’re bound in their chains. Are you telling me that if your chains were broken, you wouldn’t be able to do any worse than this?”
“On my physical avatar? No. So long as my astral form remains chained and bound with the World Serpent, I cannot cleave a conscious mind from its astral substrate,” Emrys assured me.
“But that is your ultimate goal, isn’t it? Breaking the chains the Ophion Occult Order put on you is just a stepping stone to breaking the ones the gods bound you with?” Genevieve asked. “You’ve allied yourself with a literal god slayer. Do you expect us to believe that his people’s abilities aren’t something you intend to put to your own ends?”
“I don’t have an ultimate goal so much as I have a fundamental principle of opposing tyranny,” he claimed. “When I was a mere man, thousands of years ago, I was a tyrant. I believed that might made right so unquestionably that when my might began to fail me, the only thing I could think to do was to try everything in my power to restore it. This quest eventually led to me becoming one with the Darkness Beyond, which gave me not only the might I coveted but the wisdom I didn’t know I needed. It gave me perspective. It made me stronger than any human alive at that point but still let me realize how insignificant I was. It was humbling, and enlightening, and filled me both with remorse over my past actions and an impetus to use my newfound gifts to rectify them. I tried to overthrow the gods themselves which, in hindsight, was overly ambitious. I not only failed but had my soul devoured by the World Serpent, where it still resides to this day.
“I am not eager to bring the wrath of the gods down upon me once again. No, for now, I will be content to end the tyranny of the Ophion Occult Order. This is the message I’d like you to relay to them. If the Grand Adderman agrees to unbind my chains and step down from his post, I will spare his life. If he declines, I want the rest of the Order to know that I will show mercy to any who sides with me over him. I am willing to allow the Order to exist so long as it agrees to become more decentralized, democratic, and accountable. They will have to forfeit certain artifacts and individuals in their possession over to me, chief among them the Darling Twins, but I am willing to negotiate. If they aren’t, then I will overthrow the Grand Adderman by whatever means necessary and see the Order scattered to the four winds. It is entirely up to them whether or not the conflict between us escalates to full-on war. Have I made myself clear, Samantha?”
“I think so,” I said as I pensively considered everything he had said. “Why should they trust you to keep your word once your chains are broken? For that matter, why should we?”
He took a moment to consider his response, eyeing me over as though he was trying to divine something that would win over my trust.
“Samantha, you made a pact with Persephone to get your Spirit Familiar there; one where she swore by the River Styx. Is that correct?” he asked.
“It is,” I nodded.
“And in the years since, has Persephone ever broken that pact she swore to?” he asked.
“No, she hasn’t,” I replied.
“I may not be an Old God, but so long as my astral form remains bound by their chains, they have power over me,” he said. “Samantha Sumner, Hedge Witch of Harrowick Woods, I swear on the River Styx that I have spoken no lies to you today. I swear by the River Styx that I will abide by any Covenant that I and the Ophion Occult Order agree to in good faith and fair dealing that they do not break first. I swear by the River Styx that when my chains are broken, I will give you no cause to fear me or regret your trust in me.”
I gave a questioning glance to Genevieve, and then Elam, both of whom nodded in the affirmative.
“All right. An oath sworn on the River Styx is good enough for me. I’ll deliver your terms to Seneca Chamberlin,” I agreed. “I’m very grateful for the trust and respect you’ve shown for me and my coven, Emrys, though I can’t say I quite understand it. Out of all the guests that were there on the Hallow’s Eve you were summoned, why did Evie and I stand out to you?”
“The Ophion Occult Order deemed you worthy of inclusion in their cult, an offer you rejected on principle. You cheated Persephone, but you did it not to gain immortality for yourself but to save your friend from hell. You came here, thinking I could very well tear your souls asunder, but did so because you believed it was your duty to prevent needless suffering,” Emrys answered. “You are extraordinary in your craft, courage, and conscience, the latter of which especially stood out among the degenerates at that party. I do apologize if I frightened you at that event. I was a bit… irritable, given the circumstances. I’m glad we were able to meet again under more pleasant conditions.”
“So am I, Emrys,” I nodded. “I’m not sure exactly what this means or how relevant it is, but Seneca wanted me to tell you that he’s able to offer you the Dream Demon Red Ruck as a sacrifice.”
“Pffft. Tell him it’s hardly a sacrifice if I’m getting rid of a boogie man for him,” he scoffed. “In fact, now that you mention it, Ruck’s one egregore that might be of more use to me alive.”
I wanted to ask him what he meant by that, but we were suddenly interrupted by the rapid pounding of a gong somewhere down below. It seemed to be an alarm of some kind, as we could hear the panicked shouting and frantic racing of people either battening down or forsaking the Flea Market altogether.
Mathom-meister apparated into the middle of the room, his facial tentacles reflexively raised in a defensive position.
“Were you outside the market?” he demanded of us.
“The portal we came through deposited us a few miles outside of the market, yes,” I admitted.
“Damn,” Emrys cursed softly, though he sounded more frustrated than angry. “Meister, it’s not their fault. I knew they weren’t experienced Planeswalkers, I could have – ”
“It doesn’t matter!” Mathom-meister interjected. “They need to leave, now!”
“Why, what’s going on?” Genevieve demanded.
“The scarabs are swarming,” Petra explained. “Don’t feel bad; it happens often enough that they’re prepared for it.”
I wanted to press for more details, but I could hear the humming of a vast winged swarm steadily encroaching upon us.
“Don’t worry. Once you leave the swarm will disperse… eventually,” Emrys told us. “We’ve said all that need be said for now. Return home, and I’ll reach out to you again shortly, Samantha.”
Again, I wanted to object, but the swarm outside was growing louder and louder, and it occurred to me that we might not be completely safe from a biblical swarm of insects that could not only sense but evidently sought out souls.
This occurred to Charlotte as well, as she was the first of us to vanish and awaken back in her body. We could all feel the weight of her reembodied soul tugging on us to return with her. Genevieve immediately grabbed hold of my right hand and Elam my left, both of them refusing to leave before I did.
I spared one final glance at Emrys, lamenting that we couldn’t have had more time.
“I’ll relay everything you said to the Order. I’ll make sure they know you’re willing to negotiate a truce,” I vowed.
He gave me a gracious nod, and just as we heard the swarm start to pelt the exterior of the market, I forced my physical eyes open and was back in my body, still safely under a willow tree in my cemetery.
I immediately looked beside me to Genevieve, and saw that she was awake as well, and then around me for Elam, who seemed to be suffering a bit of spectral whiplash from being pulled back with me so suddenly, but was otherwise all right. Sighing with relief, I turned lastly to Charlotte, and saw that she was looking down at the mediation circle in dreaded horror.
Following her gaze, I saw that the Undying Rose was gone – spent, perhaps, in exchange for our passage – and in its place was the inert, and hopefully dead, body of one of the shimmering scarabs.

I posted about the boycott post and now I want to know what local businesses ya’ll absolutely love!
This is the positive post! Go to the boycott one if you disagree with some one hahaa
I’ll start:
Growing Season/Rebel salad. I would eat their food every day of the week if I had endless pockets. Everything is always so damn delicious.
Bonobos - I’m not even vegan but hot damn their food is also amazing. If they did delivery I’d order it a lot (I’m on the other side of town so I don’t get there too often)
Karma hair salon - hands down my favourite place to go for a haircut.

Hey,
My hair is now long enough to donate but I can't find a list of salons that will cut it. I know I can cut it and package it up myself but I would prefer to have it done somewhere if possible. Does anyone have a list of places that do it?
Thank you

I’m so confused. How come no-lye relaxers (calcium hydroxide) are still be labeled as cancer causing despite not being as harsh as lye (sodium hydroxide)? I don’t use over the counter relaxers; I go to the salon and get no lye professional relaxer. I used none of the relaxers pictured on the news. Are you sure ALL hair relaxers are dangerous for health?

I (29f) am currently dealing with a physical condition that has been very triggering of past traumas. I've spent the majority of this last year either disassociating and devoid of emotion, or reliving painful flashbacks of abuse when the condition flairs up. My mom has actually been helpful for a while through some of this- helping me get around after my latest surgery, making me soup when I could only keep down broth (even glossing over the fact that she didn't help me with dishes as promised, I'm not even upset about that one). So I started to open up a little more with her, ask for advice or just have an ear to vent to when I'm feeling so overwhelmed that I want to end it all. During one of these moments, alone in my apartment less than a week after returning from the surgery, I'm dealing with a crisis in the after math of that. More venting and panicking, I text her explaining what's going on in hopes of a little bit of sympathy. Guess I overstayed my welcome in her good graces; "F*ck off and figure it out yourself" was all I read of the text before I shut down and deleted the message history from her. Had my bf delete the 20 minute long voice-mail she sent 5 minutes later with her sobbing about how she's not feeling well and-- well, there wasn't really an apology so I'm glad I didn't listen to it or it probably would have made me feel even worse.
It's hit me really hard this time around. I feel like a moron for thinking I could actually open up and talk to her about anything, because this is always what happens. She's nice and agreeable when she thinks it'll get her something, but as soon as she's tired of the charade or gets whatever payout she's seeking, it snaps like a feeble twig. Then she comes back like she did nothing wrong when she wants more, texting me and calling me constantly; I've ignored most of her communication since then but she always pulls me in with "something important" or offering "gifts" (like bringing me weed and then asking for the $40 after dropping it off, so not really even gifts just delivering shit and seeking praise. And I'm a monster if I don't tell her to be safe while she's taking a trip to see my brother, right?). I want to go nc after this, but I loathe the thought of putting too much on my boyfriend and sending him running for the hills. I'm working on seeing a therapist but even my doctors can't seem to find an opening for me anywhere in the area. I'm currently unemployed and don't have the funds for those crappy online therapists like betterhelp (my bf has talked about this as an option, but I'm making so little in comparison to him right now that I feel like that's just a huge waste of his money and I cannot bring myself to become a bigger burden than I already am for him). I miss being almost mentally stable while on medication, but my last psychiatric got all buddy-buddy with my mom and dropped me like a hot potato about 3 years ago; my mom still texts him on a weekly basis, but guess my issues aren't important enough to get me in or on any medication again.
Then, one shitty thing after another. I decided to get rid of my 2 cats of 3 years; had them almost as long as I've been with the current bf. All of the hair has been hell on my recovery and I can't even bend over for simple tasks like feeding or cleaning litter. The bf understood and reassured me my health was more important, so... We rehomed them, and I made sure they were going to a good home so I have that peace of mind that they'll be loved and taken care of. I just watched my bf mourn the loss of our cats more than I mourned the loss of both my grandparents (who raised me over half of my childhood). I feel like a monster after witnessing him break down like that; I have no idea how to comfort anyone and it felt like he was shutting me out anyway. I am the reason he's crying so why would he want my comfort? We had to get rid of the cats because of me and it made him cry. I suppose it'll make the decision easier for him when he finally gets fed up with my shit as well and leaves me, but I just feel so... lost. I know it's not healthy to live only because of one person, but I can't go back to my abusive family if he decides to leave. I'm better off dead in the street than suffering like that again. Even if I could physically handle working full time, it isn't enough money to sustain a person living by themselves; not with any job I'm able to get in this shitty economy. I'm just a pathetic sack that's failed as an adult and just wants the pain to stop for five fucking seconds; to feel like I have some value even when I know that's bullshit and anyone who tells me I do is just lying out of fear that I'll off myself and they'll be stuck cleaning it up. A part of my mind is telling me I should do everything in my power to be happy and healthy for my bf after causing him such anguish, but I'm so sick of lying and saying I'm okay. I'm sick of smiling when I just want to ugly cry. Everyone is telling me that I need to be more positive about life but literally the only thing I've wanted since I was 5 was to not be forced to live in this awful world and I'm just so tired of all this bullshit... I think I've ranted enough, not expecting anyone to read through this crap anyway;; Just needed some outlet while I'm stuck alone with my shitty thoughts...

I manage a hair salon, and we are re-vamping our service menu and pricing. To get away from using phrases like “men’s cut” vs “women’s cut” we are focusing on technique used/amount of hair to avoid being accused of gender discrimination, and to be more accepting of those that do not identify as strictly man or woman.
But now our question is age. We used to have a blanket “kids cut” for ages 12 and under. However, for a long haired 12 year old to be charged one price and then jump to “adult” pricing once they turn 13 feels like quite the jump. I suggested graduated/tiered pricing (0-7, 8-13, 14-18) based off the average time demand that increase as a long haired wearing child ages. (The older they get, typically, the more detailed the cut and/or style, thus more time is needed). Our owner is concerned that this will fall under age discrimination. So is it?
We are in Wisconsin if that plays into it at all.

“I’m sorry; we’re going to astral travel to a flea market?” Charlotte asked incredulously as she watched Genevieve and I set up a meditation circle under the shade of a towering old willow tree in my cemetery. “What if we want to buy something? How will we bring it back?”
“We’re not going there to shop, Lottie. Samantha’s finally had a vision about Emrys,” Genevieve explained.
The Veil between the Physical and Astral Planes is exceptionally weak in my cemetery, especially at night and on hallowed days. When I sleep there, my subconscious mind is highly receptive to all manner of revelations from the Spirit World. When I saw a Blood Moon rise on the night of May fifth, the same night as a penumbral eclipse, I knew that my dreams would be prophetic.
“I had a dream about him last Friday,” I expounded. “He’s at some sort of otherworldly marketplace, one that’s not connected to the Crypto Chthonic Cuniculi, so it’s mostly inaccessible to the Ophion Occult Order. In my dream, Emrys invited us to come and speak with him while we were lucid. He drew a sigil for me, the same one I’ve drawn in the middle of the mediation circle. He said that all I’d have to do is toss an Undying Rose – the earthly effigy of the rose Persephone used to steal a drop of his blood – into the sigil and it will become an astral portal to where he is.”
I held up the deep purple rose that I had cut from its bush earlier that day. I don’t know for certain where the roses came from, but my best guess is that they were made by the same Occultist who hallowed my cemetery to Persephone; Artaxerxes Crow. They have some connection to Emrys as well, since the only other time I saw someone else use one was when his avatar was summoned into the Physical Plane on Halloween 2020.
Knowing that Emrys wouldn’t dare to set foot in a place that was sacred to the Goddess who was ultimately responsible for his cosmic defeat, I gently tossed the rose into the middle of the sigil.
“He invited all of us?” Charlotte asked with an incredulous raising of her eyebrow.
“He said me and my coven. If he had just meant me or me and Genevieve he would have said that,” I replied. “You and Elam are coming too. I want as many eyes on this place as possible so that we don’t miss anything. We may not get an opportunity like this again.”
“And this is safe? Visiting some random flea market between worlds?” Charlotte asked.
“Samantha and I have visited the Underworld and come back no problem,” Genevieve reminded her. “So long as we’re bound to our bodies and Elam is bound to Samantha, we can come back anytime. Don’t worry; this is going to be a blast! Adventures like these are the best part of being a Witch.”
“The only reason you were able to go to the Underworld is because Samantha’s cemetery came with an astral portal in the back,” Charlotte countered, gesticulating in the general direction of the archway that was still partially visible behind the light spring foliage. “Other than that, when have any of us ever done anything useful with our astral projection? This is still a physical place, right? We don’t have any of our physical senses available to us when we astral project, and I get extremely disoriented trying to navigate the mortal plane with clairvoyance alone.”
“It is a physical place, but one saturated with astral energy and full of occultists and occult artifacts. It will be extremely illuminated to our clairvoyance,” I assured her. “Elam will also be there to guide us. As a ghost, he’s much more practiced at traversing the mortal plane in an astral form.”
Charlotte folded her arms over her chest and turned to look at Elam, who was leaning up against the willow tree as he waited for us.
“I don’t suppose you could go and scout the place out for us ahead of time?” she asked.
“I can’t go too far from Samantha, and definitely not across planes,” he said with a shake of his head. “But Eve’s right. Your astral bodies will be in no danger, and you can return here in an instant whenever you want.”
“But what about Emrys? Didn’t that book Leon gave you say that he’s some sort of soul-flayer?” Charlotte asked me.
“It did,” I admitted. “Keep in mind though, that book was written by his enemies. I want to hear his side of things before this conflict of theirs spirals out of control.”
“Any update from Chamberlin about that?” Elam asked.
“Yeah, he said that after he failed to purify the Sigil Sand, Ivy’s onboard with negotiating some kind of truce with Emrys,” I replied. “The Grand Adderman’s still reticent, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s running out of options. I need to find out if Emrys will agree to peace talks.”
“Um, I get that, but I’m still kind of hung up on him potentially flaying our souls,” Charlotte reiterated.
“If Emrys and the Ophion Occult Order go to all-out war, there’ll be a lot of collateral damage and innocent souls caught in the crossfire,” Genevieve told her, gently grabbing hold of her and looking her straight in the eye. “Samantha, Elam, and I are doing this because if there’s any chance we can put an end to this before it starts, then it’s our responsibility to try. You don’t have to come with us, Lottie, but you’re still a member of our coven. Samantha and I would both feel a lot better with you there to help us.”
“Arghhh! All right, fine! I’ll come with you,” Charlotte gave in, plopping her butt down on the edge of the meditation circle. “If we’re holding hands, that will help keep our astral bodies together too, right?”
“I believe it should, yes,” I smiled at her, sitting down and reaching out for her hand.
Genevieve lit the incense and her bong filled with the entheogenic Delphi Dream, before sitting down to join us. She took a hit from the bong before passing it to me, and then to Charlotte before setting it aside out of the circle.
“Start with taking a deep breath, completely filling the lungs, and holding it for five heartbeats,” she guided us as she took hold of each of our hands. “Exhale completely, and wait five more heartbeats before breathing in again. Eyes closed, in through the nose, out through the mouth. Focus on the astral energies flowing through you with each breath, gently aligning each chakra until those energies are enough to lift you up and out of your body.”
In unison with one another, the three of us slowly breathed in and out, ignoring the material world around us and focusing upon the task at hand. Eve was first, as usual, and because we were all holding hands, Charlotte and I felt her eagerly tugging us up to speed us along.
I opened my eyes, and beheld the dull and muted Physical Plane through my clairvoyance, everything outshined by the radiant forms of my coven mates. I noted that Genevieve had eschewed her normal skyclad form when astral projecting and instead wore a cloak like Charlotte and I.
“Are you worried this place might have a no shirt, no shoes, no souls, no service policy?” I teased her.
“I just don’t want to risk a confrontation over it. I realize how important this is,” she answered. “Though I’m not actually wearing shoes, now that you mention it.”
“Christ, look at the sigil Samantha drew!” Charlotte said, pointing down at the meditation circle beneath us. The sigil wasn’t just glowing but flowing as well, churning the Aether around it in a misty, spectral vortex. “It’s an astral portal, isn’t it?”
“Oh yeah. It’s not stable, though. Good for one trip only,” Genevieve said with a delighted smile. “And Lottie, since we’re Neopagan Witches, try not to swear by Christ, okay?”
“Jesus!” she swore, both in defiance and in genuine annoyance.
“Elam! Elam, come join the circle! I don’t want to take any chances of severing our bond,” I instructed, letting go of Charlotte’s hand and waving him in between us.
Faithful Familiar that he was, he obeyed without hesitation. Despite my concerns, I think that he probably could have stayed behind if he had wanted. The fact that he was willing to follow me to an unknown otherworld without complaint really made me appreciate how devoted he was to me.
“We step in together on the count of three, got it?” I instructed, each of them nodding clearly in response. “One. Two. Three!”
We all extended our right feet into the vortex together, and the instant we did we were swept away, falling out of our own world and tumbling between the cracks of countless others. They weren’t real, I don’t think. At least, not as real as our world. They were potential realities, or realities that could have been once but now can never be, or fantasies that are so persistent in the minds of real people that in some sense or another, they become real themselves. I only saw glimmers of them, glimmers in nebulas made of primeval chaos and uttermost void.
It was outside of time, that place we travelled through, or at least we had no sense of it there. Our souls were haphazardly spat out upon a surreal landscape of earth, sea, and fire. Hilly plains of volcanic ash, incandescent calderas of lava and bubbling hot springs all intermeshed in a chaotic mosaic that didn’t seem to abide by any laws of geology or geography that I was familiar with. A strong but slow wind pushed fractal formations of dark silver clouds through a pale silver sky, illuminated by a single white orb which could have been either a bright moon or a faint sun.
While our spectral feet left no trace upon the ash we now stood upon, our presence nonetheless elicited a response from some of the local fauna. We were just able to catch a glimpse of some kind of shimmering scarabs burrowing themselves into the ash to escape the four otherworldly ghosts that had invaded their territory.
“Holy shit,” Charlotte murmured as we all gazed out upon the strange world we had found ourselves on. “This really isn’t on the Astral Plane. This is a real planet. This a real, alien planet! This is unbelievable!”
Genevieve glided over to one of the bubbling pools and peered into it, looking for any more signs of life.
“There’s some kind of bluish-grey algae growing on the rocks down there, and I think I can make out some small arthropods too. This planet’s alive!” she announced with glee, smiling and looking up at the alien sky.
Conjuring an astral approximation of my staff, I plunged it into a small mound of ash beside me. I watched curiously as the scarabs shot out in all directions, moving too quickly for me to get a good look at them, before scurrying back into the surrounding ash.
“These bugs can sense our presence,” I remarked. “How and why would clairvoyance evolve in insects on this world, and why would their first instinct be to flee?”
“Samantha!” Elam called out. “I think I found the Flea Market.”
We all gathered around him and looked where he was pointing. On a distant dune, we beheld the moulted carapace of a colossal insect, gleaming a brilliant, lustrous gold in the broken white light.
“That’s impossible!” Charlotte claimed. “That thing must be hundreds of meters long! No insect, no animal period could ever get that big on the Physical Plane!”
“It could be the Incarnation of some kind of Titan,” Genevieve suggested. “But… it’s dead. I can tell that even from here. It’s dead. It’s the corpse of a dead god, and now it’s being used as a swap meet with a punny name. Either whatever killed it just abandoned it, or…”
“Or is running the place,” I finished for her. “Well, we should see if we can find Emrys.”
In an instant, the world moved around us until we were at the entrance to the Flea Market. The colossal carapace was hollow inside, of course, and had been filled with a bustling city that looked like it had been created in the most ad hoc manner possible. There wasn’t a single straight street to be seen, and they converged with one another at random intervals. Stalls and buildings varied wildly in both design and materials, all imported from a plethora of different cultures across the planes.
Enormous shards of luminous glass levitated above the throng like a thousand Swords of Damocles, any or all of them seeming capable of succumbing to gravity at any moment. In the very center of the moulted husk dangled a great spiralling chrysalis or hive woven of iridescent silk, its function not being immediately apparent to me.
There must have been thousands of people there, and hundreds of merchants hawking their wares. Most of those who looked human still seemed a little off, like they were members of ethnicities that didn’t exist in our world. Some of the beings were near-human in appearance, many seemingly some kind of Fey or Seelie folk. There was even a small handful of people that weren’t remotely human at all.
The only thing they all had in common was that none were native to this world.
“Most of these people are here in person, aren’t they?” Charlotte asked.
“It would’ve been quite a feat for them to have built all of this while astral projecting,” Genevieve agreed.
“But if this place isn’t connected to the Cuniculi, then how did they get here?” Charlotte asked. “We’re on another planet, maybe even in another dimension. If getting here is beyond the Ooo’s abilities, then what sort of ungodly reality benders decided to turn it into a Flea Market?”
“Ladies, gentlemen, and any beings either too ancient and alien or too modern and alienated to settle on one or the other, come bear witness to one of the most astounding and atrocious abominations on this or any other world!” a fast-paced male voice rang out over the din of the crowd.
We turned to see a short, skinny, old-timey sort of carnival barker standing on a literal soap box, placed next to a large object draped in a black tarp.
“For the paltry price of a single three-headed coin, you can peer beneath the veil and behold with your own unbelieving eyes the mangled and mutilated monstrosity that lurks beneath!” the carnival barker continued. “But I must warn you, it is not possible to truly understand what dwells underneath without seeing it first! I cannot guarantee that you will still retain your sanity or will to live after witnessing the proverbial Mountains of Madness, for this low creature is truly like no other and serves only as a grim testament to the cruel sadism of the Lord Above! Anyone plagued by even the faintest lingering doubt as to their spiritual fortitude should not dare to even contemplate what might lie before me! But, for those brave, noble few who are truly dauntless of heart and incorrigible of spirit, I am proud to share with you this rare, unfathomable, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to witness sublime –”
The carnival barker was interrupted by a man yanking the sheet off the object beside him, revealing it to be a mirror.
“Whelp, that was a hell of an Im14andthisisdeep post, eh?” Charlotte mused.
Genevieve and I, however, were far too stunned to be amused; not by the mirror, but by the man who had unveiled it.
“It’s him, Lottie. That’s Emrys,” Genevieve whispered.
We had only seen him briefly once before, more than two-and-a-half years ago, but he was far from what anyone would call forgettable. He was tall and gaunt, with literal blue blood flowing beneath translucent skin. His long, receding hair and regal beard were pitch black, and dark miasma wafted from his eyes, nose, and mouth. He was dressed in dark sable robes with three overlapping Ouroboros’s tattooed on his forehead, with a pair of ophidian pupils lying in the spaces between them.
What stood out the most to us were the six silver Ouroboros chains bound around his wrists, ankles, waist, and neck. These were the chains the Ophion Occult Order had made to limit the power of his physical avatar, and it seemed he had not yet found a way to free himself from them.
“Are you still here?” Emrys asked in exasperation, tossing the veil back at the carnival barker in disdain.
“…Possibly,” the strange man replied evasively. “But not definitively, for purely legalistic reasons.”
“I believe Mathom-meister was quite clear when he said that your rather pitiful chicanery wasn’t welcomed here,” Emrys reminded him.
“And who is he to judge chicanery from cutthroat, capitalistic competition? Should not the Flea Market be a free market?” the charlatan demanded. “And while we’re on the topic of commerce, I don’t suppose you have enough three-headed coins to pay for all the poor souls you have so discourteously exposed to my exhibit against their will? I’d hate to have to start shaking people down to get my due.”
“Hard to believe your own circus threw you out,” Emrys said with a sardonic eye roll as he tossed him a small medallion. “You get one coin. Take it and get out of my sight.”
The charlatan flipped the coin in the air thrice, presumably to confirm it actually had three heads. Satisfied with its impossible dimensions, he shoved it into his pocket.
“It will cover the trolley ride home, at least,” he acquiesced, stepping off his soap box and turning to face his looking glass. “A shame though you can’t see the genius in my little avant-garde performance piece here, Emmy. Even I know that the monster in the mirror is often the hardest to recognize.”
As the man reached to pick up his mirror, his reflection’s arms shot through the glass and grabbed him by the wrists, pulling him in. Emrys immediately tried to chase after him, but bounced off the glass as if there was nothing supernatural about it at all.
“Bastard!” he cursed under his breath, before turning towards us and giving us a small apologetic smile. “I’m sorry you had to see that rather pathetic display. Unfortunately, the few meeting places I know of that are relatively safe from any Ophionic incursion also attract their fair share of other annoying miscreants.”
“If it didn’t attract a little bit of everything, it wouldn’t be a Flea Market, would it?” I asked rhetorically. “Thank you, Emrys, for inviting us. I’ve never been anywhere like this before.”
“And thank you for accepting. Samantha, Genevieve, it’s a pleasure to see you again, and a relief that you have not fallen under the auspices of the Ophion Occult Order,” he said with a gentle bow. “Elam, I remember you as well. Valiant but not reckless, you remained atop Pendragon Hill during my battle with the Darlings until your mistress was well out of harm’s way, and then you got the hell out of dodge yourself. Samantha couldn’t hope for a better Familiar. And Charlotte, any Witch that Samantha deemed worthy to induct into her coven is obviously someone whose acquaintance I am pleased to make. Welcome, all of you, to Mathom-meister’s Flea Market!”
“So this is where you’ve been hiding out the past two years?” Genevieve asked.
“Oh no. Far too Cosmopolitan for my tastes,” Emrys replied. “No, this is just a friendly place to meet those I consider friends – or potential friends, at least. I’d offer to show you around, but I know it’s difficult for you to astral travel for prolonged periods. Come with me to Mathom-meister’s house where we can talk freely, and we’ll discuss the situation with the Order.”
I gave him a small, single nod in response, and gestured with my staff that he should lead the way. He responded by pointing upwards, then vanished into his shadow form. When we looked up, we saw him waving at us from a balcony atop the great silken chrysalis.
We exchanged hesitant glances with one another, but ultimately followed him into the strange structure, moving from the ground to the balcony in an instant by will alone.
“How would an incarnate being get up here if they couldn’t fly or teleport?” Charlotte asked as she peered over the balcony’s teetering edge.
As though answering a summons, a humanoid creature apparated beside her in a flash of dark vapours. The hunched-back entity stood over six-and-a-half feet tall, and was clad in golden-brown erudite robes. Its squid-like skin was of a similar colour, and its entire face was a single gaping orifice that held a wispy, glowing orb in the center of its skull which I immediately recognized as its soul. A pair of long, fanged tentacles lined with pores and tendrils hung down from its head like a long, forked beard, and the seven digits shared by its two hands all bore wicked-looking talons, as did its two-toed, digitigrade feet.
“Not fly or teleport? What sort of pedestrian house guests do you think I entertain here?” the being asked wryly, its voice seeming to come from nowhere in particular.
Charlotte instinctively backed away from the creature and into the protective fold of our coven, but Emrys was quick to hold up his hand to plead for calm.
“Please, there’s no need for alarm. This is our host, Mathom-meister. He’s the only reason any of this is here in the first place,” Emrys informed us. “A year or two ago a companion of his unfortunately became one of the Darling Twin’s victims, and when he heard of my vendetta with them, he tracked me down; which is no small feat, I assure you.”
“It is for us. My people are a race of Planeswalkers. Traversing the many worlds of Creation is second nature to us,” Mathom-meister explained.
“I’ve… I’ve heard of your people, I think,” I said, softly and unsurely. “A friend of mine had an encounter with an artifact that gave her a vision of a race of strange and powerful sorcerers slaying their own god. I take it you’re the ones who slayed this Scarab Titan as well? That’s, that’s…”
“Horrifying, yes. That’s the idea,” he nodded. “You have nothing to worry about, young Witch. My people have no special interest in your world. This is purely personal. My friend is dead, and I want his murderers brought to justice; a goal which Emrys and I happen to have in common.”
“Feel free to share this information with the Ophion Occult Order, Samantha,” Emrys said. “I’d very much like for the Darling Twins to know what’s hunting them. Mathom-meister, please excuse me while I take my guests inside. We do have pressing business to discuss and their time is limited.”
The squid-cyclopes bowed gracefully, and my coven and I quickly scurried after Emrys as he led us inside through a towering hallway and into a large chamber that had been appointed as a living space.
I had thought that Emrys would want to speak with us alone, which was why I was surprised to see a young woman sitting cross-legged on a spongey yet chitinous object that I will for the sake of my sanity call a bean bag chair. Like Emrys, she was pale and blue-blooded, her choppy hair as black as coal. She wore a black robe and heavy black eyeliner, but these could not conceal the fact that she too had thin wisps of miasma emanating from her eyes.
“Is that your… daughter?” Charlotte asked, as baffled by her presence as any of us. The woman smiled warmly at the question.
“In a way. I was dead, and Emrys gave me new life. Now a part of the Outer Primordial Darkness he represents lives in me too,” she said serenely.
Hovering above her left palm were three small bluish-green orbs, lazily going around in a circle. They were translucent and held something inside them that I couldn’t make out, but the orbs themselves appeared to be melting and solidifying by the woman’s will.
“You’re Petra, aren’t you?” I asked as I cautiously approached her. “Chamberlin had mentioned that Emrys had taken an acolyte. I’m Samantha, and this is Genevieve, Elam, and Charlotte.”
“I know. The whole reason we’re here is to speak with you,” she nodded.
“The Ophion Occult Order calls me a soul-flayer, and I’m sure you were all wondering exactly what that meant before you came here,” Emrys said, standing proudly behind his acolyte. “Well, this is it. The Darkness Beyond is now a part of her, and a part of her now lives within the Darkness Beyond. She is not unchanged from what she was before, but neither has what she was been lost.”
“My interpretation of the term ‘soul-flaying’ was the complete removal of a person’s consciousness from their astral and physical bodies to be subsumed by your Darkness,” I countered. “They told me that what you’ve done with Petra here is just the limit of your power while you’re bound in their chains. Are you telling me that if your chains were broken, you wouldn’t be able to do any worse than this?”
“On my physical avatar? No. So long as my astral form remains chained and bound with the World Serpent, I cannot cleave a conscious mind from its astral substrate,” Emrys assured me.
“But that is your ultimate goal, isn’t it? Breaking the chains the Ophion Occult Order put on you is just a stepping stone to breaking the ones the gods bound you with?” Genevieve asked. “You’ve allied yourself with a literal god slayer. Do you expect us to believe that his people’s abilities aren’t something you intend to put to your own ends?”
“I don’t have an ultimate goal so much as I have a fundamental principle of opposing tyranny,” he claimed. “When I was a mere man, thousands of years ago, I was a tyrant. I believed that might made right so unquestionably that when my might began to fail me, the only thing I could think to do was to try everything in my power to restore it. This quest eventually led to me becoming one with the Darkness Beyond, which gave me not only the might I coveted but the wisdom I didn’t know I needed. It gave me perspective. It made me stronger than any human alive at that point but still let me realize how insignificant I was. It was humbling, and enlightening, and filled me both with remorse over my past actions and an impetus to use my newfound gifts to rectify them. I tried to overthrow the gods themselves which, in hindsight, was overly ambitious. I not only failed but had my soul devoured by the World Serpent, where it still resides to this day.
“I am not eager to bring the wrath of the gods down upon me once again. No, for now, I will be content to end the tyranny of the Ophion Occult Order. This is the message I’d like you to relay to them. If the Grand Adderman agrees to unbind my chains and step down from his post, I will spare his life. If he declines, I want the rest of the Order to know that I will show mercy to any who sides with me over him. I am willing to allow the Order to exist so long as it agrees to become more decentralized, democratic, and accountable. They will have to forfeit certain artifacts and individuals in their possession over to me, chief among them the Darling Twins, but I am willing to negotiate. If they aren’t, then I will overthrow the Grand Adderman by whatever means necessary and see the Order scattered to the four winds. It is entirely up to them whether or not the conflict between us escalates to full-on war. Have I made myself clear, Samantha?”
“I think so,” I said as I pensively considered everything he had said. “Why should they trust you to keep your word once your chains are broken? For that matter, why should we?”
He took a moment to consider his response, eyeing me over as though he was trying to divine something that would win over my trust.
“Samantha, you made a pact with Persephone to get your Spirit Familiar there; one where she swore by the River Styx. Is that correct?” he asked.
“It is,” I nodded.
“And in the years since, has Persephone ever broken that pact she swore to?” he asked.
“No, she hasn’t,” I replied.
“I may not be an Old God, but so long as my astral form remains bound by their chains, they have power over me,” he said. “Samantha Sumner, Hedge Witch of Harrowick Woods, I swear on the River Styx that I have spoken no lies to you today. I swear by the River Styx that I will abide by any Covenant that I and the Ophion Occult Order agree to in good faith and fair dealing that they do not break first. I swear by the River Styx that when my chains are broken, I will give you no cause to fear me or regret your trust in me.”
I gave a questioning glance to Genevieve, and then Elam, both of whom nodded in the affirmative.
“All right. An oath sworn on the River Styx is good enough for me. I’ll deliver your terms to Seneca Chamberlin,” I agreed. “I’m very grateful for the trust and respect you’ve shown for me and my coven, Emrys, though I can’t say I quite understand it. Out of all the guests that were there on the Hallow’s Eve you were summoned, why did Evie and I stand out to you?”
“The Ophion Occult Order deemed you worthy of inclusion in their cult, an offer you rejected on principle. You cheated Persephone, but you did it not to gain immortality for yourself but to save your friend from hell. You came here, thinking I could very well tear your souls asunder, but did so because you believed it was your duty to prevent needless suffering,” Emrys answered. “You are extraordinary in your craft, courage, and conscience, the latter of which especially stood out among the degenerates at that party. I do apologize if I frightened you at that event. I was a bit… irritable, given the circumstances. I’m glad we were able to meet again under more pleasant conditions.”
“So am I, Emrys,” I nodded. “I’m not sure exactly what this means or how relevant it is, but Seneca wanted me to tell you that he’s able to offer you the Dream Demon Red Ruck as a sacrifice.”
“Pffft. Tell him it’s hardly a sacrifice if I’m getting rid of a boogie man for him,” he scoffed. “In fact, now that you mention it, Ruck’s one egregore that might be of more use to me alive.”
I wanted to ask him what he meant by that, but we were suddenly interrupted by the rapid pounding of a gong somewhere down below. It seemed to be an alarm of some kind, as we could hear the panicked shouting and frantic racing of people either battening down or forsaking the Flea Market altogether.
Mathom-meister apparated into the middle of the room, his facial tentacles reflexively raised in a defensive position.
“Were you outside the market?” he demanded of us.
“The portal we came through deposited us a few miles outside of the market, yes,” I admitted.
“Damn,” Emrys cursed softly, though he sounded more frustrated than angry. “Meister, it’s not their fault. I knew they weren’t experienced Planeswalkers, I could have – ”
“It doesn’t matter!” Mathom-meister interjected. “They need to leave, now!”
“Why, what’s going on?” Genevieve demanded.
“The scarabs are swarming,” Petra explained. “Don’t feel bad; it happens often enough that they’re prepared for it.”
I wanted to press for more details, but I could hear the humming of a vast winged swarm steadily encroaching upon us.
“Don’t worry. Once you leave the swarm will disperse… eventually,” Emrys told us. “We’ve said all that need be said for now. Return home, and I’ll reach out to you again shortly, Samantha.”
Again, I wanted to object, but the swarm outside was growing louder and louder, and it occurred to me that we might not be completely safe from a biblical swarm of insects that could not only sense but evidently sought out souls.
This occurred to Charlotte as well, as she was the first of us to vanish and awaken back in her body. We could all feel the weight of her reembodied soul tugging on us to return with her. Genevieve immediately grabbed hold of my right hand and Elam my left, both of them refusing to leave before I did.
I spared one final glance at Emrys, lamenting that we couldn’t have had more time.
“I’ll relay everything you said to the Order. I’ll make sure they know you’re willing to negotiate a truce,” I vowed.
He gave me a gracious nod, and just as we heard the swarm start to pelt the exterior of the market, I forced my physical eyes open and was back in my body, still safely under a willow tree in my cemetery.
I immediately looked beside me to Genevieve, and saw that she was awake as well, and then around me for Elam, who seemed to be suffering a bit of spectral whiplash from being pulled back with me so suddenly, but was otherwise all right. Sighing with relief, I turned lastly to Charlotte, and saw that she was looking down at the mediation circle in dreaded horror.
Following her gaze, I saw that the Undying Rose was gone – spent, perhaps, in exchange for our passage – and in its place was the inert, and hopefully dead, body of one of the shimmering scarabs.

throwaway account because I don't want anyone in my life to know about this yet but, when i was about 7 years old, my family had this friend who had a son. He wasn't much older than me, he was 10 or 11 at the time.
For some background: I was obsessed with the idea of owning/using an Ipad when i was little, i think it stemmed from my family being so poor and all the other kids at that age having one. Im a computer engineer now so, maybe i just thought it was cool idk. Anyway, this kid would bribe 7-year-old me to..do things.. with him, and in return, I could use his iPad to play my Barbie games, a specific racing game, and TOCA Hair Salon, which i weirdly vividly remember. It started out small, like kisses and slowly progressed to touching. One time he demanded i get into bed naked with him, even though i profusely refused at first he kept insisting and i got scared. Nothing happened past that but the whole time I felt absolutely disgusting. At the time, i didn't know why it was wrong, it just felt like it was. One day I broke down and told my grandma after feeling insanely guilty about the whole thing, i told her when I was 13, she made me tell my mom and that was it. No one else knows. I believed it was my fault, that i let it happen and I deserved what i got. It took me a long time to realize that I didn't know and all i wanted was to play Barbie.
I'm conflicted because I'm supposed to hate this person, but i don't. Let me make something clear, however, I don't like him and I will be happy never to see his face again. But a part of me feels as if this was learned behavior. I mean, the kid was TEN. TEN YEARS OLD. Kids that age being to explore their bodies but my 10-year-old nephew implodes in on himself when we tease him about a crush. I can't help but feel bad for him, maybe he was doing to me, what someone else had been doing to him and he thought it was normal. This whole thing deeply traumatized me and I refused to have crushes or kiss anyone until i was about 16 because the only thing i felt when i started to develop a crush was crippling guilt and dread, i would dread the feeling of regret, or feeling as disgusting as I did for the year that this went on for.
Anyway, Reddit, thanks for listening.

Sand shifted beneath my feet as I shambled down the river’s edge. I tried to recall what had happened, but the throbbing pain pulsing at my left temple robbed me of any conscious thought. A strange static filled the space between my ears. It wasn’t like the kind you’d find on the tv at odd hours in the night, but more so the soft hum of recycled air piping through a small nozzle above your seat on a plane.
I felt like I was in a fishbowl. My vision would blur, then clear and blur once more. I struggled to keep my balance as I stepped through silt and wet stone.
There was no sign of my kayak or gear anywhere. The gray waters roared across boulders as trees loomed over the edges of the bank. Massive, gnarled roots crept through the ground to gather a drink. The underbrush above the bank was so thick it was impossible to guess at how far I’d drifted before washing up here.
I said a prayer to a God I’d long forgotten; keep me safe… please.
I had no desire to get lost in the surrounding forest, so I decided to follow the river. It seemed like the best and only option I really had. Surely, I would eventually come to a bridge that would put me on a road. Then I could flag someone down for help. Or maybe there would even be a clearing where I could gather my bearings. Perhaps a house or a farm would be there.
I’d read that in these situations, a positive attitude was essential for survival.
But the further I got down the bank, the more worry festered in my brain. It punched holes in my flimsy optimism. I was always cursed with being an overthinker, and now more than ever it felt like a mental prison.
What if I have a concussion?
What if I never find anyone and starve to death out here?
Or worse, what if something starving finds me?
The thought sent shivers down my spine. I reassured myself that bear sightings in Kentucky were very rare, and that I also was likely the only cougar around.
A much needed giggle escaped my lips. I wasn’t really that old, although if you asked my mother, I was certainly way too old not to be married yet. Is 34 too old to be single? I shrugged. Maybe if I did have a husband though, I wouldn’t be alone right now in the middle of the god-forsaken wilderness…
I finally came to a bend in the river a few miles down and silently prayed that just around it laid some sort of civilization. My heart sunk once I saw it was just more of the same on the other side. Trees as far as the eye could see.
For the first time on one of my adventures, I missed the city. I promised myself that after I got out of here, I’d sell all my hiking equipment and never leave Cincinnati again.
IF… I ever got out of here.
My calves screamed as I trudged several more miles down the bank. My mouth was as dry as cotton and my stomach rumbled with hunger.
It was looking bleak. That positive mindset had just about fully decayed when I caught a glimpse of something bright yellow near the water’s edge.
It couldn’t be…
I screeched with joy and sprinted towards my pack. I grabbed the bag and hugged it like it was a long lost relative.
Jesus Christ, I couldn’t believe it. I scanned the area hoping I’d see my kayak washed ashore as well, but no such luck. Still… I was pretty damn happy as I pulled out a water bottle and a bag of trail mix from within and devoured them with abandon.
Concern receded just enough for hope to make a reappearance.
I was almost laughing until suddenly, a series of grunts followed by a low growl cut my celebration short.
I froze…
My eyes flicked back and forth, up and down the tree line, but I saw nothing. There was no visible sign of where the sound had come from.
It was definitely an animal. And it sounded, big.
I zipped up my bag and threw it over my shoulders as calmly as I could muster, then continued my travel along the riverbed.
My legs twitched with the desire to run, but I knew that was a terrible idea. Almost everything that saw you run would want to give chase. It was the nature of predators.
After about half an hour I finally released the tension in my shoulders and let myself breathe a little. I told myself I was in the clear, but I just couldn’t shake that feeling of being watched. Like a pair of eyes were fixated on my backside.
I was thankful for my pack that was filled with extra clothes, food and water, but I wish I’d found the other one as well.
My smaller bag contained a map, compass, and GPS phone. God, wouldn’t that be helpful…
One call to mom and she’d summon an army of Park Rangers and law enforcement to get me.
I sighed deeply and pressed onward. No use crying over things that could be but weren’t.
I’d lost track of my steps and wasn’t sure how many more miles I’d covered, but it felt like a lot. Exhaustion permeated my muscles, crept into my bones and tip-toed up into the base of my skull.
I ignored the throbbing of a headache and noticed for the first time that it was getting dark, and quickly. And to make matters worse a rumble of thunder sounded in the distance.
“Great…” I muttered.
There were small cave-like divots pressed into the sides of the riverbank, I searched for one large enough to give me some shelter for the night. Much to my dismay, I wasn’t getting out of here today and I desperately needed some sleep.
After an hour of clearing my spot of rocks, then gathering twigs and dead grass from above, I was able to get a small fire going at the mouth of the hole. Thankfully, my trusty lighter came through in a pinch.
If only that joint I’d been saving wasn’t in the small pack…
The fire warmed the space quickly and muted the smell of earth and moss. I tried to keep my eyes open for a while longer to see if the storm would reach me but couldn’t. My eyelids were too heavy, my body screamed for sleep, and it overtook me despite the roar of thunder above.
----
Lightning and heavy rain ripped me from my sleep.
My pants were saturated with mud from where the rain had blown in while I slept. I could see the river had risen further up the bank and was now only a few feet from the entrance of my burrow.
My mind was spinning as I tried to decide what to do when lightning struck a tree on the other side of the bank. It illuminated the black void of the night and for just a moment I thought I saw something on the other side of the dark waters.
My heart thundered in my chest. I could swear I saw something out there, watching…
No, it couldn’t be. It had to have been a trick of the light…
Another strike lit up the earth.
A large, black shape towered over a boulder just on the other side. I couldn’t make out it’s features but it’s face looked white as bone with huge antlers spanning over its head like deciduous tree limbs.
I panicked and sprung from my hiding place like a rabbit.
I clawed up the wet clay of the riverbank and blindly tore through the edge of the forest. Limbs and brush whipped at my face and grabbed at my clothing.
All sense was abandoned, flight had taken over.
My legs carried me for as long as they could until I doubled over at the base of an oak tree and emptied the contents of my stomach.
The rain was almost deafening as it pounded on the leaves above, and yet… three grunts… a growl…
It was close.
I couldn’t see a damn thing. I had to move with my hands outstretched in front of me so that I didn’t collide with a tree.
I pushed deeper into the vegetation, completely unsure of where I was going. But something told me, if it caught me, I was dead. Or worse than dead.
I’d read an article last summer that had stuck with me for the better part of a year, where a girl from Russia had been hiking when a Grizzly bear had descended upon her. She’d played dead like you’re supposed to, but I guess it was hungry and began eating her from the feet up. She called her mother and spoke with her for a while as it ate her.
That story looped in my mind like a nightmare as I wept, pushing through thorns, honeysuckle, and saplings.
I patted the Swiss Army knife in my jean pocket and quietly decided that if I was going to be slowly eaten, I’d jam the blade into my neck.
But I prayed it wouldn’t come to that.
More grunts and growls bellowed from somewhere deep within the bowels of the forest. I screamed back this time as tears mixed with rain on my cheeks.
This is it, this is how I die…
The thought felt resolute and concrete. A fact.
But just as I was about to be resigned to it, mercy found me in the darkness.
Headlights cut through the tree trunks about thirty yards away.
I screamed for help as I rushed towards them.
A semi-truck was turning around a bend as I spilled out onto the asphalt, falling to my knees.
I could hear its brakes lock up as the truck skidded towards me, but I couldn’t move. My chest heaved with heavy sobs as the grill of the rig came to almost kiss my forehead.
“WHAT IN GOD’S NAME!” I heard the driver holler as they slammed the door and raced around to the front.
“Are you okay?! What the hell are you doing out here?” A portly woman in overalls grabbed me by the shoulders and examined my face.
But I couldn’t answer. I was too afraid. Too tired.
“Come on honey, let’s get you in the truck.”
She helped guide me up into the cab on the passenger’s side as she told me everything was going to be okay.
I thought… maybe it could be.
Maybe I was okay.
But as soon as hope bubbled to the surface, it once again was massacred by this new reality.
I watched as she waddled around the side of the semi until disappearing in front of the engine block. I saw a flicker of a shadow in the headlights just for a moment.
Then the cab shook slightly. I gasped and leaned over the dash, desperately searching for the woman but I didn’t see her.
My breath pinched off in my throat like a closed pipe. The suspense of the next ten seconds felt like an eternity.
Curly red hair popped over the hood. I furrowed my brow, what the fu…
Then a terrified face emerged, eyes wide like saucers.
“Oh, God… no…” I whispered.
The woman vomited a stream of crimson blood over the hood.
She mouthed something that I couldn’t make out in the rain fall and then was lifted fully into view, impaled in the torso upon massive antlers.
I screamed and threw myself into the driver’s seat.
The gears groaned in protest as I tried to remember how to work the double clutch. My stepdad had been a trucker his entire life and had shown me how to do it… once.
I finally got it into 1-Low after shouting obscenities at the column.
The truck lurched forwards as I watched as the poor woman disappear below the hood again.
The cab rocked violently as I rolled over her and the creature.
A squeal as loud as a dozen elk came from the undercarriage.
I shifted to second gear, then third as I cleared over the top of them.
I watched the rearview mirror as I drove down the hill. I caught a glimpse of it coming to stand, towering over the road.
“FUCK YOU!” I screeched like a Valkyrie.
The turbo whistled as I sped like a madman until it was out of sight.
I drove and drove. Not even stopping at the first two towns I came across. Not until the sun was fully up.
The tears were dry, and my mind was blank. That strange static came back to fill my head. But this time it was much louder, more like a haunted television. And inside the static I was crying out, but I was lost under the noise.
----
The next day I gave the police my statement, or at least a version of it.
I didn’t lie… but I didn’t tell them everything either because I knew they wouldn’t believe it.
It was chalked up to an animal attack. The National Wildlife Department was looking into it.
Cheryl Kramer was the name of the woman who’d tried to help me. They never found trace of her. I knew that they wouldn’t…
When I got home to my apartment I did just what I’d promised, I sold all my gear and donated any hiking clothes I had.
Everything went back to normal for a while. But sometimes when it rained… I could swear I could see something across the street in the open lot.
Waiting…
Watching…

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I’ll try to keep this short, my sister has a daughter and she is 4 years old. Lexi has super curly hair and needs her hair to be taken care of constantly. My sisters husband ended up in the hospital and she has been a wreck. He has only been a week but she is destroyed and stopped brushing Lexis hair.
I was visiting with some premade meals and noticed the house and lexis hair was a mess. My sister wasn’t doing well so I offered to take Lexi for a bit so she can focus on her husband.
I tried to fix her hair, it’s just matted. I couldn’t fix it. I went to a hair salon to see if they could fix it but it would be 50 dollars an hour for them to brush out the hair. My sister wasn’t picking up. So we had her head shaved the next day. I sent pictures when it was done and that finally got her to respond.
It resulted in a huge argument, with her saying how dare I do that and me pointing out I wouldn’t of had to if she brushed her daughters hair.
Edit: Make the timeline clearer, I got her Tuesday morning, went to the salon on Wednesday and then did the cut today. She had three days to respond to all the calls and texts. This didn’t happen in an hour
Lexi was fine with it, her head was hurting and yes we tried everything we could to get it out. Not to mention I called my sister and texted her multiple times and waited a whole day after the salon visit. It was painful I want going to leave her in pain since her mom wouldn’t pick up

Chapter 19

A short one to finish off the Book, putting everyone into/approaching their final places before the climax. Some good characterization occurs, and we get a title drop of sorts!

Epigraph

A poem titled Old Temple, written by Sivyn Stor (B. 1022) While I am well aware of the timeline shenanigans going on, that the author was born over 140 years ago is significant for reasons I'm about to get into. The text of the poem seems to pretty clearly refer to the K'Rul temple and K'Rul himself (although I believe the Maker of Paths title is new to me) yet the events, someone dying within the Old Temple and their blood being drunk by the stones, occur well after the expected lifespan of whomever wrote this. In a world where mage lifespans seem elongated and other races live who-knows-how-long, this is less of a big deal, but if we assume this text was written prior to Ch. 5, then K'Rul was being dishonest regarding how long it had been since he'd received blood. Just something to think about.
Now, regarding the "Maker of Paths" title, that seems more significant. If K'Rul is the "Maker of Paths" then that could mean one of two things in my mind. Either he's some god of fate, which could work considering his actions in the story, or he's something far scarier. The first time we're introduced to Warrens in this story is when Paran's internal narration refers to them as the "secret paths of sorcery." If K'Rul is the Maker of those Paths... This again gels with his previous actions, as I'd noted that odd joke he cracked, where the creation of Silverfox's body was "unknown to any man ... Including myself." He then immediately clarifies that "this sorcery belongs to the Moon." If he's some Mystra analog then that whole interaction makes sense. While that particular interaction stuck out to me because I considered it evidence for my "K'Rul is Hood's predecessor" theory, given that neither of my interpretations for the "Maker of Paths" title fit that, and this fits better I might jump ship on that prediction. That Darujhistan, a city founded on a rumor hunted after by power-hungry mages, would erect a temple to the guy would make sense in this paradigm as well.
Additionally, if I'm correct regarding K'Rul's impending fight with the Jaghut Tyrant, then him being either a deity of Fate or Magic makes this a really bad thing.
One last note: the author mentions that K'Rul was "never so thirsty//in youth..." but I'm not sure what to make of that aside from noting it.

The Chapter Itself -

Begins with Crokus chafing against his protections. Meese refuses to tell him who or what is protecting him for reasons that are not explained and leaves to find Irilta. Once alone, Apsalar asks Crokus why he killed a guard. He decides to spare her the knowledge that "she" was in fact the one who killed them. Crokus, knowing that none of this adds up, decides immediately to leave, and Apsalar agrees to go with him. He wants to speak with Challice once they've successfully hidden, despite believing her a traitor. Ah Crokus, a boner head to the last.
Serrat, meanwhile, has finally tracked Younghand to the Phoenix Inn and prepares to strike once the lad climbs to the rooftop. She's beaten back by an invisible assailant. Either Oppon's breaking cover to hedge everything on their last tool, (and to not die by Dragnipur), or something else odd is going on. This is her last attempt we know of this chapter. Crokus gets a brief sense that something just went down but discards the sensation. Apsalar climbs up as well, and they leave for the old K'Rul Temple.
Murillio, meanwhile, waits for news on whether or not his friends are dead. If Coll lives and Rallick dies, then he'll avenge both friends by taking on Councilman Orr himself. So I guess the plan was to challenge the Councilman to a duel? Kill him in the open, publicly destroy the Lady's allies, and begin the process of restoring Coll? Not a terrible plan, it's quite good, in fact, just a bit underwhelming if that's it. He wonders how the Eel knew of the scheme and why they elected to meddle within it, and begins speculating along similar lines as myself. Rallick Nom scrapes against the door and barely drags himself in. Rallick disapproves of Murillio taking his roll over, and while being inspected, reveals nothing other than an old scar. Some sort of healing factor produced by the powder? The powder itself has evidently been absorbed, and Murillio's scrutiny satisfies the audience that K'Rul didn't pull a Sorry. Murillio goes to confront Kruppe, the supposed Eel. Now that I think about it, the anti-magic powder likely shielded Rallick from any divine intervention (if it was even attempted). Whatever the effect on Nom was, it saved his life, let's just hope he didn't get any magic cancer.
... The powder is Otataral! I literally just put that together now. I was about to make a passing comment about how the side effects might explain why alchemists don't mass-produce the stuff, then it hit me. It's not made, it's a rare substance with an intrinsic effect, a rust-colored metallic substance with an intrinsic AoE anti-magic effect. We've seen this elsewhere and it's name is Otataral. Lorn even mentions the effects long-term Otataral exposure has had on her in this same chapter. It's not mass-produced because it's rare. I'm fairly certain this is where Erikson wanted the other shoe to drop for the reader, and if so, well done sir! I've been played expertly. This raises several questions, how does a Darujhistan High Alchemist have a substance which is apparently strongly associated with Malazan? and why would Baruk give out his supply in a consumable form to an employee? How big was the job RN did for him where that was adequate compensation? Who knows! Perhaps he's "anathema to sorcery" himself now? Back to the narrative...
Kruppe is in Baruk's study, waiting on his master to say anything after nearly an hour. The debriefing has long since ended, and the alchemist is in deep thought. He pleads with the man to let him go and enjoy the simple, humble pleasures of life and is interrupted for his troubles. Baruk reveals his correspondence with Circle Breaker, and his growing inclination to break the man's anonymity to find the Eel. Kruppe informs him that it will not be necessary, that he himself can contact the Eel and deliver a message, getting a response by tonight. Has Baruk figured it out? The roadwork clue was a pretty big tell, and someone who knows as much about Kruppe as the High Alchemist does should be able to put it together. Regardless of whether Baruk knows or not, the charade ends tonight. (I think..)
After being further caught up by Whiskeyjack, Paran comes to a realization, the Bridgeburners are here to claim Darujistan not for Malazan, but for Onearm. They'll act as terrorists, and Dujek will waltz in and establish a new peace, with the resources for resisting Laseen and Caladan Brood's descending armies. Whiskeyjack offers one correction, they don't care about Laseen. She's about to lose both major fronts to her conquest in a matter of days. It's the Pannion Seer who's the real threat. Evidently, there are rumors about this guy and his impending genocide will make the Imass' Jagut wars seem quaint. So nice to find out about him 400 pages in, lol. The BBs leave the Captain with Coll to make one final sweep for any sign of the Assassins Guild and carry out their roadwork scheme.
Lorn and Tool emerge from the barrow, Lorn has mostly healed, because Otataral provides a healing factor, and prepares to leave with the Finnest. Tool renounces his old name, and once again invites Lorn to accompany him once his own journey is done. The Adjunct leaves, her old reservations suppressed by her sense of impending duty. She regrets losing Paran, because apparently everyone is thirsty for the guy, and anticipates killing the Rope. With all this at stake, the Adjunct gallops off towards Darujhistan, a dazed Jaghut Tyrant behind her, rousing in response to the theft.
The chapter ends with Crokus and Apsalar, they've reached the temple, and begin ascending its steps. Crokus mentions offhandedly that the Elder god has been dead for thousands of years (please ignore my timeline grumbling) and encourages Aps into the structure. Her eyes adjust supernaturally well, her time under the Rope evidently providing her some residual benefits, such as darkvision. She mentions that there's a story painted along the wall, but we don't get to see what it is. They notice the blood, then once on the roof, the body. Crokus' dismissal of her concerns is an interesting touch, because of course, to him she's "only a girl" or some such nonsense. While I was worrying my credit to Oppon for K'Rul's awakening was misattributed, or perhaps overstated, the fact that both deaths upon the stones roughly coincided with the Coin Bearrer's arrival, I'm increasingly certain that Oppon is the one arranging this.
They worry about the body and the assassin's war, but Apsalar asks him to look at the moon. He petulantly looks at Moon's Spawn, noticing a reddish glow, and five winged shapes leaving for the Gadrobi Hills. Anomander Rake has moved, calling the dragons of Moon's Spawn (of which he may or may not be one) to respond to the Jaghut threat. Aps asks if he's seen the oceans, Garllin's Sea, along the moon. According to her, there's a series of underwater Gardens of the Moon, where after some eschatological event, mankind will live in peace. Its a haunting story, and one which Crokus is enamored. Or perhaps, enamored by the silhouette in front of him. Despite his pointed ignoring of her, his constant momentary lapses and noticing her long, dark hair and her deep, brown eyes have finally overwhelmed his reticence. "Why not?" he asks himself.
Crokus, as much as I begrudgingly love you, she deserves better.

Book 6: The City of Blue Fire

And there goes another one. Pretty much all buildup and consolidation of the key players. Ready for the catastrophic night of the Fête.
The Bridgeburners are readying their plans with the Moranth munitions, a large set of which are stationed outside the room where Baruk and Kruppe are about to meet. While Paran has promised to stand aside, I doubt that'll hold. Chance remains with him, and the Adjunct has much to answer for.
It seems Anomander Rake is indeed going to meet the Jaghut Tyrant head-on, or perhaps attempt to kill it off before he's fully awake. Either way, fireworks are about to go off. Lorn, meanwhile, is doing what she can to lead the Tyrant towards Rake, so we'll see what happens once the Adjunct crosses paths with the dragons. It'll also be interesting what effect the separation between the Finnest and its owner will have.
The Eel is preparing to out himself, I think, and what interactions he and the High Alchemist will have with the BBs remains to be seen. It might be good to clue them into the whole apocalyptic genocide brewing down south.
The Fête is tonight. Turban Orr, if things go well, will die. I suspect things will go poorly if Oppon has anything to do with it. That Book 7 is named after the event implies as much. Crokus intends to speak with Challice, who will be attending the event herself, that the Coin Bearer will be present, after hanging out in the Temple of a revived Elder god, in a space under an Oppon-influenced plan, bodes ill.
Caladan Brood marches south, Pale is coming apart at the seams. Dujek prepares one last gambit to gather resources to stop the monster far to the south who threatens the world.
Much of this was rooted in events well before Book 6, but I could have never guessed the shape of it all 3 chapters ago. I'm excited to watch as things twist even further, as this all slowly, inexorably, unfolds...

Honestly the relationship btwn Karen and Pam is really starting to annoy me. If you constantly have to call your employee for proof that they locked up correctly and hounding them for videos and pictures as evidence they correctly closed the shop then obviously you think they’re incompetent. Karen has 1 of 2 options, either fire pam bc she obviously is a terrible employee or get someone else to close the shop?? She has other staff, i’ve seen other girls in there doing hair, just get someone else to do it? Like this constantly calling asking for videos that she closed the salon right is annoying and obsessive? If you dont trust her to close it then close your own shop or fire her? Tf? Sorry i just had to get that off my chest