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2020.07.08 08:20 smoothmann The Kentucky Subreddit
Welcome to the Commonwealth.
2023.06.01 17:03 A_Vespertine Souls & Scarabs at Mathom-Meister's Flea Market
“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.
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“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.
2023.06.01 17:03 xenizondich23 Celebrating Pride Month with Queer Cozy Fantasy Books!
As we embrace the spirit of Pride Month, it's the perfect time to explore the magical realms of cozy fantasy books that celebrate queer identities. If you're looking for heartwarming tales filled with diverse characters, enchanting worlds, and a sprinkle of queer romance, look no further! Whether you're seeking well-known titles or hidden gems, this collection offers a little something for everyone.
While you may be familiar with some of the popular ones, I'll still mention them:
Some of the lesser known ones but are well worth checking out:
Happy Pride Month, dear bookworms! May your reading be filled with magic, love, and the joy of embracing your authentic self.
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While you may be familiar with some of the popular ones, I'll still mention them:
- Ashwick, R.K. - A Rival Most Vial
- Baldree, Travis - Legends & Lattes
- Chambers, Becky - Monk and Robot
- Evans, Johannes T. - Heart of Stone
- Katz, Meredith - The Cybernetic Tea Shop
- Klune, T.J. - House in the Cerulean Sea
- Rowland, S.L. - Cursed Cocktails
- Thorne, Rebecca - Can’t Spell Treason without Tea
Some of the lesser known ones but are well worth checking out:
- Begley, Tobias - The Enchanter
- Buchanan, Andi C. - Succulents and Spells
- Burgis, Stephanie - Moontangled
- Calvin, Effie - Tales of Inthya
- Cerridwen, Minerva - The Dragon of Ynys
- Cooper, Dove - Sea Foam and Silence
- Cooper, R. - Holly & Oak
- Crook, Amy - The Raven Door
- Crook, Amy - To Hive and to Hold
- Darling, Katherine A. - Memory of Tea and Magic
- Deen, Bambo - A Little Bit of Love's Magic
- Demas, A.J. - One Night in Buko
- Derr, Megan - How Not to Marry a Prince
- Glassman, Shira - The Second Mango
- Glenn Gray, Aster - Briarley
- Green, Diana - Taking Flight and Hearth Mage
- Gwynn, Lila - The Orc and Her Bride
- Harper, Lana - Payback's a Witch
- Karpa, Mike - Red Dot
- Kirby, Madeline - Jake and Boo series
- Lukens, F.T. - So This Is Ever After
- Meadows, S.R. - Sorcery and Scones
- Mudge, Faith - Humanity for Beginners
- Noone, K.L. - The Magician
- O’Neill, Kay - Tea Dragon Society
- Oniomoh, Viano - The Aurora Circus
- Pastafarian - Quill & Still
- Powell, Arden - The Bachelor's Valet
- RavensDagger - Cinnamon Bun
- Rayner Roberts, Tansy - Merry Happy Valkyrie
- Russell, E.J. - Quest Investigations series
- Sherwood, A.J. - How I Stole the Princess's White Knight and Turned Him to Villainy
- Stang, Morgan - The Bookshop and The Barbarian
- Todd, Mel - Twisted Luck series
- Walker, Suzanne - Mooncakes
- Wambheim, Elizabeth - Of the Wild
- Addison, Katherine - A Witness for the Dead
- Brennan, Sarah Rees - In Other Lands
- Calvin, Effie - Daughter of the Sun
- Kingfisher, T - Paladin's Grace
- Locke, Fox N. - Their Heart a Hive
- Marsks, Freya - A Marvellous Light
- Meadow's, Foz - A Stubborn Endurance
- O'Neill, Kay - Tea Dragon Society
- Polk, C.L. - Witchmark
- Pratt, Tim - The Wrong Stars
- Pulley, Natasha - The Watchmaker of Filigree Street
- Rowland's, Alexandra - A Conspiracy of Truths
- Rowland's, Alexandra - A Taste of Gold and Iron
- Tesh, Emily - Silver in the Wood
- Therin, Allie - Spellbound
- Waggoner, CM - The Ruthless Lady’s Guide to Wizardry
Happy Pride Month, dear bookworms! May your reading be filled with magic, love, and the joy of embracing your authentic self.
2023.06.01 16:47 christmasbaby1203 Thoughts?
[1532] The place was small and dimly lit. It smelled of sweat and alcohol. Needless to say, I felt rather out of place sitting in the corner with the hood of my cloak pulled up to cover my black hair. The barmaid comes over for the fifth time to ask if I want anything to drink. Ignoring her, I pull the cloak around me tighter so you can only see my bright green eyes. I just hope that no one in this place recognizes me.
submitted by christmasbaby1203 to WritersGroup [link] [comments]
Sometimes life doesn’t go the way that you plan. For example, I can say that I never imagined that I would be sitting in a tavern just a few blocks away from Harper Castle, the home of the royal family. And I definitely didn’t think that I would be there at only 17 years old. But here I am, watching everyone around me to make sure that no one is going to recognize me. Just as I start to feel more comfortable with my surroundings, a man with greasy hair and a horribly squashed-looking face comes over to where I’m sitting. “What is a pretty little thing like you doin’ in a place like this?” he asks. “I do not think that is any of your concern,” I say. He doesn’t seem to like that answer, considering the wide smile turned into a deep scowl in less than a second. That is not the usual reaction I get from people. People usually adore me. Of course, I didn’t want anyone to recognize me, which seemed to be much easier than expected. This fact was made more evident when the man took a swing at me. Now, I’m not the most physically skilled person, but I somehow managed to duck the punch and avoid being hit. Next thing I know, I’m picking up the chair I was sitting in moments before and hitting the poor man over the head with it. He collapses instantly, and every eye in the place is on me. I laugh nervously, putting the chair back down. No one else tries to approach me as I sit back down. This was not going the way I hoped it would at all. But now I didn’t have to worry about people getting close enough to recognize me. No one wanted anything to do with me. Even the barmaid stayed as far away from me as she could. Sadly, the man did not take kindly to being knocked unconscious by a seventeen-year-old girl with a chair. So my troubles started up again when the man’s friends managed to wake him up. “Hold her still,” the man said to two others as he rubbed the top of his head. The man’s friends do as he says. The man pulls back his fist and I close my eyes. I’m mentally congratulating myself for managing to give the guy a lump on his head when I feel his fist connect with my stomach. The feeling is not pleasant, and I struggle to pull in any amount of air. My vision blurs from tears. “Aww. Is the poor little girl crying? I barely touched you,” the man says, laughing. I’m suddenly wishing I was back home. Nothing remotely near this happened. I look up to see the man pulling back to hit me again. I did not want to experience that again. I could tell that the men holding me were much stronger than I was, so instead of struggling to break free, I started to flail my legs. I had no plan except to not get hit again. My flailing resulted in the man not being able to get close enough to hit me again, so that was nice. However, I was getting tired which meant it was only a matter of time before he would be able to get a hit in. I was right. Within the next minute, I could not keep moving my legs, I was too tired. As soon as the man was able to get close enough to hit me, he did. I don’t know how many times he hit me, but when they let me go, I couldn’t stand on my own. My knees buckled and I fell to the floor clutching my stomach. Black spots dotted my blurry vision. It seemed like the world was a lot crueler than I had thought it was. I don’t know how long I sat on that floor. All I know is that I was left alone long enough to catch my breath and for my vision to clear. At this point, I was thinking that this day could not get any worse. Of course, I was wrong, as most people who think this are. I’m wiping the tears from my face when a pair of shoes enters my line of sight. This can’t be good. I look up to see the tavern owner looking down at me. He looks like a nice man, but at the moment he doesn’t seem so nice. “Get out of my tavern,” he says. “Why? I haven’t done anything wrong,” I reply. “You started a fight, and I won’t have people fighting in my establishment.” “But I didn’t start it, they did!” “Do I have to throw you out?” I scowl, I’m fine with leaving, but the three men should have to leave too. Standing, I push past the owner and walk out into the street. I have no idea what to do, I don’t even know why I left home. It was much safer there. I see some guards walking down the street and duck into an alleyway. Peeking around the corner, I see them showing the tavern owner a picture. “Yeah, I saw her. I don’t know where she went. I had to kick her out for fighting,” the man says. As if I didn’t have enough to worry about, I now had those guards looking for me. Not to mention, I stuck out like a sore thumb in this place. I was dressed too nicely to be from this part of town. That was probably why the pug-like man had come over to me in the bar. He probably thought that I was some rich merchant’s daughter. With my expertly tailored blouse and riding pants, it was a very justified assumption. Except for the fact that a merchant’s daughter wouldn’t be caught dead in that place. Not too long ago, I wouldn’t have been caught dead in a place like that. Shaking myself from my thoughts, I start to wander down the alley. I don’t know where I’m going, or who I can trust to help me. I don’t even know if I can trust anyone to not turn me into the guards. I’m sure that there will be a reward for my return. But I don’t plan on returning home anytime soon. I have important things to do, I remind myself. Walking down the alley, I remember that I saw an inventor’s shop in the main square of the town. Maybe they would have something that could help me with my mission. I turn and head back up the alley to where I entered. I will get nothing accomplished if I get lost wandering the alleys of this place. Making it back to the entrance to the alley, I peek out to check for guards. Seeing none I exit and start walking toward the center of town. I have to run into alleys many more times to avoid the guards that are looking for me. My stomach hurts from the amount of walking I have done today, and from the beating I got in the tavern. Finally, after hours of walking, I make it to the center of Harpersfield. Looking around, I don’t see the sign that I remember to be the one for the inventor’s shop. I don’t think I imagined it. I sigh, why must everything be so difficult? I start to search the square. It really is a lovely place. There is a marble fountain in the center, carved dragons spewing water from their mouths like it is fire. The basin is big enough for dozens of kids to play in on a hot summer day. The ceramic tiles under my feet make a beautiful mosaic of Harper Castle, the real castle looking down on it all from between the brick buildings that line the edge of the square. One day, I hope to walk through this square when the kingdom is under the rule of a different monarch. Hopefully, I will get that chance very soon. I stay in the shadows of the buildings as I circle the square, looking for the shop that I knew was there earlier. A building can’t just get up and walk away. Or so I thought before I came to a large hole in the buildings. A hole big enough to have housed another building. Of course, the inventor’s shop would be able to move. Or maybe the owner just liked to annoy potential customers. Now I’m going to have to walk all over Harpersfield to find the place. This was going to be a long day.
2023.06.01 16:45 grahamradish What To Do This Weekend June 2 - 4
What To Do June 2-4
I’m no u/ItsMeDebie -- just stepping in this week to help out
FRIDAY
SATURDAY
SUNDAY
submitted by grahamradish to grandrapids [link] [comments]
I’m no u/ItsMeDebie -- just stepping in this week to help out
- Don’t miss the Festival of the Arts Friday through Sunday this weekend; I’m already daydreaming about souvlaki
- If you need more art, you can check out the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts Fair Friday or Saturday
- The Grand Rapids Lantern Festival is still going on at John Ball Zoo--only a week left
- John Ball Zoo is also holding the Summer Spectacular Friday through Sunday with live music, animal activities, and specialty food for that festival feel
FRIDAY
- June 2nd is National Donut Day; celebrate with a donut or four from your favorite shop or try someplace new from this ExperienceGR list
- Books and Mortar is open late with select books 30% off for First Fridays in East Hills. Other businesses have surprises and specials too. Participating businesses include: Brewery Vivant, Furniture City Creamery, The Green Well, Le Bon Macaron, Less Traveled, Commune, Global Infusion, and Nestology
SATURDAY
- Yoga at The Highlands (Blandford Nature Center): Start your morning off with an outdoor yoga class by instructors from Mindful School of Yoga
- Take a class on Herbal Tea Gardening at Blandford Nature Center; pre-registration is required and open till 12pm Friday
- Blacksmith 101 at Blandford Nature Center; this is a four hour workshop including forge safety, tools, and fire building. Pre-registration is required and open till 12pm Friday
- There’s a huge multi-family yard sale happening in Heritage Hill on Saturday
- The 55th Annual Dyer-Ives Poetry Competition Reception is on June 3rd; enjoy poems read aloud by winners in each category
- Popular Pages Book Club is discussing “When We Rise” by Cleve Jones on June 3rd at the Main Library
- Dirty Donny Pop Up Art Bash at The Pyramid Scheme: A night of pinball, radical artwork, and high energy rock ‘n’ roll featuring legendary monster rockers ELECTRIC FRANKENSTEIN and rumors of free pizza
SUNDAY
- Behind the Exhibit: Overcoming Hateful Things - Stories from the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Imagery with Dr. David Pilgrim; the exhibit opens at the GR Public Museum on Saturday, June 3rd
2023.06.01 16:44 PritchettRobert506 [HIRING] 25 Jobs in MO Hiring Now!
2023.06.01 16:23 ImFrenchSoWhatever [SLA065 J1] My grail watch : 62MAS Save the Ocean Limited Edition, "Astrolabe Dial"
![[SLA065 J1] My grail watch : 62MAS Save the Ocean Limited Edition,](https://b.thumbs.redditmedia.com/FDNar1IV9hJ8omypNYAoegkKo2QYsThZVm8ybM22QBQ.jpg "[SLA065 J1] My grail watch : 62MAS Save the Ocean Limited Edition,") | I've put it on a waffle rubber strap right away tho submitted by ImFrenchSoWhatever to Seiko [link] [comments] Hi seiko ! Today I got my absolute grail watch by the mail ans what can I say, I'm in love. https://preview.redd.it/bumf9rfwze3b1.jpg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fdfec58c15560a94f6155d5743b6494f4e9f3134 For a long time I wanted a watch from the "SLA" series, for the high end caliber, the finish, the luxury, but I never found the exact one I wanted. Some were too expensive, some too big, some with a too plain dial or not the right colorway for me ... I wanted it blue, I wanted it small, I wanted it with an interesting dial. https://preview.redd.it/nwysqvyyze3b1.jpg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9e3258430c165e1f1803fe48bb8dd58d9aa21e90 But then when I had stopped thinking about it, I went to my Seiko shop to bring my wife's SRPE77K1 for maintenance and I asked if I could see what they had from the SLA series and they said "Oh have you seen the new SLA065 ?". I said no, they showed to to me and I fell in love right away. https://preview.redd.it/4e5wh3g00f3b1.jpg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=401b5b4ff706ab701724f079d376b4df626c7ebb This thing is a jewell, you have to see it in real life to realize how beautiful she is. the sapphire crystal is amazingly clear So anyway I did what any reasonable person that already own 6 watches would do : I went on chrono24 and bought it right away. And after 10 days of excruciatingly refreshing the delivery tracker on the post website every minute or so... There she is. My own, my preciousss. the colorway is the same palette than the painting The Great Wave of Kanagawa, the lume being the exact yellow beige color of the boats. It's so different than in the picture you have to see it, the bezel goes from metallic turquoise green to almost black while the dial goes from super dark blue to almost turquoise. The Astrolabe pattern is only visible when there's direct light on the dial which is amazing, it's like it only reveals itself in certain conditions. https://preview.redd.it/rh4c8nf60f3b1.jpg?width=1169&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c9f3da8dae489cab1e44fd644e23b3fa5ab51e19 https://preview.redd.it/1p0vc7c70f3b1.jpg?width=1169&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=384eef083d1b8f3b858ad3de14d248b189ec460d It's quite small, at 41,3mm, which is perfect for my 16,5 cm wrist and surprisingly flat at 13.1mm. To me those are perfect measurments. And the lume is ... the best I've ever seen. that lume is money 🫰 Anyway, thanks for watching ! |
2023.06.01 16:13 rustybelts Ranking FBS Programs by Flair:Enrollment Ratio
Some offseason drivel.
Simple ratio of number of instances of an FBS school's flair (including any alternate flairs) divided by the school's enrollment.
Note: This is a count of flair, not users. Example: If a user has [UCF] primary flair and [UCF alternate (the Citronaut)] secondary flair, that counts as 2 in the Flair column rather than 1. In other words, users who double up on their school's flair offerings count twice. There certainly are users who double up, but I feel like it does not affect the numbers much. This method makes sure to capture users who do not use their school's standard flair and instead use their school's alternate flair. (Note: Not every school has alternate flair. * Bearcat tears 😿 *)
Data sources:
Here's conference summaries:
submitted by rustybelts to CFB [link] [comments]
Simple ratio of number of instances of an FBS school's flair (including any alternate flairs) divided by the school's enrollment.
Note: This is a count of flair, not users. Example: If a user has [UCF] primary flair and [UCF alternate (the Citronaut)] secondary flair, that counts as 2 in the Flair column rather than 1. In other words, users who double up on their school's flair offerings count twice. There certainly are users who double up, but I feel like it does not affect the numbers much. This method makes sure to capture users who do not use their school's standard flair and instead use their school's alternate flair. (Note: Not every school has alternate flair. * Bearcat tears 😿 *)
Data sources:
- Enrollment (Some of these are out of date by a few years. This was the easiest source to pull from. I am not going to track down current official enrollment numbers for 133 separate institutions.)
- Flair count (Accessed 05/31/2023)
| Rank | Program | Conf. | Flair | Enrollment | Ratio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Notre Dame | FBS Independents | 7,745 | 13,139 | 58.9% |
| 2 | Michigan | Big Ten | 17,127 | 50,278 | 34.1% |
| 3 | Oregon | Pac-12 | 6,789 | 22,257 | 30.5% |
| 4 | Alabama | SEC | 11,674 | 38,316 | 30.5% |
| 5 | Ohio State | Big Ten | 18,118 | 61,677 | 29.4% |
| 6 | Nebraska | Big Ten | 6,963 | 24,431 | 28.5% |
| 7 | Navy | American | 1,249 | 4,528 | 27.6% |
| 8 | Oklahoma | Big 12 | 7,349 | 28,042 | 26.2% |
| 9 | Georgia | SEC | 10,467 | 40,118 | 26.1% |
| 10 | Army | FBS Independents | 1,189 | 4,594 | 25.9% |
| 11 | Clemson | ACC | 6,127 | 27,341 | 22.4% |
| 12 | Tennessee | SEC | 6,856 | 31,701 | 21.6% |
| 13 | Auburn | SEC | 6,349 | 31,526 | 20.1% |
| 14 | LSU | SEC | 7,170 | 35,912 | 20.0% |
| 15 | Texas | Big 12 | 10,325 | 51,991 | 19.9% |
| 16 | Miami | ACC | 3,307 | 19,096 | 17.3% |
| 17 | Florida | SEC | 9,042 | 55,781 | 16.2% |
| 18 | TCU | Big 12 | 1,932 | 11,938 | 16.2% |
| 19 | Penn State | Big Ten | 7,297 | 47,560 | 15.3% |
| 20 | Iowa | Big Ten | 4,447 | 29,909 | 14.9% |
| 21 | Air Force | Mountain West | 613 | 4,181 | 14.7% |
| 22 | Florida State | ACC | 6,392 | 45,130 | 14.2% |
| 23 | Wisconsin | Big Ten | 6,543 | 47,932 | 13.7% |
| 24 | Michigan State | Big Ten | 6,394 | 49,659 | 12.9% |
| 25 | Arkansas | SEC | 3,675 | 29,068 | 12.6% |
| 26 | South Carolina | SEC | 4,455 | 35,471 | 12.6% |
| 27 | Virginia Tech | ACC | 4,615 | 37,279 | 12.4% |
| 28 | Stanford | Pac-12 | 2,132 | 17,680 | 12.1% |
| 29 | Texas A&M | SEC | 8,597 | 72,530 | 11.9% |
| 30 | West Virginia | Big 12 | 2,996 | 25,474 | 11.8% |
| 31 | Oklahoma State | Big 12 | 2,770 | 24,660 | 11.2% |
| 32 | Baylor | Big 12 | 2,238 | 20,626 | 10.9% |
| 33 | USC | Pac-12 | 4,995 | 49,318 | 10.1% |
| 34 | Georgia Tech | ACC | 4,426 | 43,844 | 10.1% |
| 35 | Tulsa | American | 384 | 3,832 | 10.0% |
| 36 | Kansas State | Big 12 | 1,940 | 20,229 | 9.6% |
| 37 | Iowa State | Big 12 | 2,895 | 30,708 | 9.4% |
| 38 | Ole Miss | SEC | 1,957 | 21,203 | 9.2% |
| 39 | Kentucky | SEC | 2,782 | 30,390 | 9.2% |
| 40 | Washington | Pac-12 | 4,721 | 52,439 | 9.0% |
| 41 | Vanderbilt | SEC | 1,178 | 13,796 | 8.5% |
| 42 | Missouri | SEC | 2,640 | 31,412 | 8.4% |
| 43 | Washington State | Pac-12 | 2,361 | 29,843 | 7.9% |
| 44 | Wake Forest | ACC | 703 | 8,947 | 7.9% |
| 45 | Mississippi State | SEC | 1,775 | 23,086 | 7.7% |
| 46 | Kansas | Big 12 | 2,035 | 26,780 | 7.6% |
| 47 | North Carolina | ACC | 2,377 | 31,733 | 7.5% |
| 48 | Utah | Pac-12 | 2,535 | 34,464 | 7.4% |
| 49 | Pittsburgh | ACC | 2,134 | 29,238 | 7.3% |
| 50 | Texas Tech | Big 12 | 2,927 | 40,542 | 7.2% |
| 51 | Northwestern | Big Ten | 1,631 | 22,933 | 7.1% |
| 52 | Minnesota | Big Ten | 3,474 | 52,376 | 6.6% |
| 53 | Boston College | ACC | 991 | 15,046 | 6.6% |
| 54 | Louisville | ACC | 1,441 | 22,140 | 6.5% |
| 55 | Appalachian State | Sun Belt | 1,309 | 20,641 | 6.3% |
| 56 | Syracuse | ACC | 1,364 | 21,772 | 6.3% |
| 57 | Virginia | ACC | 1,616 | 26,026 | 6.2% |
| 58 | Colorado | Pac-12 | 2,280 | 37,956 | 6.0% |
| 59 | Boise State | Mountain West | 1,545 | 25,830 | 6.0% |
| 60 | NC State | ACC | 2,189 | 36,831 | 5.9% |
| 61 | Duke | ACC | 1,047 | 17,620 | 5.9% |
| 62 | Cincinnati | Big 12 | 2,370 | 40,281 | 5.9% |
| 63 | SMU | American | 728 | 12,385 | 5.9% |
| 64 | UCLA | Pac-12 | 2,737 | 47,516 | 5.8% |
| 65 | Oregon State | Pac-12 | 1,892 | 33,193 | 5.7% |
| 66 | Tulane | American | 746 | 13,127 | 5.7% |
| 67 | California | Pac-12 | 2,563 | 45,435 | 5.6% |
| 68 | Purdue | Big Ten | 2,688 | 49,639 | 5.4% |
| 69 | Maryland | Big Ten | 2,149 | 41,272 | 5.2% |
| 70 | UCF | Big 12 | 3,619 | 70,406 | 5.1% |
| 71 | Wyoming | Mountain West | 588 | 11,479 | 5.1% |
| 72 | BYU | Big 12 | 1,592 | 34,802 | 4.6% |
| 73 | Indiana | Big Ten | 2,043 | 45,328 | 4.5% |
| 74 | Rice | American | 373 | 8,285 | 4.5% |
| 75 | UAB | American | 998 | 22,289 | 4.5% |
| 76 | Marshall | Sun Belt | 484 | 11,125 | 4.4% |
| 77 | Illinois | Big Ten | 2,450 | 56,607 | 4.3% |
| 78 | Western Michigan | MAC | 741 | 19,038 | 3.9% |
| 79 | Houston | Big 12 | 1,828 | 47,031 | 3.9% |
| 80 | Coastal Carolina | Sun Belt | 406 | 10,473 | 3.9% |
| 81 | Central Michigan | MAC | 597 | 15,465 | 3.9% |
| 82 | Toledo | MAC | 653 | 17,045 | 3.8% |
| 83 | Memphis | American | 768 | 21,622 | 3.6% |
| 84 | Rutgers | Big Ten | 1,790 | 50,804 | 3.5% |
| 85 | Arizona State | Pac-12 | 2,715 | 77,881 | 3.5% |
| 86 | Georgia Southern | Sun Belt | 913 | 27,091 | 3.4% |
| 87 | Hawai'i | Mountain West | 640 | 19,097 | 3.4% |
| 88 | Northern Illinois | MAC | 534 | 16,234 | 3.3% |
| 89 | South Alabama | Sun Belt | 452 | 13,992 | 3.2% |
| 90 | Louisiana Tech | Conference USA | 355 | 11,037 | 3.2% |
| 91 | Arizona | Pac-12 | 1,551 | 49,471 | 3.1% |
| 92 | Ohio | MAC | 753 | 24,429 | 3.1% |
| 93 | James Madison | Sun Belt | 659 | 22,166 | 3.0% |
| 94 | Jacksonville State | Conference USA | 269 | 9,238 | 2.9% |
| 95 | Troy | Sun Belt | 416 | 14,901 | 2.8% |
| 96 | USF | American | 1,232 | 44,322 | 2.8% |
| 97 | Louisiana | Sun Belt | 426 | 16,225 | 2.6% |
| 98 | Miami (OH) | MAC | 502 | 19,216 | 2.6% |
| 99 | Bowling Green | MAC | 457 | 17,645 | 2.6% |
| 100 | Temple | American | 897 | 35,626 | 2.5% |
| 101 | Connecticut | FBS Independents | 800 | 32,146 | 2.5% |
| 102 | Southern Miss | Sun Belt | 343 | 14,146 | 2.4% |
| 103 | San Diego State | Mountain West | 778 | 35,732 | 2.2% |
| 104 | ECU | American | 602 | 28,021 | 2.1% |
| 105 | Colorado State | Mountain West | 702 | 32,777 | 2.1% |
| 106 | Eastern Michigan | MAC | 328 | 15,370 | 2.1% |
| 107 | Fresno State | Mountain West | 492 | 24,585 | 2.0% |
| 108 | UTSA | American | 688 | 34,734 | 2.0% |
| 109 | Akron | MAC | 274 | 14,516 | 1.9% |
| 110 | WKU | Conference USA | 292 | 16,750 | 1.7% |
| 111 | Middle Tennessee | Conference USA | 359 | 20,857 | 1.7% |
| 112 | North Texas | American | 724 | 42,454 | 1.7% |
| 113 | Nevada | Mountain West | 348 | 21,034 | 1.7% |
| 114 | Utah State | Mountain West | 429 | 27,426 | 1.6% |
| 115 | Texas State | Sun Belt | 576 | 37,864 | 1.5% |
| 116 | Old Dominion | Sun Belt | 345 | 23,494 | 1.5% |
| 117 | Arkansas State | Sun Belt | 188 | 12,863 | 1.5% |
| 118 | Ball State | MAC | 270 | 19,337 | 1.4% |
| 119 | Buffalo | MAC | 447 | 32,332 | 1.4% |
| 120 | ULM | Sun Belt | 114 | 8,565 | 1.3% |
| 121 | Kent State | MAC | 338 | 26,597 | 1.3% |
| 122 | FAU | American | 374 | 30,155 | 1.2% |
| 123 | Charlotte | American | 376 | 30,448 | 1.2% |
| 124 | UMass | FBS Independents | 389 | 32,045 | 1.2% |
| 125 | Sam Houston | Conference USA | 247 | 21,679 | 1.1% |
| 126 | New Mexico State | Conference USA | 148 | 13,904 | 1.1% |
| 127 | New Mexico | Mountain West | 228 | 21,738 | 1.0% |
| 128 | UNLV | Mountain West | 313 | 30,679 | 1.0% |
| 129 | San José State | Mountain West | 330 | 37,133 | 0.9% |
| 130 | Georgia State | Sun Belt | 478 | 55,466 | 0.9% |
| 131 | UTEP | Conference USA | 184 | 24,003 | 0.8% |
| 132 | FIU | Conference USA | 217 | 56,732 | 0.4% |
| 133 | Liberty | Conference USA | 225 | 95,148 | 0.2% |
Here's conference summaries:
| Rank | Conf. | Flair | Enrollment | Ratio |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | SEC | 78,617 | 490,310 | 16.0% |
| 2 | Big Ten | 83,114 | 630,405 | 13.2% |
| 3 | FBS Independents | 10,123 | 81,924 | 12.4% |
| 4 | ACC | 38,729 | 382,043 | 10.1% |
| 5 | Big 12 | 46,816 | 473,510 | 9.9% |
| 6 | Pac-12 | 37,271 | 497,453 | 7.5% |
| 7 | American | 10,139 | 331,828 | 3.1% |
| 8 | MAC | 5,894 | 237,224 | 2.5% |
| 9 | Sun Belt | 7,109 | 289,012 | 2.5% |
| 10 | Mountain West | 7,006 | 291,691 | 2.4% |
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2023.06.01 16:03 A_Vespertine Souls & Scarabs at Mathom-Meister's Flea Market
“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.
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“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.
2023.06.01 15:41 hell-schwarz Don't know what to do until launch? - Let's talk about mealprepping:
As I'm writing this there are still about 10 hours left until Diablo IV launches in my region.
But I can use that time for something I haven't done before: Preparing meals so I don't need to order Takeouts or live from snacks and microwave food.
My Plan is to have enough meals until Monday/Tuesday, so I will prepare the following:
Step 2:
If the 40 min are over you should test if the meat is tender. If it's not, leave it for about 10 more minutes. If it is, reduce the heat and add the curry mix to the pot. Let it simmer for about 5 more minutes and you're done. UNLESS you want to try my secret ingredients - if you do, add them, too and stir until the chocolate is completely melted.
The cooking time depends a lot on which type of meat you use, some need more and some need less time cooking.
CURRY DONE - it gets tastier after a day in the fridge, so this is perfect. An alternative to Curry would be a pot of goulash, but I prefer curry.
Step 2: you're done. Unless you don't know how to cook rice, in that case: Long grain rice needs double the amount of water, short grain rice needs the same amout of water. So if you use long grain you take a cup or some container and fill it with rice, add it to a pot, then you fill it with water, add that to the same pot and then you fill it with water again and add it to the same pot. If you want to make double of that amount... well I guess you can figure it out. I advise you to fill it with rice first, since if you start with water the grains will stick to whatever container you used. With short grain rice (also known as "sushi" rice) you only add as much water as you added rice (in volume). Then you heat it until the water boils and leave it on medium to low heat until the water is either evaporated or sucked up by the rice.
Or you use a Rice cooker and follow the instructions there.
You need
Seperate the eggs into yolks and whites. Mix the Yolks and amaretto. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites with the sugar until stiff. Mix the Mascarpone with the Egg yellow/Amaretto. Then carefully add the egg whites.
Step 2
Now you take the container for the tiramisu (A caserole for example) and add layers of ladyfingers and mascarpone, starting with the ladyfingers. Dipp them in coffee, but don't let them get soggy. Then add a layer of mascarpone. repeat until you're satisfied or out of ingredients, usually 4 layers (2 of each) are enough.
Sprinkle the top layer with cocoa powder and put it into the fridge.
Wash and chop the ingredients and add them to a container with a lid. Do not add oil, salt or vinegar yet - they will damage the veggies and they'll get soggy quickly. Add them shortly before you want to eat the salad.
I also bought some Nuts, peanuts and dried fruit as healthy snacks.
submitted by hell-schwarz to diablo4 [link] [comments]
But I can use that time for something I haven't done before: Preparing meals so I don't need to order Takeouts or live from snacks and microwave food.
My Plan is to have enough meals until Monday/Tuesday, so I will prepare the following:
- 1 Pot of Curry
- 1 Pot of Rice
- 1 Bowl of Tiramisu
- 1 Bowl of Salad
- 1 Banana breads
- Some stuff for Breakfast and Snacks in between.
Curry:
This takes about an hour to make. That's why we start with this. You need:- Curry mix (I use Golden curry but there might be other brands in your Region)
- about 500g of Meat (I use Beef, Goulash fit's pretty well here)
- about 350g Onions
- 3 Medium sized Potatoes
- 3-4 Carrots
- about 600 ml water or broth
- some vegetable oil
- 1 Tablespoon of Apricot Jam
- 2 cl Worcester Sauce
- 20g Dark chocolate (I use 85% cocoa)
Step 2:
If the 40 min are over you should test if the meat is tender. If it's not, leave it for about 10 more minutes. If it is, reduce the heat and add the curry mix to the pot. Let it simmer for about 5 more minutes and you're done. UNLESS you want to try my secret ingredients - if you do, add them, too and stir until the chocolate is completely melted.
The cooking time depends a lot on which type of meat you use, some need more and some need less time cooking.
CURRY DONE - it gets tastier after a day in the fridge, so this is perfect. An alternative to Curry would be a pot of goulash, but I prefer curry.
Pot of Rice
Step 1: Cook rice.Step 2: you're done. Unless you don't know how to cook rice, in that case: Long grain rice needs double the amount of water, short grain rice needs the same amout of water. So if you use long grain you take a cup or some container and fill it with rice, add it to a pot, then you fill it with water, add that to the same pot and then you fill it with water again and add it to the same pot. If you want to make double of that amount... well I guess you can figure it out. I advise you to fill it with rice first, since if you start with water the grains will stick to whatever container you used. With short grain rice (also known as "sushi" rice) you only add as much water as you added rice (in volume). Then you heat it until the water boils and leave it on medium to low heat until the water is either evaporated or sucked up by the rice.
Or you use a Rice cooker and follow the instructions there.
Tiramisu
This is probably the most complicated recipe on this list, but it's tasty.You need
- 750g Mascarpone
- 300g "Ladyfingers" (google said that's the correct translation, they are these things )
- 1,5 cups of coffee
- 75g Sugar
- 1/2 cup of Amaretto
- 4 Eggs
- cocoa powder
Seperate the eggs into yolks and whites. Mix the Yolks and amaretto. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites with the sugar until stiff. Mix the Mascarpone with the Egg yellow/Amaretto. Then carefully add the egg whites.
Step 2
Now you take the container for the tiramisu (A caserole for example) and add layers of ladyfingers and mascarpone, starting with the ladyfingers. Dipp them in coffee, but don't let them get soggy. Then add a layer of mascarpone. repeat until you're satisfied or out of ingredients, usually 4 layers (2 of each) are enough.
Sprinkle the top layer with cocoa powder and put it into the fridge.
Salad
This is very quick, my salad contains these ingredients:- 1 cucumber
- 3 Tomatoes
- 1/2 cup of green olives
- 1/2 cup of black olives
- 2 spring onions
- 100g of feta cheese
- 1/2 Pomgranade
Wash and chop the ingredients and add them to a container with a lid. Do not add oil, salt or vinegar yet - they will damage the veggies and they'll get soggy quickly. Add them shortly before you want to eat the salad.
Banana Bread
This is an easy recipe, you can make it while you wait for the curry to finish to save time.- 300g flour
- 80g Honey
- 3 ripe Bananas
- 6 Table Spoons grated coconut
- pinch of salt
- 1 Table Spoon baking powder
- 1 table spoon Vanillin Sugar
- Cinamon to taste
- 200g nuts (whatever is available in your area, I use hazelnuts, almonds and walnuts)
- as many nuts as you need for topping, I used 100g hazelnuts
- 450ml Coconut milk
- 50ml Water
- 1 teaspoon grated ginger (optional)
Breakfast
I bought 4x500 ml of Quark and will mix it with Cherrys and some seeds. This mixture is rich in protein and fiber, so it is a good breakfast for anyone who isn't lactose intolerant.I also bought some Nuts, peanuts and dried fruit as healthy snacks.
And don't forget to hydrate.
2023.06.01 15:17 jowens3d My dog is having so many issues I'm not sure what to ask first (Already went to vet).
SPECIES : Dog
AGE : 10
SEX/NEUTER STATUS : Female / Spayed
BREED : Mixed. Maybe lab/some kind of wire haired
BODY WEIGHT : 51 lb
CLINICAL SIGN : not sure what this means?
DURATION : most symptoms have been years, diarrhea started reoccurring way more often about 6 months ago.
LOCATION : Kentucky
Grace has never done too well under stress. I have fed her the same food forever (Purina, green bag, walmart).
About 2yrs old we noticed she would start panting and stretch her head around to her butt and cry. Her stomach would instantly get bigger and harder. Vet said it wasn't bloat and probably had endometriosis so we got her fixed. Didn't fix anything.
We tried changing her food slowly. Messed her up so switched it back. Raised her food bowl. Scatter her food so she doesn't gobble. We don't free feed (due to having a dachshund that will overeat) and We definitely don't over feed.
She had an incident about 5 months ago. Diarrhea, seemed almost like she couldn't/didn't want to stand. Had to carry her in and out. I boiled chicken, mixed with white rice and a little pumpkin. Fed for a week. Back to normal poop.
She has seemed off since that episode. Lethargic, antsy, pants even more. Drinks more. keeps giving me the signal that she's hungry. She has even started to get into the trash. We put it up now. She has diarrhea during even slight stress incidents.
So we tried switching food went with Purina one. Same brand higher price. She seems more bloated looking and gassy but hasn't had the gas build up issue with the whining. Not sure what's worse.everything else is the same.
Took her to the vet yesterday. No parasites. I tried to explain everything but he kept talking over me. Told me she has colitis, which seems probable. Gave me medication. Metronidazole. Told me to give her some dog yogurt. I had to ask him if I should give her senior dog food. He said it wouldn't hurt. He didn't have any suggestions for me.
Ended up walking out with a $200 bill for a fecal test I didn't need, two shots I didn't need, a medication, and worst of all, no suggestions or advice which is what I really needed!
Can anyone suggest a food that isn't too expensive. Sensitive stomach and skin, senior dog. My biggest issue is I don't know what label to trust and I can't afford super expensive. Do I even need senior food? What does it mean when your vet says "it couldn't hurt" ?
Also, If you think there is any reason to question the diagnosis from the vet, pleas let me know.
submitted by jowens3d to AskVet [link] [comments]
AGE : 10
SEX/NEUTER STATUS : Female / Spayed
BREED : Mixed. Maybe lab/some kind of wire haired
BODY WEIGHT : 51 lb
CLINICAL SIGN : not sure what this means?
DURATION : most symptoms have been years, diarrhea started reoccurring way more often about 6 months ago.
LOCATION : Kentucky
Grace has never done too well under stress. I have fed her the same food forever (Purina, green bag, walmart).
About 2yrs old we noticed she would start panting and stretch her head around to her butt and cry. Her stomach would instantly get bigger and harder. Vet said it wasn't bloat and probably had endometriosis so we got her fixed. Didn't fix anything.
We tried changing her food slowly. Messed her up so switched it back. Raised her food bowl. Scatter her food so she doesn't gobble. We don't free feed (due to having a dachshund that will overeat) and We definitely don't over feed.
She had an incident about 5 months ago. Diarrhea, seemed almost like she couldn't/didn't want to stand. Had to carry her in and out. I boiled chicken, mixed with white rice and a little pumpkin. Fed for a week. Back to normal poop.
She has seemed off since that episode. Lethargic, antsy, pants even more. Drinks more. keeps giving me the signal that she's hungry. She has even started to get into the trash. We put it up now. She has diarrhea during even slight stress incidents.
So we tried switching food went with Purina one. Same brand higher price. She seems more bloated looking and gassy but hasn't had the gas build up issue with the whining. Not sure what's worse.everything else is the same.
Took her to the vet yesterday. No parasites. I tried to explain everything but he kept talking over me. Told me she has colitis, which seems probable. Gave me medication. Metronidazole. Told me to give her some dog yogurt. I had to ask him if I should give her senior dog food. He said it wouldn't hurt. He didn't have any suggestions for me.
Ended up walking out with a $200 bill for a fecal test I didn't need, two shots I didn't need, a medication, and worst of all, no suggestions or advice which is what I really needed!
Can anyone suggest a food that isn't too expensive. Sensitive stomach and skin, senior dog. My biggest issue is I don't know what label to trust and I can't afford super expensive. Do I even need senior food? What does it mean when your vet says "it couldn't hurt" ?
Also, If you think there is any reason to question the diagnosis from the vet, pleas let me know.
2023.06.01 15:15 CallMeStarr I'm the Host of a Terrifying Game Show: Let's Make a Deal with the Devil
Season 2 Finale
“You look worried Bruce,” my producer jokes, moments before going live. “Even for you.”
This gets a chuckle from the crew.
“Quiet on the set!”
I’m already shaking in my shoes. Not a good sign. Working for the Devil is extremely stressful. And dangerous. And certainly not for the faint of heart. Why I took this gig is beyond me.
(Cue creepy music)
“Going live in five…four…three…”
I get the nod.
(Cut to camera one)
“Greetings Hell Beings and hell raisers. Welcome to the Season 2 finale of….”
(Cue the audience)
“LET’S MAKE A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL.”
I wave my arms in the air.
The audience jumps to their feet.
Someone heckles.
“Alright. Knock it off.”
I serve up my best game show-host grin. It looks as fake as this cheap Hollywood studio.
“As you probably know, my name is Bruce Davie, and I’m the host of…”
(Cue audience)
“LET’S MAKE A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL.”
There’s a disturbance in the audience. A crew member forcefully removes someone. The commotion settles, and I get the go-ahead.
“Phew! A feisty crowd tonight!”
My painted-on smile takes up the entire screen. So does my gleaming bald head.
“Now I know what you’re thinking. What’s the Devil got in store for us this evening?”
The audience rumbles.
I shrug.
“Honestly, I wish I knew!”
This is true. But I’m sure it has something to do with me spending an eternity in Hell. It’s right there in my contract, which runs out after this episode.
(Cut to camera two)
“So, without further ado, let’s bring out tonight’s contestants, shall we?”
The audience roars.
“And yes, you heard me correctly. Tonight, for the first time ever in this show’s defamatory history, we’ve got two contestants!”
Audience is on their feet, whooping and hollering.
(Cut to camera three)
(Cue music)
A middle-aged couple promenade towards the podium. They’re dressed like cowboys, and walk with a sense of purpose.
(Split screen)
“Welcome, both of you.”
More like: Welcome to your funeral.
“Tell us a wee bit about yourselves, why don’t you?”
(Cut to camera four)
The woman speaks first. Her hair is amber, her complexion as pale as light beer.
“Well, Bruce. My name is Tammy. I’m a stay-at-home mom. This here’s my partner, Tex. He owns his own gun shop. We live in Austin Texas, with three beautiful children, who are with us here tonight.”
She points.
(Cut to overhead camera)
Two tall boys and a young girl, each dressed head-to-toe in denim, stand and bow.
The audience applauds.
(Split screen)
The other contestant approaches the microphone. He’s as tall as an ivory tower, with a voice like a banjo.
“Howdy Bruce. Good to be here.”
He tilts his cowboy hat. His square jaw and rugged good looks give Chuck Norris a run for his money.
I salute them.
(Cut to camera two)
“Well then, now that we’re finished with the formalities, I do believe it’s time to…”
(Cue audience)
“BRING OUT THE DEVIL.”
(Cue creepy music)
(Cue pyrotechnics)
The stage fills with fire and brimstone. Pentagrams slice through the air. The Devil appears suddenly, dressed in a shiny new devil suit, tailored specifically for tonight’s show. It’s jet-black, and leaves little to the imagination. His pitchforked tail follows closely behind him as he approaches the podium.
(Cut to Camera five)
The Devil wraps his arms around the two contestants, kisses them both on the cheek.
Tex, clearly perturbed, winces, then grudgingly wipes his cheek.
The Devil snarls, then looks him up and down.
“Looks like everything isn’t bigger in Texas,” the Devil teases. Suddenly, he’s grown over eight-feet tall, and is looming over the tall Texan.
(Cut to camera three)
The bright lights and furious makeup make me look like a cartoon.
“What an exciting night this promises to be!”
Tammy steps forward.
“You bet it is, Bruce. We’ve watched every episode. We just love…”
(Cue the audience)
“LET’S MAKE A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL.”
(Cut to camera three)
“Of course!” Damion boasts. “This is Hell’s most popular show. And for good reason.”
He slaps the woman’s backside with his tail, then raises his eyebrows mockingly.
The cowboy puffs out his chest, fists clenched, daring him to touch his wife again.
“Woah, easy there pardner.”
Damion nudges Tex.
Tammy is flushed. “Don’t mind Tex. He’s the jealous kind.”
“Oh really?”
Damion’s tail is now shaped like a lasso. With it, he snags Tammy and pulls her close. Her face turns tomato-red.
The cowboy grunts, pulling it off with one strong swoop.
The audience boos.
The Devil snickers.
I feel sick. If this is to be my last episode (or final day on Earth), I don’t want it spoiled by this denim-clad dude whose hat is bigger than his brains, or by Damion, who seems extra feisty tonight. Even for him.
(Cut to camera one)
I clear my throat.
“Tell us, Tammy and Tex…no, tell all of Hell…what it is your beating hearts desire?”
The audience is on the edge of their seats.
(Split screen)
The Texans exchange doubtful looks.
The wife takes charge.
“Well Bruce,” Tammy says. “We don’t want anything that might get us killed. Being from Dallas, we were raised with some common sense.”
The audience hisses.
(Cut to camera five)
The husband steps up.
“That’s right, Bruce. Simply put, we want to be famous for a day. That’s it. Then we can write a book and live off the royalties.”
The audience erupts into a frenzy of catcalls.
(Cut to camera three)
The Devil’s eyebrows touch the top of his head. His voice slithers like a snake.
“Is that so?”
My heart plummets. These Texans are flirting with disaster. If they’d stuck to the script, they might be safe. They were supposed to ask for a lifetime’s supply of Super Bowl tickets. Easy-peasy. Who do these cowpokes think they are? Do they really think they can outsmart the Devil?
“Well then,” I say, shakily. “I’m sure Damion can arrange that.”
I raise my arms.
“What does the audience think?”
The audience goes ballistic.
(Cut to camera three)
The Devil, still towering over the Texans, leans into the camera.
“Famous, eh?”
His lips smack against his face. When he touches the dude’s shoulder, the cowboy swipes his arm away.
The audience boos. Someone tosses an egg onto the podium, narrowly missing the contestants.
“Woah! Easy does it!” I spurt out.
All hell breaks loose.
(Cut to overhead camera)
The crew gets busy, disposing of both the egg and the agitator.
(Cut to camera one)
I wipe my sweaty forehead.
“Tough crowd.”
The audience hoots.
The Devil sneers.
“SILENCE!”
Flames flash across the room.
People shriek, including me.
(Close up of Damion)
The Devil, boasting his gambler’s grin, turns to the contestants.
“Yes, yes. You WILL be famous. But just for one day.”
The audience roars their approval.
I shudder. Never in all my years, have I felt so much animosity from an audience. I’ll be lucky to make it out alive.
(Split screen)
“Sounds like the Devil has a plan.”
I try to sound cheerful. But cheerfulness is the opposite of how I feel.
(Cut to camera one)
“Tell us Damion…and all of Hell…what you’ve got cooked up?”
The audience leans in.
(Cut to camera three)
The Devil winks at Tammy.
“Well, I do believe it’s time for those two cowpokes to become famous. Am I correct?”
The audience jumps to their feet, chanting: “FAMOUS.… FAMOUS…. FAMOUS.…”
(Split screen)
Tammy looks pleased. Her partner, on the other hand, is showing concern. His shoulders are tense, he’s swallowed his bottom lip.
Damion dazzles the audience.
“Famous, y’all shall be.”
He snaps his fingers.
BAM.
The studio goes dark.
Someone in the audience screams.
Tammy gasps.
Tex grunts.
(Cut to camera one)
I shrug.
Is this Damion’s latest trick? Or did they finally cut the power? We give the impression that this show is hugely popular; but in truth, outside of Hell, this show is a dud. Cable and internet companies avoid us like the plague.
(Cut to overhead camera)
The contestants vanish under a cloud of fog.
A flaming pentagram floats across the stage.
“Well, isn’t that just dandy!”
The Devil points to the large screen behind the audience.
“Mister and Missus Cowpoke are about to jump the falls!”
He snaps his fingers, then he disappears.
My legs go weak. My heart is beating irregularly again. I still don’t know he does it. How any of this works. Suddenly, I’m alone on stage, shaking in my fine Italian boots, while the audience grows rowdier by the second.
Cameras mounted on drones are pointed at Tammy and Tex, who are trapped inside a large, steel barrel, with Niagara Falls looming below them.
Damion flies across the falls, lands next to Tammy and Tex. He taps the barrel.
“Ain’t she a beauty?”
The audience hurrahs.
The barrel is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Although it’s huge, and probably weighs a ton, it barely contains the two Texans, who are kicking and screaming, cursing up a storm.
“Get me the hell out of here!” Tammy’s voice rips through the noise of the falls. “NOW!”
Damion frowns.
“You wanted to be famous. Am I right?”
The audience chants, “FAMOUS…. FAMOUS.… FAMOUS….”
Tex pokes his head out of the barrel, cowboy hat and all.
“Now wait one minute, Damion. That’s unfair. We wanted fame. Not death.”
The Devil chuckles.
“The two are synonymous, am I right?”
The audience agrees.
Damion checks his watch.
“Well then…”
He slams the lid shut.
That’s the end of the Texans, as far as I’m concerned.
(Close up of Damion)
“Whatcha think? Should they jump the falls?”
The audience shouts, “JUMP…. JUMP…. JUMP….”
(Cut to camera two)
My insides are melting. I’m petrified. You’d think working with the Devil would get easier over time. You’d be dead wrong.
“Looks like the people have spoken!” I hear myself say.
The audience continues their chant.
(Cut to overhead camera)
“Excellent,” Damion says, fiddling his fingers.
He looks over the cliff, and makes a sour face.
“Wowsers. That’s a long way down!”
“JUMP…. JUMP…. JUMP….”
“And so much water!”
(Cut to camera one)
My worried-sick face appears on the screen.
I straighten up.
“Once they jump, Tam and Tex will surely be famous!”
Except of course, they won’t be famous. Not in this world anyways. They’ve been duped. Why these people sign up to die is beyond me. Perhaps we’ve reached a spectacular level of stupidity in human evolution.
(Cut to overhead camera)
Damion’s lips stretch across his reddened face, his arms flex like a weightlifter.
“I’ll give them a helping hand.”
He rolls the giant barrel to the very edge of the cliff, ignoring the banging and hollering coming from within the steel coffin.
“Tammy, Tex…” His lips stretch into a snarl. “Prepare for fame!”
The audience is on their feet.
Damion shoves the barrel over the edge.
(Split screen)
The barrel tumbles down the falls, disappearing into the fast-moving water.
The audience holds its breath.
(Cut to spy camera)
Inside the barrel, the Texans are shrieking. Their heads and arms and legs collide. Chunks of puke pour across Tammy’s sickening face, who’s calling Tex every name in the book, and it’s a big book. Meanwhile, Tex is like a frog in a blender. His face is green, his nose is broken; blood is leaking from every orifice.
There’s a loud crash as the barrel plunders underwater.
(Cut to overhead camera)
The barrel resurfaces, traveling dangerously downstream.
The audience is back on their feet, fist-pumping.
(Split screen)
What troubles me is how the pedestrians and tourists, crowding the streets, remain oblivious. To them, this is nothing out of the ordinary. Nobody watches, or even takes a pic. I’m starting to suspect foul play. Somehow, Damion is controlling this. He’s using dark magic. A spell. Maybe none of this is real. Except of course, it is real.
(Cut to camera one)
I’m trembling.
“What a jump!” my voice ricochets off the studio walls. “They’ll be famous in no time!”
The audience chants:
“FAMOUS…. FAMOUS…. FAMOUS….”
(Closeup of the Devil)
“Yes, yes. An excellent jump, I must say.”
He peaks over the edge.
“Looks like they could use some help.”
(Cut to overhead camera)
Damion flies towards the barrel, which is bouncing off rocks and debris.
(Cut to spy camera)
Blood. So much blood in such a tight space. Tammy’s hair is in disarray. Her face is beyond repair. Tex swallowed his hat. One of his eyeballs is bouncing like a Superball. His left arm is flapping nonsensically. It isn’t attached.
(Cut to camera four)
The Devil scoops up the barrel, then flies to shore. When his feet touch the ground, he shakes off the water, cat-like, then glares at the camera.
“What a jump!”
He cranks open the lip.
(Split screen)
Tammy spills out. So does Tex’s left arm.
The audience gasps.
Damion applauds.
“Such valor and swagger!”
(Cut to camera five)
Tammy is flopping fish-like, barely clinging to life. Her mouth is full of blood and brains.
The Devil puts his foot on her head.
“SAY CHEESE.”
From out of nowhere, a photographer appears.
SNAP.
Damion, looking pleased with himself, is suddenly holding a newspaper.
(Closeup of newspaper)
The headline splashes across the screen: IDIOTS JUMP THE FALLS.
(Cut to camera four)
Damion shoves the newspaper in front of her face.
“Looks like Tammy and Tex are famous.”
Tammy's eyes twitch. Clearly, she needs medical assistance. I’m surprised she’s still alive. Her husbands brains are splattered across the inside of the barrel.
The very sight of this makes me gag.
Tammy tries to speak, but fails. Her eyes are filled with rage.
Damion tosses the leftover arm into the water, then shrugs.
“Sorry about your hubby.”
(Cut to camera two)
With wobbly knees, I face the audience.
“Looks like the barrel got the best of Tex!”
The audience bellows.
I continue to talk involuntarily.
“Gosh dolly. Look at all that blood!”
“MORE BLOOD…. MORE BLOOD…. MORE BLOOD….”
I find myself chanting along.
Suddenly, my vision blurs. I clutch my chest. Maybe I’ll suffer a heart attack on live TV. Hell waits for no one, I suppose.
(Cut to camera four)
Tammy spits blood on Damion’s boot.
“Devil be damned.” I blurt.
Damion’s face twists into a ball of fury.
“Now, now, Tammy. That wasn’t very nice.”
He crushes her fingers with his boots.
Tammy yelps.
“I was gonna save your long-limbed partner over there,” he points. “Not anymore!”
The audience is bloodthirsty. Paper airplanes and rotten eggs whizz past me. I duck just in time.
(Closeup of contestant)
Tammy’s tongue is leaking from her bloodied face. She’s missing her front teeth. Damion digs his spiky heel deep into her blood-soaked abdomen.
“I reckon you’ll need medical assistance.”
He snaps his fingers.
Suddenly, they're back in the studio.
Damion is as happy as a filthy pig. Next to him is Tammy, who’s caked in blood and gore. Her corpse-of-a-husband spills from the gigantic steel barrel, taking center stage.
(Cut to overhead camera)
The contestant’s children rush the stage. They’re delirious.
The crew hurry out and drag them aside, along with Tammy, who's rushed to the hospital, where she will certainly die.
“Now that’s what I call speedy service!”
My voice appalls me. So does this job. If only I’d listened to my mother, and got into politics.
Damion snaps his finger, then disappears under a plume of dusty smoke.
(Cut to camera one)
“Well, there you have it folks. That’s the last you’ll see of Tammy and Tex. But fret not, they had their moment of fame…in Hell!”
The audience is tossing trash onto the stage.
I narrowly dodge a projectile.
“Hope you’ve enjoyed Season Two as much as I did.”
I hated it.
“And, unless the Devil strikes me down,” and he very-well might, “I hope to see you this Fall, for Season Three of…”
(Cue the audience)
“LET’S MAKE A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL.”
Season Two
Season One
submitted by CallMeStarr to TheCrypticCompendium [link] [comments]
“You look worried Bruce,” my producer jokes, moments before going live. “Even for you.”
This gets a chuckle from the crew.
“Quiet on the set!”
I’m already shaking in my shoes. Not a good sign. Working for the Devil is extremely stressful. And dangerous. And certainly not for the faint of heart. Why I took this gig is beyond me.
(Cue creepy music)
“Going live in five…four…three…”
I get the nod.
(Cut to camera one)
“Greetings Hell Beings and hell raisers. Welcome to the Season 2 finale of….”
(Cue the audience)
“LET’S MAKE A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL.”
I wave my arms in the air.
The audience jumps to their feet.
Someone heckles.
“Alright. Knock it off.”
I serve up my best game show-host grin. It looks as fake as this cheap Hollywood studio.
“As you probably know, my name is Bruce Davie, and I’m the host of…”
(Cue audience)
“LET’S MAKE A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL.”
There’s a disturbance in the audience. A crew member forcefully removes someone. The commotion settles, and I get the go-ahead.
“Phew! A feisty crowd tonight!”
My painted-on smile takes up the entire screen. So does my gleaming bald head.
“Now I know what you’re thinking. What’s the Devil got in store for us this evening?”
The audience rumbles.
I shrug.
“Honestly, I wish I knew!”
This is true. But I’m sure it has something to do with me spending an eternity in Hell. It’s right there in my contract, which runs out after this episode.
(Cut to camera two)
“So, without further ado, let’s bring out tonight’s contestants, shall we?”
The audience roars.
“And yes, you heard me correctly. Tonight, for the first time ever in this show’s defamatory history, we’ve got two contestants!”
Audience is on their feet, whooping and hollering.
(Cut to camera three)
(Cue music)
A middle-aged couple promenade towards the podium. They’re dressed like cowboys, and walk with a sense of purpose.
(Split screen)
“Welcome, both of you.”
More like: Welcome to your funeral.
“Tell us a wee bit about yourselves, why don’t you?”
(Cut to camera four)
The woman speaks first. Her hair is amber, her complexion as pale as light beer.
“Well, Bruce. My name is Tammy. I’m a stay-at-home mom. This here’s my partner, Tex. He owns his own gun shop. We live in Austin Texas, with three beautiful children, who are with us here tonight.”
She points.
(Cut to overhead camera)
Two tall boys and a young girl, each dressed head-to-toe in denim, stand and bow.
The audience applauds.
(Split screen)
The other contestant approaches the microphone. He’s as tall as an ivory tower, with a voice like a banjo.
“Howdy Bruce. Good to be here.”
He tilts his cowboy hat. His square jaw and rugged good looks give Chuck Norris a run for his money.
I salute them.
(Cut to camera two)
“Well then, now that we’re finished with the formalities, I do believe it’s time to…”
(Cue audience)
“BRING OUT THE DEVIL.”
(Cue creepy music)
(Cue pyrotechnics)
The stage fills with fire and brimstone. Pentagrams slice through the air. The Devil appears suddenly, dressed in a shiny new devil suit, tailored specifically for tonight’s show. It’s jet-black, and leaves little to the imagination. His pitchforked tail follows closely behind him as he approaches the podium.
(Cut to Camera five)
The Devil wraps his arms around the two contestants, kisses them both on the cheek.
Tex, clearly perturbed, winces, then grudgingly wipes his cheek.
The Devil snarls, then looks him up and down.
“Looks like everything isn’t bigger in Texas,” the Devil teases. Suddenly, he’s grown over eight-feet tall, and is looming over the tall Texan.
(Cut to camera three)
The bright lights and furious makeup make me look like a cartoon.
“What an exciting night this promises to be!”
Tammy steps forward.
“You bet it is, Bruce. We’ve watched every episode. We just love…”
(Cue the audience)
“LET’S MAKE A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL.”
(Cut to camera three)
“Of course!” Damion boasts. “This is Hell’s most popular show. And for good reason.”
He slaps the woman’s backside with his tail, then raises his eyebrows mockingly.
The cowboy puffs out his chest, fists clenched, daring him to touch his wife again.
“Woah, easy there pardner.”
Damion nudges Tex.
Tammy is flushed. “Don’t mind Tex. He’s the jealous kind.”
“Oh really?”
Damion’s tail is now shaped like a lasso. With it, he snags Tammy and pulls her close. Her face turns tomato-red.
The cowboy grunts, pulling it off with one strong swoop.
The audience boos.
The Devil snickers.
I feel sick. If this is to be my last episode (or final day on Earth), I don’t want it spoiled by this denim-clad dude whose hat is bigger than his brains, or by Damion, who seems extra feisty tonight. Even for him.
(Cut to camera one)
I clear my throat.
“Tell us, Tammy and Tex…no, tell all of Hell…what it is your beating hearts desire?”
The audience is on the edge of their seats.
(Split screen)
The Texans exchange doubtful looks.
The wife takes charge.
“Well Bruce,” Tammy says. “We don’t want anything that might get us killed. Being from Dallas, we were raised with some common sense.”
The audience hisses.
(Cut to camera five)
The husband steps up.
“That’s right, Bruce. Simply put, we want to be famous for a day. That’s it. Then we can write a book and live off the royalties.”
The audience erupts into a frenzy of catcalls.
(Cut to camera three)
The Devil’s eyebrows touch the top of his head. His voice slithers like a snake.
“Is that so?”
My heart plummets. These Texans are flirting with disaster. If they’d stuck to the script, they might be safe. They were supposed to ask for a lifetime’s supply of Super Bowl tickets. Easy-peasy. Who do these cowpokes think they are? Do they really think they can outsmart the Devil?
“Well then,” I say, shakily. “I’m sure Damion can arrange that.”
I raise my arms.
“What does the audience think?”
The audience goes ballistic.
(Cut to camera three)
The Devil, still towering over the Texans, leans into the camera.
“Famous, eh?”
His lips smack against his face. When he touches the dude’s shoulder, the cowboy swipes his arm away.
The audience boos. Someone tosses an egg onto the podium, narrowly missing the contestants.
“Woah! Easy does it!” I spurt out.
All hell breaks loose.
(Cut to overhead camera)
The crew gets busy, disposing of both the egg and the agitator.
(Cut to camera one)
I wipe my sweaty forehead.
“Tough crowd.”
The audience hoots.
The Devil sneers.
“SILENCE!”
Flames flash across the room.
People shriek, including me.
(Close up of Damion)
The Devil, boasting his gambler’s grin, turns to the contestants.
“Yes, yes. You WILL be famous. But just for one day.”
The audience roars their approval.
I shudder. Never in all my years, have I felt so much animosity from an audience. I’ll be lucky to make it out alive.
(Split screen)
“Sounds like the Devil has a plan.”
I try to sound cheerful. But cheerfulness is the opposite of how I feel.
(Cut to camera one)
“Tell us Damion…and all of Hell…what you’ve got cooked up?”
The audience leans in.
(Cut to camera three)
The Devil winks at Tammy.
“Well, I do believe it’s time for those two cowpokes to become famous. Am I correct?”
The audience jumps to their feet, chanting: “FAMOUS.… FAMOUS…. FAMOUS.…”
(Split screen)
Tammy looks pleased. Her partner, on the other hand, is showing concern. His shoulders are tense, he’s swallowed his bottom lip.
Damion dazzles the audience.
“Famous, y’all shall be.”
He snaps his fingers.
BAM.
The studio goes dark.
Someone in the audience screams.
Tammy gasps.
Tex grunts.
(Cut to camera one)
I shrug.
Is this Damion’s latest trick? Or did they finally cut the power? We give the impression that this show is hugely popular; but in truth, outside of Hell, this show is a dud. Cable and internet companies avoid us like the plague.
(Cut to overhead camera)
The contestants vanish under a cloud of fog.
A flaming pentagram floats across the stage.
“Well, isn’t that just dandy!”
The Devil points to the large screen behind the audience.
“Mister and Missus Cowpoke are about to jump the falls!”
He snaps his fingers, then he disappears.
My legs go weak. My heart is beating irregularly again. I still don’t know he does it. How any of this works. Suddenly, I’m alone on stage, shaking in my fine Italian boots, while the audience grows rowdier by the second.
Cameras mounted on drones are pointed at Tammy and Tex, who are trapped inside a large, steel barrel, with Niagara Falls looming below them.
Damion flies across the falls, lands next to Tammy and Tex. He taps the barrel.
“Ain’t she a beauty?”
The audience hurrahs.
The barrel is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Although it’s huge, and probably weighs a ton, it barely contains the two Texans, who are kicking and screaming, cursing up a storm.
“Get me the hell out of here!” Tammy’s voice rips through the noise of the falls. “NOW!”
Damion frowns.
“You wanted to be famous. Am I right?”
The audience chants, “FAMOUS…. FAMOUS.… FAMOUS….”
Tex pokes his head out of the barrel, cowboy hat and all.
“Now wait one minute, Damion. That’s unfair. We wanted fame. Not death.”
The Devil chuckles.
“The two are synonymous, am I right?”
The audience agrees.
Damion checks his watch.
“Well then…”
He slams the lid shut.
That’s the end of the Texans, as far as I’m concerned.
(Close up of Damion)
“Whatcha think? Should they jump the falls?”
The audience shouts, “JUMP…. JUMP…. JUMP….”
(Cut to camera two)
My insides are melting. I’m petrified. You’d think working with the Devil would get easier over time. You’d be dead wrong.
“Looks like the people have spoken!” I hear myself say.
The audience continues their chant.
(Cut to overhead camera)
“Excellent,” Damion says, fiddling his fingers.
He looks over the cliff, and makes a sour face.
“Wowsers. That’s a long way down!”
“JUMP…. JUMP…. JUMP….”
“And so much water!”
(Cut to camera one)
My worried-sick face appears on the screen.
I straighten up.
“Once they jump, Tam and Tex will surely be famous!”
Except of course, they won’t be famous. Not in this world anyways. They’ve been duped. Why these people sign up to die is beyond me. Perhaps we’ve reached a spectacular level of stupidity in human evolution.
(Cut to overhead camera)
Damion’s lips stretch across his reddened face, his arms flex like a weightlifter.
“I’ll give them a helping hand.”
He rolls the giant barrel to the very edge of the cliff, ignoring the banging and hollering coming from within the steel coffin.
“Tammy, Tex…” His lips stretch into a snarl. “Prepare for fame!”
The audience is on their feet.
Damion shoves the barrel over the edge.
(Split screen)
The barrel tumbles down the falls, disappearing into the fast-moving water.
The audience holds its breath.
(Cut to spy camera)
Inside the barrel, the Texans are shrieking. Their heads and arms and legs collide. Chunks of puke pour across Tammy’s sickening face, who’s calling Tex every name in the book, and it’s a big book. Meanwhile, Tex is like a frog in a blender. His face is green, his nose is broken; blood is leaking from every orifice.
There’s a loud crash as the barrel plunders underwater.
(Cut to overhead camera)
The barrel resurfaces, traveling dangerously downstream.
The audience is back on their feet, fist-pumping.
(Split screen)
What troubles me is how the pedestrians and tourists, crowding the streets, remain oblivious. To them, this is nothing out of the ordinary. Nobody watches, or even takes a pic. I’m starting to suspect foul play. Somehow, Damion is controlling this. He’s using dark magic. A spell. Maybe none of this is real. Except of course, it is real.
(Cut to camera one)
I’m trembling.
“What a jump!” my voice ricochets off the studio walls. “They’ll be famous in no time!”
The audience chants:
“FAMOUS…. FAMOUS…. FAMOUS….”
(Closeup of the Devil)
“Yes, yes. An excellent jump, I must say.”
He peaks over the edge.
“Looks like they could use some help.”
(Cut to overhead camera)
Damion flies towards the barrel, which is bouncing off rocks and debris.
(Cut to spy camera)
Blood. So much blood in such a tight space. Tammy’s hair is in disarray. Her face is beyond repair. Tex swallowed his hat. One of his eyeballs is bouncing like a Superball. His left arm is flapping nonsensically. It isn’t attached.
(Cut to camera four)
The Devil scoops up the barrel, then flies to shore. When his feet touch the ground, he shakes off the water, cat-like, then glares at the camera.
“What a jump!”
He cranks open the lip.
(Split screen)
Tammy spills out. So does Tex’s left arm.
The audience gasps.
Damion applauds.
“Such valor and swagger!”
(Cut to camera five)
Tammy is flopping fish-like, barely clinging to life. Her mouth is full of blood and brains.
The Devil puts his foot on her head.
“SAY CHEESE.”
From out of nowhere, a photographer appears.
SNAP.
Damion, looking pleased with himself, is suddenly holding a newspaper.
(Closeup of newspaper)
The headline splashes across the screen: IDIOTS JUMP THE FALLS.
(Cut to camera four)
Damion shoves the newspaper in front of her face.
“Looks like Tammy and Tex are famous.”
Tammy's eyes twitch. Clearly, she needs medical assistance. I’m surprised she’s still alive. Her husbands brains are splattered across the inside of the barrel.
The very sight of this makes me gag.
Tammy tries to speak, but fails. Her eyes are filled with rage.
Damion tosses the leftover arm into the water, then shrugs.
“Sorry about your hubby.”
(Cut to camera two)
With wobbly knees, I face the audience.
“Looks like the barrel got the best of Tex!”
The audience bellows.
I continue to talk involuntarily.
“Gosh dolly. Look at all that blood!”
“MORE BLOOD…. MORE BLOOD…. MORE BLOOD….”
I find myself chanting along.
Suddenly, my vision blurs. I clutch my chest. Maybe I’ll suffer a heart attack on live TV. Hell waits for no one, I suppose.
(Cut to camera four)
Tammy spits blood on Damion’s boot.
“Devil be damned.” I blurt.
Damion’s face twists into a ball of fury.
“Now, now, Tammy. That wasn’t very nice.”
He crushes her fingers with his boots.
Tammy yelps.
“I was gonna save your long-limbed partner over there,” he points. “Not anymore!”
The audience is bloodthirsty. Paper airplanes and rotten eggs whizz past me. I duck just in time.
(Closeup of contestant)
Tammy’s tongue is leaking from her bloodied face. She’s missing her front teeth. Damion digs his spiky heel deep into her blood-soaked abdomen.
“I reckon you’ll need medical assistance.”
He snaps his fingers.
Suddenly, they're back in the studio.
Damion is as happy as a filthy pig. Next to him is Tammy, who’s caked in blood and gore. Her corpse-of-a-husband spills from the gigantic steel barrel, taking center stage.
(Cut to overhead camera)
The contestant’s children rush the stage. They’re delirious.
The crew hurry out and drag them aside, along with Tammy, who's rushed to the hospital, where she will certainly die.
“Now that’s what I call speedy service!”
My voice appalls me. So does this job. If only I’d listened to my mother, and got into politics.
Damion snaps his finger, then disappears under a plume of dusty smoke.
(Cut to camera one)
“Well, there you have it folks. That’s the last you’ll see of Tammy and Tex. But fret not, they had their moment of fame…in Hell!”
The audience is tossing trash onto the stage.
I narrowly dodge a projectile.
“Hope you’ve enjoyed Season Two as much as I did.”
I hated it.
“And, unless the Devil strikes me down,” and he very-well might, “I hope to see you this Fall, for Season Three of…”
(Cue the audience)
“LET’S MAKE A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL.”
Season Two
Season One
2023.06.01 15:12 Guilty_Tap834 Is this the start of trich?
 | I made two monotubs s2b on May 15h. I came home from camping and noticed my one tub was pinning very very fast! So fast that I didn't have time to even add the casing layer but the substrate didn't look fully colonized. My other tub with about fully colonized so I added a casing layer(only coco coir). submitted by Guilty_Tap834 to ContamFam [link] [comments] Long story short, I accidently bought coco coir bricks for the substrate and was in a pinch for time and really needed to try to get these going before working away. I literally threw some bricks in a bucket and ran warm tap water over them until they broke up. Then i squeezed out excess water in handfuls throwing that in a bowl. When I had enough in the bowls for 2 tubs i used it. I feel like if anything went wrong is was right there. Please give me tips on how to get these bricks right with very limited tools if that was a big mistake! I already got one flush out of this tub with no green anywhere on it. I even picked mushrooms out of this tub 2 days ago that looked fine. Now today i came home from work and seen green on the left side so I paniced and hot knifed it out and sprayed with 3% hydrogen peroxide. What's it looking like fam? |
2023.06.01 15:11 cherryfly_strawberry My crush thingy but no future
Using throwaway and fake names.
I don't know if there could be any future of this thing that's going on in my life, and trying to think more just makes me sad, therefore its only a confession, not a request for advise. My name is Hoorain, 26 working in a small organization in isb. I'm tall and lean, and I take good care of my fitness, a family thing, I also have a gym membership for a few years. I'm an introvert, so making friends doesn't come easy for me. I only have two best friends from the time I was in school.
Recently, a new colleague named Irha joined our office. Irha looked the same age as me, but she's shorter and has a curvier figure. She's looked lively and fun-loving. While I struggled to make friends, Irha effortlessly connected with others in the office. We interacted a few times for prjoect related stuff, and although I couldn't easily open up to her, I found myself genuinely liking her as a person.
A few weeks later, we had an office picnic, and we all decided to play cricket. Because of my fitness, I was able to run and play well, but I noticed Irha struggling, she got out of breath quickly and had to stop, she obviously needed a sports bra due to her size but I doubt she even thought about it, luckily the guys in our group were respectful. Afterward, Irha asked me about my fitness routine, I told her about my diet and gym, and she showed interest in joining the gym with me. She wanted me to guide her and help her improve her fitness. So, we started going to the gym together on Sundays, and our friendship started to grow.
During this time, I had a crush on a guy, he was an ex-colleague and looked like a green flag guy, we used to talk and a bit more but only uppar uppar say, I never mentioned him to her, it turned out he was cheating (anotuer story), which broke my heart. Being the introvert that I am, I struggled to express my feelings in front of others. However, at gym Irha saw the sadness in my eyes. She insisted that I share what was bothering me. Unable to hide it any longer, I shared the details with her and don't know why I had tears in my eye. In that vulnerable moment, Irha hugged me, wiped away my tears, and reassured me that I was beautiful. She said, "yar tum itni pyari ho har banday, bande ka dil ajata hai tum paay, duck that guy."
At first, I was too upset to pay much attention to Irha's words. But later, they started to linger in my mind. Why did she mention "har banday, bande ka dil"? Could she be interested in girls? It was something I had never considered before. She never talked about any crush or bf in her life. Suddenly, I began to analyze our interactions, looking for patterns. I remembered how Irha would try to impress me, making an effort to look her best and laughing at every funny thing I said, regardless of how lame it was. I recalled how she would try to get closer to me through our gym sessions and shopping trips and how we explored different food places together.
Growing up I was always taught by my friends, surroundings, society, that girls should only be interested in boys, and that's what I believed too, and honestly I enjoyed being with guys as well. But now, with Irha in my life, I couldn't help but wonder. She is incredibly pretty, and I enjoy spending time with her. Could I see her as more than just a friend, as a romantic partner? It's a question that has sparked curiosity within me.
The next day at the office, when I saw Irha, my perspective had changed. I appreciated how she had helped me through my vulnurable times, so I thanked her sincerely. Then, I gathered my courage and asked her if she'd like to check out a new cafe in the evening. As we sat there, I tried to subtly initiate more physical contact, like sitting closer to her, brushing our arms, or keeping a firm grip while talking, even touching and rubbing her thighs a few times. I was testing the waters, hoping to see how she would react, but she didn't show any noticeable change in her behavior. She carried on as usual, as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening between us. This left me feeling confused and uncertain. Did she not notice my actions, or was she simply not interested in me romantically?
I couldn't bring myself to directly ask Irha about my feelings for fear of jeopardizing what we have. I value our friendship, and the thought of losing it scares me. Even in the wildest of the possibilities, if I confess and she reacts positively, we dont have any future together. We would die, but our families would never accept us. Hence, I am writing it all down here to lift it off my chest. Hoorain xoxo
submitted by cherryfly_strawberry to PakistaniiConfessions [link] [comments]
I don't know if there could be any future of this thing that's going on in my life, and trying to think more just makes me sad, therefore its only a confession, not a request for advise. My name is Hoorain, 26 working in a small organization in isb. I'm tall and lean, and I take good care of my fitness, a family thing, I also have a gym membership for a few years. I'm an introvert, so making friends doesn't come easy for me. I only have two best friends from the time I was in school.
Recently, a new colleague named Irha joined our office. Irha looked the same age as me, but she's shorter and has a curvier figure. She's looked lively and fun-loving. While I struggled to make friends, Irha effortlessly connected with others in the office. We interacted a few times for prjoect related stuff, and although I couldn't easily open up to her, I found myself genuinely liking her as a person.
A few weeks later, we had an office picnic, and we all decided to play cricket. Because of my fitness, I was able to run and play well, but I noticed Irha struggling, she got out of breath quickly and had to stop, she obviously needed a sports bra due to her size but I doubt she even thought about it, luckily the guys in our group were respectful. Afterward, Irha asked me about my fitness routine, I told her about my diet and gym, and she showed interest in joining the gym with me. She wanted me to guide her and help her improve her fitness. So, we started going to the gym together on Sundays, and our friendship started to grow.
During this time, I had a crush on a guy, he was an ex-colleague and looked like a green flag guy, we used to talk and a bit more but only uppar uppar say, I never mentioned him to her, it turned out he was cheating (anotuer story), which broke my heart. Being the introvert that I am, I struggled to express my feelings in front of others. However, at gym Irha saw the sadness in my eyes. She insisted that I share what was bothering me. Unable to hide it any longer, I shared the details with her and don't know why I had tears in my eye. In that vulnerable moment, Irha hugged me, wiped away my tears, and reassured me that I was beautiful. She said, "yar tum itni pyari ho har banday, bande ka dil ajata hai tum paay, duck that guy."
At first, I was too upset to pay much attention to Irha's words. But later, they started to linger in my mind. Why did she mention "har banday, bande ka dil"? Could she be interested in girls? It was something I had never considered before. She never talked about any crush or bf in her life. Suddenly, I began to analyze our interactions, looking for patterns. I remembered how Irha would try to impress me, making an effort to look her best and laughing at every funny thing I said, regardless of how lame it was. I recalled how she would try to get closer to me through our gym sessions and shopping trips and how we explored different food places together.
Growing up I was always taught by my friends, surroundings, society, that girls should only be interested in boys, and that's what I believed too, and honestly I enjoyed being with guys as well. But now, with Irha in my life, I couldn't help but wonder. She is incredibly pretty, and I enjoy spending time with her. Could I see her as more than just a friend, as a romantic partner? It's a question that has sparked curiosity within me.
The next day at the office, when I saw Irha, my perspective had changed. I appreciated how she had helped me through my vulnurable times, so I thanked her sincerely. Then, I gathered my courage and asked her if she'd like to check out a new cafe in the evening. As we sat there, I tried to subtly initiate more physical contact, like sitting closer to her, brushing our arms, or keeping a firm grip while talking, even touching and rubbing her thighs a few times. I was testing the waters, hoping to see how she would react, but she didn't show any noticeable change in her behavior. She carried on as usual, as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening between us. This left me feeling confused and uncertain. Did she not notice my actions, or was she simply not interested in me romantically?
I couldn't bring myself to directly ask Irha about my feelings for fear of jeopardizing what we have. I value our friendship, and the thought of losing it scares me. Even in the wildest of the possibilities, if I confess and she reacts positively, we dont have any future together. We would die, but our families would never accept us. Hence, I am writing it all down here to lift it off my chest. Hoorain xoxo
2023.06.01 15:00 CallMeStarr I’m the Host of a Terrifying Game Show: Let’s Make a Deal with the Devil
Season 2 Finale
“You look worried Bruce,” my producer jokes, moments before going live. “Even for you.”
This gets a chuckle from the crew.
“Quiet on the set!”
I’m already shaking in my shoes. Not a good sign. Working for the Devil is extremely stressful. And dangerous. And certainly not for the faint of heart. Why I took this gig is beyond me.
(Cue creepy music)
“Going live in five…four…three…”
I get the nod.
(Cut to camera one)
“Greetings Hell Beings and hell raisers. Welcome to the Season 2 finale of….”
(Cue the audience)
“LET’S MAKE A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL.”
I wave my arms in the air.
The audience jumps to their feet.
Someone heckles.
“Alright. Knock it off.”
I serve up my best game show-host grin. It looks as fake as this cheap Hollywood studio.
“As you probably know, my name is Bruce Davie, and I’m the host of…”
(Cue audience)
“LET’S MAKE A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL.”
There’s a disturbance in the audience. A crew member forcefully removes someone. The commotion settles, and I get the go-ahead.
“Phew! A feisty crowd tonight!”
My painted-on smile takes up the entire screen. So does my gleaming bald head.
“Now I know what you’re thinking. What’s the Devil got in store for us this evening?”
The audience rumbles.
I shrug.
“Honestly, I wish I knew!”
This is true. But I’m sure it has something to do with me spending an eternity in Hell. It’s right there in my contract, which runs out after this episode.
(Cut to camera two)
“So, without further ado, let’s bring out tonight’s contestants, shall we?”
The audience roars.
“And yes, you heard me correctly. Tonight, for the first time ever in this show’s defamatory history, we’ve got two contestants!”
Audience is on their feet, whooping and hollering.
(Cut to camera three)
(Cue music)
A middle-aged couple promenade towards the podium. They’re dressed like cowboys, and walk with a sense of purpose.
(Split screen)
“Welcome, both of you.”
More like: Welcome to your funeral.
“Tell us a wee bit about yourselves, why don’t you?”
(Cut to camera four)
The woman speaks first. Her hair is amber, her complexion as pale as light beer.
“Well, Bruce. My name is Tammy. I’m a stay-at-home mom. This here’s my partner, Tex. He owns his own gun shop. We live in Austin Texas, with three beautiful children, who are with us here tonight.”
She points.
(Cut to overhead camera)
Two tall boys and a young girl, each dressed head-to-toe in denim, stand and bow.
The audience applauds.
(Split screen)
The other contestant approaches the microphone. He’s as tall as an ivory tower, with a voice like a banjo.
“Howdy Bruce. Good to be here.”
He tilts his cowboy hat. His square jaw and rugged good looks give Chuck Norris a run for his money.
I salute them.
(Cut to camera two)
“Well then, now that we’re finished with the formalities, I do believe it’s time to…”
(Cue audience)
“BRING OUT THE DEVIL.”
(Cue creepy music)
(Cue pyrotechnics)
The stage fills with fire and brimstone. Pentagrams slice through the air. The Devil appears suddenly, dressed in a shiny new devil suit, tailored specifically for tonight’s show. It’s jet-black, and leaves little to the imagination. His pitchforked tail follows closely behind him as he approaches the podium.
(Cut to Camera five)
The Devil wraps his arms around the two contestants, kisses them both on the cheek.
Tex, clearly perturbed, winces, then grudgingly wipes his cheek.
The Devil snarls, then looks him up and down.
“Looks like everything isn’t bigger in Texas,” the Devil teases. Suddenly, he’s grown over eight-feet tall, and is looming over the tall Texan.
(Cut to camera three)
The bright lights and furious makeup make me look like a cartoon.
“What an exciting night this promises to be!”
Tammy steps forward.
“You bet it is, Bruce. We’ve watched every episode. We just love…”
(Cue the audience)
“LET’S MAKE A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL.”
(Cut to camera three)
“Of course!” Damion boasts. “This is Hell’s most popular show. And for good reason.”
He slaps the woman’s backside with his tail, then raises his eyebrows mockingly. The cowboy puffs out his chest, fists clenched, daring him to touch his wife again.
“Woah, easy there pardner.”
Damion nudges Tex.
Tammy is flushed. “Don’t mind Tex. He’s the jealous kind.”
“Oh really?”
Damion’s tail is now shaped like a lasso. With it, he snags Tammy and pulls her close. Her face turns tomato-red.
The cowboy grunts, pulling it off with one strong swoop.
The audience boos.
The Devil snickers.
I feel sick. If this is to be my last episode (or final day on Earth), I don’t want it spoiled by this denim-clad dude whose hat is bigger than his brains, or by Damion, who seems extra feisty tonight. Even for him.
(Cut to camera one)
I clear my throat.
“Tell us, Tammy and Tex…no, tell all of Hell…what it is your beating hearts desire?”
The audience is on the edge of their seats.
(Split screen)
The Texans exchange doubtful looks.
The wife takes charge.
“Well Bruce,” Tammy says. “We don’t want anything that might get us killed. Being from Dallas, we were raised with some common sense.”
The audience hisses.
(Cut to camera five)
The husband steps up.
“That’s right, Bruce. Simply put, we want to be famous for a day. That’s it. Then we can write a book and live off the royalties.”
The audience erupts into a frenzy of catcalls.
(Cut to camera three)
The Devil’s eyebrows touch the top of his head. His voice slithers like a snake.
“Is that so?”
My heart plummets. These Texans are flirting with disaster. If they’d stuck to the script, they might be safe. They were supposed to ask for a lifetime’s supply of Super Bowl tickets. Easy-peasy. Who do these cowpokes think they are? Do they really think they can outsmart the Devil?
“Well then,” I say, shakily. “I’m sure Damion can arrange that.”
I raise my arms.
“What does the audience think?”
The audience goes ballistic.
(Cut to camera three)
The Devil, still towering over the Texans, leans into the camera.
“Famous, eh?”
His lips smack against his face. When he touches the dude’s shoulder, the cowboy swipes his arm away.
The audience boos. Someone tosses an egg onto the podium, narrowly missing the contestants.
“Woah! Easy does it!” I spurt out.
All hell breaks loose.
(Cut to overhead camera)
The crew gets busy, disposing of both the egg and the agitator.
(Cut to camera one)
I wipe my sweaty forehead.
“Tough crowd.”
The audience hoots.
The Devil sneers.
“SILENCE!”
Flames flash across the room.
People shriek, including me.
(Close up of Damion)
The Devil, boasting his gambler’s grin, turns to the contestants.
“Yes, yes. You WILL be famous. But just for one day.”
The audience roars their approval.
I shudder. Never in all my years, have I felt so much animosity from an audience. I’ll be lucky to make it out alive.
(Split screen)
“Sounds like the Devil has a plan.”
I try to sound cheerful. But cheerfulness is the opposite of how I feel.
(Cut to camera one)
“Tell us Damion…and all of Hell…what you’ve got cooked up?”
The audience leans in.
(Cut to camera three)
The Devil winks at Tammy.
“Well, I do believe it’s time for those two cowpokes to become famous. Am I correct?”
The audience jumps to their feet, chanting: “FAMOUS.… FAMOUS…. FAMOUS.…”
(Split screen)
Tammy looks pleased. Her partner, on the other hand, is showing concern. His shoulders are tense, he’s swallowed his bottom lip.
Damion dazzles the audience.
“Famous, y’all shall be.”
He snaps his fingers.
BAM.
The studio goes dark.
Someone in the audience screams.
Tammy gasps.
Tex grunts.
(Cut to camera one)
I shrug.
Is this Damion’s latest trick? Or did they finally cut the power? We give the impression that this show is hugely popular; but in truth, outside of Hell, this show is a dud. Cable and internet companies avoid us like the plague.
(Cut to overhead camera)
The contestants vanish under a cloud of fog.
A flaming pentagram floats across the stage.
“Well, isn’t that just dandy!”
The Devil points to the large screen behind the audience.
“Mister and Missus Cowpoke are about to jump the falls!”
He snaps his fingers, then he disappears.
My legs go weak. My heart is beating irregularly again. I still don’t know he does it. How any of this works. Suddenly, I’m alone on stage, shaking in my fine Italian boots, while the audience grows rowdier by the second.
Cameras mounted on drones are pointed at Tammy and Tex, who are trapped inside a large, steel barrel, with Niagara Falls looming below them.
Damion flies across the falls, lands next to Tammy and Tex.
He taps the barrel.
“Ain’t she a beauty?”
The audience hurrahs.
The barrel is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Although it’s huge, and probably weighs a ton, it barely contains the two Texans, who are kicking and screaming, cursing up a storm.
“Get me the hell out of here!” Tammy’s voice rips through the noise of the falls. “NOW!”
Damion frowns.
“You wanted to be famous. Am I right?”
The audience chants, “FAMOUS…. FAMOUS.… FAMOUS….”
Tex pokes his head out of the barrel, cowboy hat and all.
“Now wait one minute, Damion. That’s unfair. We wanted fame. Not death.”
The Devil chuckles.
“The two are synonymous, am I right?”
The audience agrees.
Damion checks his watch.
“Well then...”
He slams the lid shut.
That’s the end of the Texans, as far as I’m concerned.
(Close up of Damion)
“Whatcha think? Should they jump the falls?”
The audience shouts, “JUMP…. JUMP…. JUMP….”
(Cut to camera two)
My insides are melting. I’m petrified. You’d think working with the Devil would get easier over time. You’d be dead wrong.
“Looks like the people have spoken!” I hear myself say.
The audience continues their chant.
(Cut to overhead camera)
“Excellent,” Damion says, fiddling his fingers.
He looks over the cliff, and makes a sour face.
“Wowsers. That’s a long way down!”
“JUMP…. JUMP…. JUMP....”
“And so much water!”
(Cut to camera one)
My worried-sick face appears on the screen.
I straighten up.
“Once they jump, Tam and Tex will surely be famous!”
Except of course, they won’t be famous. Not in this world anyways. They’ve been duped. Why these people sign up to die is beyond me. Perhaps we’ve reached a spectacular level of stupidity in human evolution.
(Cut to overhead camera)
Damion’s lips stretch across his reddened face, his arms flex like a weightlifter.
“I’ll give them a helping hand.”
He rolls the giant barrel to the very edge of the cliff, ignoring the banging and hollering coming from within the steel coffin.
“Tammy, Tex…” His lips stretch into a snarl. “Prepare for fame!”
The audience is on their feet.
Damion shoves the barrel over the edge.
(Split screen)
The barrel tumbles down the falls, disappearing into the fast-moving water.
The audience holds its breath.
(Cut to spy camera)
Inside the barrel, the Texans are shrieking. Their heads and arms and legs collide. Chunks of puke pour across Tammy’s sickening face, who’s calling Tex every name in the book, and it’s a big book. Meanwhile, Tex is like a frog in a blender. His face is green, his nose is broken; blood is leaking from every orifice.
There’s a loud crash as the barrel plunders underwater.
(Cut to overhead camera)
The barrel resurfaces, traveling dangerously downstream.
The audience is back on their feet, fist-pumping.
(Split screen)
What troubles me is how the pedestrians and tourists, crowding the streets, remain oblivious. To them, this is nothing out of the ordinary. Nobody watches, or even takes a pic. I’m starting to suspect foul play. Somehow, Damion is controlling this. He’s using dark magic. A spell. Maybe none of this is real. Except of course, it is real.
(Cut to camera one)
I’m trembling.
“What a jump!” my voice ricochets off the studio walls. “They’ll be famous in no time!”
The audience chants:
“FAMOUS…. FAMOUS…. FAMOUS….”
(Closeup of the Devil)
“Yes, yes. An excellent jump, I must say.”
He peaks over the edge.
“Looks like they could use some help.”
(Cut to overhead camera)
Damion flies towards the barrel, which is bouncing off rocks and debris.
(Cut to spy camera)
Blood. So much blood in such a tight space. Tammy’s hair is in disarray. Her face is beyond repair. Tex swallowed his hat. One of his eyeballs is bouncing like a Superball. His left arm is flapping nonsensically. It isn’t attached.
(Cut to camera four)
The Devil scoops up the barrel, then flies to shore. When his feet touch the ground, he shakes off the water, cat-like, then glares at the camera.
“What a jump!”
He cranks open the lip.
(Split screen)
Tammy spills out. So does Tex’s left arm.
The audience gasps.
Damion applauds.
“Such valor and swagger!”
(Cut to camera five)
Tammy is flopping fish-like, barely clinging to life. Her mouth is full of blood and brains.
The Devil puts his foot on her head.
“SAY CHEESE.”
From out of nowhere, a photographer appears.
SNAP.
Damion, looking pleased with himself, is suddenly holding a newspaper.
(Closeup of newspaper)
The headline splashes across the screen: IDIOTS JUMP THE FALLS.
(Cut to camera four)
Damion shoves the newspaper in front of her face.
“Looks like Tammy and Tex are famous.”
Tammy's eyes twitch. Clearly, she needs medical assistance. I’m surprised she’s still alive. Her husbands brains are splattered across the inside of the barrel. The very sight of this makes me gag.
Tammy tries to speak, but fails. Her eyes are filled with rage.
Damion tosses the leftover arm into the water, then shrugs.
“Sorry about your hubby.”
(Cut to camera two)
With wobbly knees, I face the audience.
“Looks like the barrel got the best of Tex!”
The audience bellows.
I continue to talk involuntarily.
“Gosh dolly. Look at all that blood!”
“MORE BLOOD…. MORE BLOOD…. MORE BLOOD….”
I find myself chanting along.
Suddenly, my vision blurs. I clutch my chest. Maybe I’ll suffer a heart attack on live TV. Hell waits for no one, I suppose.
(Cut to camera four)
Tammy spits blood on Damion’s boot.
“Devil be damned.” I blurt.
Damion’s face twists into a ball of fury.
“Now, now, Tammy. That wasn’t very nice.”
He crushes her fingers with his boots.
Tammy yelps.
“I was gonna save your long-limbed partner over there,” he points. “Not anymore!”
The audience is bloodthirsty. Paper airplanes and rotten eggs whizz past me. I duck just in time.
(Closeup of contestant)
Tammy’s tongue is leaking from her bloodied face. She’s missing her front teeth. Damion digs his spiky heel deep into her blood-soaked abdomen.
“I reckon you’ll need medical assistance.”
He snaps his fingers.
Suddenly, they're back in the studio.
Damion is as happy as a filthy pig. Next to him is Tammy, who’s caked in blood and gore. Her corpse-of-a-husband spills from the gigantic steel barrel, taking center stage.
(Cut to overhead camera)
The contestant’s children rush the stage. They’re delirious.
The crew hurry out and drag them aside, along with Tammy, who's rushed to the hospital, where she will certainly die.
“Now that’s what I call speedy service!”
My voice appalls me. So does this job. If only I’d listened to my mother, and got into politics.
Damion snaps his finger, then disappears under a plume of dusty smoke.
(Cut to camera one)
“Well, there you have it folks. That’s the last you’ll see of Tammy and Tex. But fret not, they had their moment of fame…in Hell!”
The audience is tossing trash onto the stage.
I narrowly dodge a projectile.
“Hope you’ve enjoyed Season Two as much as I did.”
I hated it.
“And, unless the Devil strikes me down,” and he very-well might, “I hope to see you this Fall, for Season Three of…”
(Cue the audience)
“LET’S MAKE A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL.”
Season Two
Season One
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“You look worried Bruce,” my producer jokes, moments before going live. “Even for you.”
This gets a chuckle from the crew.
“Quiet on the set!”
I’m already shaking in my shoes. Not a good sign. Working for the Devil is extremely stressful. And dangerous. And certainly not for the faint of heart. Why I took this gig is beyond me.
(Cue creepy music)
“Going live in five…four…three…”
I get the nod.
(Cut to camera one)
“Greetings Hell Beings and hell raisers. Welcome to the Season 2 finale of….”
(Cue the audience)
“LET’S MAKE A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL.”
I wave my arms in the air.
The audience jumps to their feet.
Someone heckles.
“Alright. Knock it off.”
I serve up my best game show-host grin. It looks as fake as this cheap Hollywood studio.
“As you probably know, my name is Bruce Davie, and I’m the host of…”
(Cue audience)
“LET’S MAKE A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL.”
There’s a disturbance in the audience. A crew member forcefully removes someone. The commotion settles, and I get the go-ahead.
“Phew! A feisty crowd tonight!”
My painted-on smile takes up the entire screen. So does my gleaming bald head.
“Now I know what you’re thinking. What’s the Devil got in store for us this evening?”
The audience rumbles.
I shrug.
“Honestly, I wish I knew!”
This is true. But I’m sure it has something to do with me spending an eternity in Hell. It’s right there in my contract, which runs out after this episode.
(Cut to camera two)
“So, without further ado, let’s bring out tonight’s contestants, shall we?”
The audience roars.
“And yes, you heard me correctly. Tonight, for the first time ever in this show’s defamatory history, we’ve got two contestants!”
Audience is on their feet, whooping and hollering.
(Cut to camera three)
(Cue music)
A middle-aged couple promenade towards the podium. They’re dressed like cowboys, and walk with a sense of purpose.
(Split screen)
“Welcome, both of you.”
More like: Welcome to your funeral.
“Tell us a wee bit about yourselves, why don’t you?”
(Cut to camera four)
The woman speaks first. Her hair is amber, her complexion as pale as light beer.
“Well, Bruce. My name is Tammy. I’m a stay-at-home mom. This here’s my partner, Tex. He owns his own gun shop. We live in Austin Texas, with three beautiful children, who are with us here tonight.”
She points.
(Cut to overhead camera)
Two tall boys and a young girl, each dressed head-to-toe in denim, stand and bow.
The audience applauds.
(Split screen)
The other contestant approaches the microphone. He’s as tall as an ivory tower, with a voice like a banjo.
“Howdy Bruce. Good to be here.”
He tilts his cowboy hat. His square jaw and rugged good looks give Chuck Norris a run for his money.
I salute them.
(Cut to camera two)
“Well then, now that we’re finished with the formalities, I do believe it’s time to…”
(Cue audience)
“BRING OUT THE DEVIL.”
(Cue creepy music)
(Cue pyrotechnics)
The stage fills with fire and brimstone. Pentagrams slice through the air. The Devil appears suddenly, dressed in a shiny new devil suit, tailored specifically for tonight’s show. It’s jet-black, and leaves little to the imagination. His pitchforked tail follows closely behind him as he approaches the podium.
(Cut to Camera five)
The Devil wraps his arms around the two contestants, kisses them both on the cheek.
Tex, clearly perturbed, winces, then grudgingly wipes his cheek.
The Devil snarls, then looks him up and down.
“Looks like everything isn’t bigger in Texas,” the Devil teases. Suddenly, he’s grown over eight-feet tall, and is looming over the tall Texan.
(Cut to camera three)
The bright lights and furious makeup make me look like a cartoon.
“What an exciting night this promises to be!”
Tammy steps forward.
“You bet it is, Bruce. We’ve watched every episode. We just love…”
(Cue the audience)
“LET’S MAKE A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL.”
(Cut to camera three)
“Of course!” Damion boasts. “This is Hell’s most popular show. And for good reason.”
He slaps the woman’s backside with his tail, then raises his eyebrows mockingly. The cowboy puffs out his chest, fists clenched, daring him to touch his wife again.
“Woah, easy there pardner.”
Damion nudges Tex.
Tammy is flushed. “Don’t mind Tex. He’s the jealous kind.”
“Oh really?”
Damion’s tail is now shaped like a lasso. With it, he snags Tammy and pulls her close. Her face turns tomato-red.
The cowboy grunts, pulling it off with one strong swoop.
The audience boos.
The Devil snickers.
I feel sick. If this is to be my last episode (or final day on Earth), I don’t want it spoiled by this denim-clad dude whose hat is bigger than his brains, or by Damion, who seems extra feisty tonight. Even for him.
(Cut to camera one)
I clear my throat.
“Tell us, Tammy and Tex…no, tell all of Hell…what it is your beating hearts desire?”
The audience is on the edge of their seats.
(Split screen)
The Texans exchange doubtful looks.
The wife takes charge.
“Well Bruce,” Tammy says. “We don’t want anything that might get us killed. Being from Dallas, we were raised with some common sense.”
The audience hisses.
(Cut to camera five)
The husband steps up.
“That’s right, Bruce. Simply put, we want to be famous for a day. That’s it. Then we can write a book and live off the royalties.”
The audience erupts into a frenzy of catcalls.
(Cut to camera three)
The Devil’s eyebrows touch the top of his head. His voice slithers like a snake.
“Is that so?”
My heart plummets. These Texans are flirting with disaster. If they’d stuck to the script, they might be safe. They were supposed to ask for a lifetime’s supply of Super Bowl tickets. Easy-peasy. Who do these cowpokes think they are? Do they really think they can outsmart the Devil?
“Well then,” I say, shakily. “I’m sure Damion can arrange that.”
I raise my arms.
“What does the audience think?”
The audience goes ballistic.
(Cut to camera three)
The Devil, still towering over the Texans, leans into the camera.
“Famous, eh?”
His lips smack against his face. When he touches the dude’s shoulder, the cowboy swipes his arm away.
The audience boos. Someone tosses an egg onto the podium, narrowly missing the contestants.
“Woah! Easy does it!” I spurt out.
All hell breaks loose.
(Cut to overhead camera)
The crew gets busy, disposing of both the egg and the agitator.
(Cut to camera one)
I wipe my sweaty forehead.
“Tough crowd.”
The audience hoots.
The Devil sneers.
“SILENCE!”
Flames flash across the room.
People shriek, including me.
(Close up of Damion)
The Devil, boasting his gambler’s grin, turns to the contestants.
“Yes, yes. You WILL be famous. But just for one day.”
The audience roars their approval.
I shudder. Never in all my years, have I felt so much animosity from an audience. I’ll be lucky to make it out alive.
(Split screen)
“Sounds like the Devil has a plan.”
I try to sound cheerful. But cheerfulness is the opposite of how I feel.
(Cut to camera one)
“Tell us Damion…and all of Hell…what you’ve got cooked up?”
The audience leans in.
(Cut to camera three)
The Devil winks at Tammy.
“Well, I do believe it’s time for those two cowpokes to become famous. Am I correct?”
The audience jumps to their feet, chanting: “FAMOUS.… FAMOUS…. FAMOUS.…”
(Split screen)
Tammy looks pleased. Her partner, on the other hand, is showing concern. His shoulders are tense, he’s swallowed his bottom lip.
Damion dazzles the audience.
“Famous, y’all shall be.”
He snaps his fingers.
BAM.
The studio goes dark.
Someone in the audience screams.
Tammy gasps.
Tex grunts.
(Cut to camera one)
I shrug.
Is this Damion’s latest trick? Or did they finally cut the power? We give the impression that this show is hugely popular; but in truth, outside of Hell, this show is a dud. Cable and internet companies avoid us like the plague.
(Cut to overhead camera)
The contestants vanish under a cloud of fog.
A flaming pentagram floats across the stage.
“Well, isn’t that just dandy!”
The Devil points to the large screen behind the audience.
“Mister and Missus Cowpoke are about to jump the falls!”
He snaps his fingers, then he disappears.
My legs go weak. My heart is beating irregularly again. I still don’t know he does it. How any of this works. Suddenly, I’m alone on stage, shaking in my fine Italian boots, while the audience grows rowdier by the second.
Cameras mounted on drones are pointed at Tammy and Tex, who are trapped inside a large, steel barrel, with Niagara Falls looming below them.
Damion flies across the falls, lands next to Tammy and Tex.
He taps the barrel.
“Ain’t she a beauty?”
The audience hurrahs.
The barrel is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Although it’s huge, and probably weighs a ton, it barely contains the two Texans, who are kicking and screaming, cursing up a storm.
“Get me the hell out of here!” Tammy’s voice rips through the noise of the falls. “NOW!”
Damion frowns.
“You wanted to be famous. Am I right?”
The audience chants, “FAMOUS…. FAMOUS.… FAMOUS….”
Tex pokes his head out of the barrel, cowboy hat and all.
“Now wait one minute, Damion. That’s unfair. We wanted fame. Not death.”
The Devil chuckles.
“The two are synonymous, am I right?”
The audience agrees.
Damion checks his watch.
“Well then...”
He slams the lid shut.
That’s the end of the Texans, as far as I’m concerned.
(Close up of Damion)
“Whatcha think? Should they jump the falls?”
The audience shouts, “JUMP…. JUMP…. JUMP….”
(Cut to camera two)
My insides are melting. I’m petrified. You’d think working with the Devil would get easier over time. You’d be dead wrong.
“Looks like the people have spoken!” I hear myself say.
The audience continues their chant.
(Cut to overhead camera)
“Excellent,” Damion says, fiddling his fingers.
He looks over the cliff, and makes a sour face.
“Wowsers. That’s a long way down!”
“JUMP…. JUMP…. JUMP....”
“And so much water!”
(Cut to camera one)
My worried-sick face appears on the screen.
I straighten up.
“Once they jump, Tam and Tex will surely be famous!”
Except of course, they won’t be famous. Not in this world anyways. They’ve been duped. Why these people sign up to die is beyond me. Perhaps we’ve reached a spectacular level of stupidity in human evolution.
(Cut to overhead camera)
Damion’s lips stretch across his reddened face, his arms flex like a weightlifter.
“I’ll give them a helping hand.”
He rolls the giant barrel to the very edge of the cliff, ignoring the banging and hollering coming from within the steel coffin.
“Tammy, Tex…” His lips stretch into a snarl. “Prepare for fame!”
The audience is on their feet.
Damion shoves the barrel over the edge.
(Split screen)
The barrel tumbles down the falls, disappearing into the fast-moving water.
The audience holds its breath.
(Cut to spy camera)
Inside the barrel, the Texans are shrieking. Their heads and arms and legs collide. Chunks of puke pour across Tammy’s sickening face, who’s calling Tex every name in the book, and it’s a big book. Meanwhile, Tex is like a frog in a blender. His face is green, his nose is broken; blood is leaking from every orifice.
There’s a loud crash as the barrel plunders underwater.
(Cut to overhead camera)
The barrel resurfaces, traveling dangerously downstream.
The audience is back on their feet, fist-pumping.
(Split screen)
What troubles me is how the pedestrians and tourists, crowding the streets, remain oblivious. To them, this is nothing out of the ordinary. Nobody watches, or even takes a pic. I’m starting to suspect foul play. Somehow, Damion is controlling this. He’s using dark magic. A spell. Maybe none of this is real. Except of course, it is real.
(Cut to camera one)
I’m trembling.
“What a jump!” my voice ricochets off the studio walls. “They’ll be famous in no time!”
The audience chants:
“FAMOUS…. FAMOUS…. FAMOUS….”
(Closeup of the Devil)
“Yes, yes. An excellent jump, I must say.”
He peaks over the edge.
“Looks like they could use some help.”
(Cut to overhead camera)
Damion flies towards the barrel, which is bouncing off rocks and debris.
(Cut to spy camera)
Blood. So much blood in such a tight space. Tammy’s hair is in disarray. Her face is beyond repair. Tex swallowed his hat. One of his eyeballs is bouncing like a Superball. His left arm is flapping nonsensically. It isn’t attached.
(Cut to camera four)
The Devil scoops up the barrel, then flies to shore. When his feet touch the ground, he shakes off the water, cat-like, then glares at the camera.
“What a jump!”
He cranks open the lip.
(Split screen)
Tammy spills out. So does Tex’s left arm.
The audience gasps.
Damion applauds.
“Such valor and swagger!”
(Cut to camera five)
Tammy is flopping fish-like, barely clinging to life. Her mouth is full of blood and brains.
The Devil puts his foot on her head.
“SAY CHEESE.”
From out of nowhere, a photographer appears.
SNAP.
Damion, looking pleased with himself, is suddenly holding a newspaper.
(Closeup of newspaper)
The headline splashes across the screen: IDIOTS JUMP THE FALLS.
(Cut to camera four)
Damion shoves the newspaper in front of her face.
“Looks like Tammy and Tex are famous.”
Tammy's eyes twitch. Clearly, she needs medical assistance. I’m surprised she’s still alive. Her husbands brains are splattered across the inside of the barrel. The very sight of this makes me gag.
Tammy tries to speak, but fails. Her eyes are filled with rage.
Damion tosses the leftover arm into the water, then shrugs.
“Sorry about your hubby.”
(Cut to camera two)
With wobbly knees, I face the audience.
“Looks like the barrel got the best of Tex!”
The audience bellows.
I continue to talk involuntarily.
“Gosh dolly. Look at all that blood!”
“MORE BLOOD…. MORE BLOOD…. MORE BLOOD….”
I find myself chanting along.
Suddenly, my vision blurs. I clutch my chest. Maybe I’ll suffer a heart attack on live TV. Hell waits for no one, I suppose.
(Cut to camera four)
Tammy spits blood on Damion’s boot.
“Devil be damned.” I blurt.
Damion’s face twists into a ball of fury.
“Now, now, Tammy. That wasn’t very nice.”
He crushes her fingers with his boots.
Tammy yelps.
“I was gonna save your long-limbed partner over there,” he points. “Not anymore!”
The audience is bloodthirsty. Paper airplanes and rotten eggs whizz past me. I duck just in time.
(Closeup of contestant)
Tammy’s tongue is leaking from her bloodied face. She’s missing her front teeth. Damion digs his spiky heel deep into her blood-soaked abdomen.
“I reckon you’ll need medical assistance.”
He snaps his fingers.
Suddenly, they're back in the studio.
Damion is as happy as a filthy pig. Next to him is Tammy, who’s caked in blood and gore. Her corpse-of-a-husband spills from the gigantic steel barrel, taking center stage.
(Cut to overhead camera)
The contestant’s children rush the stage. They’re delirious.
The crew hurry out and drag them aside, along with Tammy, who's rushed to the hospital, where she will certainly die.
“Now that’s what I call speedy service!”
My voice appalls me. So does this job. If only I’d listened to my mother, and got into politics.
Damion snaps his finger, then disappears under a plume of dusty smoke.
(Cut to camera one)
“Well, there you have it folks. That’s the last you’ll see of Tammy and Tex. But fret not, they had their moment of fame…in Hell!”
The audience is tossing trash onto the stage.
I narrowly dodge a projectile.
“Hope you’ve enjoyed Season Two as much as I did.”
I hated it.
“And, unless the Devil strikes me down,” and he very-well might, “I hope to see you this Fall, for Season Three of…”
(Cue the audience)
“LET’S MAKE A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL.”
Season Two
Season One
2023.06.01 14:35 3_high_low LS Swap Skylark GS ?
 | My buddy owns these. As you can see, both are beautifuly done frame off restos. They both have/had 455 Buick motors. The motor in the blue one suffered a catastrophic failure while being driven by 20 year old son. (The motor was reincarnated as a shop dog lol.) The motor from the green one, which has a performance cam, was transplanted to the blue car. submitted by 3_high_low to u/3_high_low [link] [comments] So the green car sits without a motor. I have a 428cu in LS stroker sitting in my unused (long story) 2002 Z/28 Camaro. My buddy has subtly hinted he is interested in it. The LS 428 is fresh and cost $11k in 2010 dollars... what should I do? I can't just give it to him. I'm not rich and I have med bills. |
2023.06.01 14:23 imokayurokay A wake up call: realizing my disordered eating is much worse than I thought
Late last year I became a person who does cardio and strength training every day. I lost 20 lbs. For the last 3 months I haven't lost a single one. My diet has been shit, too. I am chronically burned out and it takes weeks of build up to order groceries and when I do, I barely allow myself anything. It has to be all greens and whole grains and healthy to the point where (I haven't started calorie counting) but I get the sense that when I eat like this I am not taking in enough calories.
When I run out of healthy groceries, my diet completely flips. It's all ramen and pizza and fast food breakfast sandwiches. Whatever is convenient but you know how it goes: I have to eat the whole pizza, etc.
So I am in this pattern of restrictive eating and bingeing. I thought I was doing the right thing with my grocery shopping but I think it's actually part of the problem.
I was talking to my mom about how frustrating not losing weight has been. I live with her and she has the opposite problem. She has always been very thin and she also doesn't give much thought to nutrition so everything is processed food, pasta, potatoes as a side with every meal, vegetables are an afterthought. She also doesn't mind food waste and hardly eats leftovers. Our household income does not justify throwing money away like that so you can imagine what a volatile situation this combo makes.
So when we talked she asked me whether it was possible for me to cut back on portions. She said I am not losing weight because I am not burning enough calories. I have been open with her about binge eating before but she doesn't really 'get' it. She mentioned I need my own diet separate from how she eats but I have tried that and then she cooks meals and is offended that I don't eat with her.
I'm just at a loss. I feel so out of control and discouraged. My mom has never outright told me my issue might be portion control and while I have known that as well - talking openly about it just makes me realize how much I can't seem to control myself. I can go hard on cardio for 7 days a week for months and still weight the same. Well not the same anymore as I have gained about 7 lbs back.
I can't even begin to unpack the painful emotions behind why I am so dependent on food. I know it's what I have to do but I don't know where to start. I do know my father molested me for years and my mother has some kind of personality disorder and I've got some sneaky borderline traits. I definitely should not be living with her and I definitely should be in therapy.
submitted by imokayurokay to FoodAddiction [link] [comments]
When I run out of healthy groceries, my diet completely flips. It's all ramen and pizza and fast food breakfast sandwiches. Whatever is convenient but you know how it goes: I have to eat the whole pizza, etc.
So I am in this pattern of restrictive eating and bingeing. I thought I was doing the right thing with my grocery shopping but I think it's actually part of the problem.
I was talking to my mom about how frustrating not losing weight has been. I live with her and she has the opposite problem. She has always been very thin and she also doesn't give much thought to nutrition so everything is processed food, pasta, potatoes as a side with every meal, vegetables are an afterthought. She also doesn't mind food waste and hardly eats leftovers. Our household income does not justify throwing money away like that so you can imagine what a volatile situation this combo makes.
So when we talked she asked me whether it was possible for me to cut back on portions. She said I am not losing weight because I am not burning enough calories. I have been open with her about binge eating before but she doesn't really 'get' it. She mentioned I need my own diet separate from how she eats but I have tried that and then she cooks meals and is offended that I don't eat with her.
I'm just at a loss. I feel so out of control and discouraged. My mom has never outright told me my issue might be portion control and while I have known that as well - talking openly about it just makes me realize how much I can't seem to control myself. I can go hard on cardio for 7 days a week for months and still weight the same. Well not the same anymore as I have gained about 7 lbs back.
I can't even begin to unpack the painful emotions behind why I am so dependent on food. I know it's what I have to do but I don't know where to start. I do know my father molested me for years and my mother has some kind of personality disorder and I've got some sneaky borderline traits. I definitely should not be living with her and I definitely should be in therapy.
2023.06.01 14:19 Character_Ease_1333 5 Stylish Couples' Outfits to Elevate Your Summer Vacation Vibe
If you're still in search of inspiration for your upcoming summer vacation, this article is here to guide you. Whether you're traveling with friends or your significant other, planning the perfect couple's vacation outfits can be a challenge. But fear not! We have curated a list of trendy summer outfits for both men and women that will not only keep you comfortable but also ensure you capture Instagram-worthy moments throughout your trip. So, pack your bags, get ready to explore, and let these stylish outfits make your vacation dreams come true.
Tips for Packing Efficiently:
Before we dive into the couple's vacation outfits, let's start with some tips to help you pack efficiently:
Denim All the Way:
submitted by Character_Ease_1333 to u/Character_Ease_1333 [link] [comments]
Tips for Packing Efficiently:
Before we dive into the couple's vacation outfits, let's start with some tips to help you pack efficiently:
- Check the weather forecast and pack accordingly.
- Opt for versatile pieces that can be worn in multiple ways.
- Organize your accessories based on your outfits.
- Pack classic items like blue jeans or white sneakers that can easily be mixed and matched.
- Choose comfortable footwear such as slip-on shoes, flip-flops, sneakers, or sandals.
- Stick to outfits you've worn before and feel confident in.
- Keep light outerwear handy for unexpected temperature changes.
- Create a packing list to ensure you don't forget anything.
- Categorize your outfits based on different occasions.
- Don't forget to pack extra innerwear and swimsuits.
Denim All the Way:
- Denim is a versatile and essential choice for any vacation. For women, a pink sleeveless crop top from Ginger paired with lavender high-rise flared jeans creates a stylish summer ensemble. Men can opt for a comfy cotton t-shirt from Fame Forever featuring a Sun Day typography print, paired with white slouchy fit jeans from Forca.
- No beach vacation is complete without a pair of shorts. Women can go for Ginger's sage green elasticated shorts, paired with a blue polka-dotted tee for a casual and trendy look. Men can choose Indian Terrain's mint green shorts paired with a light blue t-shirt from Fame Forever, featuring the word "Unwind" across the front.
- Beach-ready outfits are a must for any seaside getaway. For women, a stunning olive green skater dress from Faballey with square neck and floral motifs can be dressed up or down for various occasions. Men can opt for a white half-sleeved tropical print shirt from Flying Machine, paired with beige elasticated sports shorts from Puma for a stylish and comfortable beach look.
- For a special date night, women can go for Code's elegant white A-line dress with Schiffli detailing, a tie-up waist, and a V-neck. Men can try Code's cool white linen shirt paired with light grey checked casual trousers from Jack & Jones for a smart and minimalist look. Complete the outfit with clean white sneakers.
- If you're attending a desi party during your vacation, embrace ethnic summer wear. Women can opt for Indya's cheerful yellow sleeveless top with embellishments, paired with a blue and yellow color-blocked A-line skirt adorned with bold prints. Men can slip into Melange by Lifestyle's yellow kurta featuring a band collar and floral embroidery, paired with soft blue pyjamas or white straight pants.
2023.06.01 14:04 SerLevArris Some Calvary Sale History for light reading
This just started as pointing out that the last time this was going on in 2009, Little Company of Mary Healthcare (LCMHC) were fully on board with the sale of Calvary Public to ACTGOV, but has kind of desceneded into a waffle of lots of history of Calvary so buckle up I guess.
May 2008
Concerns were raised about Calvary's ability to keep public funds from being used for the Private section of the hospital.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2008-05-29/govt-calvary-hospital-agreement-out-of-date/2453028
https://www.audit.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/1205452/Report-No-2-2008-Management-of-Calvary-Hospital-Agreements.pdf
April 2009
Proposed sale of public hospital to ACTGOV for $77 million.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2009-04-21/act-govt-plans-to-take-over-calvary-hospital/1657880
In 2009, the Little Company of Mary (LCM) was very keen on the idea of a sale, even so much as putting the ball firmly in the government's court to make it happen.
October 2009
George pell is against the idea of a sale.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2009-10-28/calvary-sale-driven-by-anti-christian-elements/1119098
November 2009
Irespective of what religous figures want, LCMHC themselves commission a poll to ACT Residents to ask them if it is a good idea, with 64% of respondants thinking it is a good idea.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2009-11-11/calvary-sale-survey-a-push-poll/1137284
January 2010
Turns out that LCMHC needs approval from the Catholic Church in Rome before it can sign off on the deal, even if they want it to go ahead.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-01-19/calvary-sale-on-hold-pending-vatican-approval/1215356
Feburary 2010
Deals falls through as it would take several years for vatican approval.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-02-07/no-deal-calvary-sale-falls-through/2594574
Feburary 2010
The idea of a compulsary aquisition is bandied about. 13 years ago.....Greens keen on the idea.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-02-09/govt-in-a-bind-over-calvary/324910
March 2010
Sale back on. This time ACTGOV would own the buildings and LCM would run it.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-03-18/calvary-sale-back-on-the-cards/370078
March 2010
Archbishop still not keen on the idea. Would need support for the Vatican approval.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-03-25/calvary-deal-fails-to-convince-archbishop/379012
August 2010
Sale offer withdrawn by ACTGOV as turns out Calvary can be considered an asset
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-08-13/calvary-hospital-sale-off-again/943466
Even at this point, LCM is still super keen on the idea of the sale.
September 2014
CEO and CFO of Calvary resign for some reason...im sure it's nothing serious.
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6078641/calvary-hospital-chief-financial-officer-resigns-weeks-after-ceo-goes/
March 2016
Calvary begin building the Private hospital building on site at Bruce.
https://www.calvarycare.org.au/blog/media-releases/calvarys-hospital-future-open-2017/
April 2016
Oopsies. "Calvary Public Hospital executive faked documents, meetings to hide $5m loss: report"
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-08/calvary-public-hospital-staff-hid-losses-report-finds/7311524
More details https://asic.gov.au/about-asic/news-centre/find-a-media-release/2019-releases/19-037mr-former-chief-financial-officer-convicted-of-causing-false-records-and-providing-false-information-to-company-audito
Can read the auditor report here as well https://www.audit.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/1179940/Report-No.-1-of-2016-Calvary-Public-Hospital-Financial-and-Performance-Reporting-and-Management.pdf
September 2017
$77 million Private hospital opens - Has maternity services https://the-riotact.com/new-77-million-calvary-private-hospital-opens-in-canberras-north/217844
It's not spelt out in a news article, but the Private opened without providing all services itself, it was still dependant on the Public Hospital providing services for some Allied Health and other areas. So cross-charging remains. Also, at some point in there there was no longer a CEO of the Public and a CEO of the Private. There is one overarching CEO of both sites appointed by LCM, with General Managers now.
July 2018
Calvary Public get a 2.6 million refurb of the Maternity area, paid for by ACTGOV.
https://the-riotact.com/government-hoping-2-6-million-calvary-maternity-upgrade-will-relieve-pressure-on-centenary-hospital/258312
March 2019
Calvary Private close maternity services due to a midwife shortage.
https://the-riotact.com/midwife-shortage-closes-calvary-private-postnatal-ward/292104
May 2023
Rounding this out is a statement from Martin Bowles, Calvary's National Chief Executive.
https://www.calvarycare.org.au/blog/media-releases/calvary-pursuing-genuine-negotiation-with-act-government/
Which ends with this statement:
So my key observations.
EDIT: Horrible formatting.
submitted by SerLevArris to canberra [link] [comments]
May 2008
Concerns were raised about Calvary's ability to keep public funds from being used for the Private section of the hospital.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2008-05-29/govt-calvary-hospital-agreement-out-of-date/2453028
Auditor-General Tu Pham has looked into that arrangement and found the agreements between Calvary and ACT Health are complex, not well understood and out of date. ... She says separate audited accounts were not provided to ACT Health and there was a risk the public hospital had subsidised the private facility.The news article by itself doesnt go into much details, only that there is the risk of public money being used to prop up the Private Hospital. Digging into the actual report though, reveals a few details about "cross-charging" for services and who determines how much the cross-charging should be.
https://www.audit.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/1205452/Report-No-2-2008-Management-of-Calvary-Hospital-Agreements.pdf
The current CHC reimbursement systems involve complex calculations and the exercise of judgement. This, as well as inadequate controls, increases the following risks:I can't find a news article about it, but after this report, one of the solutions was that Calvary Build a new Private hospital to clearly define a separation between Public and Private.
− incorrect calculations or omission of the amount of reimbursements;
− use of charges that are not in accordance with the Calvary Private
Agreement and subsequent variations;
− incorrect or incomplete data supplied by peripheral systems; and
− potential cross-subsidisation of the private hospital through not appropriately recovering the cost of using the public hospital’s staff, facilities and services.
CHC does not have documented policies or procedures to guide staff in the preparation and calculation of the monthly reimbursements. The current cross-charging systems and processes rely on a few officers’ corporate knowledge and their understanding of the cross-charging arrangements.
The Chief Financial Officer for CHC approved the monthly reimbursements between the public and private hospitals. There was no evidence of review of the correctness and completeness of reimbursements to the Calvary Public Hospital by any relevant staff working solely for the public hospital. The current arrangements expose CHC to the risk of a perception of conflict of interest since the key officers involved in the management of crosscharging are employed by CHC.
April 2009
Proposed sale of public hospital to ACTGOV for $77 million.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2009-04-21/act-govt-plans-to-take-over-calvary-hospital/1657880
In 2009, the Little Company of Mary (LCM) was very keen on the idea of a sale, even so much as putting the ball firmly in the government's court to make it happen.
The owner of Calvary, the Little Company of Mary, says it would use money from the sale to build a new private hospital. Little Company of Mary chairman Tom Brennan says it will be easier for the Government to boost investment in the hospital if it is the owner and he does not want to stand in the way. He says people should not be worried that the sale will reduce the variety of health services in the ACT. "An aspect of this transaction means that we will be able to be very confident in building a state of the art new private health care facility in Bruce so that in fact we'll be enhancing our presence in Canberra," he said. However Mr Brennan says they cannot force the Government's hand. "That ultimately would be a decision for Government," he said.
October 2009
George pell is against the idea of a sale.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2009-10-28/calvary-sale-driven-by-anti-christian-elements/1119098
November 2009
Irespective of what religous figures want, LCMHC themselves commission a poll to ACT Residents to ask them if it is a good idea, with 64% of respondants thinking it is a good idea.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2009-11-11/calvary-sale-survey-a-push-poll/1137284
January 2010
Turns out that LCMHC needs approval from the Catholic Church in Rome before it can sign off on the deal, even if they want it to go ahead.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-01-19/calvary-sale-on-hold-pending-vatican-approval/1215356
Feburary 2010
Deals falls through as it would take several years for vatican approval.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-02-07/no-deal-calvary-sale-falls-through/2594574
Feburary 2010
The idea of a compulsary aquisition is bandied about. 13 years ago.....Greens keen on the idea.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-02-09/govt-in-a-bind-over-calvary/324910
March 2010
Sale back on. This time ACTGOV would own the buildings and LCM would run it.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-03-18/calvary-sale-back-on-the-cards/370078
March 2010
Archbishop still not keen on the idea. Would need support for the Vatican approval.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-03-25/calvary-deal-fails-to-convince-archbishop/379012
August 2010
Sale offer withdrawn by ACTGOV as turns out Calvary can be considered an asset
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-08-13/calvary-hospital-sale-off-again/943466
Even at this point, LCM is still super keen on the idea of the sale.
The chairman of the Little Company of Mary, Tom Brennan, says the health provider is considering the advice. "That is a legal proposition that Calvary finds surprising and we're taking legal advice on that question," he said. But Mr Brennan says it is too early to say what it means for the current proposal.
September 2014
CEO and CFO of Calvary resign for some reason...im sure it's nothing serious.
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6078641/calvary-hospital-chief-financial-officer-resigns-weeks-after-ceo-goes/
March 2016
Calvary begin building the Private hospital building on site at Bruce.
https://www.calvarycare.org.au/blog/media-releases/calvarys-hospital-future-open-2017/
April 2016
Oopsies. "Calvary Public Hospital executive faked documents, meetings to hide $5m loss: report"
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-08/calvary-public-hospital-staff-hid-losses-report-finds/7311524
More details https://asic.gov.au/about-asic/news-centre/find-a-media-release/2019-releases/19-037mr-former-chief-financial-officer-convicted-of-causing-false-records-and-providing-false-information-to-company-audito
Can read the auditor report here as well https://www.audit.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/1179940/Report-No.-1-of-2016-Calvary-Public-Hospital-Financial-and-Performance-Reporting-and-Management.pdf
September 2017
$77 million Private hospital opens - Has maternity services https://the-riotact.com/new-77-million-calvary-private-hospital-opens-in-canberras-north/217844
It's not spelt out in a news article, but the Private opened without providing all services itself, it was still dependant on the Public Hospital providing services for some Allied Health and other areas. So cross-charging remains. Also, at some point in there there was no longer a CEO of the Public and a CEO of the Private. There is one overarching CEO of both sites appointed by LCM, with General Managers now.
July 2018
Calvary Public get a 2.6 million refurb of the Maternity area, paid for by ACTGOV.
https://the-riotact.com/government-hoping-2-6-million-calvary-maternity-upgrade-will-relieve-pressure-on-centenary-hospital/258312
March 2019
Calvary Private close maternity services due to a midwife shortage.
https://the-riotact.com/midwife-shortage-closes-calvary-private-postnatal-ward/292104
May 2023
Rounding this out is a statement from Martin Bowles, Calvary's National Chief Executive.
https://www.calvarycare.org.au/blog/media-releases/calvary-pursuing-genuine-negotiation-with-act-government/
Which ends with this statement:
“Calvary has 76 years left on our contract, which is part of our long-term business planning and the ACT Government cannot simply take that away from our overall business without impacting our services more broadly,” said Mr Bowles.
So my key observations.
- Calvary was very keen on this last time.
- Always been concerns about Public money being used to prop up the Private side.
- Some dodgy work to cook the books.
- Calvary Private is still dependant on the Public Hospital providing services, any cross-charging arragement would change if ACTGOV took over.
EDIT: Horrible formatting.
2023.06.01 13:37 silentscribe07 The Role of Commercial Property in Noida's Hospitality and Tourism Sector
Noida the city of fame located in Noida, a renowned city in the National Capital Region (NCR) of India is now an important center for business activities, particularly in the tourism and hospitality sector. Because of its central location as well as well-planned infrastructure as well as growing opportunities for business, Noida has become a popular destination for both businesses as well as investors. This article examines the important significance of commercial property in Noida's tourism and hospitality industry and focuses on the most important projects that aid its development.
Commercial Properties located in Noida are driving growth in Tourism and Hospitality
Noida provides a variety of commercial properties catering to the particular demands of the tourism and hospitality sector. These facilities not only provide a perfect location for businesses to run but also attract people and visitors to the city, adding to the appeal of the city overall. Let's look into some noteworthy initiatives that are transforming the commercial landscape in Noida.
World Trade Tower (WTT Noida Sector 16)
The World Trade Tower in Noida's Sector 16 is a prestigious commercial project that is now an iconic symbol of the city. It is a state-of-the-art facility with high-tech amenities and an ideal setting for businesses operating that operate in the tourism and hospitality sector. The tower's location makes it accessible to the transportation hubs and draws both tenants and investors from around the world.
World Trade Center (WTC Noida Sector 132)
A different notable project includes notable project is the World Trade Center in Noida's Sector 132. The World Trade Center is a world-class commercial project that gives businesses a powerful place to collaborate and network. By focusing on trade and globalization and trade, World Trade Center acts as an effective catalyst to attract international companies as well as promote development in the tourism and hospitality sector.
Bhutani Cyberthum
Bhutani Cyberthum, located in Noida's Sector 140A. It is a modern commercial development that blends sustainability with innovation. It has modern commercial spaces, retail stores as well as entertainment and leisure zones which makes it a perfect location for companies within the tourism and hospitality industry. Its distinctive design as well as modern facilities have received favorable reviews, which further enhances the appeal of this project.
Bhutani experience (Sector 32)
Bhutani Experience located in Noida's Sector 32 is a commercial establishment that caters to the changing demands of business in the tourism and hospitality sector. The facility offers flexible offices as well as conference rooms as well as recreational amenities, making an exciting and productive working atmosphere. Its position within a highly-connected location makes it easy for customers as well as employees.
Bhutani 62 Avenue (Sector Sector Noida)
Bhutani 62 Avenue situated within Sector 62 Noida is a commercial project offering a complete solution for companies that operate in the tourism and hospitality sector. The project offers commercial spaces, retail outlets, and entertainment facilities which makes it an all-in-one location for tourists. Its location in a strategic area and its well-maintained infrastructure make it a great investment.
Bhutani Techno Park (Sector 127 Noida)
Bhutani Techno Park located in Noida's Sector 127 is a commercial facility that is designed to satisfy the varied demands of business within the hospitality and tourism industry. The facility offers top office space with conference facilities, meeting rooms, as well as recreation areas that encourage cooperation and creativity. The proximity of the project to major roads and transport hubs makes it more accessible and easy to use.
Bhutani City Center (Sector 150)
Bhutani City Center, located in Noida's sector 150, is a commercial project which caters to the requirements of hospitality businesses and the tourism industry. Its modern design large office space as well as retail stores It creates a stimulating and vibrant environment for businesses and tourists. Its location in major residential areas boosts foot traffic and increases customer satisfaction.
Spectrum Metro Mall (Sector 75 Noida)
Spectrum Metro Mall in Noida's Sector 75 is a renowned commercial space that functions as a central point for business within the tourism and hospitality sector. The mall offers shopping areas, entertainment zones, and offices providing an experience that is seamless for those who visit. Its central location and numerous amenities make it an ideal place to shop, dine, and entertainment.
Sky Bhutani Alphathum (Sector 90)
Sky Bhutani Alphathum, situated in Noida's Sector 90 is a commercial development catering to the rising need for offices within the tourism and hospitality industry. The project provides companies with contemporary offices that are sustainable with cutting-edge amenities. The unique design and green features are a major reason for the popularity of the project among investors as well as tenants.
Bhutani Cyber Courtyard
Bhutani Cyber Courtyard located in Noida is a creative commercial space designed for companies within the tourism and hospitality industry. The space offers flexible workspaces with collaborative zones as well as recreational spaces, creating an enjoyable and productive working environment. The prime location of the project and modern design makes it a desirable alternative for those looking for commercial space located in Noida.
Bhutani Cyber Park
Bhutani Cyber Park is a commercial project located in Noida that serves businesses that operate in the tourism and hospitality sector. The park offers office space that is modern as well as a modern IT infrastructure and many facilities. The location of the project, which is strategic within Sector 62 Noida, known for its business-friendly atmosphere and its business-friendly environment, adds further attraction.
Bhutani Etherea
The Bhutani Etherea property is a commercial building located in Noida offering office spaces as well as co-working spaces to companies within the tourism and hospitality industry. The property offers design, functionality as well as sustainability to create an ideal workspace. Its emphasis on collaboration areas and innovative design has been a popular choice by businesses.
Conclusion
The commercial buildings situated in Noida are a key factor in the development and growth of the tourism and hospitality sector. Initiatives such as The World Trade Tower, World Trade Center, Bhutani Cyberthum, and Bhutani Experience have reshaped the city's appearance, providing companies with the latest technology, flexible workspaces as well as cutting-edge facilities. The properties do not just serve the needs of companies, but can also enhance Noida's popularity as a place to visit for travelers and tourists.
The investment in commercial properties in Noida offers lucrative opportunities to firms in the hospitality or tourism business. Noida's location is strategic along with its well-designed infrastructure and the emergence of well-known projects make the city an ideal location for businesses seeking to establish their brand and profit from the growing market.
To find out more, dial: +91 99009009728
submitted by silentscribe07 to u/silentscribe07 [link] [comments]
Commercial Properties located in Noida are driving growth in Tourism and Hospitality
Noida provides a variety of commercial properties catering to the particular demands of the tourism and hospitality sector. These facilities not only provide a perfect location for businesses to run but also attract people and visitors to the city, adding to the appeal of the city overall. Let's look into some noteworthy initiatives that are transforming the commercial landscape in Noida.
World Trade Tower (WTT Noida Sector 16)
The World Trade Tower in Noida's Sector 16 is a prestigious commercial project that is now an iconic symbol of the city. It is a state-of-the-art facility with high-tech amenities and an ideal setting for businesses operating that operate in the tourism and hospitality sector. The tower's location makes it accessible to the transportation hubs and draws both tenants and investors from around the world.
World Trade Center (WTC Noida Sector 132)
A different notable project includes notable project is the World Trade Center in Noida's Sector 132. The World Trade Center is a world-class commercial project that gives businesses a powerful place to collaborate and network. By focusing on trade and globalization and trade, World Trade Center acts as an effective catalyst to attract international companies as well as promote development in the tourism and hospitality sector.
Bhutani Cyberthum
Bhutani Cyberthum, located in Noida's Sector 140A. It is a modern commercial development that blends sustainability with innovation. It has modern commercial spaces, retail stores as well as entertainment and leisure zones which makes it a perfect location for companies within the tourism and hospitality industry. Its distinctive design as well as modern facilities have received favorable reviews, which further enhances the appeal of this project.
Bhutani experience (Sector 32)
Bhutani Experience located in Noida's Sector 32 is a commercial establishment that caters to the changing demands of business in the tourism and hospitality sector. The facility offers flexible offices as well as conference rooms as well as recreational amenities, making an exciting and productive working atmosphere. Its position within a highly-connected location makes it easy for customers as well as employees.
Bhutani 62 Avenue (Sector Sector Noida)
Bhutani 62 Avenue situated within Sector 62 Noida is a commercial project offering a complete solution for companies that operate in the tourism and hospitality sector. The project offers commercial spaces, retail outlets, and entertainment facilities which makes it an all-in-one location for tourists. Its location in a strategic area and its well-maintained infrastructure make it a great investment.
Bhutani Techno Park (Sector 127 Noida)
Bhutani Techno Park located in Noida's Sector 127 is a commercial facility that is designed to satisfy the varied demands of business within the hospitality and tourism industry. The facility offers top office space with conference facilities, meeting rooms, as well as recreation areas that encourage cooperation and creativity. The proximity of the project to major roads and transport hubs makes it more accessible and easy to use.
Bhutani City Center (Sector 150)
Bhutani City Center, located in Noida's sector 150, is a commercial project which caters to the requirements of hospitality businesses and the tourism industry. Its modern design large office space as well as retail stores It creates a stimulating and vibrant environment for businesses and tourists. Its location in major residential areas boosts foot traffic and increases customer satisfaction.
Spectrum Metro Mall (Sector 75 Noida)
Spectrum Metro Mall in Noida's Sector 75 is a renowned commercial space that functions as a central point for business within the tourism and hospitality sector. The mall offers shopping areas, entertainment zones, and offices providing an experience that is seamless for those who visit. Its central location and numerous amenities make it an ideal place to shop, dine, and entertainment.
Sky Bhutani Alphathum (Sector 90)
Sky Bhutani Alphathum, situated in Noida's Sector 90 is a commercial development catering to the rising need for offices within the tourism and hospitality industry. The project provides companies with contemporary offices that are sustainable with cutting-edge amenities. The unique design and green features are a major reason for the popularity of the project among investors as well as tenants.
Bhutani Cyber Courtyard
Bhutani Cyber Courtyard located in Noida is a creative commercial space designed for companies within the tourism and hospitality industry. The space offers flexible workspaces with collaborative zones as well as recreational spaces, creating an enjoyable and productive working environment. The prime location of the project and modern design makes it a desirable alternative for those looking for commercial space located in Noida.
Bhutani Cyber Park
Bhutani Cyber Park is a commercial project located in Noida that serves businesses that operate in the tourism and hospitality sector. The park offers office space that is modern as well as a modern IT infrastructure and many facilities. The location of the project, which is strategic within Sector 62 Noida, known for its business-friendly atmosphere and its business-friendly environment, adds further attraction.
Bhutani Etherea
The Bhutani Etherea property is a commercial building located in Noida offering office spaces as well as co-working spaces to companies within the tourism and hospitality industry. The property offers design, functionality as well as sustainability to create an ideal workspace. Its emphasis on collaboration areas and innovative design has been a popular choice by businesses.
Conclusion
The commercial buildings situated in Noida are a key factor in the development and growth of the tourism and hospitality sector. Initiatives such as The World Trade Tower, World Trade Center, Bhutani Cyberthum, and Bhutani Experience have reshaped the city's appearance, providing companies with the latest technology, flexible workspaces as well as cutting-edge facilities. The properties do not just serve the needs of companies, but can also enhance Noida's popularity as a place to visit for travelers and tourists.
The investment in commercial properties in Noida offers lucrative opportunities to firms in the hospitality or tourism business. Noida's location is strategic along with its well-designed infrastructure and the emergence of well-known projects make the city an ideal location for businesses seeking to establish their brand and profit from the growing market.
To find out more, dial: +91 99009009728
2023.06.01 13:26 chilemonster2021 FRONTIER RESTAURANT PRODUCTS
The greatest New Mexican cuisine is available at Chile Monster, your one-stop shop for inexpensive and delectable meals, spices, snacks, cookbooks, and more. Bring any of our Frontier restaurant items home, including tortillas, frozen roasted chiles, green chile salsa, chile stew, chile pork posole, and the finest breakfast burritos. We offer flavours to satisfy every appetite you may have. Check out all of the Frontier goods that would make excellent kitchen additions. You've come to the perfect location whether you're looking for a specific dish or want to sample one of our many cuisines. Choose your favourites or completely try something new. Shop with ease for Frontier supplies as well as other distinctive products from various restaurants and brands on our website. We have all the flavours you enjoy in our shop, whether they are savoury, spicy, hot, or sweet. Browse through our high-quality items at your own pace.
submitted by chilemonster2021 to u/chilemonster2021 [link] [comments]
2023.06.01 12:23 Appropriate-Gas-9372 Paper bag manufacturers company in UAE Printing and Packaging Companies in UAE
 | We are a major papeshopping bag manufacturer and wholesaler in the United Arab Emirates serving the retail and HORECA industry. Printing and Packaging Companies in UAE submitted by Appropriate-Gas-9372 to u/Appropriate-Gas-9372 [link] [comments] Our Packaging Solutions help you make your brand’s story a bestseller. From the birth of an idea to the development process with many prototypes, we work closely with you to develop your packaging to truly represent your brand, to tell its story and delight your customers. https://preview.redd.it/7pwu0fcoud3b1.jpg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dca4fd89a5c371fa73bf2fd72b755929d2eb3d75 We at Go Green are proud of our deeply embedded legacy in the sands of UAE and stand committed to continuously enhance it through our products and services that are Proudly Made in UAE. We focus on creating sustainable, environment friendly and innovative packaging solutions that are truly green in every aspect. Retail Shopping Bag Manufacturers in UAE With our rich and diverse experience in understanding a variety of technologies we create packaging solutions that are of Top Quality and with full understanding of your unique and varied requirements. We work, creating a better environment by using FSC Certified paper, Recycled paper and use of water-based inks with approved treatment and disposal of wastes. We care. It’s always the small pieces that make the big picture. And the printed paper bag is one such piece in your Packaging mix. We help you with its design as part of your brand’s story that connects with your customers. Go Green Packaging LLC, brings in a fresh approach to high quality Printing and Packaging Companies in UAE finishing in paper bags industry, in the current market. The technical back up and responsive sales team give additional confidence in understanding the needs of the consumer very well. Go Green’s, prompt delivery, a good and pleasant service has gone a long way in establishing common respect for both, end users and companies dealing with the industry. There are several printing and packaging companies in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Some well-known companies include: These are just a few examples; you can find more by searching online or in the yellow pages. For more details visit our website: Eco Friendly Packaging Manufacturers in Dubai CONTACT US: GO GREEN PLANET Dubai, UAE Call: +971521949588 Email: [email protected] Website: www.gogreenplanet.ae #EcoFriendlyPackagingManufacturersinDubai #RetailShoppingBagManufacturersinUAE #HighQualityShoppingPaperBagDubai #PaperBagManufacturersinUAE #PaperBagManufacturersCompanyinUAE |
2023.06.01 12:07 Pranil1231 Ajmera Lakeside Paradise: The Epitome of Experiential Living in Bangalore
Discover a haven of tranquility nestled amidst the scenic beauty of Yelahanka, Bangalore. Ajmera Lakeside Paradise, a prestigious project by Ajmera Group, offers a truly exceptional living experience alongside one of Yelahanka's most prized natural treasures - a picturesque lake. With its modern planning, thoughtful design, and easy accessibility to the captivating natural surroundings, this luxury living community is unlike any other.
Spread across an expansive 105 acres, Ajmera Lakeside Paradise presents a master-planned development that prioritizes open spaces, ensuring residents can bask in the serenity and grandeur of their surroundings. With 80% of the project dedicated to open spaces, residents can enjoy the perfect blend of nature and modern amenities.
One of the standout features of this project is the grand 20,000 square feet clubhouse. Designed to offer residents a myriad of experiences, the clubhouse serves as a hub for social interactions and leisure activities. With over 40 unique experiences to choose from, there's something for everyone. Whether you prefer to indulge in fitness activities, relax by the pool, or spend quality time with loved ones in the party lawn, Ajmera Lakeside Paradise caters to your every need.
Connectivity is a key aspect of any residential project, and Ajmera Lakeside Paradise excels in this regard. Situated in the heart of Yelahanka, just 15 minutes away from Hebbal, residents have easy access to essential services and amenities. The project is surrounded by renowned hospitals like Cytecare Cancer Hospital, Manipal Hospital, and Ramaiah Medical College, ensuring that healthcare needs are well taken care of. Additionally, the proximity to prestigious educational institutions such as Vidyashilp Academy, Ryan International School, and BMS Institute of Technology & Management makes it an ideal choice for families.
For those seeking recreation and entertainment, a variety of parks, gardens, and shopping destinations are within reach. The J.B Kaval Tree Park, Puttanahalli Bird Reserve, and Yelahanka 5th phase BBMP park offer green spaces where residents can unwind and reconnect with nature. Shopping enthusiasts will find themselves spoilt for choice with malls like Garuda Mall, Esteem Mall, and RMZ Galleria Mall just a short distance away.
The impeccable planning of Ajmera Lakeside Paradise is complemented by its top-notch amenities. The project boasts a temperature-controlled swimming pool, a first in its category, allowing residents to take a refreshing dip regardless of the weather. Other amenities include a party lawn, bonfire area, library, yoga center, and an open-air gym, ensuring that residents can lead a fulfilling and active lifestyle without stepping outside the community.
When it comes to security, Ajmera Lakeside Paradise leaves no stone unturned. With three-tier security measures in place, residents can enjoy peace of mind and a sense of safety within the gated community.
In conclusion, Ajmera Lakeside Paradise represents the epitome of experiential living in Bangalore. With its idyllic location, meticulously planned development, and a plethora of amenities, this project offers residents the opportunity to live their dream life in a truly paradisiacal setting. Experience the beauty, tranquility, and freedom of a picturesque holiday every day of the year at Ajmera Lakeside Paradise.
This Article is also published on medium.com
https://medium.com/@pranilshah053/ajmera-lakeside-paradise-the-epitome-of-experiential-living-in-bangalore-3ca6d6be2dd1
submitted by Pranil1231 to u/Pranil1231 [link] [comments]
Spread across an expansive 105 acres, Ajmera Lakeside Paradise presents a master-planned development that prioritizes open spaces, ensuring residents can bask in the serenity and grandeur of their surroundings. With 80% of the project dedicated to open spaces, residents can enjoy the perfect blend of nature and modern amenities.
One of the standout features of this project is the grand 20,000 square feet clubhouse. Designed to offer residents a myriad of experiences, the clubhouse serves as a hub for social interactions and leisure activities. With over 40 unique experiences to choose from, there's something for everyone. Whether you prefer to indulge in fitness activities, relax by the pool, or spend quality time with loved ones in the party lawn, Ajmera Lakeside Paradise caters to your every need.
Connectivity is a key aspect of any residential project, and Ajmera Lakeside Paradise excels in this regard. Situated in the heart of Yelahanka, just 15 minutes away from Hebbal, residents have easy access to essential services and amenities. The project is surrounded by renowned hospitals like Cytecare Cancer Hospital, Manipal Hospital, and Ramaiah Medical College, ensuring that healthcare needs are well taken care of. Additionally, the proximity to prestigious educational institutions such as Vidyashilp Academy, Ryan International School, and BMS Institute of Technology & Management makes it an ideal choice for families.
For those seeking recreation and entertainment, a variety of parks, gardens, and shopping destinations are within reach. The J.B Kaval Tree Park, Puttanahalli Bird Reserve, and Yelahanka 5th phase BBMP park offer green spaces where residents can unwind and reconnect with nature. Shopping enthusiasts will find themselves spoilt for choice with malls like Garuda Mall, Esteem Mall, and RMZ Galleria Mall just a short distance away.
The impeccable planning of Ajmera Lakeside Paradise is complemented by its top-notch amenities. The project boasts a temperature-controlled swimming pool, a first in its category, allowing residents to take a refreshing dip regardless of the weather. Other amenities include a party lawn, bonfire area, library, yoga center, and an open-air gym, ensuring that residents can lead a fulfilling and active lifestyle without stepping outside the community.
When it comes to security, Ajmera Lakeside Paradise leaves no stone unturned. With three-tier security measures in place, residents can enjoy peace of mind and a sense of safety within the gated community.
In conclusion, Ajmera Lakeside Paradise represents the epitome of experiential living in Bangalore. With its idyllic location, meticulously planned development, and a plethora of amenities, this project offers residents the opportunity to live their dream life in a truly paradisiacal setting. Experience the beauty, tranquility, and freedom of a picturesque holiday every day of the year at Ajmera Lakeside Paradise.
This Article is also published on medium.com
https://medium.com/@pranilshah053/ajmera-lakeside-paradise-the-epitome-of-experiential-living-in-bangalore-3ca6d6be2dd1