Why? Just why? Why are 85%+ of the web stories with romance in them romanticizing Stockholm syndrome, trauma bonding, and the instantaneous ability to wipe all the crimes of their abuser from mind and earth? I get that some people heal by forgiving their abusers, and yes, sometimes abusers can change for the better....but what the actual fuck are authors doing by promoting their female protagonists forgiving the people who hurt them the instant an apology is made? Real life trauma isn't wiped away with 2 words....that shit takes time and effort and repeated proof. Why are these female protagonists getting away from the torment and abuse, becoming bad ass women, and returning to face their past only to become happy little submissives to the people that drove them to the edge in the first place? I don't mean they get sucked back into who they were before they gained confidence, I mean they plain forgive and forget and ride off into the sunset grinning ear to ear. The latest one....she was bullied and beaten so badly by everyone, especially the male lead, that she tried to commit suicide. This chick gained back her will to live, made herself into this incredible person, came back to face the male lead and faster than you can say 1,2,3.... she's day dreaming about how amazing he looks, how sincere his love is for her, the heat he makes her feel when he threatens to hold her down and force her to be his. (And we ain't talking about foreplay or kinks here, we mean real life, he said she either accepts him of her own free will or he'll make her because he wants her) Authors....do not romanticize this shit. There are young people out there who will believe this is a healthy romance. It is not healthy to be forced against your will. It is not healthy to fall in love with a person who intentionally hurt you so badly you attempted suicide just to get away a year and a half ago. It is not healthy to romanticize abuse and pretend that the trauma will disappear just because "he said sorry and he might mean it this time." In case it isn't obvious....I'm pissed.

TW: abuse and sexual abuse
Throwaway because main has too many posts related to me. This is gonna be a long rant essentially, just trying to write to examine my thoughts through writing for healing/having revelations.
I am 22 year old girl. My parents are divorced since before I could remember, both remarried. My dad & his wife were always very down to earth people, lived in the middle of no where, had a lot of fun but never cared about too much-just easy going good folk. On the other hand, my mom & her husband destroyed my life up until I recently when I have somehow been strong enough to take it back. They were my abusers as a child, but when I was 19 I was at risk of being homeless and moved in with them for a little. Part of that deal of moving in was to apologize for what happened when I was 16 (I’ll get into)…which ended up creating cognitive dissonance from what happened in my childhood to reality. Slowly, from 19-22 I let them control my life again, abuse me, & am finally realizing this and cutting those emotional ties. I have one blood sister I grew up with. When we were younger I remember my mom & her husband screaming, my sister & I going & hiding in my sisters room because we were scared. I remember my stepdad yelling at my mom awful things. I remember him commenting on how sexy I looked in a dress when I was 16, & how great my tits looked. I remember how disgusting it made me feel and the fear I felt. I remember watching him try caress & kiss my sister when she was 12. I remember us telling my mom & her telling us we were making it up. I remember when I was 16 my mom was out of town, him telling me he’s had a dry spell without a woman around & insinuating he wanted to have sex with me. I remember running to my room & locking the door & him knocking what was wrong. I remember moving in with my dad. I remember my sister started doing drugs at 11. I remember all the lies my abusers told me of my dad, I now realize they’re reflective of themselves. So what does it mean when they tell me “oh yeah, when your sister was young your dad and her had a really WEIRD maybe inappropriate relationship.” What does it mean when I realize that connection, and my sister tells me she remembers sleeping in jeans as a kid because they’re harder to take off. What does it mean when she tells me “I remember not wanting to lose my virginity to my stepfather” She now has schizophrenia, so how can I know what really happened to her? I remember my stepdad asking me all about my sex life when we were alone in their house when I was 19. I remember his words that I have not been able to say out loud, “Do you like eating girls out, or getting eaten out? Do you like swallowing cm or having cm in you? I like eating c*m out of my wife’s * slur for lady part *- a hot wife fantasy” I remember being frozen stuck, scared to leave, & back being a little girl. He knew the truth I had forgotten. He knew I had given everything to try to make them love me. He knew my mom would never believe me. I remember him telling me at 21 how sexy I am & if he were my age he’d be with me instead of my mom. I remember him telling me I have inferior genetics because my dad is my father. I remember him telling me I’m worthless & a fucking monkey could do my job. I remember my mom laughing at me & telling me “I had a college fund for you, but I cashed it in to pay off my Porsche”. I remember them telling me to never expect shit from them. I remember them bringing up the will so many times over the years. Recently I found out my mom was bragging to her friend about removing me from the will because I stopped sharing my location with her when she ambushed me unannounced. Recently, her husband told me “You’re getting the same thing your sperm donor (what he calls my dad) gives you- nothing.” Recently my mom got me a ticket to a golf tournament & wanted me to stay at their house & go with them the next day. When I told her no, her demeanor changed. I saw a glimpse of the monster I convinced myself wasn’t there.
I realized my mother was complicit in allowing the abuse to occur. When my sister & I confined in her, she gaslit us. Then she fabricated lies & projected the issues on my father. Now, my poor sister has schizophrenia, is a drug addict, & her mind is scrambled. I’m trying to pick up the pieces, but I shouldn’t have ever stopped talking to her. I will always regret that but I hope there’s hope for her. I realized tonight she started doing drugs so young to cope with her sexual abuse. My mom lied about the inappropriate relationship with my father, it was in fact her husband.
The only tie I have to them, is I co-signed my car loan with my mom. It’s my name or her name. I’m scared she’s going to steal it & sell it even though I’ve made all of the payments on it- my dad agrees. However, I will be moving soon where she doesn’t know. I can’t wait for that day, it’s only a couple months away. When that happens I’ll be blocking her number. I already blocked her husbands.
I can’t believe it took me 22 years to realize & grasp the abuse I’ve endured. I know it’s nothing compared to some, but it’s been a really tough journey. I finally am strong enough where I understand they are not my family, I must make my own. They do not love me, I now understand that my mom is not a victim she is complicit & never loved me. I am happy in life & have a clear mental state. It took a lot of introspection but I somehow made it without killing myself, & now my suicidal thoughts are gone.
I hope my sister is okay & my car doesn’t get stolen and sold from me. I will never allow my future kids to be around those people. As soon as my car is sold, I’m never talking to them again.

One Day Later
The Dwarves looked about as happy to see Rob as he was to see them. "My head is spinning," Nerasi grumbled, casting a baleful glare at him. "Fiend teleportation magic is-"
"Yeah, yeah, we get it." Rob spread his arms wide and perked his lips up into a facsimile of a smile. "Welcome to base camp. We'll be dismantling it for travel soon, so don't get too attached."
Nerasi and the Dwarves looked past him, examining the full breadth of the allied coalition. It was an impressive sight, comprising of 200 Combat Class users and 500 Utility Class users from five different races. Seven races, if you counted Rob and Meyneth for diversity's sake. While the number of soldiers was comparable to a standard army battalion, what they lacked in quantity, they made up for in quality. Their Levels were much higher than average, and that was without factoring in the Leaders and Riardin's Rangers.
"I almost want Ragnavi to attack us," Nerasi said, once she'd finished her appraisal. "We might actually stand a chance of ending her right here and now."
"Might?" Rob parroted. "Not 'definitely'? She can't be that strong."
"Correct, but she has an army to draw from. A fight would depend on how many troops she brings. If her retinue and the coalition have an equal number of Combat Class users, then our odds are favorable. If her retinue outstrips ours by 50-100 soldiers, then it would come down to a coin flip. Any more than that..."
Nerasi shook her head. "No matter. With luck, that situation shall never come to pass." She rubbed her temples with a poorly-suppressed irritation. "Where are the Leaders? The sooner I speak with them, the sooner I'll be able to rest. Personally, I find it utterly ridiculous that I've been saddled with the role of Dwarven representative simply because my allies are too craven to volunteer themselves."
She raised her voice for the last part, causing the Dwarves within earshot to wince. Rob was tempted to commiserate with her – being pushed into a leadership role wasn't super fun – but he doubted that she'd appreciate the gesture. The invasion of Dhalerune City was still a raw wound. None of the Dwarves were going to like Riardin's Rangers very much, and that went double for Nerasi. She'd been extremely unhappy over being strongarmed into covering up Keira's assassination attempt on the researchers.
It was why Rob was the only one who'd shown up to greet the Dwarves. As a sorta-Leader, he needed to make an appearance, but the full Party would just remind the Dwarven camp of what happened in Dhalerune. No point in ratcheting tensions first thing in the day. It was best if Riardin's Rangers steered clear for now, Keira especially.
Several minutes later, all the territory representatives had gathered in one place. Rob, Elder Alessia, a Grand Overseer, Seneschal Sylpeiros, King Cyraeneus, the Gellin Empress, and Nerasi. Seeing everyone together in-person – as opposed to hearing their voices over Message Crystals – was a bit of an odd feeling. Like meeting up with online friends for the first time. Not that I'd call most of us friends.
As if proving his thoughts, Nerasi immediately spoke up. "I'm surprised you're all still standing." She smirked. "Would've expected some of you to come to blows before my people arrived."
"Is that why you so graciously offered to arrive last?" Seneschal Sylpeiros remarked, in a droll tone.
King Cyraeneus cleared his throat. "Let's not bicker so hastily. Remember that everyone here is of one mind and purpose. Besides, any problems that arose were resolved without issue."
"So there were problems." Nerasi barked out a laugh. "Was it the Human? Or Seneschal Sylpeiros?"
Rob scratched the back of his head. "...Yes."
"Marvelous. This alliance is shaping up to be as memorable as I'd anticipated."
Message Sent From Party Member: Alessia Alessia: That one has a troublesome personality. Alessia: Most people would falter in her position. Her Level is by far the lowest here. Alessia: Despite that, she speaks her mind, unwilling to cede an inch of authority. Alessia: It is an illusion that would collapse if pressed, but she doesn't allow any opportunity for that to happen. Alessia: And I can't even discern if she's doing it on purpose. Alessia: If we aren't careful, she could prove to be a thorn in our side. Rob: Yeah. She kinda reminds me of you. Alessia: I will choose to interpret that as a compliment.
"If you're quite done provoking your allies," Sylpeiros stated, "then we have business to attend to. First, the Gellin Empress would like to formally introduce herself."
He gestured to the floating, purple, five-foot-wide jellyfish beside him. The Gellin Empress raised a single tentacle and wiggled it in something approximating a wave. She sent out a pulse of emotional intent that washed over Rob's mind, giving him the impression of warm greetings, like the sound of a doorbell on a cloudless summer day.
Unable to stop himself, Rob took an unconscious step back, positioning himself away from her. The last time he'd dealt with Mind magic, it was when he'd been imprisoned by the Dreamthieves of an aberrant Dungeon. That experience had...kinda poisoned the well.
Noticing his reaction, Sylpeiros continued. "The Gellin Empress has promised not to read our thoughts without permission. I believe she is telling the truth." He paused. "I also believe that she will unintentionally slip up now and again. Keep that in mind."
The Empress sent out another pulse of emotion, this time of mild indignation. Like she'd been accused of something she would like to deny, but couldn't, at least in good conscience.
Better than I expected, worse than I'd hoped for, Rob mused. Riardin's Rangers would need to be exceptionally careful when around the Gellin. His Party's secrets weren't for the faint of heart. Maybe if I flood my mind with earworm pop music, she'll put in extra effort not to go snooping.
As Rob picked out the catchiest, most obnoxious song in his mental playlist, Cyraeneus spoke next. "Representative Nerasi, will the Dwarves be ready to travel soon?"
Nerasi nodded. "As soon as this camp is packed up." Her eyes glinted. "Before that, though, how about a demonstration?"
Of what? Rob's question was answered when Nerasi called over some of her Dwarves, then asked for pieces of wood and metal to be set up in a line. He recognized the makeshift firing range long before the Dwarves pulled out their rifles and took aim. Nerasi gave the Leaders a few seconds to soak in the sight, and with a harsh command, ordered her soldiers to fire.
BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG.
Cyraeneus and the Gellin Empress jerked back in shock. They'd been informed of the 1940s-era rifles – which Elatrans called Thunder Rods – but listening to dispassionate intel reports was different from hearing thunderous cracks of repeated gunfire. In contrast, Rob, Sylpeiros, and Alessia remained motionless as they watched the demonstration in grim remembrance. Their last interaction with Thunder Rods was the invasion of Dhalerune City, and that hadn't been a good time for anyone involved.
Once the dust cleared, the Thunder Rod wielders lowered their rifles and stepped back. The wooden planks they'd used as targets were gone, demolished into chunks of broken splinters. The metal sheets, less so, but their rifles had still left deep dents in the metal's surface.
"In addition to our Combat Class users," Nerasi began, with the confident poise of a showman, "we have brought along forty Thunder Rod wielders to supplement the coalition's ranks. I'm sure that you will find them to be an invaluable asset on the field of battle."
King Cyraeneus' body went rigid as he stared directly at the riflemen. A fierce internal calculus brewed within him, his eyes shining with unasked questions like: how fast are those attacks? Can they be dodged? Will they kill low-Level Combat Class users? Medium-Level? Even high-Level, if they were hit in a vital area? How does this change the flow of a large-scale battle? How can we work these weapons into our strategies? And how can we defend against them when they are inevitably turned on us?
It was the same turmoil Rob had witnessed all Elatrans go through upon learning the extent of what rifles were capable of. The Gellin Empress was probably going through it too, but she was a jellyfish, so he had no idea how to read her nonexistent expressions.
Even just based on King Cyraeneus' reaction, though, the demonstration was a clear win for the Dwarven camp. For all that Nerasi complained about being thrust into an unwanted leadership role, her smug expression indicated that some part of her enjoyed pulling one over the competition.
Which was why Rob couldn't help but take her down a peg. "So where's the radios?" he asked.
She blinked. "The...ah, yes. We've also brought radios to facilitate communication within the allied coalition. If it is necessary for our groups to split apart, radios will make it far easier to stay abreast of-"
"How many did you bring?"
Nerasi flinched. "Five."
Rob grinned. He'd been counting on them to be stingy. "Five radios for seven hundred people. If we need to split into smaller groups, we won't have enough to go around. And that's assuming they don't break or get lost."
"I am aware," Nerasi muttered. "Radios are a new technology. There weren't many available." She opened, then closed her mouth, struggling with how much to say. If Rob had to guess, she'd attempted to requisition more radios than just five – only to be denied by political bullshit in Dhalerune City. But if Nerasi admitted that, she'd be reminding the Leaders, that unlike them, she wasn't a Leader who could unilaterally command her people to do whatever she wanted.
Taking mercy, Rob clapped his hands. "Good talk, everybody. I think we can iron out any other details on the way." He smiled broadly. "Let's get this road trip started."
--
Four days passed without incident. It was similar to back when Rob had been traveling north with the Deserters; lots of walking, interspersed with random monster attacks that were easily repelled. The coalition factions found it awkward to travel together at first, but tensions decreased a little every day that there wasn't a repeat of the assassin fiasco.
Which didn't mean they lost their vigilance. All it would take was one Dragonkin scout spotting them and reporting back to Ragnavi for the coalition to be in a world of shit. While it was unlikely that they'd encounter Dragonkin until partway through Harpy territory, the chance was there, and it kept everyone's eyes glued to the horizon.
They maintained a steady pace, opting for a balance between speed and caution. The absolute safest choice would've been to travel to the eastern edge of Elatra, directly away from Dragonkin territory, and then travel south to enter Harpy territory from that angle. By then Ragnavi would've barbecued half of Harpy territory, though, so the coalition didn't have that luxury. Instead, they decided to head southeast to Arieda City, a Harpy settlement located near the border.
Hopefully, King Elnaril would respond to a Message Crystal call from one of his own cities.
Rob and Riardin's Ranger chose to spend their travel time by ingratiating themselves with the rest of the coalition. As best as they could, at any rate. The other factions were understandably wary when Level 60-plus Combat Class users sauntered up to ask how their day was going. Rob wasn't sure how much actual progress was made by his Party's efforts, but it was better than letting everyone stew in an awkward mire for the whole trip.
At night, the coalition would make camp and rest their tired legs. Watching light dim from the sky always set Rob's nerves on fire; it was like a countdown timer until his next checkup with the Soul Surgeon. Each night, he expected the Surgeon to give him bad news, and each night, his expectations were betrayed.
"You sure Leveling High's containment hasn't budged?" Rob asked, with undisguised suspicion. "I leveled up recently. You told me before that gaining Levels would weaken the seal."
The Soul Surgeon raised an eyebrow. "I also said that Leveling High's containment could last up to six months. Furthermore, expecting perfect accuracy regarding a new, unknown Status Effect would be ill-advised. Perhaps the seal is similar to an ability buff such as Step of the Wind, and will arbitrarily expire once a certain timer is reached. Perhaps it will remain until you hit a specific Level. Perhaps it will endure as long as your willpower holds. We simply do not know."
"Fair points," Rob conceded. It would make more sense for him to talk to Vul'to instead. As the one who placed the seal, he should be able to shed some light on the situation.
"I don't know," Vul'to said, after Rob approached him. "Any theory I could give you would be baseless conjecture. The nature of my Class is an enigma that I have yet to decipher."
Rob resisted the urge to run his hand down his face. "Was worth a shot. Thanks anyway, though."
"I'm sorry that I can't be of more help."
"Dude, you have nothing to apologize for. Without your containment seal, I would've been fucked six ways to Sunday."
Vul'to's frown quickly flipped upside-down. "Your gratitude is very much appreciated." He paused, hesitating. "If I may ask – why the interest in this topic? It seems to go beyond worrying about when Leveling High's containment will expire."
"I just feel like I'm missing something," Rob said. "Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but why does that Skill even exist? Your first Soul Guardian Skill blocked Corruption. The second sealed away Leveling High. I can't Sense any Corruption within Leveling High, that can't be the common element. Is it really just that Soul Guardian has a vague 'guarding your soul' motif, or is there something else to it?"
Vul'to slowly nodded. "I understand your consternation. You'll be informed the instant I learn anything new." He smiled. "Until then, I'll give my thanks for every day that Leveling High remains an impotent prisoner, as it deserves."
Rob gave him an enthusiastic high-five. "Same here, man. Same here."
--
The coalition reached Harpy territory on the eve of their fourth day of travel. It was easy to tell, as the white grass of Dwarven territory abruptly changed to the yellow grass of Harpy territory. Aside from its color, Harpyland's grass also appeared more lush and healthy, as if it'd drank from a heavier rainfall than the Dwarfland grass situated mere inches away.
Rob shook his head at the affront to all that was logical, letting out an exaggerated sigh. "I'll never get used to that."
"Earth is stranger," Orn'tol remarked. "Without grass to mark borders, how can people tell where their territories begin and end?"
"We set the lines ourselves, and then...sometimes respect them." Rob peered closer at the color-coded foliage, several ideas springing to mind. "You can grow plants from one territory inside a different territory, right?"
Meyneth nodded. "That is how Humans managed to eke out a living in their wasteland of a territory. You recall the underground farms that were infected by the Blight? Those were constructed from imported crops and soil."
"Then wouldn't it be possible for one territory to expand its borders by uprooting a second territory's native grass and replacing it?"
His Party members gaped at him in shock. "You suggest..." Zamira paused, then swallowed, as if her throat had gone dry. "You're suggesting altering a territory's borders?"
"Is that so bizarre?" Rob was becoming aware he'd stepped on a cultural landmine, but his curiosity egged him on. "On Earth, when one side wins a war, you usually take some land from the enemy nation. It's one of the main ways that territories back home get stronger."
His Party members were looking queasier the longer he spoke. "How about this," Rob continued, recognizing that it was time to pivot. "Human territory was an empty wasteland long before the Humans arrived. Why didn't anyone else try terraforming it? Make it less of a wasteland, I mean. Would've resulted in more livable land."
"You can't alter territorial borders," Keira stated, with a hint of disgust. "That would be obscene."
"If you say so," Rob shrugged, letting the topic drop. He wasn't going to get anywhere with this. Even his biggest friends weren't willing to entertain the idea whatsoever.
If the gods created this version of Elatra, Rob began, thinking further, then they might've instilled this mindset within the world's inhabitants. Would keep any one society from being wiped out entirely – until The Scouring screwed everything up, at least.
He kept staring at the divided grass, searching for inspiration. I also know that there are multiple gods, and each territory believes in its own patron deity, so there's probably one god assigned per nation. Maybe they created Elatra this way so each god would always have a place at the table.
Although he couldn't be 100% sure of that. Rob had met three gods in-person during his second trip to the divine planes: Kismet, Malid, and Vivacity. None of those names matched the ones that Elatrans gave for their gods. So far, he'd heard of Lothren for the Elves, Titan for the Dwarves, Tylrud for the Dragonkin, Odium for the Merfolk, and Argath for the Fiends. Either there were way more gods running around than Rob knew of, or the Elatrans were flat-out getting all their deities' names wrong.
"Diplomacy," Faelynn suddenly asked. "What do you think of our allies? Are we safe from any further assassination attempts?"
Rob was initially confused at the change in subject, but based on his friends' relieved expressions, none of them wanted to linger on the previous topic. Diplomacy immediately picked up on Faelynn's intent, responding quickly.
"Remember that I am not a mind reader," they said. "Discerning people's intentions – especially without speaking to them directly – is an inexact science. Only a Gellin would be able to answer your question with any degree of certainty, and even then, people change their minds on a daily basis."
Diplomacy lifted their fabricated Elven mouth into a smile. "With all that accounted for, I believe we should be safe. The Merfolk are fond of us, the Dwarves are afraid of us, and the Elves are embarrassed over their debacle with the duel gone wrong. As long as the coalition itself doesn't implode, they won't try to harm us."
"That's good." Faelynn hesitated, seeming restless. "Have Vul'to and I been doing an adequate job of appearing 'reasonable' to our new allies?"
"More than adequate." Diplomacy's eyes narrowed dangerously. "If there are still worthless cretins who treat you unfairly, come to me right away. We'll figure out the best way to shred their self-esteem into tiny ribbons."
Faelynn's restlessness faded as she offered Diplomacy a broad smile. The good vibes were infectious, causing Rob to grin as well. He wasn't sure when the two had become friends, but it was reassuring to see that Diplomacy was successfully integrating into Riardin's Rangers. While Rob hadn't been worried that his Party would outright reject the former Skill, if only for his sake, there was a stark difference between tolerating a friend's hanger-on and wanting to become friends with them yourself.
He knew that very well. Outside of Jason, Rob's attempts at making friends back on Earth were...mixed. Even among the people he hung out with, there were plenty of instances where he'd felt like the outsider looking in. As if everyone was happily sitting around a campfire, and for some reason, he was the only one who couldn't feel its warmth. Jason had always been happy to introduce Rob to his sports friends, but that usually didn't go anywhere either. Their lifestyles were too different. He'd ended up as the tolerated hanger-on, and that was a worse feeling than just being alone.
Rob massaged his head, dispelling the bitterly nostalgic memories. Doesn't matter. It's in the past. And that won't happen to Diplomacy – I'll make sure of it. Thankfully, they'd get their chance to shine when the coalition contacted King Elnaril. If anyone could get the reclusive Leader to open up, it was the living embodiment of a silver tongue.
Couple more days and we'll reach Arieda City. Rob gazed out once more into the fields of sweeping, yellow grass. After that...we'll just have to see where the dice fall.
--
Later that night, Rob found himself facing an urgent dilemma.
Currently, that dilemma was laying on top of him and drooling. He looked down at Keira's naked form, draped closely over him, perfectly beautiful in every way – as she snored like a clogged wood chipper. It wasn't the first time she'd done that, but usually it was quieter. Adorable, even.
Tonight? Not so much.
Rob felt himself being pulled in all directions, wracked with torturous indecision. Dare he try to move? Attempting an escape might wake her up. He didn't want her sleep to suffer like his was. Unfortunately, coffee hadn't been invented in Elatran yet, and the other coalition factions would look at him funny if he spent the next day stumbling around like a half-dead zombie.
On the other hand, he really enjoyed Keira being sprawled on him like this. It was almost worth setting fire to his sleep schedule. Laying here with her would certainly be the nicest all-nighter he'd ever pulled.
Maybe I can sneak out and grab some earplugs...which...also don't exist. God damnit. Would it be a waste of army resources if I asked some people to invent earplugs tomorrow? Eh, who cares, doing it anyway. In the meantime, I could...I don't know, pack some dirt together and shove it up my ears? That grosses out my delicate modern sensibilities.
Just then, Rob's thoughts were interrupted by a soft thwump coming from right outside their tent.
As if something had hit the ground.
Keira's eyes snapped awake. At once, the two of them hastily – yet silently – threw on clothes and grabbed their weapons. Rob took point in front of her and preemptively activated Dauntless Reprisal. Keira would've signaled him if Danger Sense was going off, so they weren't in any immediate peril, but it always paid to be prepared. Nodding to her, Rob yanked the tent flap open and peered outside.
A Harpy awaited them. He looked pretty much like the race had been described to Rob; long feathered wings, voluminous hair, talons for feet, and fingers that ended in taloned claws as well. The Harpy stared at them, unmoving, completely unperturbed at having been discovered.
"You know," Rob said, "if this is an assassination attempt, it's the sloppiest I've ever seen. And I've seen a lot."
The Harpy continued staring at them in silence, more placid than a wax figurine. Something indistinct flashed in Rob's memories, just enough for a sense of dread and unease to creep upwards.
"We must speak," the Harpy finally intoned. Rob cast Identify, confirming that the Harpy was a weak Utility Class user named Featro, and promptly sent alert Messages to the rest of Riardin's Rangers members. Even if this Harpy wasn't a threat, there could be more waiting in the wings. The coalition needed to be ready for an ambush from above.
"By all means," Rob said, stepping back. "Come right in. You aren't weirding me out in the slightest."
He and Keira watched Featro carefully as the Harpy entered their tent with stiff, robotic motions. They waited for him to start talking, exchanging wary glances when he just...stood there. "How did you find me, anyway?" Rob eventually asked. "Our tent is the same as everyone else's."
"Because we are drawn to you, Heartkiller."
Corruption flared from within Featro. Rob recoiled as if it was a forceful, physical blow. There'd been no warning; one moment, he Sensed nothing, and the next, a dense aura of Corruption was exuding from the Harpy.
So dense that Rob couldn't understand how Featro was still standing. Other people who'd been that infected with that much of Corruption were left bedridden, except for-
Rob's breath caught in his throat. The possessed Dwarf in Dhalerune Mines.
"Heed my words," Featro intoned, his eyes polluting with an impenetrable darkness. "You are walking into a trap."
​
--
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Cover Art!
Just because you’re transported to another world, doesn’t mean you’ll escape from your pain.
Abused by her parents, thirteen-year-old Frances only wants to be safe and for her life not to hurt so much. And when she and her class are transported to the magical world of Durannon to fight the monsters invading the human kingdoms and defeat the self-titled Demon King, Frances is presented with a golden opportunity. If she succeeds, Frances will have the home she never had. If she fails, Frances will be summoned back to the home she escaped.
Yet, despite her newfound magic and friends, Frances finds that trauma is not so easily lost. She is dogged by her abuse and its physical and invisible scars. Not only does she have to learn magic, she has to survive the nightmares of her past, and wrestle with her feelings of doubt and self-loathing.
If she can heal from her trauma, though, she might be able to defeat the Demon King and maybe, just maybe, she can find a home for herself.
Teaser: Hattie finds out about blessings and curses, whilst Janize and Leila have a... development
[The Beginning] [<=Chapter 182 part 1] [Chapter Index and Blurb] [Chapter 183=>](https://www.patreon.com/vren55) ]
The Fractured Song Index
Discord Channel Just let me know when you arrive in the server that you’re a Patreon so you can access your special channel.
It was taxing being so close to Queen Janize and not being able to do anything about it. Elizabeth had to admit to herself that she had at some points, wondered about just wringing the woman’s neck. However, there was no way to do so.
If Elizabeth had one word to describe Queen Janize, it was that the woman was intriguing. As one of the maids directly attending Janize, she was mostly standing nearby, fetching pen and paper and drinks. The woman was rarely alone, usually accompanied by multiple servants, guards, and Leila. She also attended meetings directly with Earl Darius that Elizabeth coudn’t attend, and would often have private meetings with her Otherworlder shadow.
Ayax, however, using a nifty spell that Frances had invented to eavesdrop in magically unprotected rooms, could actually listen in on the queen.
It was in one of these conversations that Elizabeth and Ayax were quietly discussing in their rooms with Martin and Ginger attending through mirror.
“So you are now certain she’s working against Darius?” Elizabeth mused.
Ayax pursed her lips and nodded once. “I believe so. She definitely doesn’t tell Leila everything, but I am more inclined to think she’s preparing countermeasures against the Earl. Not that that changes anything. I think we need to kill them both.”
Elizabeth blinked. “But she’s pregnant, Ayax.”
Her lips twisted in a grimace, Ginger sighed. “I don’t like it either, Liz, but I get what Ayax is saying. If Queen Forowena’s cannot bear children, Janize’s child will become a threat to whoever succeeds King Jerome. It might be better to kill a traitor and rebel than kill her child.”
Martin coughed officiously, his eyes narrowed. “I personally don’t really see the difference, and I doubt most would. Both are very unenviable options.” The knight drummed his fingers on the table. “This is going to sound off topic, but what’s the mood in the castle?”
Ayax glanced at Elizabeth, who frowned in thought. “Downcast. They aren’t willing to surrender, but since the Erlenberg navy has cut off all sea resupply, they’re rationing food.More importantly, Ayax just told me that it doesn’t sound like the city is going to be relieved anytime soon.”
Martin blinked. “Really? I thought the traditionalists still had remaining troops?”
Shaking her head, Ayax’s tail swayed back and forth. “From what I heard these are their last remaining troops. We’ve dealt too many defeats to them, destroyed too many of their castles, killed or captured too many of their mages. They’re waiting for us to make a mistake, but they don’t think we are going to make one. We can conceivably just hold our siege here until we starve them until starvation.”
“Of course, that’s not really an option. Too many things can go wrong with such a long siege,” said Elizabeth, recalling a lesson from Igraine. She wondered how was her mentor doing.
It was then that Elizabeth and Ayax noticed that Martin and Ginger were exchanging grim looks their lips pressed into thin lines.
“It’s no longer an option,” said Ginger. “A little over a week ago, Timur found out that Thorgoth is training six dragons, the children of Telkandra. He learned this from the eldest of Telkandra’s children who had fled her siblings. However, while trying to get this dragon and Goldilora away, Timur was captured by Thorgoth’s forces.”
Martin, noticing Ayax and Ginger’s widening eyes, piped up in a firm tone. “Frances is heading with Morgan and Hattie to rescue him and I think they have a chance of succeeding, but the fact remains that we now know why Thorgoth was so passive. He was amassing his forces to perform a final attack with dragon support. We cannot maintain a prolonged siege and so I have an idea.”
Ginger scratched her head, trying her best not to scowl. “I hate it, but I think it works. Liz, Ayax, can you meet with Janize in private and offer her terms of surrender?”
Elizabeth blinked. Ayax’s jaw dropped open. “I thought you wanted to kill her, Ginger?”
“I do, but I…” Ginger closed her eyes and rested her forehead against her clasped hands. “Look, as much as I want the bitch dead, you all spent a long time pulling me out of the shitty place I was in. I feel like if I ask you to do something so cold-blooded, even if it is the ‘practical’ and ‘logical’ decision, it would mean all of us would be going to that place. I don’t want that.”
“Are you sure about this? I agree with you, but I have…strong feelings about preserving life, especially unborn life,” said Elizabeth, her eyes focused on Martin.
The knight sat up straighter and gave a short nod. “I am sure that we need to at least offer Queen Janize terms. If she refuses then so be it, but if she agrees, then we must explore that option.”
“And how are you going to convince King Jerome and Queen Forowena this?” Ayax asked, arching an eyebrow.
Ginger allowed herself a smirk. “Leave that to us. You and Liz think of a way to offer the following terms without getting caught. We need to send a clear message.”
Elizabeth crossed her arms. “What are the terms you plan to offer?”
Her arm wrapped firmly around Janize’s waist, Leila guided the queen to her bedchambers. “Come on, let me carry you at least once.”
The queen hid her smile with her hand as she let herself be guided. With her servants dismissed, it was now alright to play coy with Leila. “Are you sure you’re strong enough for two, Otherworlder?”
Janize blinked when Leila leaned in, pulling her close. The Otherworlder gently stepped in. Her eyes wide, the queen found herself starting to lay back onto the younger woman’s arms.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” drawled Leila.
Her heart pounding, Janize held onto Leila, wearing her smirk like a shield. “I expect you to carry me to my bed, Leila,” she rasped.
“Well then…” Leila dipped one arm underneath Janize’s legs. The queen held her breath as she was lifted into the air. The younger woman’s grip was incredibly gentle and steady even as Leila fumbled with the door.
Janize opened the door with her gloved hand. “Allow me.”
“Thank you.” Leila kicked the door open and sashayed herself and Janize into her bedchambers. The queen watched the Otherworlder through half-lidded eyes, revelling in how Leila’s eyes were glued to her.
“Are you already undressing me with your eyes?” Leila giggled.
Janize arched an eyebrow. “Unless my eyes are magic, I don’t think—Ah, you mean it metaphorically. I was thinking you should take my dress off.”
“Oh? You would like to be at my mercy…” Leila’s voice trailed off . Janize felt ice seep into her heart when Leila’s grip tightened around her. Her dark brown eyes now stared at something on their bed.
Their bed? Oh dear. She was really growing rather fond of Leila wasn’t she?
Janize took a deep breath and reached up to touch Leila’s cheek. “What’s wrong?”
The Otherworlder carefully set the queen down. Once she did, Leila gripped the hilt of her long dagger. Janize had to turn around before she saw what had killed the mood.
“Hm, rather menacing isn’t it?” Janize muttered. She narrowed her eyes at the dagger planted point first into her mattress. “There appears to be a note attached to it. Can you be a dear and get that, Leila?”
“Yes, but give me a moment. Can you stand back?” Janize swept behind her protector, who drew her wand and muttered several spells. They made the dagger, bed, and even the sheets glow. After several different spells, the Otherworlder finally went forward, yanked the dagger from the bed and unrolled the letter.
Janize peaked over Leila’s shoulder, not hard to do considering she was what Leila had called her, a few “inches” taller.
To Queen-Claimant Janize of Erisdale,
We, Sir Martin of Conthwaite, Ginger of Conthwaite, Ayax “The Blackgale” Windwhistler, and Lady Elizabeth Hae-won Kim, would like you to know that we could have killed you and Leila as you slept, but circumstances compel us to offer you terms.
King Thorgoth of Alavaria has recruited purple dragons to his cause. You know what he intends to do with them. In the interest of ending this civil war that has taken so many lives, we request on behalf of King Jerome and Queen Forowena that you surrender under the following offer, conditional to their Majesties final approval:

1. Your life and that of your unborn child is guaranteed
2. Presuming that your child lives to their majority, they will be first in line to the throne of Erisdale, not to be superceded by any adoption or newborn children.
3. You are to be confined for life on Greyrock Island with a hundred retainers you may choose
4. Earl Darius and the other nobles who supported you are to submit to a trial by the high court for war crimes. All but his life is guaranteed, along with a steady income, but their lands and wealth will be confiscated from their persons, but not necessarily from their families and children

If you wish to discuss with us further, have a courier send a message out to the siege lines under a flag of truce.
Leila murmured the contents of the letter to herself. A snarl warped her lips. “What a load of bullshit. Are you done, Your Majesty? If so, let me burn it.”
A gloved hand held Leila’s wrist, whilst another set of hands plucked the letter from the Otherworlder’s grasp. Janize stepped away, pacing across ther room, and studying the letter intently.
Leila stared at the queen. “Janize, what are you doing?”
Janize tapped her hand with one finger but continued to study the letter. “Shh. Silencing spells on my room please.”
Leila spluttered, shook her head and started to cast several privacy spells to block out any eavesdroppers. She then sent a burst of magic toward the smoldering fireplace and levitated into the rising flames.
“Alright, now can you explain what’s got you so rattled.”
“I am perfectly calm my dear.”
“Bullshit. You’re rattled and you have no reason to be. They can’t possibly be telling the truth. I mean, dragons?” Leila rolled her eyes. “And why would they offer to save the life of your child?”
Janize did not look up from the letter. “It is precisely because the information is so unbelievable that I am somewhat concerned.”
Leila threw her hands up into the air. “And I thought you said you weren’t rattled.”
“I am afraid that I lied.” The queen hissed those words through gritted teeth. Taking a short breath, she turned to face the Otherworlder. “Leila dear, I quite enjoy your company, but I think you should take your leave.”
Blinking, the Otherworlder grimaced. “You don’t trust me.”
Janize fingers tightened around the letter. “I need to be alone. Truly alone.”
Her arms crossed, Leila gave the queen what could only be described as a flat stare. “I say that’s a horrible idea given that they can get into your bedchambers without anybody noticing.”
Janize opened her mouth to retort, but quickly closed it. Her lips a thin line, she closed her eyes.
“Leila. You make a good point and so you should stay here. That being said, you ought to know your place.”
Leila looked up at the ceiling and exhaled. Her breath almost spitting out between her clenched teeth. “I know my place, Your Majesty.”
“You have a very strange way of showing it.” Janize narrowed her eyes at the younger woman, studying her posture. She’d gotten to know Leila quite well. Her stiff, crossed-arm posture was a way of holding herself in check when she was frustrated about something.
After a long moment where Leila just gazed at the ceiling, she suddenly shivered and wiped her eyes.
Janize blinked. She tried to keep her expression serene, but the Otherworlder started to sniffle. Before her eyes, Leila’s stiff pose crumpled. She buried her tear-stricken face in her right hand, whilst she gripped her shirt with the other.
“Leila? What is going on? Are you alright?”
“No. I’m definitely not alright. I’m very, very fucked up, okay? I’m probably more of a freak than Frances.” The Otherworlder wiped her eyes with the back of her arm. “But I know my place. Oh, I know my place. I’m your disposable fuckbuddy. Your dumb hunk of muscle with boobs for you to squeeze. I know you are going to kill me once the war is over and after you’ve dealt with Darius. I also don’t care, so long as you do so after the Demon King is dead.”
Janize blinked, her mouth trying to form words, excuses, anything to try to deny what Leila was saying. “Excuse me? When have I—”
“Don’t lie to me. Please, don’t lie to me anymore.” Leila sniffled, and shook her head. “I mean, I don’t care if you do. Hurt me all you’d like. Use me as you wish. Just…promise me that you’ll get rid of me after Thorgoth dies. I don’t want to go back to Earth.”
“But if you die in Durannon after Thorgoth dies then correct me if I’m wrong, but the spell that returns you to ‘Earth’ won’t be active because you would have chosen to stay in Durannon. That means you’ll…” Janize’s voice trailed off. The letter slipping out of her grasp, she reached for Leila, but the Otherworlder stepped back. “Leila dear, you cannot be serious.”
Leila’s laugh was without mirth. It rang in the room softly, and yet it shook the queen’s hands like the howl of a wounded animal. “I am. You don’t need to pretend anymore, Your Majesty. I know you aren’t really lying to Earl Darius about getting rid of me. I’d have outlived my usefulness to you after he’s gone. Besides, you have the pick of the kingdom once you win the war. Why would you choose me?”
Janize briefly pinched the bridge of her nose. “Why would you be alright with being disposed of, Leila? You’re a fighter, and a tough young woman. I’ve never known you to give up like this. Why fight for me when you think I’ll get rid of you?” Despite her attempt to control her tone, the queen could hear her voice rise in pitch.
Leila’s shoulders fell, and she bit her lip. Swallowing, the Otherworlder croaked, “I love you. I love how you smile. I love how you lie to those around you and play them for fools. I love how you stand so tall despite the chaos around you. I love how you play your cards—your schemes—so close to your chest. I love your ruthlessness, your pitiless glower and just…everything about you.”
The queen, her jaw agape, stared at the Otherworlder and the desperate smile on her lips. Janize pinched herself with her long nails, drawing a red mark on her knuckle, and found that she was still awake. “Even when I hurt you? Even when you think I am going to have you killed?”
Leila coughed into her fist, and nodded. “Yeah. I mean, it hurt when I figured it out. But it’s what I deserve and what would happen to me anyway if I went back to Earth. At least you let me be me and made me happy. At least you pretended to be my friend and lover.”
“Pretended? You’re alright with—” Janize shook her head. “Leila, what happened on ‘Earth?’ I know your parents were horrible. I know they just buried you with schoolwork, activities, and never let you choose what you wanted to do. That does not explain why you want to die rather than go back!”
Leila shrugged helplessly, her eyes glancing off to the side. “I mean, it’s a pretty stupid explanation.”
“Enlighten me. I will decide whether it’s stupid or not.”
The Otherworlder bowed her head. “It’s nothing like say Frances’s reason. I mean, fuck, her parents wanted her dead or near dead. I could see the bruises.” Leila smiled again, without mirth, not even bothering to wipe her tear-filled eyes. “My parents just told me that I needed to be better, to try harder, and to let nothing stand in my way. They drilled it into me, until they started to just ignore me for my little brother. I tried even harder. I tried so hard I didn’t even care who I hurt. But then they stopped talking to me no matter how hard I tried. Eventually they started to be afraid of what I had become. I’m a monster, Your Majesty.” Leila looked up at Janize. Her gaze was dead. A broken, unnerving smile was glued across her tear-stained cheeks. “If…if you’d like to run screaming. You can do that. I’m used to it.”
Janize stared at the young woman. Frozen, one foot forward, the queen allowed her trembling hands to drop to her sides.
Suddenly, the woman picked up her skirts and marched up to the Otherworlder. Before Leila could step away, Janize threw her arms around the Otherworlder and pulled her into an embrace.
“Don’t run. Don’t run. Your queen demands you hear her out first!” Janize hissed, burying her face in Leila’s neck.
“Okay but why are you—” Leila blinked. Something warm, and wet was dripping on her neck. “Janize? I don’t—”
“You were not entirely wrong. I was planning on getting rid of you at first.” Janize loosened her embrace, her hands moving to cup Leila’s cheeks. Slowly, she pulled the Otherworlder to face her. They were so close, their noses were rubbing against each other. They were so close that Janize knew that Leila could see the tears that were filling her eyes. “It just appears that despite my best efforts, Leila, I have grown very very fond of you, in spite of your flaws.”
“You don’t mean—but that’s impossible—” Janize leaned forward, capturing her lover’s lips. She left Leila speechless, jaw agape, fresh tears in her eyes.
“It has already happened, my dear Leila. Is not a healthy relationship by any measure, but I do find myself enamoured with you and it has become my desire at this moment to spend my life with you.” Janize smiled, watching as the young woman in front of her splutter, blink and then just cry. Leila sobbed, leaning into her as she broke down. She cried so hard, for so long that Janize had to guide her love to the bed they shared, where the Otherworlder cried some more.
“Why?” Leila finally croaked, as her head lay on Janize’s lap, whilst the queen gently stroked her hair.
Janize pursed her lips. “I’m not entirely sure why to be honest. I suppose I can say that you make me feel…alive. You rouse my anger, my passion, and my ambition. You don’t bullshit me, which makes it quite easy to talk to you. You make me think, question, laugh…and feel. When I’m with you, I feel like I can be me.”
Leila blinked, her cheeks coloring. “Oh. I’m…I’m glad.” She gave the queen a small, shy smile. Janize mirrored it, relief filling her heart as she continued to stroke the young woman’s hair.
“So tell me now, Leila my dear. Do you know your place?” Janize asked, leaning down to poke her lover on the nose.
Leila beamed. “I do, Janize.”
Janize grimaced as she caressed Leila’s cheek with her bare hand. She’d long ago pulled her gloves off. “Then listen carefully because you’re not going to like what you hear next. I think we ought to accept the Lightning Battalion’s offer, but we might not be able to do so safely.”
Leila frowned, but continued to lay on the queen’s lap. “Alright, but why? And why do you believe this isn’t one of their sneaky tricks?”
“Two reasons. One, we’ve lost this civil war. Two, I think they’re telling the truth, though, not the whole truth.”
Leila sat up, gently brushing Janize’s hand off her cheek, as she shuffled to sit next to the queen. Her scarred fingers intermingled with Janize’s slender, perfectly manicured ones. “But wait, that’s preposterous. I mean, dragons? And then there’s exile. Why would you be willing to go to this Greyrock Island?”
Janize chuckled, hiding her wide grin with one hand as Leila frowned. “Greyrock Island actually has a very nice palace. It’s the private getaway of the Erisdalian Royal Family. It was built by an overindulgent Erisdalian Queen to stow away her lovers and while isolated, the island is self-sufficient. We won’t be able to escape, but considering that they could have had me executed for disobeying my father’s will, it’s not a bad option.”
Mouth forming an ‘o,’ Leila took a breath. “Wait, so you believe them?”
“Yes, they have been quite upfront without being blatantly obvious. They’ve offered to let my child be heir. This means that the rumor I’ve been hearing from our remaining spies is probably true. Earl Forowena must be infertile. And even if this rumor is false, the fact that they are willing to even entertain the idea of allowing my child on the Erisdalian throne is significant. They badly want to negotiate, even when they have significant advantages. Something must have changed and what else could it be but them finding out Thorgoth has dragons? If they knew about the dragons from the start, or lied about it, they wouldn’t want to end the siege with such a significant concession after taking so many casualties and time to set it up. It could be a delaying tactic but we are the ones being besieged, not them.”
“But we haven’t lost the war yet. We—” Leila’s voice trailed off. Janize’s smile had quite suddenly faded. “You know something that neither Darius nor I knows, or that we’re unwilling to admit.”
Janize drew herself up, her free hand placed on top of her growing stomach. “Not quite. You see, as queen, I have the most complete picture of what our faction knows. It’s a picture I hold very close to my chest and while someone can deduce it, or mislead me, I believe what I have analzed of the strategic situation is correct.” The queen closed her eyes. “As you know, we were planning to muster an army in the east to try to relieve the siege. You also know that that attempt has been unsuccessful and we’ve been forced to wait this out. It’s a losing strategy already. The greater problem, though, is that it doesn’t really matter if we win or if we lose this siege. If we win, which is likely to be in a battle against well-trained and disciplined troops led by veteran commanders, we’ll lose a significant amount of our remaining offensive power. They will lose combat power as well, but given the record of the Lightning Battalion, there is a good chance we’ll have nothing left even if we do hurt them. At that point, King Jerome and Queen Forowena can march in with their forces and destroy us. Sure the war will be prolongued, but by how much?”
Leila frowned. “But if we win the siege, we’ll have bought time to recruit and train another army.”
Janize shook her head. “And I’m afraid that that’s no longer an option. Erisdale City itself was a significant supplier of our tax revenue which we used to fund our army. It’s been under siege for months at this point. The city’s commercial potential has been indelibly damaged and even if the damage from the siege is repaired and the city returns to normal, Erlenberg has shown that they have secured the northeastern sea from Thorgoth’s Alavaria enough so that their fleet can now raid and blockade us with impunity. Add the fact that our war chest is now well and truly exhausted, well, I’m scrambling to maintain the troops we have on the field.” The queen glanced at the Otherworlder with a wry smile. “And that’s not considering the fact that if Thorgoth does have dragons, after he deals with his rebellion and the Reformists, we’d be next, and as I’ve just told you, we are far weaker than the Reformists right now.”
Leila’s eyes widened. “Shit.”
The queen nodded, bowing her head. “It pains me to admit, but a great deal of fault for this war and its outcome rests on my shoulders. I…I gravely miscalculated years ago when I aligned myself firmly in Earl Darius’s camp. I thought it was the obvious choice. Alavaria was maniacally anti-human from what we heard from Archmage Star. We needed to present a strong anti-Alavari front after the war with Lapanteria and Darius was a popular and established noble with significant support and resources.”
“But he was an asshole.”
Janize sighed and rested her head on the younger woman’s shoulder. “Leila, I must admit that I can be quite the bitch as well. It galls me to admit it, but my prejudices against the Alavari clouded my judgement. It made me more willing to condone Earl Darius’s actions when all they did was unite the Reformers against us and turn away potential Alavari allies. Then when my father changed his mind about the succession and was assassinated by Alavaria, I let my bitterness to him, and my hatred of Alavaria take over.”
Leila frowned. “But what would we have gained by allying with those monsters?”
The queen looked up at Leila, arching one thin eyebrow, her grey eyes hammering the Otherworlder with the flattest stare. After a moment, Leila winced and turned away. Janize held her glare for another second before giggling. “Monsters they may be. They are certainly not human. Yet they are not beasts to be put down. No, the fact that the Lightning Battalion has worked as well as it has, the fact that I hear stories all the time of Athelda-Aoun whispered in my halls, those have shown me that perhaps my prejudice was greatly misplaced. They are clearly capable of all the traits we associate with humanity.”
Leila pursed her lips and the furrow on her brow deepened. “Oh. That’s actually a very good point.”
“Coming around to my point of view now, Leila?” Janize asked, smirking just a little. Leila’s only response was to close her eyes and pull back from the queen. Her lips were pressed thin, she coiled the fingers on both her hands together. Her smirk fading, Janize gently reached over to caress her woman’s cheek. “Leila my love? What is wrong?”
Her eyes opening, Leila flashed the queen a brief smile. “You…you could stand to call me that more often. I’m fine. Not really alright, but fine. I was just thinking if I thought about it the way you did, would Jessica and I still be friends?”
Janize cupped Leila’s face in her hands. “Maybe, but then you wouldn’t have me.” Before the younger woman could respond, the queen pressed her lips against Leila’s.
When they finally parted, Leila was smiling and Janize, well she was smirking with smug satisfaction.
“I love you so much,” whispered Leila. At Janize’s wink, Leila couldn’t help but giggle. “So what do we do now? Earl Darius would never surrender, as would several of his supporting nobles. He’s lost a daughter already and that was to Martin and Ginger’s forces.”
“I’m afraid I’m still considering that.” Poking Leila’s nose with a finger, Janize dropped her tone, allowing her words to drop out as sultrily as she could. “Do you perhaps have any ideas how we can confer with the Lightning Battalion? I am still wondering what our counter-offer should be, but we need to find a way to meet with them first.”
Leila, cheeks reddening, coughed officiously. “Um, it would be easier to pass something onto the spies who planted the dagger. I…I might have a few ideas.”
Janize walked her hand up Leila’s arm and across her collarbone. “Well I’d love to hear them, but you know what, let’s leave that for a later time. I think we’ve interrupted what we set out to do tonight long enough.”
There was a quiet cough. Janize stared at Leila, as the Otherworlder’s eyes widened. Both of their mouths had been still.
“In that case, let me interrupt you for the last time.” A tall, slender form rolled out from underneath the bed and stood up. Ayax, in light mail armor, crossed her arms, her staff in one hand, and a magic card in another. Idly she tucked the card into her pocket. “I don’t use these cards as often, but a nice quieting spell is very useful to have on hand. And before you ask, I heard everything.”
Leila, hand shooting to her dagger, sprang to her feet. She didn’t charge at the troll, but put herself between Ayax and Janize. “Blackgale.”
Smirking, Ayax dipped her head. “Leila.”
“Does Frances know about this?” Leila narrowed her eyes at the troll, hating just at how amused she looked.
“No, but you tend to be the last thing on her mind these days. Now if we are done here, magic mirror call tomorrow at noon? Just cast it on myself or one of my friends. We’ll be waiting.”
Janize, sitting very still and straight, cut in before Leila could answer. “An excellent idea, Lady Windwhistler. Will my brother be attending?”
Ayax waltzed to the window and opened the shutters. “In good time, Queen Janize. I would advise you to be diplomatic and we’ll treat you fairly. After all…” The troll faced the pair. Her smirk gone, her fierce black eyes glaring at the queen. “I could have killed all three of you right then and there.”
Janize nodded, not quite able to hide her scowl. Leila glanced at her, lips pursed with worry and in that moment, Ayax leapt through the window. Scrambling after her, Leila poked her head out to find the troll had vanished into another open window above them.
“Shit. Fuck I’m so sorry—Janize?” Leila’s eyes widened. Janize was breathing faster and faster, her hand covering her mouth. The Otherworlder raced over, embracing the queen. Slowly she ran a hand through her hair again and again, trying to calm the woman down. “You’re safe. You’re alright.”
Janize shut her eyes, rubbing her belly with both hands. “I’m fine. I just need a moment. Amura and Rathon. I…she could have killed me, killed us three.”
Leila groaned, kissing Janize’s forehead. “I’m sorry. I should have been more thorough.”
The queen waved her hand. “Think nothing of it. What's done is done and…it does seem that they do not have the stomach for cold blooded murder. At least we know how to talk to them.” Janize exhaled slowly. “I believe, I need some of your magical hands to relax me. The massage oils are in the bedside drawer.”
Leila blinked. “You’re still in the mood—”
Janize fixed her love with a gimlet glare, tempered only by a hungry grin. “I have had quite enough interruptions today, Leila. I am practically craving your touch dear.”
Leila giggled weakly and rolled off their bed. “Yes ma’am!”
Author's Note: One of the few regrets I have for Fractured is that I have too many side characters and want to flesh out their stories too much. Aiya, still I did find this fun to write. What did you all think?

Cover Art!
Just because you’re transported to another world, doesn’t mean you’ll escape from your pain.
Abused by her parents, thirteen-year-old Frances only wants to be safe and for her life not to hurt so much. And when she and her class are transported to the magical world of Durannon to fight the monsters invading the human kingdoms and defeat the self-titled Demon King, Frances is presented with a golden opportunity. If she succeeds, Frances will have the home she never had. If she fails, Frances will be summoned back to the home she escaped.
Yet, despite her newfound magic and friends, Frances finds that trauma is not so easily lost. She is dogged by her abuse and its physical and invisible scars. Not only does she have to learn magic, she has to survive the nightmares of her past, and wrestle with her feelings of doubt and self-loathing.
If she can heal from her trauma, though, she might be able to defeat the Demon King and maybe, just maybe, she can find a home for herself.
Teaser: Hattie finds out about blessings and curses, whilst Janize and Leila have a... development
[The Beginning] [<=Chapter 181] [Chapter Index and Blurb] [Chapter 182 Part 2=> ]
The Fractured Song Index
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She’d communed with Ivy’s Sting before, and Morgan had even let her touch Lightbreaker. The former’s touch was warm, like sinking one’s feet into sun-tanned earth. Lightbreaker’s presence was cold, so cold and ancient sometimes it felt like it wanted to burn her. Silver Star’s presence could only be described as like shimmering starlight. Hattie for some reason felt like the old staff could have shone brighter than it used to, but that might be because of the damage done to it.
Prepare yourself, this will be a bit uncomfortable.
Biting her lip Hattie swallowed. “Do it.”
Images started to flash in the forefront of her mind. There was her battle with the dragon Telkandra. She blinked and saw Helias talking to her. Shaking her head, she opened her eyes again to feel cold rain on her back. The musty scent of faeces and rat droppings filled the air as she tried to burrow deeper underneath the too small crate. Shivering, she wiped her eyes.
Suddenly, the cold vanished. Instead she was sweating from the sheer waves of heat that assaulted her skin.
“Hattie, run.”
Her eyes flew open. “Mom?”
Everything was on fire. Smoke filled her nose forcing her to the warm floorobards. They were made of oak if she remembered. Her mother—
Hattie froze. Helga Longarch’s breaths were shallow. Despite the raging inferno around them, all she could hear were her mother’s breaths.
“Mom! You need to get up!” She grabbed her mom, trying to drag her. She spluttered Word of Power, trying to douse the flames.
But the expected wave of water didn’t materialise. When Hattie looked down, she found her arms were far shorter and they had no scars.
“No! Mom! Mom!” Hattie staggered, coughing, tears blinding her vision. This was a memory. She knew that and yet it was like she was really in that fire all over again.
“Hattie, run!” With her free arm, Helga pushed Hattie away. The now eleven-year old tumbled over onto her back.
A sonorous voice rang through the crackle of the flames. Hattie! Hattie you need to wake up. Something’s wrong.
Hattie scrambled to her feet. “What? Silver Star? What do you mean—this isn’t you? Weren’t you going to see my memories?”
No, it’s not. There’s a spell at play and it’s not your magic. I’ve already seen what I needed to see. I think my special ability is amplifying this spell. I’m not sure what it is but I can’t stop it from working.
Spell? Hattie swallowed and forced herself to look at her mother. Her mom was mumbling something that she could hear despite the creaking of splintering wood. Hattie blinked. They sounded like Words of Power.
“Mom? What are you doing? Why are you casting a spell?” Hattie frowned. This…this did happen in the past. She remembered her mom’s lips moving. They had been moving before when she pushed her away and then part of the roof had collapsed. Haiti had had to leave, driven outside by the flames and smoke.
But if her mother could use magic, why didn’t she save herself?
Helga looked up at Hattie, her eyes wide. “Wait. Hattie…you see me?”
The half-troll nodded and took a breath. Somehow the smoke filling the room didn’t choke her.
Keep doing what you’re doing Hattie. The spell is…is calming down. Take control.
Helga didn’t seem to hear Silver Star’s voice. Raising her hand, Hattie thought of the staff, sensing its shining presence. A shower of silver motes of light gathered in her right hand, forming the staff.
She propped herself up with Silver Star and onto longer legs. Fifteen years old again, Hattie touched her face and winced as she felt her scars.
Her mother, oddly alright for being pinned underneath a beam, stared at her. “Hattie? How is this happening?”
Raising Silver Star, Hattie pointed at the debris lifting it off with a mighty shove and pulled mother onto a sitting position. With another wave she summoned a spray of water that extinguished the fire with a puff of steam. Only then did the half-troll sit down in front of the now freed form of her mother, examining her with narrowed eyes.
“Who or what are you? My mother’s dead.”
Helga crossed her arms, touching one finger to her lip. “It’s not easy to explain.”
It was a pose Hattie recalled from her childhood. To see…whatever it was adopt it was uncanny. Glancing at her staff, Hattie hissed. “Silver Star, any suggestions on what this is?”
Helga blinked, her grey-blue eyes widening. “Silver Star? The Named Staff Silver Star? That explains things. Its special ability is to amplify spells through assisting in visualisation.”
Very accurate…Hmm. I don’t think you need to be worried. She’s not harmful. Think of this as a pleasant surprise.
Hattie narrowed her eyes at the staff. “A pleasant surprise? My mom’s dead and this thing has the gall to take her form!”
Helga swallowed and rubbed her palms together, just like how Hattie remembered she would. “I’m sorry, my sweetling. I take this form because I am your mother, and I’m not.”
Hattie’s mouth opened and closed. A broken “What?” spluttered from her lips as her mind whirled, not sure what to think, or believe.
The human woman brushed back a lock of her blonde hair. “I was a mage, Hattie. I never told you this but I was a low-ranking mage who deserted the Red Order during the Erisdale-Lapanterian war and escaped to Alavaria. I forsook magic entirely and just wanted to live a normal life. I’m a blessing. A last, desperate attempt to try to protect you when I was going to die.”
“What—I don’t understand. Why didn’t you save yourself? What is even this blessing? Is there such a thing?”
“Hattie, I couldn’t feel my legs. You were eleven, there was no way you could drag me out safely, not with the mob outside. I learned combat magic, but I was horribly out of practice. This was the best I could do.” Helga wiped her eyes. She reached out but pinned her arms back to herself before Hattie could take her hand. “Even after that…I failed you. I didn’t do enough. I left you alone to face the world and the war. If not for Frances, you would have died in spite of my blessing. If not for her, you’d still be in darkness.”
Hattie stared, watching her mother dab at her cheeks with the edge of her sleeve, just how she used to do it. “You…mom? It’s really you.”
Helga nodded. “I’m sorry—”
Hattie slammed into her mother, burrowing her face into her shoulder. She breathed deep, the memories of her hugs returning to her. “I’m the one who should be sorry! I…I was so stupid!”
Helga squeezed her daughter, burying her nose into her hair. “No you weren’t. You were a child. I couldn’t even speak to you.”
“This is enough, mom. Oh I missed you so much.” Hattie stiffened, forcing herself to meet her mother’s gaze. “I…Frances—”
Gentle fingers brushed by her forehead “Oh sweetling, you don’t have to be sorry about her. She loves you. You love her. And she is there for you when I can’t be.”
“You’re not jealous?” Hattie stammered, already feeling her shoulders relax.
Helga pulled back so she could cup her daughter’s face in her hands. “Oh sweetling, I want to thank Frances. She took care of you, gave you the love and support you needed when I could only give you a blessing.”
Hattie squeezed her mom’s arms. At the same time, she found herself pursing her lips. “Um, what is a blessing? You keep mentioning it, but I’ve never heard of it.”
Her mother exhaled slowly. “Ah. Well I know you’ve heard of curses from Frances and Prince Timur. A blessing is a spell meant to grant the recipient certain boons. Just before I passed, I managed to put one on you to try to protect you and strengthen you.” Helga brushed a lock of Hattie’s hair from her ear. “Did you ever wonder why you never got sick whilst living on the streets? Or how you managed to survive the long journeys between cities on so little food?”
Hattie shuddered. Those were dark, painful days. She didn’t want to remember them and the little she could stomach to recall her acting less like a living being and more like an animal. She frowned. It was a wonder that she hadn’t died, or gotten sick when she’d seen quite a few other street kids succumb.
“That was the blessing? I thought I just got lucky. But then…wait, is that why I didn’t die to the dragon?”
Helga let out a sad, mournful giggle. “Kind of? Frances helped a lot, but I think I managed to prevent further burns to the rest of your body. I’m sorry that I couldn’t have done more, sweetling.”
Hattie shook her head. “I know this sounds weird coming from me, but you did everything you could, mom.” She pulled her mother close into an embrace again, and her mother hugged her back.
It was a moment of sheer bliss, before Helga pushed Hattie apart from her with firm hands. “You need to wake up. Frances and Morgan were calmed by Silver Star but they’re getting worried.”
Hattie held onto her mom’s wrists. “Wait, mom, can we meet again? I mean, I don’t think we can always meet, but maybe someday?”
Helga sighed and shook her head. “I don’t know. I only know as much as you do and as I did when I was alive. This…is very unusual and I wouldn’t risk it, less the blessing itself is destabilized. It can’t be re-cast.”
“It can’t? Wait, why aren’t there more blessing cast? If it’s so powerful, then why are they so rare?”
“Because you can only cast such a blessing when you’re at death’s door, Hattie, and on the people who you truly love or care for. There’s no other emotion that can help transfer such powerful magic to another person.” Helga stepped forward and kissed Hattie’s forehead. “I love you, Hattie, despite everything you’ve done and because of everything you’ve done. Don’t forget that.”
“I won’t. I promise.” Blinking back tears, Hattie tried to hang onto her mother’s ash-stained blouse. There was something pulling her back, almost like she was falling sideways.
“I love you. Now go. Live.” Her mother clutched her arms and pushed.
Hattie’s eyes flew open and she sat up. “Mom! Mom!”
Frances was kneeling beside her. Wiping her tears, she dabbed at her forehead with a towel. “Hattie? What happened, are you alright?”
“I…I’m fine.” Hattie rubbed her temples. “I…I saw my mom. My birth mom. She said that she left some of her magic in me, as a blessing. Did…did that really just happen?” She examined her hands and froze. Dark-blue magic shimmered faintly across her skin as Words of Power crawled across her palms and up her arms.
“May I?” Frances asked, drawing Ivy’s Sting. At her student’s nod, Frances touched the half-troll’s palm with her wand and cast a small heat spell. The magic glowed and swirled around the wand’s tip until she withdrew it. “That is definitely a blessing. The first time I’ve ever seen one. I’m more familiar with curses.”
Her wings fluttering, Morgan held up her hands. “Wait, you saw your mom?”
Hattie nodded. “Yeah. Silver Star helped I think. I’m not sure how.”
Silver Star piped up so that everybody could hear. As I mentioned, it goes back to my special ability to amplify spells. All Named Wands have the ability to amplify spells, but I perform the task far better than other wands. I think I probably amplified the blessing and its effects.
“Ah. Um, thank you, Silver. I…” her voice trailing off, Hattie shuddered. Wiping her tears, the half-troll buried her face in her hands. “Sorry, I don’t know why I can’t stop crying.”
Frances slowly wrapped her arms around her student. “You just saw your mom, Hattie. I think that would make anybody cry. Just let it out.”
Sobbing quietly, Hattie let herself lean into Frances’s embrace and her teacher held her there for as long as she needed.
It took another day, but Frances and her students finally reached the walls surrounding the northern entrance to the Greenway. They were clearly dilapidated, with the topmost merlons and battlements crumbling and windswept. Blocks of loose stone from fallen machicolations were buried around the walls. On other sections of the wall, wooden hoarding built in an attempt to shore-up the aging defenses sat rotting and warped.
Yet even now, the walls remained impressive in their height. Built with closely fitted limestone blocks, they reached up to the top of the Greenway. Passing through the abandoned gate felt like walking through a tunnel.
“Why hasn’t anybody garrisoned this?” Morgan asked.
“We don’t have the available forces. As for Thorgoth, the structure itself isn’t very well defended from our side. There are numerous stairways and entrances from the Greenway to the wall.” Frances pursed her lips and pulled the horses her carriage was attached to to a halt. “Sorry Morgan, there is one more thing I need to talk to you about.”
The harpy-troll arched an eyebrow. The expression on Frances’s face seemed very tight and try as she might, her brow was inching together. “What’s it about?”
“It’s about your birth mother. I talked to her before we left. We agreed that this mission is so dangerous that if you wish, I can tell you who your birth mother really is. She’s also willing to talk to you through a mirror.”
Morgan’s mouth opened slightly, her eyes affixed on Frances. Her adoptive mother gazed back, worry crinkling the muscles around her eyes.
“That bad?”
Frances nodded. “We are heading into where your grandfather rules. There is no place as dangerous.”
The princess took a breath. “Can I think about it?”
Frances smiled. “Of course, we have a week of travel before we get to Minairen.”
Morgan nodded. After a moment’s thought, she coughed. “Um, thanks…mom. Sorry, this is going to take some time getting used to.”
Frances blinked, staring at her adoptive daughter before an even wider smile inched its way across her face. “You’re welcome, dear.”

Hello, everyone! This series will be a supplement to all of my writings, and will go into detail on physical attributes, evolutionary stressors, and culture. Those of you familiar with my work will recognize much of this, but I wanted to more solidly centralize my understanding of each race. So far I have done Venlil.
Some Reference Art. it is my understanding these are posts by the original artist, and not shares or reposts. If this is wrong, please correct me, and I will credit the artist appropriately. This assessment will include several hyperlinks to referenced chapters and articles citing earth precedent. Due to Reddit’s character limit, these will be indicated `as this`, though the clickable link will be in a comment after the post.
Thank you u/Browneorum, u/Cornsquashbeans, u/Monarch357, u/Venlil, as well as AsciiSquid (aka u/SlimyRage), Asclepius, and Khazgbthagn for brainstorming this with me in discord, and thank you u/Huge-Judgment7404 for you input on Reddit!

• Disclaimer

This assessment is considered the primary reference for my current and future works, regardless of canonicity, and may be used freely by other writers and artists, regardless of connection to my own work. Please understand that some of my conclusions are not just off-base interpretation, but explicitly non-canon; namely reproductive biology and culture.
This assessment is based on a combination of my personally accepted artistic depictions, linked above, canon references to the main story, including names, utterances, and physical descriptions, as well as input from influential authors and their works, who I will name along with their contributing sections. As of writing, there have been no canon commissioned art of Arxur, though SP15 has stated his preferred depictions are by u/Demon_Deity.
The first thing we must understand is that nearly every living Arxur is under the control of Betterment. Betterment is an arm of Arxur government that seeks to perfect Arxur-kind by way of Eugenics, behavioral conditioning, and propaganda. Examples of this include: denying medical assistance to undesirables, corporeal punishment akin to torture, a strict caste society emphasizing physical perfection and breeding, murder of leadership being an effective and recognized means to seize power, and confirmed as of ch100, controlling food supply to encourage obedience. Because of this, many of the aspects of Arxur appearance, behavior, and culture would have been very different pre-Betterment, and would become very different post-Betterment. With that understood:

• Natural history

Natural history by u/Browneorum
Arxur bear some similarity to Earth crocodyliforms, however their advanced terrestrial state supports the notion that they have not occupied a semi-aquatic ambush predator niche for tens of millions of years. For an arxur-like sophont to have evolved a string of evolutionary pressures and subsequent adaptations must have occurred:
1. Movement onto land: A full terrestrial occupation would have been the first feature to have occurred. The crocodile bauplan is an evolutionary success story, emulated first in stem-tetrapods like Tiktaalik and Panderichthys ~150 million years before the first crocodilian. Their traits include a. eyes and nostrils placed high on the head to be vigilant whilst remaining beneath the waterline, b. a large, flattened skull filled with interlocking or pronounced teeth to trap prey, and c. a strong, paddle-like tail for aquatic movement.
All of these traits, whilst useful in the water, become hindrances on the land, but the face and head would be the first to change. Looking up is useful when you’re looking up at prey, but your vision would be better spent on eyes that can see where you’re going. Binocular vision, the ability to effectively gauge distance, would be most effective in a terrestrial predator. A large flat skull could work, amphibians get away with it (keeping in mind that they are all aquatic too), but such an animal becomes limited in that it can only eat what it can fit in its mouth. Most large carnivores tend to favor a longer, narrower snout that maximizes bite force and gape without compromising visual or olfactory capability. It also widens the zygomata (the cheekbones) for a stronger bite, and incidentally, frees up the back of the skull, allowing the brain to grow; the first tentative step toward sapience. Good comparisons would be baurusuchids, canids, and theropod dinosaurs.
The appendages would also have to change, the paddle-like tail would be reduced in favor of stronger, larger, more mobile limbs to move about on land.
This may seem like a colossal undertaking, but it is actually the most probable to occur. Populations become isolated all the time; all it would take is one river drying up over a prolonged period, one little pond that ran out of food, and the selection to move away from the water would take hold. Such changes have occurred in Earth’s history before, crocodiles have done so on a number of occasions; and indeed, one would be amiss to not point out that the entire tetrapod transition effectively occurred in this way. To use that metaphor fully: an Arxur is as different to their crocodile-like ancestors as early reptiles were to amphibians.
2. A more active lifestyle: But moving onto terra firma came with new difficulties. Where a crocodile is effectively a mouth in the river that waits for prey to come to drink, early Arxurids had to seek out their prey. Pursuit predation would not have been their earliest form of prey capture, as their anatomy would still be carrying a fair amount of aquatic baggage. Ambush would have remained their primary means of hunting, but their bodies would have to adapt to a different style of predation.
The primary means of prey capture by a crocodilian predator is a strong bite, inflicting major lacerations, shock and bleeding, whilst dragging the weakening prey into the water, where it is drowned. Simple, brutal, effective. But moving out onto land compromises this, making escape from a slow-moving reptile more likely. Moreover, the crocodile can no longer rely on the water to drown its target, so if the first bite does not subdue the prey, it will escape. As well, ambush is made more difficult by the lack of water; a crocodile is a big strong animal, but it is well hidden, no less, in the one thing a prey item cannot be without. If Arxurids were to survive they would need to be able to actively catch their prey. Here the changes would be subtler from the previous stage, more focused on the internal anatomy.
Firstly, the limbs must become more nimble, stronger, and capable of a longer stride. Crocodiles walk plantigrade (heel to toe, as humans do), and can move at great speed, but this is ineffective for a cursor. Their distal portion of each limb must be made longer, preferably with the extension of the digits into a digitigrade stance. A long, well-muscled tail, such as the early Arxur possessed from their crocodile-like ancestors, would become less flattened paddle, more thickened counterbalance.
Secondly, the loss of any impedance to the movement of the pelvis relative to the torso. True quadrupedal cursors, such as cheetah or greyhounds, maximize the length of their strides by stretching and shortening their mid-sections between each footfall. Early Arxur would not have been moving at such high speeds, but they would have still possessed gastralia (belly ribs) in their mid-sections that would have slowed them down considerably. Gastralia gotta go!
Thirdly, the teeth would have to change. All Terran reptiles have homogenous dental morphology, i.e., their teeth are just replicates of one another, most often simple pegs. Simple pegs are perfect for holding onto something, less so for cutting it up. Carnivorous reptiles (theropods, varanids, mosasaurs, etc.) all possess/ed flattened, serrated teeth. It is possible that Arxur may evolve further differentiation of their dentition, but on Earth this is a trait solely found in mammals. If such a change was to occur, the most probable justification would be an adaptation to a broader diet at this stage.
The final adaptation would be the next strong movement of the Arxurids away from animals and toward true sapients. Terrestrial predators must be able to strategize in a way their ancestors did not need to. They must take better stock of their senses, gauge the likelihood of injury and success. Many hunting animals are quite intelligent, but working alone can only get you so far. The next adaptation is probably the greatest yet, and requires a trait generally considered un-Arxur.
3. Group cooperation: Socialization; the act of interacting with others, of being social. All animals practice some form of socialization; dispute of territory, displays, mating, are all essential to an organism’s survival and all require some ability to communicate. Modern Arxur are complex social creatures, this much is evident from their behavior alone, but it is also a prerequisite to building a society. An Arxur who lives alone, no matter how intelligent, dies alone. They have no one to talk to, to share ideas, or songs, or art with. In short, they build no culture, and that clearly is not the case. At some stage in their evolution, they must have developed some capacity for cooperation.
Pack hunting would be the most sensible assumption; a group of Arxurids could bring down larger prey than one alone or permit the rearing of offspring whilst others are away. But all this comes with profound implications. On Earth, packs are family units, built around mating and/or dominant individuals. It’s a sensible strategy; if I can safeguard others (even better those who share genes with me) then they will safeguard me. This makes a lot of sense, obligately enforcing group cohesion around shared communal bonds. This, we should also recognise, is the start of empathy. As the American anthropologist Margaret Mead purportedly said, 'The first sign of civilisation is in the setting of a broken femur.'
Some subtle physiological changes would occur to facilitate socialization. Individual recognition would be paramount; is this my brother, my lover, or my enemy? Unique color patterns, perhaps around the eyes, would be a good starting point. Specific vocalization is also found amongst pack animals and would be a strong driver of cognition. Here a positive feedback loop could take hold; more interaction leads to more complex socialization and with-it greater cognition, that then adds to the strength of subsequent interactions.
At this point an Arxurid is equivalent to a hominid in human evolution, akin to a great ape.
4. Manual manipulation & bipedalism: One of the earliest questions in human evolution was whether or not our brains grew before our bodies did. Early australopithecines provide a clear answer: Lucy stood upright like a person but had a brain no bigger than a chimpanzees. The Arxur face a similar question; what came first: manual manipulation or bipedalism? On the face of it, it seems like a simple question; they clearly stood upright so that they could use tools. But this is a circular argument, where the effect is also ascribed to a cause, so we must look deeper.
The most reasonable argument would be prey/carcass manipulation. Where mammals have specialized teeth to help break down a big meal, reptiles tend to be more… violent with their food, having to toss their heads around and swallow big chunks. If the teeth are remaining more reptilian and dedicated to feeding, with only some heterogeneity, then having some dextrous, mobile hands makes sense. Most predators restrict the forelimbs to grappling with prey, using the head to deliver a killing stroke. Arxur would likely still do this, but having a strong set of hands might be selected for if they began hunting larger prey, as socialization would supply.
Thus, alterations to the pelvis and lower back would be needed, as well as anchorage of large muscles in the thigh and tail. This would result in a stiff seeming but strong lower section. Motion at the elbow, and the ability to pronate/supinate the hands would be critical but must be balanced against any impact to their primary (quadrupedal) form of movement. The shoulder would have to remain quite restricted to allow this; an Arxur probably couldn’t raise its arms directly upward (as in surrender) or draw a bow.
But this is the final push, and with the ability to alter your surroundings, strong binocular vision, social and communicative skills, and a growing brain, the Arxur would have been well on their way to sapience.

• External Appearance

The average Arxur is described as standing head and shoulders above the average human. Assuming, more for simplicity than accuracy, measured at the top of the head with good posture, that the average human stands at 6ft even or 183cm, this would place the average Arxur around 7ft or 214cm tall. However, several times in-story they are described as hunched over as if ready to pounce; understanding this, they would stand up to 8ft or 244cm tall with good posture. They have an overall humanoid structure: Two arms, two legs, one head, and a meaty tail; best used for balance, but could also be a bludgeoning instrument should the need call for it. Clawed hands made for grasping and clawed feet made for sprinting and pouncing.
They have grey coloring over their whole body, however as a living creature, they would still be susceptible to albinism or melanism, though these may be cause for elimination by Betterment. The largest visual difference between individuals would be bone structure and Scale patterning. The exact location and quality of scales on their body would be determined by genetics, healing, early development, and even lifestyle, which would lead to patterns that are unique from one individual to the next. Scales would be different across their body, from nearly skin-like on creases and joints, to harder scales on belly, chest, neck, and pads of hands. The hardest scales would be found on the back of their neck, top of head, outside arms and biceps, and spinal column, and would be hard enough to protect against biting and slashing especially, with limited protection from low-yield munitions. Citing earth precedent, Reptiles of all sorts shed their skin as they grow or heal, and I feel the Arxur are no different. As their hide is so different across their body, they would have different manners of shed depending on the quality of scales. Hard scales like those found on the spine or outside arm would come off in Schutes, described as rigid keratinous flakes of the whole scale, while soft scales in high contact areas like inner joints would slough off in thin sheets.
Scarring appears differently on different parts of the body: hard scales such as back and arms would require deep cuts to scar, and the scale would heal over it completely, though the scar tissue would still be visible on the soft skin behind the scale. Soft scale areas, like the face and underarm, would appear to be scale-less and discolored darker. Given this method of healing, personal adornments would include mutilation such as tattoo, piercing, and scarring, though would appear very differently from humans. Tattooing would be done on the soft skin under and behind the scales, and would largely be used to emphasize scale patterning. Piercings would be most used on the face, and never hard scale, as it would fall off after damage or shed. Their scaled body would be more resistant to small arms; pest killers such as birdshot would be a strong irritant, but military or home defense grade munitions would still be very effective.
Scarring would be permanent evidence of some kind of violence, and so would be a mark of respect, though the type of scar and its location would have specific meanings. Scars on the back would be a sign of cowardice, and may be intentionally inflicted by a superior as a mark of shame. To lie about your scars would be a severe breach of trust overall, and to self-inflict scars that mimic the marks of combat is extremely dishonorable, and may be grounds for ostracization.
Arxur display Sexual Dimorphism, although markedly less than humans. Being such an antisocial creature they would develop the need to be independent, which would curtail the evolutionary need for the sexes to specialize; essentially, they have no stressors to look different, so they would look very similar.
Chapter 69 confirmed they have slit pupils, which is well founded by examples on earth; every animal on earth with a slit pupil is an ambush predator. On earth, the eye color of ambush predators, namely crocodilians, are largely based on the need to camouflage and tend to have very little variance. Crocodilian eyes normally range from a drab orange/brown to forest green, though albinism and melanism can shift that to bright orange or jet black respectively; given the Arxur’s primarily grey coloring, I will conclude that the average eye color is majority tan or grey.
I prefer u/Browneorum’s interpretation of early life in Offspring , and conclude that Arxur hatch from a hard-shell egg, and spend early life quadrupedal; this is also supported by the scene in Ch59 in which 'One Arxur pounced from all fours, and dragged [Sovlin] by the arm out into the open.' Though to reconcile the understanding that adult Arxur can chase down most prey species while on two legs, I will conclude that Arxur develop bipedalism through puberty by hormones changing the shape of the pelvis to accommodate the new joint structure.

• Internal Biology

Arxur are obligate carnivores, almost twice the body mass of the average human, and warm blooded. Looking at earth precedent, there are not many terrestrial warm red-blooded obligate carnivores that have more body mass than Humans, but one of which is the Tiger, who averages 100.40F or 38C internal body temperature. I feel this is a very reasonable conclusion for the Arxur, and will be incorporating it into my stories.
As obligate carnivores, their bodies would be better suited to hunt and capture things that fight back for their survival. To hold fast to something that is trying to escape, they would have well developed gripping muscles and claws that would curve toward the palm.
Injuries on humans and Federation alike have mentioned long gashes, so the claws would be long and thin, with a micro-serrated slashing edge. These injuries have also described disembowelment and impalements, implying great length and slight curve; I would compare this to a cat claw, though straighter and 20-30% of the length of the digit, similar to a bear claw. Since they have claws that are adept at quickly subduing their prey, they would have less pressure to change their teeth, so they would be most adept at tearing flesh and breaking bones rather than capture. This would look markedly similar to a crocodile’s though with several exceptions: The teeth would develop a narrower profile with serrations, as opposed to the straight pegs of crocodiles, as well as pointed molars at the back of the mouth adapted to breaking bone and shredding meat. With these, whatever they eat would look like corned beef by the time it gets to their gullet. A sapient creature capable of civilization would have an enlarged brain, so the Arxur skull would become taller and wider to accommodate it, as well as forward-facing eyes.
Arxur are unusual in that, true they are obligate carnivores, but they are also plant matter averse, in that they cannot digest any quantity of plant matter, of any kind, without suffering some level of gastro-intestinal distress. This would mean that sugars are nearly absent from their diet, and combined with the high fiber of raw meat, their teeth would be largely very clean; though the possibility of cracking or chipping one’s tooth still exists. Culturally, this would mean that Dental care is only emergency rather than maintenance level; and, given Betterment’s propensity to drop someone at the first sign of 'weakness', dental care would only be provided to the most effective hunters or most powerful leaders.

• Socialization

Arxur are described as inherently antisocial in that they become aggravated and tired from the extended presence of others. This is at odds with the idea that, before Federation interference, the Arxur were at a technological level roughly even with Humans in the late 1900’s, which would place them at the start of their information age; this information is canonized by the Wiki.
Walking the line of 'social but not really' implies an individual may have one or two others who they trust, if not enjoy the company of. These may include clutchmates, parental figures, mentor figures, or long time acquaintances, but it is established that Betterment, established after first contact, tried to breed out empathy and social structures, becoming entirely reliant on the government and Betterment.
This would not halt the odd 'friend' in their lifetime, but these relationships would be only barely more than surface level, enough to feel regret at their passing. This would significantly affect the acquisition of a mate. Pairings are largely set up by Betterment, though whether or not you are allowed is determined by an application and vetting process that the prospective parent initiates. If you are found wanting, you will not be allowed to procreate. Those with favorable traits would be allowed to breed, but the constant need for hunger-crazed raiders would make child rearing impossible in the field. As such, the vast majority would be raised in institutions separated by age groups and/or population, whichever is more pragmatic. If the children have a concept of 'mother, father, brother, sister' it would only be a gendered understanding of caregiver and friends; who layed you, who hatched you, and who you hatched with would have little or no bearing. Same-egg twins are a possibility, if rare, which may give reason for a closer, long-term relationship.
In such a heavily caste based meritocracy, those who prove themselves effective at what they do would be afforded the opportunity to raise their young directly; Chief Hunters raise their young to be Chief Hunters, Prophets raising Prophets, and so on.
Without the influence of Betterment, Arxur would pair as convenient and the mother would raise the young to self-sufficiency, which would be a very young age compared to other federation species, at which time the young would either leave or be ejected from the ‘family’. There would be instances of many-mother groups to raise large clutches as a collective and this behavior would have laid the foundation for being raised by Betterment. For the father to contribute to rearing is not unheard of, but very unusual. Throughout their evolution the father would have very little incentive to stick around, leading to a preponderance of ‘fusion-fission’ relationships. This would mean that, Pre-Betterment, their cultures would be largely matriarchal, with larger groups possibly led by a mated pair including a committed father. Post-Betterment would make the leader the Prophet and those who represent them, regardless of gender.

• Reproduction

Arxur lay eggs, though only when prompted by fertilization. They lay in clutches of 2-4, though larger and smaller clutches have been recorded, with the same chance of magnifying as the human chances of twins, triplets, and so on; as well, multiple viable embryos in one egg is a known phenomenon, though very rare. Of the eggs laid, at least one is always fertilized, and at least one is always an infertile self-replicating yolk of amino acids and proteins, which serves as a source of food for new hatchlings.
I believe the Arxur feel desire, and pursue the sensations brought about by intimacy. Arxur do not have a breeding cycle, rather their need is prompted by external environmental factors: high ambient temperature, high humidity, and the feeling of prosperity, plenty, and safety, i.e. well fed; other factors may contribute including trust, vulnerability, or dominance. While this may prompt arousal, breeding behaviors are prompted by touch of specific erogenous zones on their body, such as neck, sides, belly, and underside of the meat of their tail. These areas become discolored due to blood flow during arousal, and become extra sensitive. During arousal or contentment, an Arxur will frequently, but not always, make long deep body sounds, comparable to but different from purring.
Arxur are equipped with a cloaca, which disposes of excrement, provides and receives reproductive material, and deposits eggs. Though a key difference is that the vaginal canal, which receives reproductive material and passes eggs, is a separate canal that branches off of the main cloaca. The walls of a Female Arxur's cloaca is coated in a protective specialized mucus which serves as lubricant during intimacy and egg laying, and a protective barrier from pathogens during waste disposal. The vaginal and cloacal walls are highly textured to allow for expansion, though the surrounding flesh is interlaced with musculature for passing stool, eggs, and moving her legs. As such, a female has the capability to use these muscles to encourage insemination, though not all individuals may practice this.
A male Arxur's reproductive organ remains in their body also as a branch off the cloacal canal, except arousal fills the surrounding area with fluid which inverts the canal to a penetrative organ, emerging from the cloaca as a very smooth tendril-like organ. The sex is given form by fluid pressure, meaning it would be only as rigid as needed to perform; this would allow significant flexibility in both form and size, allowing a wider range of size compatibility than a comparable human would be capable of, provided preparation and patience. Upon presentation, the organ emerges coated in a different mucus than is present in females, the specific composition works to eliminate and replace the mucosal membrane of the female, allowing for and increasing the likelihood of successful insemination.
Breeding technique is largely a cultural and personal influence, which means that the high competition low survival environment of Betterment fosters a violent and one-sided experience. Some may enjoy this, some may hate it, but it is all they know. Their biology allows for gentler affections, they receive stimulation from it, but few may be familiar with the experience.

• Language

The core story mentions growls, hisses, clicks, and low reverberating tones; fan writing does the same, so we already have a very solid foundation. Because of that, I'm going to focus on more unusual parts.
While their early roots were aquatic, nothing about their interaction or environment implies a current-day need for an aquatic environment, indicating they have evolved to be almost entirely terrestrial; this means they would have to keep their mouths from drying out with the use of lips, making their mouths appear closer to a lizard than a crocodile. These lips would not be as nimble as a primate, so lip-based sounds like Buh and Puh would still be very limited; if they exist at all. Though Ff sounds would be very easy, and would modulate to a Vv sound when backed by a hum or growl. Having a mouth full of carnivorous teeth is not conducive to easy speaking, so I believe they rely heavily on deep body sounds and glottal stops, with most if not all mouth sounds being some form of S. Given this, I believe their first oddity is that they don't use their mouth to speak much, if at all; the vast majority of their sounds would be coming from one or more voicebox-like organs deeper in their body.
This is supported, albeit obliquely, by the fact they eat their meat raw and in large quantities. It's probable that to avoid choking on food, their breathing and speaking pathways are separate from their digestive system; very different from humans and most creatures on earth.
As early water-land hybrids, they would have evolved to communicate through dense mediums, which may include dense air, as their dense bodies imply a high-gravity world. Since sound doesn't carry cleanly through dense mediums, they would have evolved long strong sounds, originating deep within the body. They may have used this as an intimidation tactic, especially in conjunction with a harmonic medium. This tells me they would use long tones, possibly using a drone as an emotive, modified by glottal stops, clicks, and hisses. With that in mind, their vowel sounds would be open-mouth Ah Eh EE OH.
Nearly every creature on earth with a tongue, has one long enough to clean their entire mouth, as well as their nose and/or eyes, and I believe the Arxur are no different: their tongue would be long enough to clean their nose above the tip of their mouth, and as their snout is so long, would also be long enough to clean their eyes. A tongue like that would be very good at RR and SS sounds, but unable to make a complete seal on the upper palate, making N sounds nearly impossible. Common consonants would be Ff, K and G. Hard X would be more exotic but well utilized, and modulated to a Zh or J sound when followed by a vowel sound. Guh would be common at the start or end of a word, but rarely both, while most S and Th sounds would have a strong lisp to them. Zee sounds would originate largely in the body, but modified by a Ss sound in the mouth, resulting in a very breathy soft J sound.
Thank you u/ImaginationSea3679 for your comments on the Arxur written word, I will expand on it here. Given their use of a drone along with additional sounds, I believe the Arxur indicate their drone with a horizontal line across their phrases, not unlike Devanagari, which is one of several scripts developed in India; whether the drone line is above, below, or through the phrase is not relevant and I leave to the writer how it is positioned, or if it is standardized at all. They would have symbols on these lines that represent broad concepts, such as 'Prey' or 'Danger', then modify these concepts using marks that represent phonetic sounds. These phonetic sounds would create the word that is heard and convey the full meaning, tense, plurality, and other specifics of the word and its use; as a visual example, ' P̷̓͠r̵̽̌e̸̒͌y̴͂̀ ' would be 'Venlil' and ' Ṕ̶͝r̶͒̓e̸̊̚y̷͊͐ ' would be 'Gojid'; notice how the base word, or glyph, is the same but the accents change to give precise meaning. Rather than developing a writing implement, I believe they largely use their claws, so the language would feature mostly lines while also taking advantage of depth; visually, I’m imagining a cross between Japanese and Yautja from the Predator franchise.
Finally, as they mostly use their claws to write, I believe that class would also determine how an individual writes; the higher castes would show their superiority with sharper claws, so a lower-class would have to use the blunt of their claw.

• Names

Please see my Arxur Name Post for a list of Arxur names from canon as well as fanfic. Following my spoken word observations, we are seeing a lot of sharp consonants such as K, T, and G. Duo-syllabic is again very common, but I’m also noticing a strong leaning on S sounds, giving the names more of a hiss behind them. As to naming conventions, it would make the most sense if the young were named in honor of things their name-giver, whether parent or caregiver, found important to them. Though as opposed to the Venlil, the Arxur would have a stronger focus on accomplished leaders, hunters, and soldiers.

• Architecture

Pre-Betterment architecture would focus on single or double person living, with a sprawling layout. Cities would look very different, with very little if any living spaces around working spaces. Public transit would be essential in such a sprawling civilization, but it would have a strong emphasis on compartmentalizing and overall privacy. Keeping with my assessment of limited parentage, child rearing facilities would be located closer to the cities while adult civilians would live further out. These facilities would eventually be owned and run by The State, but until then would function as community daycares, with new mothers and elder mothers tending the young of the community as a whole. There would also be friend groups, small communities of more familiar females that raise each other’s clutches outside of this system.
Post-Betterment, architecture would quickly shift to being state-sponsored and utilitarian. Minimal material, built to last, with little regard for aesthetic. Community child rearing would become required, and done totally by The State. Being a Matron would become a profession rather than a calling, recruited by Betterment based on their ability to train rather than raise. These matrons would then select apprentices, possibly from the young they raise, to be their helpers and eventually replacements.
While pursuing brutal efficiency, Post-Betterment Arxur would condense their housing, while still compartmentalizing further; this would cause stress and tension, instigating competition and establishing dominance, all of which would further the goals of Betterment in a merciless ‘survival of the fittest’ mentality.
This brutalism would extend to their war machines, which is also shown in canon, with sharp angles and every open space sporting additional armaments and/or shielding. As they transition to a raiding-based society, their average life would push into space, using capital ships to house and train new Arxur, while sapient-cattle farms provide cushy living for those with powerful friends or family.

• Artistic Expression

Pre-Betterment, artistic expression would both revel in and deconstruct the world around them. Having predatory eyesight allows understanding of fine detail, so there would be a thriving photorealism movement. Having binocular vision would also give them more appreciation of a three-dimensional space, so they would have a stronger focus on statues, friezes and wall reliefs; with such a strong sense of smell, they would also incorporate novel materials in their art, both 3d and 2d, to lend another depth of sense. Some Arxur, especially those trying to process the horrors of their world wars, may expand into surrealist or expressionist techniques, but this movement wouldn’t gain ground before the rise of Betterment.
Betterment would pull the focus of their art away from the self and push it toward the Glory of Arxur-Kind, and the perfection of the Prophet. Leaning hard into photorealism, any new artistic works, including statues and carvings, would venerate the Prophet and depict battle scenes, likely fictitious, triumphing over anything that would not be ‘Arxur’; visually, I’m imagining Renaissance Catholic, mixed with Soviet propaganda, with a hint of the ultra-violence of Warhammer 40k.

• Faith

Pre-Betterment, I can see their faith leaning one of two ways: either leaning into the Christian Colonial ideal of mastery and dominion over their world and its bounty, which would lay a solid foundation for the racial superiority espoused by Betterment. Or, having a reverence for death, and its place in the cycle of their world; understanding that they and everything else must kill to live, and being thankful at every meal to be the one to win this struggle.
Post Betterment, the atrocities of the Federation gave a unifying enemy to the Arxur, and they unified behind a single individual, Laznel who became the Prophet. Outlined in ch39 by Captain Coth, Laznel was a genetic scientist who posited that certain bloodlines had a higher chance of being stronger, or smarter, or other beneficial traits, and submitted this theory under the article Betterment; we the reader, would recognize this as Eugenics. While Laznel’s theories had gained ground pre-first-contact, it wasn’t until after the Federation tried to Gentle the Arxur that these philosophies became commonplace. Laznel, the Prophet, gave the blueprint for the Perfect Arxur, something every Arxur should aspire to be like. The Prophet Descendant is the top of every level of leadership, including being the head of Betterment, which translates to the top leader and interpreter of their faith. The Prophet Descendant and Betterment use this belief to guide Arxur behavior and enforce what we would call Brutal Darwinism to try to craft the next Perfect Arxur.

Pharaoh Ramses II had 129 children, and there is a tale that one day he gathered them and asked them, “Which one among you thinks they resemble me the most?” All of them, girls and boys, answered in a chorus “Me!” The notables around the Pharaoh started laughing, but the Pharaoh calmly told his children that they were all right: “You all resemble me. I am in all of you. So, go and fill the world. Create your clans, your tribes, create your own language but remember that you have admitted that you all resemble me".
tldr: Theres quite a bit of information that id like to share & its counterproductive to split up into 2 threads. Here is the account of the Sages who came to help the human race after disaster. Dont get worked up, These werent aliens. They were men who were treated as Gods AFTER theyd lived life in service to their fellow man. Let me state that Im a native West African keeper of the record of the people whos spent over a decade in the US. We require a modern AND traditional education. Theres no such thing as black or white to us. I despise Afrocentrist as much as the next person, i hate being lumped with who i consider racists more than anything. We don't teach Africa is the center or the cradle of civilization, its Australia. Also, time being linear is nonsense its cyclical such as the seasons. We worship ancestors, because they had the knowledge.. We don't look at the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Mesoamerica as inferior technologically nor do we consider civilization in 2023 'advanced technologically' ...
I wanna share the accurate indigenous wisdom traditions of the Sages that are referenced and stylized in every corner of the globe. These are the statues you see every where from Gobekli Tepe, Easter Island, to the Maori Islands..The Ahu akivi, Shesh or Shakti, the Tiki, etc megaliths who place their hands on their navels. These are who we indigenous consider our ancestors worthy of praise, the Gods as you'd say. But don't project Western beliefs onto our cultures, these were HUMAN BEINGS. They were deified AFTER they passed away. Osiris, Horus, Isis were all from a race of people Flinders Petrie discovered physical evidence of called Aunu. The Book of the Dead tells you about Osiris/Anu.. Kings of Tera neter
F.Petrie History of Egypt -Aunu Earliest civilization The first Kings who were the 'Wise Men from the Upper Nile were known as Aunu. (Google Ainu or Aunu people youll find them in every nook & cranny across the globe. In Louisiana as well as in Japan, and Sumer) There has been discoveries from much earlier than the accepted predynastic period that shows these people had domesticated animals & were using tools for agriculture Long before the accepted period. Heres a list of published works or scientific discoveries that most may not be familiar with. Also, the works of some of the fathers of Western Egyptology 1890s Emile , Project Gutenberg-T Mospero
The most fascinating civilizations of antiquity all show that they digressed as time went on, they didnt advance as youd think. The Oldest pyramid used Granite, basalt, Diorite, the recent discovery in Mexico shows that the Mesoamericans were at their peak the further back we go.Egypt: Those long reigns like most of the cultures of our ancestors SHOULDNT BE TAKEN LITERALLY. "The simplest explanation " is why so little is known about humanitys past. The ancient people of Egypt would say “he died aged 110” which referred to someone who lived life to the full and who offered an important contribution to society.
The most advanced human beings were the demigods of Sumer-Apkallu, 9 unknown Men-India, 7Sages -Greek, Ahu Akivi, Egypt-Shemsu Hor Today, Neb(High Priest) Manetho is considered the leading authority on Egypt and tells us during Zep Tepi They were “divine beings who knew how the temples and sacred places were to be created.” The Sages were divine survivors of a previous cataclysm who made a new beginning. Originally, they came from an island – the Homeland of the Primeval Ones --the majority of whose divine inhabitants were drowned. Arriving in Egypt, the survivors became “the builder Gods, who fashioned in the primeval time, the Lords of Light . . . the Ghosts, the Ancestors . . . who raised the seed for gods and men . . . the Senior Ones who came into being at the beginning, who illumined this land when they came forth unitedly Aswan obelisk - Elephantine
The Egyptian people didn't necessarily have a name for their civilization before the Shemsu Hor(Companions/People/Followers of Horus) arrived, they would call themselves 42 Tribes of 'Sesh', because they'd come from 42 different directions. A true meltingpot, where survivors gathered together from about every race you can name. After the golden age they then refer to themselves as Sheshu hor , "the people of the realized man"
Pharoah is from the Per-Ra, which youd probably say means house of Ra the Sun God. While true the word Ra had eventually begun to be used to denote the Sun-God in early dynastic periods, it was not yet designed as a proper name for the deity but rather a quality, or more correctly, an epithet. It initially meant “shining,” “brightness” or “light bringer one that shines high above"The Shining House”. We should remember here that the word Per (house) also meant dynasty in the Ancient Egyptian language (just like in some Western languages) as well as a physical building. Hence, the word Per-Ra actually points at a special group of people, like “the shining dynasty” or “the bright rulers.” The three pyramids of Giza were aligned in a pattern which was a perfect reflection of the stars in Orion’s Belt in 10,450 B.C., when Orion was at its closest to the southern horizon in the 25,900- year cycle of the precession of the equinoxes. Dhejuty was the King & the sacred knowledge was kept by the priestly elites /7 sages known as Shemsu Hor or ,"The Followers of Horus”. They used the heavens as a Legominism, taken from the sunken land theyd arrived from which used the stars as a means of passing and preserving knowledge down through time’s "inherent, law-conformable distortions".
The thread i made a week or so ago gives accounts from many ancient historians on how the Giza pyramid were thousands of years older than accepted. Josephus says they were built by Sons of Seth & youll see later that Petrie'Father of modern Egyptology ' found the Sons of Seth. (Plutarch mentions Hermes 'the 8'... him and the 7 sages he brought) Cedrenus' account says "Enoch(Thoth, Hermes, Dhejuty)foreseeing the destruction of the Earth, had inscribed the science of astronomy upon two pillars". The god of intelligence of the Egyptians was Thoth, Hermes was what the Sabians called him. Hermes was, however, called the son of Seth, and this deity is in some sense to be identified with Thoth(Tau). The Christian cross is based off the Tau ("take up your cross & walk") Jesus( Issa) was saying to remove the illusion of self. The Ego, look inside for your divine nature. I detail the Tau symbol & T shaped pillars of Gobekli Tepe, the Puma Punku site is TShaped , sites like the Ki Va of SouthW US Indians.. we are 1 people, there's no such thing as race.
In a passage of the Book of the Dead, the he has the name Tet. The oldest accounts of travel to Giza, is the Arab star-worshippers mentioned above "Sabians of Harran".. they were already traveling to leave offerings at the Giza pyramid in 1,730 - 1,575 BC.
Paleolithic burial of modern human Taramsa Hill Egypt
The Sumerian kings list mentioned the Kushite being the location that civilization restarted after the cataclysm that had destroyed the island mentioned above. The 3 sons of the King who is mentioned by the Aztec, Rapa Nui, that were sent out as Emissaries are the same 3 sons of Noah in the Bible. In support of the Sumerian claims about The Kush is the Earliest writing Dr Dreyer in a tomb in Abydos.
The Papyrus of Hunefer or Ani states the very same that Diodorus & Herodotus did much later. "We came from the beginning of the Nile where God Hapi dwells, at the foothills of The Mountains of the Moon" Diodorus Siculus Ethiopians were the first men that ever lived, the only truly autochthonous race and the first to institute the worship of the gods and the rites of sacrifice. Egypt itself was a colony of Ethiopia and the laws and script of both lands were naturally the same; but the hieroglyphic script was more widely known to the vulgar in Ethiopia than in Egypt. (Diodorus Siculus, bk. iii, ch. 3.) This knowledge of writing was universal in Ethiopia but was confined to the priestly classes alone in Egypt. This was because the Egyptian priesthood was Ethiopian. The highly developed Merodic inscriptions are not found in Egypt north of the first cataract or in Nubia south of Soba. These are differences we would expect to find between a colony and a parent body. Herodotus (bk. ii, p. 29) Homer and Herodotus call all the peoples of the Sudan, Egypt, Arabia, Palestine and Western Asia and India Ethiopians.”
During the invasions the bloodlines in charge of the highest echelons of knowledge decided to migrate from the Itoure(nile River) area in order to preserve the integrity of the knowledge itself. I made a threadon the Hopi migration from Kasskara already, the Maya Chilam (Mouthpiece of the Gods) "Carry your great books into the jungles. Place your histories deeply in caverns where none of these men can find them. Nor do you bring them back to the sunlight until the War-Cycle is over. For these bearded strangers are the children of War. They speak my precepts, but their ears do not listen. They have but one love and that is for weapons. " see, we don't have some imaginary sky daddy. These were all our ancestors who had the knowledge & were God's for what they did for humanity.
When Diodorus Siculus says "This knowledge of writing was universal in Ethiopia but was confined to the priestly classes alone in Egypt. This was because the Egyptian priesthood was Ethiopian" & "Black skinned priests who conferred with red men who we see depicted as GodKings he was talking about my predecessors the "Nabateans". The Sabaean people used an ancient Semitic tongue of their own, Sabaean or Himyaritic, which is what Ethiopian is based on.The 2 bloodlines were my Mande(Malinke-Bambara) lineage & the Gourmantche. To protect the initiations, the Dogoncharge of the highest echelons of knowledge decided to migrate from that area in order to preserve the integrity of the knowledge itself. They decided to no longer build elaborate and grand structures similar to the ones they built in the Nile valley which brought the attention of the invaders. They realized such material structures werent necessary to live a life focused on spiritual development. . I earned the title of Naba Seri(Neb-Master or Priest) after 15 yr of education in the same teachings of the mystery schools in Botu & Heliopos. We initiates of The Cult of Lebe(the Serpent God of the Dogon(Enki) have always been the Priests while the( 'Rot' Red men) were kings. In Bible theres mention of the Nomadic priests called Nabateans & the children of Isreal only listening to them, same group. Naba comes from Neb, the Egyptian MeduNtr for Priest(https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1397/1397-h/1397-h.htm)
-Raymond Dart- population fluctuation 7000 yr Egypt "Only 1% of pre-dynastic Egyptian skulls are brachycephalic (round or spherical): El Amrah 1% (101 skulls), Nagada, 1.9% (314 skulls), El Badari 0% (79 skulls).
From Dynasty I to VI (Old Kingdom), brachycephaly does also not exceed a single percent. However during the First Intermediate Period of Egypt 2181–2055 BC or Dynasty IX, 11.6% of skulls are brachycephalic or round." In other words, In ancient Egypt most of the Egyptians were dolichocephalic, or had long heads.I discussed the family of Nefertiti in the thread on Atlantis and youll see ALL members of that lineage had dolichocephalic, or long skulls
Dr. W. J. Perry refers to it as the Archaic Civilization. Sir Grafton Elliot Smith terms it the Neolithic Heliolithic Culture of the Brunet-Browns. Mr. Wells alludes to this early civilization in his Outline of History, and dates its beginnings as far back as 15,000 years B.C. Elliot Smith called the Heliolithic (sun-stone) culture, included many or all of the following odd practices: (1) Circumcision, (2) the queer custom of sending the father to bed when a child is born, known as Couvade, (3) the practice of Massage, (4) the making of Mummies, (5) Megalithic monuments (i.e. Stonehenge), (6) artificial deformation of the heads of the young by bandages, (7) Tattooing, (8) religious association of the Sun and the Serpent, and (9) the use of the symbol known as the Swastika for good luck. We have ceremonial dolls that have the symbol resembling the Swastika today. Dogon -Dama -Hopi-Kachina It's important that we maintain what our ancestors taught...

Me again. North. Canine. Recently turned 4. Am big man dog now even if mom still calls me her ‘baby dog’. I have foot issues. In the summer they get very very itchy. Mom says it’s my allergies. And she gives me extra treats so my feet aren’t so itchy. BUT! Sometimes I also get blisters between my toes. Mom monitors the toe situation, which I hate, hate, but tolerate because I get treats. My noticed me licking my left back foot. She then TOOK THE FOOT, looked between the toes and tsked. Yes folks. She tsked at me.
Then she proceeded to WASH said foot, apply antibiotic spray it it, and, get this, SHE PUT A BOOTIE ON IT !!!!!!
Then she announced that I had leveled up and could now be called ‘FootLicker’ by all the town criers.
I have since demanded many treats. To help with wound healing of course. Being bootied is bad enough. But the name calling is very unnecessary
So. AITC for foot licking? Mom wants to add that the bootie and FootLicker name could’ve been avoided had I listened when she told me to leave it alone. I clearly disagree

Jolly 252 Orthworm w/ Scarf gets to 376 speed meaning it outspeeds anything unboosted up to Cinderace which means the only faster non-scarf Mons are +speed Nature Dragapult, Greninja and Meowscarada. I figured put 252 into HP to maximize Shed Tail boosts and the other 3 move slots are STAB (Iron Head or Heavy Slam), EQ, and either Body Press/Rock Slide/Tera Blast/Spikes
Here's the full set:
Orthworm Jim (Orthworm) @ Choice Scarf Ability: Earth Eater Shiny: Yes Tera Type: Electric EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 Spe Jolly Nature

• Shed Tail
• Heavy Slam
• Earthquake
• Body Press

I went with Tera Electric because it fits my team well and leaves Orth with no weaknesses, obviously the key to using this effectively is to have some good Mons to pass the shed tail to. I've been using Tech Breloom (Mach, Bullet, Spore, Sword Dance w/Loaded Dice) and H-Zoroark (Nasty Plot, WoW, Hex, and Hyper Voice) since either one can go into setup or status spreading depending on my opponents move and both are more frail than a wet paper bag. I also recommend using Pawmot or Rabscara for Revival Blessing and Hatterene or Screaming Jigglypuff for Healing Wish since Orthy lacks reliable recovery. Thoughts?

• Elenna (Elenna-nórë) in Quenya: Land of the Star
• Númenor (Númenórë) in Quenya: Westland

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The Star Shaped Island Theory

The island of Númenor had a shape of a 5-point star, each point having its own unique geological and physical features: Forostar, Andustar, Hyarnustar, Hyarrostar and Orrostar.

https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/N%C3%BAmenor
​

Tolkien never drew a map of Arda showing where exactly in Belegaer, or relative to Middle-earth, the island of Númenor stood, but there are some narrative hints.

https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Elenna
The Azores, when viewed from Google Earth resembles a Star, in the middle of the Belegaer (Atlantic) just as Tolkien wrote about. How many points on the star is the downfall in this theory.. Tolkien wrote about 5 points while the Azores Plateau supports a 3 pointed Star (Like the Mercedes Logo). Or perhaps a 4 pointed North Star if we connect the smaller subterranean islands south of the Azores Plateau. This would make much more sense, as the North Star was a symbol of navigation for the sailors of the Sea in the past.
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The Location Theory

Tolkien never drew a map of Arda showing where exactly in Belegaer, or relative to Middle-earth, the island of Númenor stood, but there are some narrative hints.

https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Elenna
​

The Azores (/əˈzɔːrz/ ə-ZORZ, US also /ˈeɪzɔːrz/ AY-zorz; Portuguese: Açores Portuguese pronunciation: [ɐˈsoɾɨʃ]), officially the Autonomous Region of the Azores (Região Autónoma dos Açores), is one of the two autonomous regions of Portugal (along with Madeira). It is an archipelago composed of nine volcanic islands in the Macaronesia region of the North Atlantic Ocean, about 1,400 km (870 mi) west of Lisbon, about 1,500 km (930 mi) northwest of Morocco, and about 1,930 km (1,200 mi) southeast of Newfoundland), Canada.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azores
The Azores is an archipelago of islands that are 1,400 km from Lisbon, Portugal of Middle-earth. 1,500 km from Morocco of the Hither Lands and 1,930 km from Newfoundland of Tol Eressea straddling the east coast of Aman. Wouldn't it be a coincidence that one of the few countries with Port in it's name actually owned the island remnant of Numenor? The many Ports that were built along it's coasts?
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The Azores Triple Junction Theory

The Azores Plateau or Azores Platform is an oceanic plateau encompassing the Azores archipelago and the Azores Triple Junction in the North Atlantic Ocean. It was formed by the Azores hotspot 20 million years ago and is still associated with active volcanism.
The plateau consists of a roughly triangular-shaped large igneous province that lies less than 2,000 m (6,600 ft) below sea level.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azores_Plateau
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The Azores Triple Junction (ATJ) is a geologic triple junction where the boundaries of three tectonic plates intersect: the North American Plate, the Eurasian Plate and the African Plate. This triple junction is located along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge (MAR) amidst the Azores islands, nearly due west of the Strait of Gibraltar.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azores_Triple_Junction
The Azores Plateau lies 2,000m below sea level. Could this be the long lost Atlantis that sank below the cataclysm of the 2nd Age? One little sweet detail we can suffice from the Azores Triple Junction is it's representation to the World of Arda and it's Realms. Valinor (North American Craton) rested on the North American Plate.
The Western Islands of the Azores Archipelago sit on the North American Plate and we can assume these Islands to be remnants of the Port City of Andúnië which received Elven sailors from Tol Eressea (Newfoundland, Canada). Elves travelling as far East as they could along the North American Plate to visit fair Numenor and it's western coast.
The Eurasian Plate serves as the eastern islands of the Azores Archipelago and we can find the Port City of Rómenna to sit here. Numenorean sailors would often launch their ships here to visit Middle-earth (Eurasia).
The African Plate serves as the southern islands of the Azores Archipelago. Not much information can be analyzed here, but we can assume the same that Numenorean sailors would launch from the south to visit the Hither Lands (Africa).
​
The Meneltarma→Mount Pico Theory

Meneltarma had a flattened and somehow depressed summit, which was so broad that was able to contain a great multitude during religious ceremonies. However no permanent structure was erected there, and the ceremonies took place in open air. It was said that on a clear day the 'far-sighted' might see Tol Eressëa.
After the destruction of Númenor, some amongst the Exiles believed that the Hallow of Eru upon the summit of the mountain remained as an isle in Belegaer. Some Dúnedain are even said to have set sail trying to reach the isle, from which the legend held that one could catch a glimpse of the unreachable Aman.

https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Meneltarma
​

Mount Pico (Portuguese: Montanha do Pico) is a currently quiescent stratovolcano located on Pico Island, in the mid-Atlantic archipelago of the Azores. It is the highest mountain in Portugal, at 2,351 metres (7,713 ft) above sea level, and is one of the highest Atlantic mountains; it is more than twice the elevation of any other peak in the Azores. It has been a designated nature reserve since 1972.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Pico
Meneltarma was the central Mountain upon Numenor and was revered by the people of the Island. It was the highest Mountain of the Island and had a flattened summit. Mount Pico is the highest Mountain of the Azores and EVEN Portugal. It is more than twice the elevation of any other peak in the Azores. So clearly this Mountain is and was a sight to see of the Azores. The Exiles of Numenor even believed the summit of the Mountain to remain in the Belegaer. So perhaps Mount Pico would've been higher yet in the past? As far as being "far-sighted" to see Aman (North America) from the top of the Mountain I would read more carefully the meaning of "far-sighted."
Far-sighted doesn't have to mean in a physical sense, one can see Tol Eressea or Middle-earth from the Azores (Numenor). Since the Hallow of Eru was founded on the Mountain, we can assume the word takes a religious meaning. Being far-sighted would mean then that one could have visions of the land in their mind.
Oh and let's not forget the flattened summit of Mount Pico. If I had photos to share, I would. Check it out yourself!
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Closing Statement
There are holes to this theory. But then there are many supporting theories. Like always, Tolkien may have not thought about the Azores when writing about Numenor, but the fact remains.. the lore matches the geographies of our world. 20 million years ago even...
Whose to say what the Azores looked like 20 million years ago? An island realm that colonized the Earth? Sea-kings, Gods among Men. Atlantis the Island. A civilization that brought the best and worst of mankind. Where it is only heard about in books.. fantasy.. mythology.

Hello everyone! Time for the 2023 edition of the Mens Mascot Tournament!
Here are the rules:

1. I will use the current official nicknames.
2. Explanation of nicknames will be from Wikipedia.
3. Raiders, Pioneers, and Warriors can only use methods approved by the Geneva Convention.

Allentown Regional:

Michigan Wolverines vs Colgate Raiders:
Wolverines: A solitary carnivore known for killing prey much larger than themselves.
Raiders: Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a raider as a soldier with close-combat training or a person who attempts a hostile takeover of a business.
Winner: Raider as he sets up a trap for the wolverine.
Penn State Nittany Lions vs Michigan Tech Huskies:
Nittany Lions: It’s an eastern mountain lion that used to reside at Nittany Mountain nearby the campus of Penn State. Sadly, they haven’t been seen at Nittany Mountain since the 1880’s.
Huskies: Known for being great as sled dogs. They are energetic, athletic, and have thick coats. Also known as man’s best friend.
Winner: Husky by default as there are currently no reported eastern mountain lions at Nittany Mountain.
Allentown Final: Colgate Raiders vs MTU Huskies:
Winner: Raider as he sets another trap for the husky.

Bridgeport Regional:

Quinnipiac Bobcats vs Merrimack Warriors:
Bobcats: It’s a wild cat found in North America. They are predators and prefer rabbits. They can kill birds up to the size of swans. Also they are territorial and mainly solitary.
Warriors: People who are belligerent in a war. Includes professional armies, paramilitary, rebels, and other combatants. They usually have weapons and other devices used during wartime.
Winner: Warrior as he uses a sniper rifle to shoot the bobcat from far away.
Harvard Crimson vs Ohio State Buckeyes:
Crimson: A stronger shade of red.
Buckeye: It’s a moderately toxic tree found in the Midwest and the Greater Plains that effects the gastrointestinal system.
Winner: Tie as both are inanimate.
Bridgeport Final: Merrimack Warriors vs Harvard Crimson/Ohio State Buckeyes:
Winner: Warrior as he steps on the buckeye. Then he interrogates Crimson, in methods approved by the Geneva conventions, until the color admits defeat.

Manchester Regional:

Denver Pioneers vs Cornell Big Red:
Pioneers: The word originates from the French word, pioneer, who is a French foot soldier.
Big Red: Wikipedia says these are words from the fight song.
Winner: Big Red!? In a not-so-shocking upset, the Frenchman surrenders to a fight song.
Boston University Terriers vs Western Michigan Broncos: Boston Terriers: Type of terrier that is small and compact, with short tails and erect ears. Also highly intelligent, easily trainable, friendly yet stubborn.
Broncos: It’s a horse that bucks. Bucking is when a horse (or any animal) uses their hind legs to kick anything from behind. Horses normally do this at rodeos.
Winner: Bronco as the Boston terrier didn’t get the memo that this is a fight. He casually sniffs the bronco and once at the back of the bronco, the bronco fatally kicks the dog.
Manchester Final: Cornell Big Red vs Western Michigan Broncos:
Winner: Bronco as it eats up the fight song.

Fargo Regional:

Minnesota Golden Gophers vs Canisius Golden Griffins:
Golden Gophers: “Golden” is just due to the color of the uniforms. Gophers are part of the rodent family and burrow into the ground. They can store large amounts of food in their cheeks which are stored underground. Finally, Gophers are herbivores however can bite animals and humans in defense.
Golden Griffins: A mythical creature of supposed gigantic size that has the head, forelegs and wings of an eagle and the hindquarters, tail and ears of a lion." It represents values such as strength, vigilance, and intelligence,
Winner: Griffin as it waits for the gopher to come out of its burrow and then fatally strikes the gopher.
Minnesota State Mavericks vs St. Cloud State Huskies:
Maverick: An animal that has not been branded (ID to know what farmer owns them). Therefore, they mature in wild conditions. Usually, the type of animal is cattle. Cattle are multiple cows. Cows are used for milk and meat. Can also be used to pull things. Their dung can be used for fertilizer.
Huskies: Known for being great as sled dogs. They are energetic, athletic, and have thick coats. Also known as mans best friend.
Winner: Husky as it moves fast to kill the maverick by going for the throat.
Fargo Final: Canisius Golden Griffins vs St. Cloud State Huskies:
Winner: Griffin as it squishes the husky with its large feet.

Semi-Finals:

Colgate Raiders vs Merrimack Warriors:
Winner: Raiders after a very, very, VERY long time of engaging in a cat-and-mouse fight. Both set up traps for each other. Both realize nothing is happening, so they scout each other. Raider gets the idea to create a fake double and leaves it next to a fake trap. Warrior doesn’t know that it’s a double and assumes that the raider is sleeping. Warrior slowly creeps up behind the double and stabs it. Warrior is surprised and the raider quickly comes out of the fake trap giving the warrior and quick and swift death.
Western Michigan Broncos vs Canisius Golden Griffins:
Winner: Griffin as it picks up the bronco and lets it fatally fall back to earth.

Championship Game:

Colgate Raiders vs Canisius Golden Griffins:
Winner: Raider! Griffin saw from the air that the raider kept on setting up traps so anticipated the next trap. So the griffin sends a message by dropping a large log onto the trap. Raider realizes that he needs to try a different strategy. So the raider goes into a small cave where the griffin can’t see him. Griffin sees that raider is bringing a bunch of supplies into the cave. Raider knows this, which is why he is trying to make the griffin think that he’s making a catapult out of wood from a nearby river, with plants and leaves as camouflage. Raider also gets mud to camouflage himself into surroundings outside the cave. Eventually the raider brings out the finished catapult covered with leaves to look like the surroundings. Griffin sees this and goes and gets a large tree to crash onto the catapult. Raider uses the catapult before the griffin gets too close but fails to hit the griffin. Meanwhile the griffin had to let go of the tree and yet it still hits the catapult. In the commotion, griffin thinks that the raider is dead so lands next to the cave to make sure. Then the raider, still camouflaged in mud, does a surprise attack from the top of the entrance of the cave. Raider jumps on the back of the griffin and starts stabbing it. Griffin jumps up and raider falls off. Griffin then realizes that there is C4 on its back, and raider ignites the C4, thus winning the tournament.

[Wiki] - [Chapter Start] [First] - [Prev] - [Next]
Fluur stood and stared up at the hole in the ceiling, impatiently waiting, feeling useless and stuck. Amander had told him to wait, Amander had said the safest place to be was in this room, that help would presumably be on their way.
A pained canine scream echoed out through the research station’s PA system, the sound of flesh being cut and bones cracking once again.
But how could he just sit here, sit here while Spot was being tortured by some sick slaving asshole? No matter how little, he could help. Fluur’s body literally felt like new, the genetic treatment having not only healed his injuries, but made him feel years younger.
He couldn’t find a weapon, so settled for a rather solid lump of metal that had once been a chair leg. Since Spot had told him he could now use the stuff, the Zorthian took a moment to grab a pack of Medigel, shoving it into his pockets. He climbed up onto the chair he’d seen Amander use and poked his head into the hole left in the ceiling.
Panic.
Absolute.
Panic.
Tight, too small. Like it had been too small and too dark back on the Raha prince’s ship. He couldn’t breathe, there was no air up here, he couldn’t breathe!
Fluur felt himself slam into the floor as he lost balance when his legs gave way, feeling the wind knocked out of him as he lay gasping for air as the panic attack remained. The treatment hadn’t healed all the wounds from his time as a prisoner.
Another howl of pain from the uplift echoed through the room as he lay on the floor.
Useless.
—-------------------------
Lut’har gave a grumble as he searched through the nearby rooms, looking for another red box that would contain more Medigel. The Raha had to admit that the stuff was impressive, heck the stuff was fun. Normally when you broke a plaything, you had to stop playing, you could only cut skin and break bones once.
But these Terrans… Medigel changed all that. If you had an infinite supply of the stuff theoretically you could enjoy your new toys forever. He would have to make that suggestion to the Raha royal house: There’s no way the Terran government would notice a handful of their people go missing, no government ever did.
However Lut’har didn’t have an infinite supply of the stuff, so he returned empty handed back to where he’d been waiting for his quarry to arrive. Where he’d been “enjoying” the strange fur covered Terran. Over the past 20 minutes he’d already used two bags of Medigel to keep his bait alive, to get a few more joyous howls of pain out of the canine. He couldn’t find a third, so the uplift would have to remain in its current grievously wounded half conscious state.
Lut’har was frankly disappointed by Amander. The Terran who had supposedly single-handedly taken out an entire royal barge had instead chosen to hide even as he tortured what was assumed to be a friend of some kind. Even worse, the sensors on the screens in front of him showed two incoming Terran warships. He’d have to leave soon in order to avoid being caught by them.
It really wasn’t what he wanted to do, but he guessed that what he’d done so far would be considered enough retribution for the death of prince Hakthas. Still, leaving the murderer alive left a terrible tingle down his antenna. Not that there was anything he could do if the Terran decided to just hide, and there was no point getting caught for no-
He heard the slight movement, giving him a fraction of a second to drop to the floor, watching the screen behind where he had been standing explode into a thousand pieces as a bullet blew through it. He didn’t even need to check to know who it was, it was the only other person on this station who he cared about: His target, Amander.
“So you finally came!”
He fired his own grouping of shots back in the direction the initial attack had come from, moving low and quick between cover, changing position rather than sticking with some forlorn hope that anything in this room could stop the kinetic power of Terran made bullets. He spotted a glimpse of Amander moving from corridor to corridor, letting Lut’har fire back his own lethal shots, blowing holes in the walls as the Raha tried to predict the Terran’s movement.
“I’ve got to ask Amander, why here? With the lead you had, you could have been deep inside Terran territory by now.”
Lut’har had lost track of the Terran, keeping low and looking for the next location she would attack from. The console he had been hiding behind mere seconds ago exploded into shards of metal and electronics, leaving the Raha chasing ghosts as he tried to find where the second set of shots had come from.
“Why did you make it easier for me to kill you?”
The pillar Lut’har was ducked behind exploded as three bullets missed the Raha by inches, spraying him with shards of metal. Cuts and grooves were carved into his exoskeleton and white blood splashed into the floor. Yet he still didn’t have a single clear shot on Amander.
Something had to change, or Lut’har would be killed without ever even seeing his target. But the Raha had his own set of tricks. He dropped to the floor as loudly as he could and gave a fake scream of pain, tensing up and waiting to pounce as soon as the Terran came into view.
Which she did, of course she did. What kind of soldier wouldn’t try to push the advantage in such a situation? For the first time in the weeks Lut’har had been chasing that phantom, the Raha could finally see Amander Blake in the flesh.
He charged at her. Amander had one shot, one chance to hit the target before the insect would be upon her. She missed.
They both went tumbling to the ground as Lut’har tackled her, both entwined together as they fought each other for avantage, Amander’s weapon spinning out of her hand as she impacted the floor. Lut’har brought around his own gun, attempting to get a shot off before screeching in an agony as Terran hands wrapped around the Raha’s antenna and twisted in vicious movements. He dropped his own weapon as Lut’har desperately punched and flailed around, his senses spinning and no longer making sense as his antenna were assaulted, both eventually breaking free of each other.
For a moment both combatants lay there,regaining their composure before they both drew their knives and charged back at each other, insectoid mandibles screeching and primate shouting through gritted teeth. There were no quips, no back and forth banter, no declarations of victory. Both sides just wanted to kill each other, nice and simple.
Amander had been part of the assault on the Mars city Midgard, where humanity had demanded revenge on those who had rained death down upon the Earth and her children.
Amander dove forward, driving her opponent back with aggressive slice after slice, each one threatening to split the Raha’s thorax open and forcing him off balance, a heel kick to a leg joint causing the insect to stumble.
Lut’har had fought his way through the fight pits, through hordes of other damned souls who had been born away from Int’ch’s loving light, fighting through the darkness over years to eventually break free into the sun’s loving guiding embrace.
Lut’har stabbed viciously with his own blade, causing the Terran to stop her attack or get a knife to the gut, taking this moment to press his momentum. Lut’har got back to his feet as his knife knicked the Terran, the flesh wound appearing on the side of the Terran’s torso: inches away from disembowelling her.
Amander had been the soul who had broken into the Council of One’s chambers during the Sagittarius anarchy. She had been the one to put a bullet in each of the 12’s sick twisted minds.
Amander ducked and dodged, batting another lethal attack to the side, using the blade this time to force the insect to repeatedly take strikes from her fists and feet, wearing down the Raha until eventually using these gaps in its defense to drive the blade deep into its shoulder, giving a sickening twisting crunch as she twisted the blade.
Lut’har had been the one to stand against the Ranthas conspiracy. He had been the one to protect the sanctity of the Raha royal line, to project Int’ch’s will. He had been the one to stand against so many, against such odds… and return victorious.
Lut’har didn’t care about the blade stuck in his shoulder, taking the moment that the Terran was occupied with its own weapon to strike the primate in the face, eventually just grabbing onto her shoulders and headbutting the Terran repeatedly over and over until they both separated, stumbling back a few steps. Red blood now coated the exoskeleton of his faceplates, his opponents nose and several teeth clearly broken and bleeding heavily.
Both continued to dance back and forth, seconds turning to minutes, movements starting to slow as both quickly found their initial energy supplies depleted as small wounds and nicks were caught and caused on both sides. Red and white blood was splattered along the floor, Terran and Raha alike.
Then they both saw it. A moment. A strike to end the battle.
Amander went first, finding a gap that hadn’t been there before. The blade sliced through the air, then straight through the left arm of the Raha, removing it from its joint before eventually burying deep into its side.
Lut’har, however, did one better. He didn’t care about the Terran’s attack, he didn’t care about the pain and agony now coursing through where his now severed limb used to be, instead just focusing on one thing only: driving the blade straight and true… deep into the top of Amander’s chest.
Both combatants collapsed.
The room fell silent, the sounds of fighting replaced with only the smallest hum and buzz of machinery, or the occasional gurgle from a half conscious Spot. Time for a moment stood still, as everyone remained silent, a calm after the storm.
Then Lut’har got up. Slowly, painfully, blood dripped from his severed limb. This was bad, in this state we was going to quickly bleed to death. Maybe if the Raha made it back to his ship he could stop the bleeding there and then-
A scratching fumbling sound caught Lut’har’s attention, looking across to see Amander riffling bloody fingers through her pockets, pulling out one of the bags of Medigel and starting to attempt to apply it, each breath gurgling and wet as the Terran struggled.
Staggering, Raha walked over to his now fallen opponent, taking the moment to rip the bag out of her hands. Amander only offered momentary resistance as Lut’har found and retrieved both bags of the medical supply.
“How… Are…. You… Still…. Alive?”
The Terran should have bled out, or at least be bleeding out, confusion entering his mind until Lut’har took a closer look. It seems that the knife itself was stopping the flow of blood. He took the moment to tear open both bags of Medigel, dumping its contents uselessly on the floor. Then he reached over to retrieve his knife, to finally end this entire endeavour, before Lut’har spotted something even better.
He hobbled over slowly to the dropped weapon, to where Amander had been forced to leave it when Lut’har had tackled her. He picked it up with his one remaining hand, giving a small click of laughter. The weapon that had started all of this, one that had fired the shot that caused all this to happen. It was perfectly ironic that this would also be the one to end it.
“Amander Blake. I, Lut’har of the Int’ch royal guard, find you guilty of the murder of prince Hakthas, long may he be remembered.”
Lut’har took a moment to check the weapon was in a fireable state, before pointing it down at the Terran on the ground.
“Your sentence is death.”
[Wiki] - [Chapter Start] [First] - [Prev] - [Next]

So... yeah. This chapter took way longer to write than I had intended it to. Mostly because life got in the way and partly because trees are apparently the hardest thing to write about in the english language (or at least they are to my poor non-native mind).
Add in the fact that some large chunks of the text had to be rewritten a couple of times before I felt even slightly comfortable with posting it (because what even is a 'pacing') and you get the picture. Worse yet, life still hasn't gotten out of the way, so future chapters might also take longer.
With all of that out of the way, here's the new chapter, where a human and a teddy bear go see some tall wooden bois.
​
Memory transcription subject: Thraia, Physician of the Zurulian Expeditionary Relief Force
Date [standardized human time]: May 29, 2137
“So you really aren’t gonna tell me where we’re going?”
“Nope. A surprise’s a surprise.”
I let out a loud groan in frustration, though it was doubtful Robert would have heard it from where he was. “You’re insufferable sometimes, you know that?”
“I’ve been told many a time, yes.”
I just shook my head. There really was no arguing with him at this point. If I hadn’t gotten an answer out of him in the two hours we’d spent sitting on a train on our way here, or the hour-long car ride after that, there was no hope he’d say anything until we made it to wherever he was taking me.
I took a moment to let my sight drift upward. The thin canopy formed by the trees that grew alongside the path shredded the light of Earth’s Sun into thousands of tiny beams, forming a spotted pattern over the sea of crunchy dead leaves below.
Robert walked several paces ahead of me, looking back every couple minutes to make sure he wasn’t leaving me behind. His gaze was otherwise fixed in a forward position, not paying much mind to the world around him.
I guessed it was logical. He was probably more than used to the natural beauty of his world. Me, on the other hand… I could never get enough of it.
Back in Los Angeles, it was all ruin and destruction as far as the eye could see. To this day, months after the fact, work was still ongoing in clearing paths through the seas of rubble, and every now and then, they’d find some more remains, ready to be crossed off a missing persons list tens of thousands long.
While working with the relief teams during the initial aftermath of the attacks, I’d hardly had the time to do much sightseeing. It was only after a couple of months had passed and the amount of survivors found and treated each day had diminished to a trickle, that the higher-ups decided to switch up the strategy.
The original plan had been for us to leave Earth once human authorities were able to get a handle on the situation. Instead, after the reveal of the Federation’s vile manipulation of the Galaxy, Fleet high command saw an opportunity to score a propaganda victory back home: our forces would be slowly pulled out of Earth, rather than all at once, under the justification of ‘helping to uplift humanity’s medical knowledge’. With this, the government could show our people, and the Galaxy at large, that long-term cooperation with the predators was both possible and safe, which could go a long way to further discredit federal indoctrination.
Things had become more bearable after that. My team and I were reassigned to a major hospital in San Francisco, where we spent the next few months helping improve the… primitive healing methods used by the humans. The lighter workload meant we could actually afford some free time, which I’d personally chosen to spend traveling throughout the city and its surroundings.
Though some of my colleagues disagreed, I found Earth to be one of the most beautiful worlds I’d had the pleasure to visit. Maybe there was some truth to the Human doctrine of ‘ecological preservation’, after all, they must’ve been doing something right to keep their planet so lush and lively.
“Here we are!”
I was snapped back from my thoughts by the booming sound of Robert’s voice, having almost walked past whatever he’d stopped to look at. I turned my head to see him standing by the start of a trail leading further into the woods. A wooden Sign by the side read the words: ‘Tall Trees Trailhead. Redwood National Park’.
“W-wait, we’re going deeper into the forest?” I squeaked out. “Wouldn’t that be dangerous?”
He just waved my worries off. “It’s a tourist trail, and a well maintained one at that. We shouldn’t find anything too worrying out there.” He turned to face me and I saw a smirk start to form across his face. “Plus, you have a big scary predator here to protect you. There’s nothing out there brave enough to mess with me!”
I simply narrowed my eyes. “Oh really? I guess that ‘spider’ you found on your locker the other day must’ve been an exception to the rule then?”
His eyebrows formed into a frown but the smile never fully left his face. “Hey! It just caught me off guard; I thought I’d made that clear already.”
“Right, right…, that’s why Adrian described your reaction as ‘a freakout for the history books’” Even as his cheeks began to take on the slightest red tinge, he still kept his smile up.
I couldn’t possibly be the only one who found some human phobias hilarious in how ridiculously ironic they could be. Here was one of the only two predatory races in charted space, a species capable of fending off the Dominion and the Federation Remnants at once, biologically specialized in one of the scariest forms of hunting known to the galaxy… and a large portion of them were absolutely terrified of some tiny arthropods smaller than their fingernails. I honestly wondered how they’d even managed to set foot on Sillis.
“Anyway, if you’re done ridiculing me…” Robert said, feigning an offended tone. “… We should probably get a move on. The trail isn’t too long but we still wanna be able to get back here before sunset.” He adjusted the straps on his backpack, turning to face the green wilds in front of him.
“Why did we come all the way here anyway? Aren’t there plenty of hiking trails closer to the city?”
“Oh you’ll see… what’s at the end of this path is something you wouldn’t be able to see anywhere else. Trust me, it’ll be worth it.”
Wow he really isn’t gonna talk until we make it there, is he?
“Ugh… Fine!” I finally said in clear defeat. “But for the record, if we do end up getting hunted by something out there, I’m killing you before it eats me!”
He let out a hearty laugh before beginning to walk ahead. I followed him, this time closer behind.
The trail descended along the side of what I assumed was some sort of valley, snaking between the trees and boulders dotted about its path. It was hard to assess the geography of the area through the dense vegetation, and the few dim rays of sunlight that made it past the ever-thickening canopy did little to help with my disorientation. I knew humans had descended from arboreal herbivores before becoming predators, so the fact that Robert always seemed to know where he was going and looked perfectly comfortable with his surroundings wasn’t much of a surprise. Still it was an unnerving thought that I was entirely dependent on him for navigation in this place. If he lost his way, we were both screwed.
Despite my nagging fears though, I had to admit that I was starting to like hiking. There was something so very soothing about traversing these pristinely wild environments, free of the constant hustle and bustle of the cities. As much as I still had my reservations about mankind’s refusal to cull their world free of non-sapient predators, at times like these it was almost like some unhinged part of my brain took over and ignored the dangers lurking in these forests in favor of enjoying the quiet serenity they offered.
We eventually reached a wooden bridge that cut through a small ravine on the side of the hill. The slight elevation over the forest floor allowed for a much clearer sight of the sea of trees that covered the valley below. Robert stopped in his tracks, resting his arms on the railing as he took in the scenery.
“Like the view?” He asked, eyes fixed in the landscape below.
I’d had to get up on my hindlegs to be able to see it, which wasn’t particularly comfortable, but even then, I couldn’t argue with the obvious.
“It’s gorgeous.” I stated.
“Yeah… it really is… We’re lucky to see it too. Humanity came close to losing a lot of these places at one point.”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“Well it’s a long story, but it goes a little something like this…” He leaned back from the railing and started down the trail again as he explained, with me in toe. “During our industrial age, we began to use coal, and later other fossil fuels, to power our machinery. This allowed us to develop technologically and grow a whole lot in population, but the problem was that we never stopped using them, even as alternatives were developed, mostly because it was profitable.”
Listening to him talk, I could sense some lingering frustration in his voice. “So, come the start of the twenty-first century, we begin to realize that we may have made a huge mistake. All that fuel burning has been emitting tons of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, and the buildup is starting to have an effect on global temperatures, but do we do anything? No, of course not, we kick the can down the road and hope for the best.” He scoffed. Clearly, he didn’t look kindly on that decision.
“Eventually, things started to get really bad. My grandpa used to tell me stories about those days when I was little. In some cities, air quality was so low that you needed to go out with a mask if you didn’t want to get sick. A lot of food items became very expensive as crops began to fail. Hundreds of animal and plant species would go extinct every year.”
There was something deeply upsetting about imagining Earth in such a sorry state. I knew I should have no allegiance to a planet I’d only been staying at for half a year, but the idea of these green wilds slowly wilting away brought a deep sadness to my heart.
“But… things got better, didn’t they?”
“Yeah, though not before getting a whole lot worse.” He let out a sigh before continuing. “The famines and the heat didn’t affect the whole world equally. Some countries got it way worse than others, and the people there started to flee by the millions. This put too much strain on the system and things broke down fast. It started as just a couple border skirmishes, then it grew to a few isolated wars…and in a matter of months, the major world powers were lobbing stuff at each other from orbit.”
A short, bitter chuckle escaped his mouth. “I suppose it was a blessing in disguise though. With their armies decimated, those same world powers couldn’t prevent the UN from getting involved and forcing them all to the negotiating table. After that, a bunch reforms were passed across the planet to try and course correct, all while the UN was going postal on a lot of the corporations who’d been profiting off the problem. The Hague was busy for years after that.”
While I couldn’t understand what was being implied by that last remark, enough was clear from context that I could get a decent picture.
The idea of runaway industrialism wasn’t one I was fully unfamiliar with. Humans weren’t the first to have almost rendered their homeworld unlivable. Plenty had made that mistake before, and that had been the stated reason for the Federation’s ‘uplift on sight’ policy when it came to primitive sapients. That said, I’d never heard of species going down that road out of greed rather than ignorance. A very specific and cowardly part of my mind told me to chalk it up to ‘expected predatory behavior’, but after this long, I was more than used to ignoring it.
Robert continued his tale, explaining that the next few decades had seen a massive effort to revitalize the Earth’s ecosystems and even bring some species back from extinction using genetic engineering. By the time he’d been born, the planet was far along the healing process.
Thinking about it, perhaps this was where the idea of preserving predatory life had popped up for them. Maybe they did it out of some lingering sense of guilt?
Our conversation died down as we came up on a bend on the path. There we were met with a couple of humans, dressed up in hiking gear, going up as we went down. They didn’t have much of a reaction to Robert, simply doing a half-wave with their hands in acknowledgement, but when they saw me walking behind him, I noticed both of them jumped for a second, eyes going wide before settling down. One of them even took a hand to his chest before continuing to walk past us with accelerated pace.
Now, I knew by now that my kind and a few others in the galaxy seemed to trigger some sort of ‘cute’ response in humans. That, combined with the fact that space travel and alien life were still extremely novel concepts to them, had led to some… interesting situations back in the city. This, however, wasn’t any of that. This had been fear.
I looked at Robert for answers and saw him holding a hand to his mouth, trying desperately to hold in his laugh until the other hikers were out of earshot and practically falling over cackling once they’d walked far enough away.
“Oh my fucking god! It happened! It actually happened! I can’t even…” He managed to breathe out through the manic fit. My confusion only mounted.
“What happened? What was that all about?”
He just kept laughing. Apparently me missing the joke made it even funnier somehow.
“They… they thought you were a bear!” He finally managed to get out through the convulsions.
I paused at that, rummaging through my memory for my limited knowledge on Earth’s fauna to try and figure out if I even knew what a ‘bear’ was. I’d definitely heard the word before, but couldn’t recall the animal it was meant to represent.
Robert must have finally taken pity on my puzzled mind, because he began to take a hold of his breathing and gave me the answer I was looking for. “Bears… They’re large predatory mammals here on Earth. A lot of people say Zurulians look a lot like their cubs.”
That one left me completely dumbfounded. “Wha-, are you telling me they thought I was a predator? I’m half your size, what was I ever going to do?!”
“They weren’t scared of you. If you see a bear cub, chances are the mother isn’t too far way, so they were terrified that mama bear might just pop out from the brush beside you.”
Once again, I was left wondering how humans could be so contradictory. Horrifying predators with boundless empathy… Brave beyond measure and yet instinctually afraid of the strangest things. It wasn’t even a question why Chauson and the rest of the Institute had developed such an interest in them.
Robert’s words did rouse a different question from me though. “Wait, if they were scared because they thought I was one of those ‘bear’ things… does that mean there are actual ones in this forest?”
I really didn’t like how long it took for him to answer. “I mean… I doubt it. California has some black bear populations but they avoid humans for the most part.”
Great. I thought. That does a whole lot of nothing for me.
We got back to walking after that. The previous tranquility the woods had brought me was somewhat tainted by my newfound fear of coming face to face with one of my predatory lookalikes.
Fortunately, I didn’t have to sit on that worry for long, for as we came around another bend, I found myself facing a truly awe-inspiring sight.
The trail we’d been following ended on a tranquil thicket at the bottom of the valley. The sound of moving water could be heard coming from somewhere, though the thick foliage around us wouldn’t let me pinpoint the source. Wooden benches were spread out around the area, seemingly old enough to have been overgrown in many cases.
In the moment though, none of that truly registered in my head, as I stared in silent amazement at the gargantuan trees that dotted the grove. Their trunks were as thick as a car, and completely dwarfed the much smaller trees we’d been passing by as we’d descended from the uplands. Their size however, became even more obvious when you looked upward. The things were about as tall as some of the skyscrapers back in the city, to the point that it was hard to see their tops among the endless web of branches that stemmed from them.
I had never, not once, in my entire life seen something that came even close to these behemoths. Megaflora did exist elsewhere in the Galaxy, but I’d personally never come across something this impressive in any world I’d ever visited. The whole scene left me speechless.
“Cool, huh?” Robert quipped, probably amused by whatever face I must’ve been making.
“Cool? You see something like this and call it ‘cool’? This is breathtaking!” I exclaimed.
He gave a short chuckle. “You’re right it is. Do you understand now why I wanted to keep it a surprise? I know you well enough to know you would have immediately ran to the internet and gotten spoiled if I’d told you beforehand.”
I honestly couldn’t argue with that. “I guess… but you didn’t have to be so ominous about it on the way!”
The human simply threw his shoulders up with a smirk. “Hey, no one said I couldn’t have some fun keeping you on your toes.” He then motioned towards the nearest of the gigantic trees. “They’re called redwoods, by the way, or sequoias if you wanna be technical about it, and they’re not just big, but really damn old too. Pretty much all of these have been here for centuries. Some, even millennia.”
“That…”I paused to look at the wooden titans once more. “…doesn’t even sound possible.”
“Well, it certainly is. Oldest known one in the world is about 2300 years old, I think.”
Just the thought of these things having stood here, towering over the landscape, for longer than my species had known about the stars, for longer than the entire Federation had even existed… it was both humbling and frightening in equal parts. Such a concept felt eldritch in a way, like my mind couldn’t even hope to understand what these ancient organisms must have bore witness to.
The two of us began making our way through one of the many paths that meandered around the redwoods. The sounds of insects and birds had been a constant since we’d started our trek, but here, they seemed to grow louder, more numerous. A sudden series of shrieks brought my attention upward and to my left, and I focused just in time to catch a blue tinted shadow take flight from a nook in the trunk of one of gigantic trees before disappearing among the branches above.
It almost felt like we were trespassing on some sort of natural paradise, hidden away from the world, with these living pillars acting as its guardians, looming over us as we walked.
I was so mesmerized by these thoughts that I almost missed Robert signaling to me from the side of the path. Once he’d caught my attention, he pointed at the underbrush beside him before speaking “Follow me, I know a spot through here that’s gonna blow your mind.”
Before I even had time to question him, he’d already turned around and began disappearing into the brush. Fear started trickling back into my mind at the thought of following him away from the path into the jaws of what was apparently nature’s predatory mockery of my own race, but despite how idyllic the grove had seemed just moments ago, the idea of staying behind by myself scared me far more.
Swallowing my growing panic, I quickly followed behind the human, trying my best to cut my way through the foliage. I realized that the sound of rushing water I’d taken notice of before seemed to be getting closer the further we delved into the forest.
After breaching through one last layer of greenery, I came up on a small clearing centered around a sloped boulder that protruded from the ground. Robert had just finished climbing atop it, and he motioned for me to sit beside him before turning to look further on. It took some effort to get to where he was, but when I made it to the top, I finally saw the view he’d been so keen on showing me.
In front of me was the source of the burbling sounds I’d been hearing. A wide but shallow creek twisted around the bottom of the valley, flanked on both sides by pebble beaches that reached almost to the foot of the very boulder we sat on. On the opposite bank, I could see as the vegetation grew thicker and taller as it crept up the side of the valley, smaller trees occluding the bases of the enormous redwoods, their tops piercing the heavens like needles. Here, the sounds of the forest were almost muted by the quiet but constant noise of the water, completing an aura of peace that most relaxation centers in the galaxy would kill to emulate.
I heard a chuckle to my left. “Seems like I was right. This old view is just as stunning as I remember.”
I was so astonished by the panorama in front of me that I almost failed to pick up on what he was saying. “How… did you discover this spot anyway?”
For a second, and only a second, I saw a flash of different emotions pass through his eyes. It was subtle and he recovered quickly, but it had unmistakably been there. “Oh, it’s just an old… family secret. My dad used to take me here when I was a kid, that’s all.”
The brusqueness of the answer confirmed what I’d already suspected. Humans were far more emotional than anyone had initially given them credit for, and it showed even when they didn't mean it to. Having dealt with the survivors of the attacks, I became quite familiar with the many types of responses they had to psychological trauma, so I knew what it looked like when one of them was trying to shield themselves from digging up old wounds.
“I’m sorry for asking. I shouldn’t have pried.”
The Human’s eyes darted over to me and he winced , though it didn’t seem so much like pain as it did shame. He turned his head forwards again, staring at some fixed point in the distance, and stayed completely silent for the better part of a minute before he began speaking again.
“Thraia, do you remember the day we met?”
The question was so earnest and melancholic in tone that it was hard to believe it came from the same person that had been laughing his ass off about two jumpy hikers not that long ago.
“I…I do. It was the day after the battle. Our team had been sent to… I think it was Anaheim, to look for survivors trapped underneath the rubble. We were still setting up camp when you showed up and told us you’d been assigned to the same area. I remember you were so haggard that at first we all thought you were just a civilian in shock.”
I thought back to that moment. It’d been pretty strange that none of us had been informed that we’d be receiving a straggler on the team.
He sighed. “What I said earlier wasn’t entirely true.” His eyes turned downward, before he closed them altogether. “This place was a ‘family secret’, and my father did bring me here, but not just me. My brother always came along.”
Robert had always liked sharing stories about his family during breaks back at the hospital. His father had been a ‘park ranger’, and it seemed like every other day he’d recall yet another old anecdote about his old man’s many adventures in the Terran wilds. His mother, on the other hand, had been a teacher of some kind, and he claimed that he’d inherited her knack for storytelling. Anyone who listened to him for long enough would end up having enough information to picture his whole genealogical tree, so it was concerning that I’d never once heard of him having a sibling.
I didn’t have time to decide whether to ask about it before he continued explaining. “We always came to the park every summer while we were growing up. Dad was friends with the rangers here so they’d always tell him about any cool spots they knew of, even outside of the trails. This one was always our favorite.”
He swallowed. It was clear talking about this was taking a lot out of him. “Dad… passed… at around the same time my brother and I went our separate ways. I studied medicine and found my job back at San Francisco while he went down to LA to study marine biology. Still, no matter how busy we were with our own lives, we’d always find the time to come up here at least once a year, and if nothing else just… talk.”
He smiled, though the sadness in his eyes didn’t leave. “I remember… when first contact happened he went absolutely bonkers. I hadn’t been paying too much attention to the Odyssey mission, and that evening I hadn’t bothered checking on the news, so imagine my confusion when I get a call from him in the middle of the night and he just goes off about how they found aliens and they look like sheep! I was half sure he must’ve been high on something, but sure enough, next morning I found out he was right and that I owed him an apology for hanging up on him mid sentence.” He let out a heartfelt laugh.
“The Last time we met face to face was right here, back in August. He was so enthralled about the all the ‘possibilities’ alien life offered that he wouldn’t shut up about it.” The human closed his eyes and shook his head slowly. ”How does one even manage to get turned down for the Venlil Exchange Program for being ‘too enthusiastic’…”
Robert took a second to breathe after that, as if psyching himself up for what came next. I wasn’t naïve enough to think this story had a happy ending.
“When the UN started sending out alerts about the Krakotl fleet, I got put on ‘emergency preparation’ duty at the hospital, just to make sure we were ready if anywhere in the Bay Area got hit. I called him… probably a hundred times, trying to get him to leave for the countryside, but he wouldn’t listen. Said he didn’t want to help block the highways or take up a seat in the evacuation shuttles. When the Feds broke through the line at the Kuiper belt, he called me, saying he was heading for some bunker a friend of his knew of in Lakewood.”
The name almost made me recoil. Though I didn’t remember all of the names of the dozens of neighborhoods that made up Los Angeles, Lakewood was one of a few that I would never be able to forget, not after having to break the hearts of every grieving human asking if their loved ones there has made it. No one had survived in Lakewood, not that close to Ground Zero.
Robert continued on after sucking in another breath. “The Impact must’ve done something to the fault line, because we felt it all the way in the city. I knew immediately that things had gone terribly wrong and something in me just… broke. I left my post, got on my car, and drove south for hours, going the opposite way everyone else was. For that entire time, I just kept cursing the day we’d ever gotten involved with the aliens. Federation, Arxur, Venlil… they were all the same in my mind, just monsters that had wanted us dead from the second they saw us through no fault of our own. I just…” His breathing hitched, and he took a moment to recover. “I just wanted the hurt to stop, and focusing on hate was the best way I had to do it.”
It felt so wrong to hear something like that coming from the mouth of someone who I’d worked side by side with. Hearing him put us all on the level of the grays felt almost like a betrayal of our friendship and yet… I couldn’t blame him. This was a story I’d heard already from thousands of different strangers. Lost homes, families and friends. Hate, depression, utter hopelessness.
What did we do wrong?
That question had popped up nearly every time and I could never once give it a straight answer.
It’d always been strangers before. Now, it wasn’t, and it took all of my willpower not to break down.
“I-I’m S-sorry.”
Just a curt apology would never be enough to heal a wound so deep, I knew that. Predators or not, Humanity had never deserved the way they’d been treated. Robert was right, his kind would’ve been better off if they’d never met us. They had a right to hate us, and nothing I could say or do would ever change-
“Don’t be.”
The human’s voice was tired but firm, and he turned to look at me head on, binocular eyes so focused they almost seemed to peer into my very soul.
“Don’t ever be sorry for something that isn’t your fault.”
“B-but-“
“No buts.” His gaze softened, and I could see a gentle smile begin to form on his face. “It’s true that I felt that way then. I was angry, too angry and too grief-stricken to keep my own mind in check, but I didn’t stay that way for long.” He gestured towards me with an open hand. “And it was thanks to people like you.”
“People like me?” I was perplexed. What did he mean by that?
He answered my question with one of his own. “Do you know what I found when I finally got to the city? Hundreds of those same aliens I was decrying, helping us. I saw Venlil listening out for survivors under the debris, Zurulians coordinating with human doctors to administer first aid and even Arxur helping clear pieces of rubble and carrying off the injured to safety.”
His eyes briefly darted around as if they were looking through me. “I saw this one group: a Venlil, two humans and an Arxur… They were working on trying to lift a collapsed chunk of roof. Apparently the Venlil had heard a child’s cries from under it… When they finally got it done they found two kids under it, but only one of them had been crying…” He closed his eyes shut, pressing his eyelids closed before relaxing. “I’d seen images of Venlil panicking before, courtesy of the Exchange Program. I’d seen them cry of fear… but I’d never seen one weep in grief.”
The two of us locked eyes again as he opened the back up. “I tried so hard to keep myself angry but I couldn’t. Not after that. I wandered off further into the ruins before I eventually collapsed and just… sobbed myself into unconsciousness.”
That about connected the all the remaining dots for me, and I interjected to confirm my suspicions. “That’s when you found us, right? The morning after?”
He nodded. “When I saw you, I realized I had an opportunity to help, to actually do my job rather than just wallowing in my own misery, and I took it without a second thought. I may have lied about why I was there, but frankly, I didn’t feel like coming clean would do any good.”
I could hardly fault him for that. We would never have allowed him to get involved if we’d known he was so personally devastated, and that would have left us without an extra pair of hands we’d greatly needed during those first few days.
My attention drifted back to the stream in front of us and the wilds beyond. The forest remained static, unfazed by our problems.
“Is that why you brought me here? To ‘come clean’?”
“Actually… no, though it does feel cathartic to be able to finally talk about this after all this time.” He motioned towards the view. “I brought you here because I wanted you to have a good image to keep from Earth. We’ve both seen too much death and ruin, but I at least had the past to fall back to while all you’ve seen since you arrived here is misery and pain. I don’t know for how long the Zurulian government will keep this experiment going but, whenever you do leave for the stars again, I wanted you to have a good mental picture of Earth to take with you, and I couldn’t really think of a better place to take you for that.”
On that front, I could confidently say he had succeeded. This wasn’t a day I’d soon forget for many reasons, probably more than he had intended. Still there was something about the idea of leaving this world that didn’t sit well with me. Having worked side by side with the humans, I’d come to feel at home here. This planet and its people, for all of their eccentricities and paradoxical natures, had made me feel welcome at every turn, even when I didn’t fully feel like I deserved it. The mere thought of seeing this pale blue dot shrink away from the viewport of some shuttle made me feel a sort of heartache I couldn’t quite explain.
But then, an idea popped into my mind. It was a simple idea, obvious even, and yet the warmth it made me feel in my chest was undeniable. That same old cowardly part of my mind begged me to weigh in the pros and cons before committing to something so insane, but my words were much faster than those thoughts could ever be.
“Who says I have to leave?”
​
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PREVIOUS / NEXT: We'll meet again, don't know where, don't when...

My obsession began with a humble hangnail on my pinkie finger, a digit whose function, you must agree, is entirely ornamental. The hangnail pulled loops from my sweater and threatened to make worthless my silk shirts. This superfluous shard of my personage would never amount to anything so, I bit it off. I held the keratin splinter between my teeth and touched it with the tip of my tongue. Already it felt dulled, less angry. One swallow—a spark trapped in a bottle—and I was hooked. I dare say the advertisement I put in the Gazette the very next day was more of a provocation than anything else: Cannibal wanted. No creeps.
In all my 42 years, I never was a nail-biter—I simply didn’t have the anxiety for it—but now, I was eager to celebrate the rare perfection when, after delicate nibbling, a full crescent of fingernail pulled away from my cuticle leaving a pleasantly feathered edge. Patience never was my strong suit and fingernails can take a whole month between harvests. I was fortunate, though, in that I have always been blessed with uncommon flexibility and therefore found some comfort in nibbling my toe-nails like a baby newly born.
Despite my limberness, the contortions necessary and the manner in which I had been leaning to reach the littlest piggy, caused the finger on my left hand to go completely numb. The feeling brought to mind an old friend from school who lost this very same finger to a hungry garbage disposal system. If prompted, he would insert carrots into his gloved hand and, in full view of the substitute teacher, make a big show of cutting them off. It never failed to rouse the class to laughter. I made sure to fess up to having been the one who had goaded the poor lad so he didn’t take the burden of the punishment alone. He always claimed that his missing fingers inconvenienced him not in the slightest, but he was particularly terrible at ten-pin bowling. We never liked bowling, anyway.
He was a good person, that boy. But, more often than not, people disgust me. You put one small advertisement in the Gazette and it really is amazing how many supposed cannibals want to pleasure themselves while watching someone consume their parts. Perverts! It never was a sexual thing for me. Pure cannibals are hard to find, or maybe they just never read the Gazette. Either way I couldn’t wait so long for a dining companion. Cutting off my finger was an easy decision—as natural and inevitable as cell division. Had I been a starfish my fingers would have grown a whole new me from scratch. What a lark!
It’s usually the pain that stops ordinary people from achieving anything notable in life. Anything worthy of the Gazette. But pain of the person fades in time. Pain of the mind persists. For example: I don’t recall the pain of crashing my motorcycle into a willow when I was young and foolish, but I recall, with absolute clarity, my sweetheart leaving me while I was still in traction. She said she didn’t want to go to the prom with a cripple. My legs healed in time but my heart was eternally broken. That’s real pain right there. If the most painful thing you ever feel in life is a silly little finger being lopped off then you haven’t really lived.
Decision. Precision. Incision. All in quick succession. That’s how you do it.
I tied a rubber band around my pinkie until it was numb and laid it on the bread board then popped it off with a chef’s knife. It came away more easily and with much less sensation than I expected. I inserted the severed digit in my mouth—wider, wider, a little wider—like a dentist might. My real-life dentist was always too insistent, too certain of his ability to enter me. I bit his finger once (okay, maybe more than just once). I caught him off guard—or as off guard as you can when dealing with a man whose entire professional life is spent with his hands in the mouths of beasts. He must surely have seen it coming. Nevertheless, he referred me to another dentist.
I clamped down hard on my severed finger and ran my tongue over the satisfyingly deep dent left in the flesh by my molars. It had the texture of pig knuckles. Not that I recall that particular dish with much clarity. I’ve been a vegetarian for thirty years. No harm, no fowl—no fish or steak. Eating my own flesh doesn’t hurt anyone. It just makes me a cannibal-vegetarian which is more ethical than most people.
Take my sister for example: she loves her stupid fox terrier like a child but she still eats meat which makes her both cruel and a terrible hypocrite. Nevertheless, she still insists we get together for Christmas.
”What the hell is the difference between eating dogs and cows?” I asked her, on the phone. And when I said “dogs” I meant humans.
“Cow’s don’t have personalities,” was her reply, which is entirely not true.
“Would you prefer I cook you an animal you hated?” I asked.
”Yes,” she agreed, and I knew immediately that she regretted her offer of driving all the way to visit me in New Orleans for Christmas dinner.
“What animal do you hate the most?” I asked. “I’m serious.”
I already knew what she was thinking. I just wanted to hear her say it. She had never hated anyone more than her ex-husband or possibly me. Either way, the animal she hated most was most definitely human but she said, “Pigs, I guess,” and by “pigs” she meant me.
“Good. That settles it. I’ll cook pork with cherry glaze,” I lied.
Now, obviously, a few stray knuckles can’t possibly form the centerpiece of Christmas dinner and, anyway, me-knuckle-and-pea soup had already demonstrated itself as more suitable for an appetizer. Still, I kicked myself for eating my four fingers first because it made it extremely difficult to amputate my leg at the knee. The lower leg: now there is a versatile cut of meat. You can cut along the length of the calf muscle for a juicy loin or cut across the bones for chops if you have a bandsaw, which I didn’t, of course, on account of living in a residential area with strict zoning laws. But that doesn’t prevent you from smoking a loin or make excellent sausages. I had a devil of a time removing my lower leg and none of the perverts who responded to my advertisement in the Gazette had the prerequisite nursing skills to assist with the amputation. I administered the local anesthetic myself and it worked fine enough but the knee joint was tough and rather complicated to cut through and, in spite of my keen interest in anatomy, I was certainly no doctor. Still, I had committed to hosting Christmas lunch and I was determined to harvest a tasty loin. My sister and may have had our differences but, she is my sister after all and you have to make an effort.
When she arrived, she insisted on bringing with her a special friend named George. Poor George had tried to enliven his wallflower personality with a festive reindeer sweater. I liked him immediately and not just because he worked in Germany as a surgeon, no less. My sister gasped at the sight of my missing fingers and still fresh amputation below the knee. But I told her not to worry about me. I pretended that my old motorcycle accident had effected my circulatory system. I then garnished the white lie with a case of diabetes I never had. It was Christmas, after all. Everyone loves a tall tale. I followed that up with a loin of leg in a cherry glaze.
“I’m so glad you’re no longer a vegetarian,” she said, while attempting not to pity me. “You need to keep your strength up in your condition.”
“I’m still vegetarian,” I said, as I poured extra cherry glaze on her plate. “Just don’t tell anyone.”
My sister thought the pork/I was a little tough and didn’t mind saying so, but George wanted the recipe before he returned to Cologne. He had never read the Gazette but, when he followed me to the library in search of a recipe book, he insisted on examining my wound in a way that suggested that he might have answered the advertisement himself, had he been a subscriber. He could tell right away there was no hospital involved in the amputation and he said that his grandfather had reared pigs for Schinken ham in the most beautiful little corner of the Black Forest so he knew a thing or two about pork. He wheeled me back to the dining table and helped himself to a third helping of “pork” before we opened presents. My sister said it was a pleasant lunch and George even did the washing up on account of my missing fingers.
They both left in good spirits.
When I say “left” I mean George returned the very next day for leftovers. He brought his suitcase and medical kit and examined my limbs with the upmost professionalism.
“I think it might need to come off,” I suggested, as he scrutinized my legs and arms. He agreed every time.
“Yes it will. And that too. It will all need to be removed, eventually,” he said. I made sure to leave a copy of the Gazette on the counter so there could be no confusion on the subject.
Judging by how frequently my sister called his cell phone, I think she was in love with poor George. She rang at the most inappropriate hour because she thought he was back in Cologne which he wasn’t. He was usually asleep on the sofa with a belly full of flesh on account of us having turned the second bedroom into an operating room. Eventually George said it would be suspicious if he didn’t answer so we played Kraftwerk and Marlene Dietrich in the background (though not at the same time) to make it sound like he might have been in Cologne. I thought we did a good job of keeping up our little charade, but I only had those two albums and, anyway, I still think it was my sister who eventually called the police.
After we harvested another “ham’ it was clear that both George’s surgical and culinary skills were far superior to mine. His grandparents must have been true artisans when it came to pork. Throughout the spring, I watched my biceps grow meaty from maneuvering the new wheel chair. I suspect George’s grandfather must have shared the same excitement at watching his sows grow plump and delicious as the slaughter season approached. From the comfort of my Creole townhouse in The Marigny, my body had become my very own Black Forest. We lived in a land of plenty. George, being German and in possession of a rapier wit, named my right arm Hansel and my left Gretel which, of course, made me the wicked witch.
You might think me worse than wicked—a barbarian perhaps—but I caused no more harm to the world beyond my walls than the old lady who swallowed a fly.
George wouldn’t harm a fly either, which is exactly what I told the police when they visited. They saw my diminished state and expressed concern about his capacity to care for me. I pointed out that he was a qualified doctor, a surgeon no less, but it was clear they thought he had nefarious intent. The larger of the policemen sat in my most comfortable chair, a recliner, and explained that George had, allegedly, cared for four other men in Cologne who had all undergone unnecessary amputations before their demise. I thanked the officers for their concern and promised to report any unusual behavior but I was shaking inside. My stomach felt hollow and I was in a constant sweat. I had been betrayed: the fact that George had already consumed someone else before our meeting was certainly news to me.
When he returned with the groceries (vegetables and herbs mainly, for we had all the meat we needed) I beat him with my stumps until the sutures ruptured. I cried and told him I would go no further. He apologized and soothed me by showing me what ordinary people who have never spanked their Frankfurt in public refer to as food-porn. It was this he wanted me to become. He assured me that I was the sweetest of all the men he had had the pleasure of eating. This was, I suspect, a direct result of my cannibal-vegetarian diet. You are what you eat, after all. People eat bad things, generally speaking, and I’m not just referring to junk food. Some make a whole performance of eating cars and trucks and bicycles and all manner of things that simply can’t be eaten for that stupid Guinness book of records. People eat rocks, drywall, cars, soiled diapers, live bees, batteries and light bulbs and bedsprings just because they feel like it. I guess humans are like worms through which the entire world must pass. Me? I am a loop in time: leftovers consuming leftovers.
And in the end, who needs to leave behind something so ungainly as a body?
You would be surprised at how many parts of your body you can do without too. I’m a stickler for research—ask anyone. George said that in WWII surgeons performed the first half-ectomy on fighter pilots crushed beneath their instrumentation. Surgeons sliced them in half like a magic act—tadaa! The patients survived and would have survived longer had they not been inclined to bouts of depression and taken their own lives. I guess they couldn’t see the magic in it. But I could.
Tadaa!
I must say, if ever there is such a thing as magic in the world then it comes in the form of phantom limb syndrome. After George performed my half-ectomy, I had no hips from which to leap, no shoulder joints from which to hurl a ball and yet I have never felt more active. My phantom limbs ran for miles along Elysen Fields Avenue and north, through the Rocky Mountains, all the way to Alaska. My arms swam down the Mississippi and out to sea and through the hurricanes and didn’t stop until they reached South America and the upper reaches of the Brazilian Rainforest. My phantom limbs were proficient in all manner of sports I never asked them to engage in. But when I looked down there was just air where the pumping limbs might have been. What was the point in all that exercise if my eyes called my body a liar? I had no choice but to ask George to remove them. When I say “them” I mean my eyes. We ate one each, lightly seared in a pan with onions and lemon. The imagination is far more active without sight. My hearing became more acute, my olfactory senses keener. I highly recommend it.
I could tell the police had returned by the weary way they walked, weighed down by radios and guns and the foolishness of their investigation. Unfortunately, this time George was home. I tried to explain away my diminished size and pointed out that my eyes had turned septic (and by “septic” I mean delicious) but they took George away for questioning anyway. He was away a long time.
I am not the nervous sort, but I did indeed start to panic. I called George’s name but the only reply was the gulls keening outside my window. I fell asleep and woke up and was not sure how many hours had passed but there were no more gulls so it was surely night. My ileostomy bag had over-flowed and my flesh was contaminated with the foulest smell. What if George didn’t return? Who would be my dinner companion? I couldn’t eat all this food by myself. When eventually the front door creaked opened and George called my name, his voice was shaking. The police had held him for two days and nights under the pretense of asking questions. As he carried me to the bathroom to clean me up, he was not moving well. He laid me in the tub and I could smell the nervous sweat that had dried on his shirt. He favored his left arm and there was a catch in his breath that told me his ribs were badly bruised.
“Did they beat you?” I asked.
“Sticks and stones,” he said, but I knew he envied me. You can’t beat a man who isn’t there.
He wiped away the crusted seepage that had spilled from my ileostomy bag and floated me in the fresh water. Had George not been a cannibal he could have found a job drawing baths in the nicest hotel in New Orleans. It’s not as easy as turning the water on, you know. You need to get the humidity of the room just right and the temperature of the water within a precise range. When you do, your body feels weightless and your breath invisible. I heard George open a glass bottle and listened as a few drops of lavender bath oil perfumed the room. It was sublime but there was certainly nothing sexual about the moment. How could there be? My sex had been removed in the half-ectomy along with everything below the navel. Yes, it’s true that George and I had both eaten my penis and testicles but it was far from a meal with erotic overtones. In fact, George had made Zürcher Geschnetzeltes which is a Swiss German dish usually made with veal. Cooked to perfection, he served it with a mushroom and white-wine sauce so aromatic that it made me wish I had testicles growing all over my body like mushrooms from which to harvest. When George eventually lifted me from my bath, he gently laid me on a towel and rubbed lotion into my scar tissue.
“How much is left?” I asked.
The scales scraped on the tile floor and George folded a towel in quarters for padding. Even after we ate my eyes, George always balanced me upright on my spine so, in my mind’s eye, I could look down and see my weight.
“Fourty-eight pounds,” he said. “I could check you as luggage.”
He cleaned my teeth with a new brand of toothpaste that tasted like red Tic-Tacs and took me to bed. He no longer slept on the sofa. At two-foot tall, I was smaller than the overpriced teddy bear I used to sleep with as a kid. I could tell he was tired on account of being interrogated by the police without sleep for two days but he wanted to talk about something. Finally he said: “What should I make for my first meal alone?”
I had not kept track of our meals but, from the way we had feasted and the sound of the single bag of flesh clanking around in the chest-freezer, I knew our supply was getting low. Without ever having to leave New Orleans, we had taken a culinary tour of all of Bavaria and the Rhineland. We had eaten bratwurst and liverwurst with senf; königsberger klopse meatballs; sauerbraten pot roast; schweinshaxe and speck; and baked the leftovers into a leberkäse-style meatloaf. The neighbors must have thought we were opening a restaurant. Ultimately, though, there was one meal I couldn’t share with George: the meal that would finish me . He could eat my beef-heart stew or spread my brains on toast with parsley and lemon but it was Christmas again. The festive season.
“I don’t want you to eat alone,” I told George. “Take my sister to midnight mass then treat her to a good old-fashioned Réveillon feast.”
It’s a Creole tradition in these parts, to feast until dawn. I wanted to swim in a bouillabaisse with the freshest sea scallops or be pureed with leeks and truffle cream. I imagined the searing heat of applewood smoked bacon against my lightly grilled cheek. I wanted George to swallow the last of me and know me more completely than I ever could.
He called my sister and extended the invite. She seemed distant and nervous which I thought was on account of her still being in love with George, herself. In hindsight there was clearly someone listening.
On Christmas day the house was filled with the aroma of sauce and spice and I was confident that this would be a feast like no other. Then my ears picked out the familiar lumbering step on my porch and I knew something was wrong. The door burst off its hinges and somewhere among the men’s voices I could hear my hysterical sister. She was weeping and swearing and it was clear she was not going to stay for dinner. The police handcuffed George and he cried out in pain.
“Don’t hurt him!” I yelled, but no one cared to listen.
A pair of hands transported me to a dog carrier which smelled of piss from frightened animals. The very idea that I might try to escape was completely absurd. I screamed and shouted and called them all manner of names that I am embarrassed to repeat. Someone turned off the stove and took the chest-freezer into evidence. Our Christmas was ruined.
No one listened to me at George’s trial. All they wanted to know was whether I was of sound mind. It was clear to everyone that I was. I even had my lawyer show them the letter I wrote last Christmas when I had hands and was not yet the distillation of my former self. But they didn’t care. They found him guilty and put George on death row where he will never eat anything as delicious as me again.
I hope beyond hope that when he is served his last meal, that they come for me in my hospital bed and cut out my tongue and give half to him and half to me. No sauce, no salt, no pepper or spice. Just raw and bloody. A final kiss under the cannibal’s mistletoe.

There was a big solar storm in the last two days and there's a big sunspot facing earth (media calls it a "solar hole"). https://www.businessinsider.com/northern-lights-sky-friday-us-solar-winds-giant-hole-sun-2023-3
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is predicting that the aurora could be over bozeman tomorrow and/or Friday nights.
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/communities/aurora-dashboard-experimental
One thing to keep in mind that in my limited experience with the aurora borealis is that it's more of a faint green glow to my eyes. It's not this shimmering curtain of light like in the photos, it's more like a faint blurry green glow which kind of looks like there's a big city just over the hill.. except green. To get any kind of detail, you need to take a long exposure with a camera which is something that an SLR camera does easily but modern cell phones can do too. Make sure not to hold the phone but instead prop it up against something and then try to take the longest exposure your phone can handle.
Also Bozeman is right on the edge of this storm, but there's at least a decent chance of seeing something - especially looking north.
Edit: after reading the forecast at the bottom, it's looking like Friday (3/24), not tomorrow/Thursday. Reddit won't let me change the title though.

The Golden Candlestick

Jesus the Light of the World

Exodus 25:31, 37 You shall also make a lampstand of pure gold; the lampstand shall be of hammered work. Its shaft, its branches, its bowls, its ornamental knobs, and flowers shall be of one piece. … You shall make seven lamps for it, and they shall arrange its lamps so that they give light in front of it.
As you entered the sanctuary, on the south side to your left would be a seven branched candlestick made entirely of a single piece of solid gold. The apostle John was granted a vision of heaven where he saw the reality of which the golden candlestick was but a shadow. In vision John saw Jesus walking among seven candlesticks.
Revelation 1:12-13 Then I turned to see the voice that spoke with me. And having turned I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the seven lampstands One like the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the feet and girded about the chest with a golden band.
Jesus explains to John the meaning of what he saw.
Revelation 1:20 The mystery of the seven stars which you saw in My right hand, and the seven golden lampstands: The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands which you saw are the seven churches.
The number seven in the Bible denotes a complete number. The earthly candlestick and its seven branches, each holding a lamp, represented God’s church on earth. The church of Christ is the lamp stand which in this world lifts up Jesus, who is the Lamp, the Light, of this world. Individually, the Christian, to the extent that the life of Jesus shines through him, is also a light to the world – but always the light is the light of Jesus.
John 8:12 Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.
The lamps in the earthly sanctuary were to burn continually. So the Christian is to always let the Spirit of God rule in his life, thus becoming living lamps through which the light of God shines forth in this dark world.
Only the High Priest could perform the sacred work of lighting the lamps in the earthly sanctuary. He trimmed the wicks and lighted the lamps every morning and evening. And so, none other than Jesus, our High Priest, can trim our lamps. In the morning we need His Spirit to direct us during the day. In the evening we need His Spirit to enlighten our minds as we review the work of the day. Only Jesus can trim away the faults and flaws of our lives. The trimming of the lamps is a type of the daily lessons we must learn from Jesus our High Priest.
In and of ourselves we have no light, and whatever light we may think we have in ourselves, if it is not of Jesus it is in reality deepest darkness.

The Table of Showbread

Jesus the Bread of Life

Exodus 25:23-25, 30 You shall also make a table of acacia wood; two cubits shall be its length, a cubit its width, and a cubit and a half its height. And you shall overlay it with pure gold, and make a molding of gold all around. You shall make for it a frame of a handbreadth all around, and you shall make a gold molding for the frame all around. … And you shall set the showbread on the table before Me always.
As you entered the sanctuary the table of showbread would have been to your right, on the north side of the sanctuary. On the Sabbath day the Levites made twelve loaves or cakes of unleavened bread. These cakes were placed on the table hot each Sabbath day, and arranged in two rows or piles – six to a row, with pure frankincense on each row.
These twelve loaves would lay on the table for the entire week, only being removed when twelve fresh loaves replaced them on the table the following Sabbath. These loaves are called “the bread of the presence.” Once the old loaves were removed, they were then eaten by the priests. All the service with the table of showbread was done on the Sabbath. The bread was prepared on the Sabbath and placed hot on the table on the Sabbath. The following Sabbath it was removed and eaten by the priest on that Sabbath.
The Priests, the Bible tells us, served “unto the example and shadow of heavenly things;” therefore there is a heavenly lesson for us in the showbread.
The showbread was a continual offering before the Lord. It taught that man was wholly dependent upon God for both natural and spiritual food.
This, like all other types of the sanctuary service, met its fulfillment in Jesus. Jesus is the true bread of presence. Jesus said, “I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever; and the bread that I will give is My flesh.” Jesus went on to say, “Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man … you have no life in you.” To explain Himself, Jesus goes on to say;
John 6:51-53, 63 It is the spirit that quickened; the flesh profited nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” The Word of God, the Holy Bible is the true bread of which we are to eat.
As the bread of the presence of God was taken from the sanctuary and distributed to the priests to be eaten, so Jesus said;
John 14:24 The word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s which sent me.
The Word of God, the Bible came direct from God. God gave it to Jesus. Jesus signified it by His angels unto the prophets, and the prophets gave it to the people. (Revelation 1:1).
We must feed on the Word of God. And there is no more appropriate time to let God speak to us through His word than on the Sabbath day, when we lay aside all worldly cares and business, and take the time to read and study and pray upon His Holy Word until we hear God speak to us through it.
The priests were not only to set the hot bread on the table on the Sabbath day, but later that same bread by being eaten was to become a part of their very being. Even so, we need to eat of the Word of God until it becomes a part of our very being. Here is the secret of true Christian living. Eternal life does not come to us through forms and ceremonies. They are alright in their place. But eternal life results from feeding upon the Bread of Life, the true bread that comes from Heaven.

The Altar of Incense

Jesus our Righteousness

Exodus 30:1-3, 6 You shall make an altar to burn incense on; you shall make it of acacia wood. A cubit shall be its length and a cubit its width-it shall be square-and two cubits shall be its height. Its horns shall be of one piece with it. And you shall overlay its top, its sides all around, and its horns with pure gold; and you shall make for it a molding of gold all around. … And you shall put it before the veil that is before the ark of the Testimony, before the mercy seat that is over the Testimony, where I will meet with you.
As you entered the sanctuary you would have seen the Altar of Incense on the far end of that first chamber of the sanctuary, sitting directly in front of the veil that divided the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place where the Ark of the Covenant sat.
The incense burned on the Altar was composed of an equal weight of four fragrant gums and resins and was to be used only by the priest on this Altar. It was very sacred and anyone who made for their own use anything like it was to be cut off from among the people.
The High priest alone was to perform the sacred duty of placing the incense before the Lord on the Altar of Incense.
This Altar and the incense burned upon it were designed to be a type of the work that Jesus, our great High Priest is performing for us. The apostle John in vision saw the heavenly reality of which the earthly service was a type. John in vision witnessed the incense being offered burned on the heavenly Altar.
Revelation 8:3-4 Then another angel, having a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, ascended before God from the angel’s hand.
John saw the incense being mingled with the prayers of the saints. He saw those prayers, after the incense was added, ascend up before God, and they were accepted because they were made fragrant with the incense. Here we see the work of the Holy Spirit, taking the weak and feeble prayers of sinful men, and presenting them perfect before a Holy God.
Romans 8:26-27 Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.
The Holy Spirit takes our faulty prayers and presents them perfect before the Father mingled with the sweet incense of Christ’s perfect righteousness.
When Jesus was preparing His disciples for when He would ascend to heaven, Jesus assured them, “Whatsover you shall ask the Father in My name, He will give it you.” (John 16:23).
The power in a name is in the character of the individual that bears the name. The name of Jesus is honored in Heaven, and every prayer presented in that name is granted in heaven because Jesus’ perfect life is the incense that is presented before the Father with our prayers. Jesus lived a sinless life. He “knew no sin.” The prince of this world, the devil, had nothing in Jesus, for He was pure and holy, without one stain of sin. It is Christ’s perfect righteousness that makes our prayers accepted before the Father.
John saw the smoke of the incense with the prayers of the saints ascend up before God. Our prayers, made fragrant by the righteousness of Christ our Savior, are presented by the Holy Spirit to the Father. The weakest saint who knows how to press before the Throne of Grace in the name of Jesus, the sinless One, has all the resources of heaven at his command.
The name of Jesus is often added to prayers in a meaningless way. Many prayers are spoken for a mere form of worship and go no higher than the ceiling – but every prayer of faith reaches the ear of God, and that prayer is presented perfect in Christ’s righteousness before the Father by the Holy Spirit.
David understood what was typified by the incense and prayed;
Psalm 141:2 Let my prayer be set forth before Thee as incense; and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.
There was no part of the daily ministration in the earthly service that brought the priest so directly into the presence of God as the offering of the incense. There above the veil, before which the Altar of Incense stood, could be seen the glow of the Shekinah Glory, the literal visible presence of God, that rested above the mercy seat in the Holy of Holies. Likewise, there is no part of our religious service that brings us so close to God as the pouring out of our hearts in earnest prayer.
In the heavenly sanctuary Jesus, our High Priest has an inexhaustible supply of righteousness. In the type, the incense was always ascending, typifying that at any time, day or night, when a struggling soul cries out for help, or give thanks and praise, his prayer is heard.
In the typical work, the one who attempted to use this incense for their own use was cut off for among the people of God. There was to be no imitation of the incense. No fire was to be used for burning the incense except that taken from the altar before the Lord. Nadab and Abihu, while drunk, offered “strange fire” before the Lord, and were slain. (Leviticus 10:1-10).
Their fate is an object lesson of all who fail to appreciate the perfect righteousness of Jesus, and who appear before the Lord in the “filthy rags” of their own righteousness. (Isaiah 64:6).
The horns of the Altar of Incense were often touched with the blood of the sin offering, thus typifying that it is Christ’ death that made it possible for our prayers to be answered and for us to be clothed in His righteousness.
The fragrance of the incense was carried by the wind to all the surrounding area. In a like manner, when a Christian is clothed in Christ’s righteousness, an influence will go out from him to all those around him. A savor of life and light to all who are in darkness.

The Ark of the Covenant

Jesus our Advocate

After God instructed Moses to build a sanctuary, the very first instruction the Lord gave was:
Exodus 25:10-1 And they shall make an ark of acacia wood; two and a half cubits shall be its length, a cubit and a half its width, and a cubit and a half its height. And you shall overlay it with pure gold, inside and out you shall overlay it, and shall make on it a molding of gold all around.
The cover of the ark was called the mercy seat and was made of a single piece of pure gold. On either end of the mercy seat, and of one piece with it, were cherubim with their wings stretched out covering the ark.
Exodus 25:17-18 You shall make a mercy seat of pure gold; two and a half cubits shall be its length and a cubit and a half its width. And you shall make two cherubim of gold; of hammered work you shall make them at the two ends of the mercy seat.
It is what was to be placed inside the ark that made the ark the most important item in the sanctuary. There, inside the Ark were the Ten Commandments which God Himself had engraved on stone.
Exodus 25: 21-22 You shall put the mercy seat on top of the ark, and in the ark you shall put the Testimony that I will give you. And there I will meet with you, and I will speak with you from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are on the ark of the Testimony, about everything which I will give you in commandment to the children of Israel.
The Lord Himself covered the law that man had broken with a mercy seat, and above the mercy seat shown the Shekinah Glory, the literal visible presence of God on earth.
The mercy seat, with the Shekinah Glory, the visible representation of God’s presence, and its covering cherubim, is the figure, or “shadow” of the Judgment seat, the throne of God. Here, God’s perfect mercy and perfect justice meet in perfect harmony.
The Bible tells us that the wages of sin is death. The law demands the death of the sinner. And as the law is as holy as the God who gave them, (for every transgression of the law is a transgression against who gave them), only one equal with God could meet the demands of the law on man’s behalf. In the typical service the blood of a sacrifice was sprinkled above the mercy seat which covered the broken law. This was representative of the blood of Christ which would free every repentant sinner from the demands of the law. Jesus Himself having met the full demands of the law on man’s behalf.
However, the mercy seat is more than just a representation of the judgment throne, it is also representative, as its name implies, of the throne of grace. Look again at Exodus 25:21 concerning the mercy seat.
Exodus 25:21 And there I will meet with you, and I will speak with you from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are on the ark of the Testimony, about everything which I will give you in commandment to the children of Israel.
He says, “And there I will meet with you, and I will speak with you from above the mercy seat.” If we are truly Christ’s, then that privilege is also ours. We are told that as Christians we may come boldly to the throne of grace.
Hebrews 4:15-16 For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
If indeed we are Christ’s we do not need to fear the judgment throne, for to us that throne is a throne of grace.
By EjmMissouri
To be Continued

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Call of Juarez: Gunslinger	0.6 TF2	$1.16 PP	-
Call to Arms - Basic Edition	2.4 TF2	$4.89 PP	-
Call to Arms - Gates of Hell: Ostfront	5.5 TF2	$11.21 PP	-
Car Mechanic Simulator 2018	0.8 TF2	$1.57 PP	-
Carcassonne - Tiles & Tactics	0.6 TF2	$1.22 PP	-
Celeste	2.1 TF2	$4.22 PP	-
Chess Ultra	0.7 TF2	$1.46 PP	-
Children of Morta	0.8 TF2	$1.55 PP	-
Chivalry 2	3.4 TF2	$6.88 PP	-
Chivalry: Medieval Warfare	0.5 TF2	$1.06 PP	-
Chronicon	1.6 TF2	$3.25 PP	-
Cities: Skylines Deluxe Edition	1.5 TF2	$3.0 PP	-
Clone Drone in the Danger Zone	3.1 TF2	$6.43 PP	-
Code Vein	1.6 TF2	$3.28 PP	-
Coffee Talk	2.1 TF2	$4.21 PP	-
Company of Heroes 2 - Ardennes Assault	1.8 TF2	$3.79 PP	-
Company of Heroes 2 - The Western Front Armies	0.9 TF2	$1.76 PP	-
Company of Heroes 2: Master Collection	6.1 TF2	$12.54 PP	-
Company of Heroes Complete Pack	5.5 TF2	$11.3 PP	-
Company of Heroes	1.6 TF2	$3.35 PP	-
Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts	0.8 TF2	$1.63 PP	-
Conan Exiles	1.6 TF2	$3.28 PP	-
Construction Simulator 2015	1.2 TF2	$2.48 PP	-
Contagion	0.4 TF2	$0.91 PP	-
Control Ultimate Edition	1.3 TF2 Refer To My Other Thread	$2.63 PP Refer To My Other Thread	Humble Heroines: Warriors, Dreamers, and God Slayers
Crash Bandicoot™ N. Sane Trilogy	8.1 TF2	$16.51 PP	-
Crawl	1.7 TF2	$3.56 PP	-
Creaks	0.4 TF2	$0.74 PP	-
Creed: Rise to Glory™	2.2 TF2	$4.53 PP	-
Crusader Kings II: Royal Collection	2.7 TF2	$5.55 PP	-
Crusader Kings III	4.0 TF2	$8.11 PP	-
CryoFall	0.4 TF2	$0.78 PP	-
Crysis® 2 Maximum Edition	0.9 TF2	$1.76 PP	-
Cultist Simulator Anthology Edition	2.4 TF2	$4.89 PP	-
Cultist Simulator	0.7 TF2	$1.41 PP	-
DEATHLOOP	2.1 TF2	$4.23 PP	-
DIRT 5	3.4 TF2	$6.89 PP	-
DMC - Devil May Cry	0.6 TF2	$1.17 PP	-
DRAGON BALL FIGHTERZ - Ultimate Edition	3.8 TF2	$7.76 PP	-
DRAGON BALL XENOVERSE 2	1.7 TF2	$3.44 PP	-
DRAGONBALL XENOVERSE Bundle Edition	1.1 TF2	$2.32 PP	-
DRIFT21	0.5 TF2	$1.03 PP	-
Dark Deity	0.4 TF2	$0.91 PP	-
Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin	8.4 TF2	$17.12 PP	-
Dark Souls III	13.0 TF2	$26.68 PP	-
Darkest Dungeon	0.6 TF2	$1.3 PP	-
Darksiders Genesis	1.2 TF2	$2.39 PP	-
Darksiders II Deathinitive Edition	0.6 TF2	$1.2 PP	-
Darksiders III	0.9 TF2	$1.76 PP	-
Day of the Tentacle Remastered	0.4 TF2	$0.92 PP	-
DayZ	6.1 TF2	$12.54 PP	-
Dead Estate	1.6 TF2	$3.23 PP	-
Dead Island - Definitive Edition	0.9 TF2	$1.82 PP	-
Dead Island Definitive Collection	1.6 TF2	$3.27 PP	-
Dead Island Riptide - Definitive Edition	0.8 TF2	$1.73 PP	-
Dead Rising 2: Off the Record	1.1 TF2	$2.16 PP	-
Dead Rising 3 Apocalypse Edition	2.0 TF2	$4.17 PP	-
Dead Rising 4	0.8 TF2	$1.71 PP	-
Dead Rising	1.0 TF2	$2.0 PP	-
Dead Rising® 2	1.0 TF2	$2.11 PP	-
Death Road to Canada	0.6 TF2	$1.21 PP	-
Death's Gambit	0.7 TF2	$1.45 PP	-
Deep Rock Galactic	3.9 TF2	$7.96 PP	-
Descenders	0.4 TF2	$0.9 PP	-
Desperados III	1.1 TF2	$2.24 PP	-
Destroy All Humans	0.7 TF2	$1.42 PP	-
Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Director's Cut	0.9 TF2	$1.92 PP	-
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided	1.1 TF2	$2.23 PP	-
Devil May Cry HD Collection	1.4 TF2	$2.9 PP	-
Devil May Cry® 4 Special Edition	1.4 TF2	$2.91 PP	-
Dinosaur Fossil Hunter	0.4 TF2	$0.92 PP	-
Distance	0.8 TF2	$1.54 PP	-
Distant Worlds: Universe	0.6 TF2	$1.3 PP	-
Doom Eternal	2.0 TF2	$4.19 PP	-
Door Kickers	1.1 TF2	$2.2 PP	-
Dorfromantik	2.0 TF2	$4.04 PP	-
Dragon Ball FighterZ	1.7 TF2	$3.54 PP	-
Dragons Dogma - Dark Arisen	0.8 TF2	$1.67 PP	-
Drake Hollow	0.4 TF2	$0.91 PP	-
Drone Swarm	0.5 TF2	$0.98 PP	-
Duck Game	2.3 TF2	$4.7 PP	-
Dungeon Defenders: Awakened	3.7 TF2	$7.55 PP	-
Dungreed	0.9 TF2	$1.83 PP	-
Dusk	1.1 TF2	$2.24 PP	-
Duskers	0.5 TF2	$1.01 PP	-
EARTH DEFENSE FORCE 4.1 The Shadow of New Despair	2.3 TF2	$4.63 PP	-
ELEX	0.7 TF2	$1.5 PP	-
EVERSPACE™	0.8 TF2	$1.6 PP	-
Elite: Dangerous	1.3 TF2	$2.65 PP	-
Endzone - A World Apart	0.7 TF2	$1.34 PP	-
Exanima	2.4 TF2	$4.82 PP	-
FTL: Faster Than Light	1.3 TF2	$2.58 PP	-
Fable Anniversary	2.7 TF2	$5.56 PP	-
Fallout 76	1.6 TF2	$3.23 PP	-
Fantasy General II	0.5 TF2	$0.97 PP	-
Farming Simulator 17	0.5 TF2	$1.08 PP	-
Firefighting Simulator - The Squad	4.0 TF2	$8.26 PP	-
First Class Trouble	0.4 TF2	$0.85 PP	-
For The King	1.1 TF2	$2.23 PP	-
Forager	1.4 TF2	$2.86 PP	-
Forts	2.7 TF2	$5.55 PP	-
Friday the 13th: The Game	2.4 TF2	$4.89 PP	-
Frostpunk	1.2 TF2	$2.5 PP	-
Full Metal Furies	0.6 TF2	$1.16 PP	-
Furi	0.8 TF2	$1.54 PP	-
GOD EATER 2 Rage Burst	1.1 TF2	$2.25 PP	-
GRID - Ultimate	1.0 TF2	$2.04 PP	-
GRIS	0.4 TF2	$0.91 PP	-
Gamedec	0.4 TF2	$0.77 PP	-
Gang Beasts	3.0 TF2	$6.15 PP	-
Garden Paws	0.9 TF2	$1.77 PP	-
Gas Station Simulator	1.5 TF2	$3.07 PP	-
Gears 5	4.7 TF2	$9.54 PP	-
Gears Tactics	4.3 TF2	$8.86 PP	-
Generation Zero®	1.2 TF2	$2.45 PP	-
Genital Jousting	0.5 TF2	$1.09 PP	-
Goat Simulator	0.4 TF2	$0.92 PP	-
Godlike Burger	1.4 TF2	$2.89 PP	-
Golf With Your Friends	1.2 TF2	$2.37 PP	-
Gordian Quest	1.7 TF2	$3.51 PP	-
Gotham Knights	5.3 TF2	$10.88 PP	-
GreedFall	0.7 TF2	$1.34 PP	-
Grim Dawn	2.2 TF2	$4.61 PP	-
Grim Fandango Remastered	0.5 TF2	$1.11 PP	-
Guacamelee! 2	0.6 TF2	$1.28 PP	-
HITMAN™2 Gold Edition	2.8 TF2	$5.83 PP	-
HIVESWAP: Act 2	2.0 TF2	$4.16 PP	-
HOT WHEELS UNLEASHED™	1.5 TF2	$3.16 PP	-
Hacknet	0.4 TF2	$0.91 PP	-
Haiku, the Robot	1.5 TF2	$3.14 PP	-
Hard Bullet	1.0 TF2	$2.1 PP	-
Hearts of Iron III Collection	0.5 TF2	$1.04 PP	-
Hearts of Iron IV: Battle for the Bosporus	1.5 TF2	$3.08 PP	-
Hearts of Iron IV: Cadet Edition	1.6 TF2	$3.27 PP	-
Hearts of Iron IV: Death or Dishonor	0.8 TF2	$1.72 PP	-
Hearts of Iron IV: Waking the Tiger	1.5 TF2	$3.0 PP	-
Heave Ho	0.6 TF2	$1.15 PP	-
Heavy Rain	1.8 TF2	$3.63 PP	-
Hell Let Loose	8.1 TF2	$16.51 PP	-
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice	0.9 TF2 Refer To My Other Thread	$1.84 PP Refer To My Other Thread	Humble Heroines: Warriors, Dreamers, and God Slayers
Hello, Neighbor!	0.4 TF2	$0.91 PP	-
Hero's Hour	1.1 TF2 Refer To My Other Thread	$2.23 PP Refer To My Other Thread	Humble Choice (Mar 2023)
Heroes of Hammerwatch	0.6 TF2	$1.13 PP	-
Hitman Absolution	0.8 TF2	$1.6 PP	-
Hitman Blood Money	0.7 TF2	$1.36 PP	-
Hitman Game of the Year Edition	1.2 TF2	$2.53 PP	-
Hollow Knight	2.6 TF2	$5.4 PP	-
Homefront: The Revolution	0.9 TF2	$1.78 PP	-
Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak	0.4 TF2	$0.78 PP	-
Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number Digital Special Edition	0.5 TF2	$1.09 PP	-
Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number	0.5 TF2	$1.0 PP	-
Hotline Miami	0.8 TF2	$1.57 PP	-
House Flipper VR	0.9 TF2	$1.76 PP	-
House Flipper	2.1 TF2	$4.26 PP	-
Human: Fall Flat	0.7 TF2	$1.52 PP	-
HuniePop	0.4 TF2	$0.9 PP	-
Huntdown	1.3 TF2	$2.57 PP	-
Hurtworld	2.0 TF2	$4.09 PP	-
Hyper Light Drifter	1.4 TF2	$2.93 PP	-
Hypnospace Outlaw	0.7 TF2	$1.47 PP	-
I Am Fish	0.4 TF2	$0.83 PP	-
I Expect You To Die	1.3 TF2	$2.7 PP	-
I-NFECTED	6.0 TF2	$12.38 PP	-
INSURGENCY	1.6 TF2	$3.26 PP	-
Imperator: Rome Deluxe Edition	1.0 TF2	$2.12 PP	-
Imperator: Rome	0.5 TF2	$1.01 PP	-
Injustice 2 Legendary Edition	1.2 TF2	$2.54 PP	-
Injustice 2	0.7 TF2	$1.51 PP	-
Injustice: Gods Among Us - Ultimate Edition	0.7 TF2	$1.36 PP	-
Into the Radius VR	5.2 TF2	$10.76 PP	-
Ion Fury	1.5 TF2	$3.09 PP	-
Iron Harvest	0.9 TF2	$1.83 PP	-
Jalopy	0.5 TF2	$1.06 PP	-
Job Simulator	8.9 TF2	$18.19 PP	-
Jurassic World Evolution 2	1.7 TF2 Refer To My Other Thread	$3.49 PP Refer To My Other Thread	Humble Choice (Mar 2023)
Jurassic World Evolution	0.4 TF2	$0.92 PP	-
Just Cause 2	0.5 TF2	$1.05 PP	-
Just Cause 3 XXL Edition	1.0 TF2	$2.13 PP	-
Just Cause 4: Complete Edition	1.0 TF2	$2.09 PP	-
KartKraft	3.0 TF2	$6.2 PP	-
Katamari Damacy REROLL	1.1 TF2	$2.23 PP	-
Katana ZERO	1.0 TF2	$2.09 PP	-
Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes	2.6 TF2	$5.43 PP	-
Kerbal Space Program	1.4 TF2	$2.84 PP	-
Killer Instinct	6.0 TF2	$12.21 PP	-
Killing Floor 2 Digital Deluxe Edition	0.9 TF2	$1.88 PP	-
Killing Floor 2	0.6 TF2	$1.18 PP	-
Killing Floor	0.6 TF2	$1.18 PP	-
Kingdom Come: Deliverance	1.5 TF2	$3.0 PP	-
Kingdom: Two Crowns	0.9 TF2	$1.76 PP	-
King’s Bounty : Ultimate Edition	0.8 TF2	$1.73 PP	-
LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham Premium Edition	0.5 TF2	$1.09 PP	-
LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham	0.4 TF2	$0.83 PP	-
LEGO Batman Trilogy	1.4 TF2	$2.93 PP	-
LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4	0.5 TF2	$1.04 PP	-
LEGO Harry Potter: Years 5-7	0.7 TF2	$1.5 PP	-
LEGO Lord of the Rings	0.5 TF2	$0.94 PP	-
LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars	0.5 TF2	$1.01 PP	-
LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga	0.5 TF2	$1.04 PP	-
LEGO® City Undercover	0.7 TF2	$1.53 PP	-
LEGO® DC Super-Villains Deluxe Edition	1.9 TF2	$3.9 PP	-
LEGO® DC Super-Villains	0.4 TF2	$0.84 PP	-
LEGO® Jurassic World™	0.4 TF2	$0.82 PP	-
LEGO® MARVEL's Avengers	0.4 TF2	$0.76 PP	-
LEGO® Marvel Super Heroes 2 Deluxe Edition	1.1 TF2	$2.34 PP	-
LEGO® Marvel Super Heroes 2	0.4 TF2	$0.9 PP	-
LEGO® Ninjago® Movie Video Game	0.3 TF2	$0.71 PP	-
LEGO® Star Wars™: The Force Awakens	0.6 TF2	$1.18 PP	-
LEGO® Worlds	1.8 TF2	$3.6 PP	-
Labyrinth City: Pierre the Maze Detective	0.7 TF2	$1.46 PP	-
Lake	0.8 TF2	$1.62 PP	-
Last Oasis	0.6 TF2	$1.13 PP	-
Late Shift	0.5 TF2	$0.97 PP	-
Layers of Fear 2	3.5 TF2	$7.1 PP	-
Layers of Fear	0.5 TF2	$1.08 PP	-
Legion TD 2	1.0 TF2	$1.97 PP	-
Len's Island	3.7 TF2	$7.53 PP	-
Lethal League Blaze	0.9 TF2	$1.9 PP	-
Lethal League	0.8 TF2	$1.54 PP	-
Library Of Ruina	3.1 TF2	$6.36 PP	-
Life is Feudal: Your Own	0.4 TF2	$0.83 PP	-
Little Misfortune	3.4 TF2	$6.89 PP	-
Little Nightmares Complete Edition	1.6 TF2	$3.26 PP	-
Little Nightmares	0.8 TF2	$1.64 PP	-
Lobotomy Corporation Monster Management Simulation	5.0 TF2	$10.21 PP	-
Lords of the Fallen Game of the Year Edition	0.8 TF2	$1.7 PP	-
Lost Ember	1.3 TF2	$2.73 PP	-
Lost Planet™: Extreme Condition	0.9 TF2	$1.81 PP	-
Luck be a Landlord	2.7 TF2	$5.47 PP	-
METAL GEAR SOLID V: THE PHANTOM PAIN	0.8 TF2	$1.55 PP	-
METAL GEAR SOLID V: The Definitive Experience	1.2 TF2	$2.55 PP	-
MORTAL KOMBAT 11	1.6 TF2	$3.23 PP	-
MX vs ATV Reflex	0.4 TF2	$0.8 PP	-
MX vs. ATV Unleashed	0.4 TF2	$0.73 PP	-
Mad Max	1.3 TF2	$2.58 PP	-
Mafia II: Definitive Edition	1.3 TF2	$2.64 PP	-
Mafia III: Definitive Edition	2.0 TF2	$4.0 PP	-
Mafia: Definitive Edition	2.2 TF2	$4.55 PP	-
Maneater	0.5 TF2	$1.09 PP	-
Manhunt	1.2 TF2	$2.53 PP	-
Mars Horizon	1.0 TF2	$2.04 PP	-
Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite - Deluxe Edition	2.8 TF2	$5.79 PP	-
Mass Effect™ Legendary Edition	6.6 TF2	$13.54 PP	-
Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne	0.6 TF2	$1.2 PP	-
Max Payne	0.9 TF2	$1.88 PP	-
MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries	2.4 TF2	$4.91 PP	-
Medal of Honor	2.0 TF2	$4.14 PP	-
Mega Man Legacy Collection	0.6 TF2	$1.25 PP	-
Men of War: Assault Squad 2 - Deluxe Edition	1.1 TF2	$2.3 PP	-
Men of War: Assault Squad 2 War Chest Edition	1.0 TF2	$1.97 PP	-
Men of War: Assault Squad 2	1.0 TF2	$1.97 PP	-
Messenger	0.4 TF2	$0.9 PP	-
Metro 2033 Redux	0.6 TF2	$1.31 PP	-
Metro Exodus	1.6 TF2	$3.23 PP	-
Metro Redux Bundle	1.1 TF2	$2.3 PP	-
Metro: Last Light Redux	1.1 TF2	$2.23 PP	-
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor Game of the Year Edition	0.8 TF2	$1.64 PP	-
Middle-earth™: Shadow of War™	0.7 TF2	$1.44 PP	-
Middleearth Shadow of War Definitive Edition	1.2 TF2	$2.5 PP	-
Mini Ninjas	0.5 TF2	$0.94 PP	-
Miscreated	1.4 TF2	$2.88 PP	-
Monster Hunter: World	3.5 TF2	$7.27 PP	-
Monster Sanctuary	0.5 TF2	$0.96 PP	-
Monster Train	0.4 TF2	$0.78 PP	-
Moonlighter	0.5 TF2	$0.93 PP	-
Moons of Madness	1.8 TF2	$3.74 PP	-
Mordhau	1.5 TF2	$3.04 PP	-
Mortal Kombat X	0.8 TF2	$1.56 PP	-
Mortal Kombat XL	0.9 TF2	$1.9 PP	-
Mortal Shell	1.6 TF2	$3.18 PP	-
Motorcycle Mechanic Simulator 2021	0.9 TF2	$1.87 PP	-
Motorsport Manager	1.1 TF2	$2.24 PP	-
Move or Die	1.0 TF2	$2.01 PP	-
Moving Out	0.7 TF2	$1.49 PP	-
Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden - Deluxe Edition	1.5 TF2	$3.04 PP	-
Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden	0.9 TF2	$1.93 PP	-
My Friend Pedro	0.6 TF2	$1.27 PP	-
My Time At Portia	0.5 TF2	$0.97 PP	-
NARUTO SHIPPUDEN: Ultimate Ninja STORM 4 Road to Boruto	2.2 TF2	$4.46 PP	-
NASCAR Heat 5 - Ultimate Edition	0.4 TF2	$0.92 PP	-
Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4	1.8 TF2	$3.59 PP	-
Naruto to Boruto Shinobi Striker - Deluxe Edition	1.3 TF2	$2.63 PP	-
Necromunda: Hired Gun	0.8 TF2	$1.56 PP	-
Neon Abyss	0.5 TF2	$0.98 PP	-
Ni no Kuni™ II: Revenant Kingdom - The Prince's Edition	2.3 TF2	$4.74 PP	-
Nine Parchments	1.5 TF2	$3.0 PP	-
No Time to Relax	1.7 TF2	$3.57 PP	-
Northgard	4.2 TF2	$8.55 PP	-
Not For Broadcast	0.5 TF2	$1.01 PP	-
ONE PIECE BURNING BLOOD	0.8 TF2	$1.72 PP	-
ONE PIECE PIRATE WARRIORS 3 Gold Edition	1.1 TF2	$2.16 PP	-
Offworld Trading Company™	0.7 TF2	$1.44 PP	-
One Step From Eden	0.5 TF2	$0.98 PP	-
Opus Magnum	1.2 TF2	$2.56 PP	-
Orcs Must Die! 3	2.0 TF2	$4.19 PP	-
Outlast 2	0.4 TF2	$0.91 PP	-
Outlast	0.5 TF2	$0.95 PP	-
Outward	1.4 TF2	$2.91 PP	-
Overcooked! 2	1.5 TF2	$3.1 PP	-
Overgrowth	0.5 TF2	$1.09 PP	-
Overlord II	0.4 TF2	$0.84 PP	-
PC Building Simulator	0.8 TF2	$1.74 PP	-
Paint the Town Red	2.1 TF2	$4.23 PP	-
Parkitect	4.6 TF2	$9.43 PP	-
Pathfinder: Kingmaker - Enhanced Plus Edition	1.1 TF2	$2.2 PP	-
Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous	1.1 TF2	$2.24 PP	-
Pathologic 2	0.7 TF2	$1.47 PP	-
Per Aspera	0.7 TF2	$1.52 PP	-
Pillars of Eternity Definitive Edition	0.8 TF2	$1.55 PP	-
Pistol Whip	7.8 TF2	$15.92 PP	-
Plague Inc: Evolved	1.6 TF2	$3.28 PP	-
Planescape: Torment: Enhanced Edition	0.4 TF2	$0.79 PP	-
Planet Coaster	1.7 TF2	$3.49 PP	-
Planet Zoo	1.8 TF2	$3.79 PP	-
Planetary Annihilation: TITANS	4.7 TF2	$9.55 PP	-
Portal Knights	0.9 TF2	$1.77 PP	-
PowerBeatsVR	1.0 TF2	$1.97 PP	-
PowerSlave Exhumed	1.7 TF2	$3.54 PP	-
Praey for the Gods	0.7 TF2 Refer To My Other Thread	$1.44 PP Refer To My Other Thread	Humble Heroines: Warriors, Dreamers, and God Slayers
Prehistoric Kingdom	1.4 TF2	$2.9 PP	-
Pro Cycling Manager 2019	1.3 TF2	$2.58 PP	-
Project Cars 3	10.8 TF2	$22.11 PP	-
Project Hospital	2.4 TF2	$4.84 PP	-
Project Wingman	1.1 TF2	$2.24 PP	-
Project Winter	1.0 TF2	$1.97 PP	-
Pumpkin Jack	0.4 TF2	$0.91 PP	-
Quantum Break	1.6 TF2	$3.23 PP	-
RESIDENT EVIL 3	2.2 TF2	$4.49 PP	-
RUGBY 20	1.2 TF2	$2.55 PP	-
RUINER	0.4 TF2	$0.85 PP	-
RWBY: Grimm Eclipse	3.2 TF2	$6.56 PP	-
Ragnaröck	3.3 TF2	$6.8 PP	-
Rain World	1.4 TF2	$2.83 PP	-
Raw Data	1.0 TF2	$2.15 PP	-
Re:Legend	1.0 TF2	$2.09 PP	-
Red Faction Guerrilla Re-Mars-tered	0.5 TF2	$0.97 PP	-
Red Matter	4.3 TF2	$8.83 PP	-
Resident Evil / biohazard HD REMASTER	0.9 TF2	$1.86 PP	-
Resident Evil 0 / biohazard 0 HD Remaster	0.6 TF2	$1.3 PP	-
Resident Evil 5 GOLD Edition	1.4 TF2	$2.83 PP	-
Resident Evil 5	0.9 TF2	$1.79 PP	-
Resident Evil 6	1.4 TF2	$2.82 PP	-
Resident Evil: Revelations 2 Deluxe Edition	2.1 TF2	$4.23 PP	-
Resident Evil: Revelations	0.5 TF2	$1.02 PP	-
Retro Machina	0.5 TF2	$1.01 PP	-
Rising Storm 2: Vietnam	0.6 TF2	$1.22 PP	-
River City Girls	1.4 TF2	$2.91 PP	-
Rogue Heroes: Ruins of Tasos	0.5 TF2	$1.11 PP	-
RollerCoaster Tycoon Deluxe	1.0 TF2	$2.1 PP	-
Rollercoaster Tycoon 2: Triple Thrill Pack	1.8 TF2	$3.63 PP	-
Rubber Bandits	0.7 TF2	$1.5 PP	-
Running with Rifles	1.9 TF2	$3.86 PP	-
Ryse: Son of Rome	1.7 TF2	$3.49 PP	-
SCUM	2.7 TF2	$5.56 PP	-
SHENZHEN I/O	0.5 TF2	$0.97 PP	-
SOMA	2.1 TF2	$4.21 PP	-
SONG OF HORROR Complete Edition	0.8 TF2	$1.55 PP	-
STAR WARS® THE FORCE UNLEASHED II	0.8 TF2	$1.71 PP	-
STAR WARS™: Squadrons	2.0 TF2	$4.17 PP	-
SUPERHOT VR	2.2 TF2	$4.49 PP	-
SUPERHOT	0.8 TF2	$1.57 PP	-
SUPERHOT: MIND CONTROL DELETE	0.4 TF2	$0.88 PP	-
Sable	0.5 TF2 Refer To My Other Thread	$1.04 PP Refer To My Other Thread	Humble Heroines: Warriors, Dreamers, and God Slayers
Saint's Row The Third Remastered	2.2 TF2	$4.48 PP	-
Saints Row 2	0.6 TF2	$1.23 PP	-
Saints Row IV	0.9 TF2	$1.82 PP	-
Saints Row: The Third	0.6 TF2	$1.29 PP	-
Sanctum 2	0.5 TF2	$1.08 PP	-
Satisfactory	6.2 TF2	$12.73 PP	-
Scarlet Nexus	2.6 TF2	$5.39 PP	-
Scribblenauts Unlimited	0.4 TF2	$0.8 PP	-
Secret Neighbor	0.6 TF2	$1.2 PP	-
Serious Sam 2	0.7 TF2	$1.53 PP	-
Serious Sam 3: BFE	0.9 TF2	$1.8 PP	-
Serious Sam 4	3.1 TF2	$6.45 PP	-
Serious Sam: Siberian Mayhem	2.2 TF2	$4.5 PP	-
Severed Steel	1.4 TF2	$2.84 PP	-
Shadow Man Remastered	1.0 TF2	$1.97 PP	-
Shadow Warrior 2	0.8 TF2	$1.73 PP	-
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	3.3 TF2	$6.78 PP	-
Shantae and the Pirate's Curse	0.6 TF2	$1.18 PP	-
Shenmue 3	0.7 TF2	$1.43 PP	-
Shenmue I & II	0.7 TF2	$1.43 PP	-
Shining Resonance Refrain	0.5 TF2	$0.94 PP	-
Sid Meier's Civilization VI : Platinum Edition	2.9 TF2	$5.87 PP	-
Sid Meier's Civilization VI	0.9 TF2	$1.83 PP	-
Sid Meier's Civilization® V: The Complete Edition	2.0 TF2	$4.14 PP	-
Sid Meiers Civilization IV: The Complete Edition	0.8 TF2	$1.74 PP	-
Siege of Centauri	0.6 TF2	$1.15 PP	-
SimCasino	1.2 TF2	$2.54 PP	-
Skullgirls 2nd Encore	1.0 TF2	$1.97 PP	-
Slap City	1.1 TF2	$2.25 PP	-
Slay the Spire	3.0 TF2	$6.22 PP	-
Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition	0.8 TF2	$1.57 PP	-
Slime Rancher	1.6 TF2	$3.3 PP	-
Sniper Elite 3	0.7 TF2	$1.37 PP	-
Sniper Elite 4	1.3 TF2	$2.67 PP	-
Sniper Elite V2 Remastered	0.8 TF2	$1.72 PP	-
Sniper Elite V2	0.5 TF2	$0.94 PP	-
Sniper Ghost Warrior 3	0.8 TF2	$1.6 PP	-
Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts	0.8 TF2	$1.67 PP	-
Sonic Adventure DX	0.5 TF2	$1.05 PP	-
Sonic Adventure™ 2	0.6 TF2	$1.17 PP	-
Sonic Lost World	1.7 TF2	$3.44 PP	-
Sonic Mania	1.1 TF2	$2.24 PP	-
Sorcery! Parts 1 & 2	0.6 TF2	$1.27 PP	-
Soul Calibur VI	1.1 TF2	$2.34 PP	-
Source of Madness	0.6 TF2	$1.13 PP	-
Space Engineers	2.3 TF2	$4.65 PP	-
Space Haven	0.6 TF2	$1.33 PP	-
Spec Ops: The Line	0.8 TF2	$1.66 PP	-
SpeedRunners	0.7 TF2	$1.38 PP	-
Spelunky	1.0 TF2	$2.09 PP	-
Spirit Of The Island	1.4 TF2	$2.91 PP	-
Splendor	0.7 TF2	$1.34 PP	-
SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom - Rehydrated	1.3 TF2	$2.63 PP	-
Spyro™ Reignited Trilogy	3.8 TF2	$7.89 PP	-
Star Renegades	1.4 TF2	$2.91 PP	-
Star Trek: Bridge Crew	3.7 TF2	$7.49 PP	-
Star Wars Republic Commando™	0.4 TF2	$0.76 PP	-
Star Wars® Empire at War™: Gold Pack	0.8 TF2	$1.72 PP	-
Starbound	0.8 TF2	$1.7 PP	-
Starpoint Gemini Warlords	1.7 TF2	$3.44 PP	-
State of Decay 2: Juggernaut Edition	3.0 TF2	$6.17 PP	-
Staxel	0.6 TF2	$1.18 PP	-
SteamWorld Quest: Hand of Gilgamech	0.9 TF2	$1.88 PP	-
Steel Division: Normandy 44	0.7 TF2	$1.39 PP	-
Stellaris Galaxy Edition	1.3 TF2	$2.65 PP	-
Stellaris: Lithoids Species Pack	0.9 TF2	$1.88 PP	-
Stick Fight: The Game	0.4 TF2	$0.76 PP	-
Strategic Command WWII: World at War	2.1 TF2	$4.21 PP	-
Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection	2.4 TF2	$4.82 PP	-
Street Fighter V	0.7 TF2	$1.48 PP	-
Streets of Rogue	1.2 TF2	$2.44 PP	-
Stronghold 2: Steam Edition	1.0 TF2	$1.95 PP	-
Stronghold Crusader 2	0.7 TF2	$1.43 PP	-
Stronghold Crusader HD	0.5 TF2	$1.07 PP	-
Styx: Shards Of Darkness	0.6 TF2	$1.29 PP	-
Subnautica	4.2 TF2	$8.65 PP	-
Summer in Mara	0.4 TF2	$0.92 PP	-
Sunless Skies	0.7 TF2	$1.37 PP	-
Sunset Overdrive	1.3 TF2	$2.67 PP	-
Super Meat Boy	0.4 TF2	$0.72 PP	-
Superliminal	2.0 TF2	$4.11 PP	-
Supraland Six Inches Under	1.6 TF2	$3.34 PP	-
Supreme Commander 2	0.9 TF2	$1.93 PP	-
Supreme Commander Forged Alliance	2.0 TF2	$4.17 PP	-
Surgeon Simulator: Experience Reality	0.9 TF2	$1.82 PP	-
Survive the Nights	0.9 TF2	$1.81 PP	-
Surviving the Aftermath	0.5 TF2	$0.95 PP	-
Sword Art Online Fatal Bullet - Complete Edition	5.3 TF2	$10.88 PP	-
Sword Art Online Hollow Realization Deluxe Edition	1.0 TF2	$2.13 PP	-
Syberia: The World Before	0.9 TF2 Refer To My Other Thread	$1.77 PP Refer To My Other Thread	Humble Heroines: Warriors, Dreamers, and God Slayers
Synth Riders	3.4 TF2	$6.89 PP	-
THIEF	0.8 TF2	$1.61 PP	-
TT Isle of Man Ride on the Edge 2	1.7 TF2	$3.56 PP	-
Tales of Berseria	0.9 TF2	$1.76 PP	-
Tales of Symphonia	1.6 TF2	$3.25 PP	-
Tales of Zestiria	0.6 TF2	$1.24 PP	-
Talisman: Digital Edition	0.5 TF2	$0.98 PP	-
Tank Mechanic Simulator	1.0 TF2	$2.14 PP	-
Team Sonic Racing™	1.9 TF2	$3.88 PP	-
Telltale Batman Shadows Edition	0.9 TF2	$1.9 PP	-
Terraforming Mars	0.9 TF2	$1.9 PP	-
Terraria	1.8 TF2	$3.71 PP	-
The Ascent	1.0 TF2	$2.09 PP	-
The Battle of Polytopia	0.4 TF2	$0.9 PP	-
The Beast Inside	0.4 TF2	$0.79 PP	-
The Blackout Club	6.0 TF2	$12.21 PP	-
The Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope	1.4 TF2	$2.88 PP	-
The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan	1.7 TF2	$3.46 PP	-
The Darkness II	0.5 TF2	$1.02 PP	-
The Dungeon Of Naheulbeuk: The Amulet Of Chaos	0.5 TF2	$1.08 PP	-
The Escapists 2	0.9 TF2	$1.83 PP	-
The Escapists	0.7 TF2	$1.34 PP	-
The Henry Stickmin Collection	0.7 TF2	$1.5 PP	-
The Intruder	1.2 TF2	$2.5 PP	-
The Jackbox Party Pack 2	2.0 TF2	$4.02 PP	-
The Jackbox Party Pack 3	3.4 TF2	$6.87 PP	-
The Jackbox Party Pack 4	2.1 TF2	$4.21 PP	-
The Jackbox Party Pack 5	3.3 TF2	$6.8 PP	-
The Jackbox Party Pack 6	2.7 TF2	$5.54 PP	-
The Jackbox Party Pack	1.1 TF2	$2.33 PP	-
The LEGO Movie 2 Videogame	0.4 TF2	$0.76 PP	-
The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky	1.4 TF2	$2.91 PP	-
The Long Dark	2.1 TF2	$4.23 PP	-
The Long Dark: Survival Edition	0.4 TF2	$0.78 PP	-
The Stanley Parable	2.7 TF2	$5.5 PP	-
The Surge 2	0.6 TF2	$1.32 PP	-
The Survivalists	1.0 TF2	$2.0 PP	-
The Talos Principle	0.7 TF2	$1.41 PP	-
The Walking Dead: A New Frontier	0.3 TF2	$0.71 PP	-
The Walking Dead: The Final Season	0.3 TF2	$0.71 PP	-
The Walking Dead: The Telltale Definitive Series	2.0 TF2	$4.18 PP	-
The Witness	6.9 TF2	$14.09 PP	-
The Wolf Among Us	1.1 TF2	$2.34 PP	-
This War of Mine: Complete Edition	0.8 TF2	$1.56 PP	-
Titan Quest Anniversary Edition	0.7 TF2	$1.36 PP	-
Tomb Raider	1.5 TF2	$3.11 PP	-
Torchlight II	0.7 TF2	$1.44 PP	-
Total Tank Simulator	0.4 TF2	$0.79 PP	-
Total War SHOGUN 2	1.6 TF2	$3.34 PP	-
Total War Shogun 2 Collection	1.7 TF2	$3.44 PP	-
Total War: ATTILA	1.9 TF2	$3.95 PP	-
Total War: Empire - Definitive Edition	1.5 TF2	$3.07 PP	-
Total War: Napoleon - Definitive Edition	1.5 TF2	$3.0 PP	-
Total War: Rome II - Emperor Edition	2.5 TF2	$5.17 PP	-
Total War™: WARHAMMER®	3.0 TF2	$6.17 PP	-
Totally Accurate Battle Simulator	3.3 TF2	$6.8 PP	-
Totally Reliable Delivery Service	1.9 TF2	$3.89 PP	-
Tour de France 2020	0.6 TF2	$1.33 PP	-
Tower Unite	3.7 TF2	$7.55 PP	-
Trailmakers Deluxe Edition	0.9 TF2	$1.91 PP	-
Trailmakers	0.9 TF2	$1.91 PP	-
Train Simulator Classic	0.7 TF2 Refer To My Other Thread	$1.44 PP Refer To My Other Thread	Train Simulator Classic: On the Fast Track Bundle
Train Station Renovation	0.5 TF2	$0.94 PP	-
Tribes of Midgard	0.7 TF2	$1.53 PP	-
Tricky Towers	2.0 TF2	$4.04 PP	-
Trine 2: Complete Story	1.1 TF2	$2.3 PP	-
Trine 4: The Nightmare Prince	0.9 TF2	$1.82 PP	-
Tropico 5 – Complete Collection	0.8 TF2	$1.65 PP	-
Tropico 6 El-Prez Edition	2.6 TF2	$5.24 PP	-
Tropico 6	2.2 TF2	$4.44 PP	-
Turok 2: Seeds of Evil	0.4 TF2	$0.75 PP	-
Turok	0.4 TF2	$0.81 PP	-
Two Point Hospital	2.3 TF2	$4.65 PP	-
Tyranny - Gold Edition	0.7 TF2	$1.39 PP	-
Ultimate Chicken Horse	1.6 TF2	$3.24 PP	-
Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3	1.6 TF2	$3.37 PP	-
Ultra Street Fighter IV	0.5 TF2	$0.95 PP	-
Undertale	2.0 TF2	$4.19 PP	-
Universe Sandbox	3.5 TF2	$7.16 PP	-
Unrailed!	1.2 TF2	$2.54 PP	-
Until You Fall	0.7 TF2	$1.39 PP	-
VTOL VR	5.0 TF2	$10.16 PP	-
Vacation Simulator	5.0 TF2	$10.21 PP	-
Vagante	0.4 TF2	$0.79 PP	-
Valkyria Chronicles 4 Complete Edition	1.2 TF2	$2.38 PP	-
Valkyria Chronicles™	1.0 TF2	$1.98 PP	-
Vampyr	1.6 TF2	$3.19 PP	-
Verdun	0.4 TF2	$0.87 PP	-
Visage	5.7 TF2	$11.59 PP	-
Viscera Cleanup Detail	2.0 TF2	$4.09 PP	-
Void Bastards	0.5 TF2	$0.99 PP	-
Volcanoids	1.2 TF2	$2.42 PP	-
Vox Machinae	3.3 TF2	$6.74 PP	-
WRATH: Aeon of Ruin	0.4 TF2	$0.82 PP	-
WRC 8 FIA World Rally Championship	1.1 TF2	$2.23 PP	-
Wargame European Escalation	0.3 TF2	$0.71 PP	-
Wargame: Red Dragon	6.4 TF2	$13.18 PP	-
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Master Collection	1.4 TF2	$2.77 PP	-
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II - Grand Master Collection	1.8 TF2	$3.62 PP	-
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II: Retribution	0.6 TF2	$1.18 PP	-
Warhammer 40,000: Gladius - Relics of War	0.6 TF2	$1.23 PP	-
Warhammer 40,000: Gladius - Tyranids	2.1 TF2	$4.38 PP	-
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine Collection	1.6 TF2	$3.3 PP	-
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine	1.6 TF2	$3.27 PP	-
Warhammer: Chaosbane - Slayer Edition	1.0 TF2	$2.11 PP	-
Warhammer: End Times - Vermintide Collector's Edition	0.7 TF2	$1.34 PP	-
Warhammer: Vermintide 2 - Collector's Edition	1.3 TF2	$2.67 PP	-
Warhammer: Vermintide 2	1.2 TF2	$2.41 PP	-
Warhammer® 40,000™: Dawn of War® II	0.7 TF2	$1.39 PP	-
Warhammer® 40,000™: Dawn of War® III	1.7 TF2	$3.45 PP	-
Warpips	0.8 TF2	$1.54 PP	-
Wasteland 3	1.2 TF2	$2.48 PP	-
We Happy Few	0.8 TF2	$1.54 PP	-
We Need to Go Deeper	1.1 TF2	$2.25 PP	-
We Were Here Too	1.6 TF2	$3.23 PP	-
White Day : a labyrinth named school	0.5 TF2	$1.03 PP	-
Who's Your Daddy	2.1 TF2	$4.23 PP	-
Wingspan	1.0 TF2	$2.04 PP	-
Winkeltje: The Little Shop	1.0 TF2	$2.09 PP	-
Witch It	1.9 TF2	$3.93 PP	-
Wizard of Legend	1.1 TF2	$2.24 PP	-
World War Z: Aftermath	4.0 TF2	$8.2 PP	-
Worms Revolution Gold Edition	0.5 TF2	$1.04 PP	-
Worms Ultimate Mayhem - Deluxe Edition	0.8 TF2	$1.74 PP	-
Worms W.M.D	1.1 TF2	$2.17 PP	-
Worms World Party Remastered	0.4 TF2	$0.89 PP	-
Wrench	3.0 TF2	$6.23 PP	-
Wurm Unlimited	0.7 TF2	$1.5 PP	-
X4: Foundations	5.5 TF2	$11.35 PP	-
X4: Split Vendetta	1.9 TF2	$3.83 PP	-
XCOM 2 Collection	1.2 TF2	$2.53 PP	-
XCOM: Enemy Unknown Complete Pack	0.8 TF2	$1.57 PP	-
XCOM: Ultimate Collection	0.9 TF2	$1.86 PP	-
XCOM®: Chimera Squad	0.3 TF2	$0.71 PP	-
Yakuza 0	1.4 TF2	$2.77 PP	-
Yakuza 3 Remastered	1.2 TF2	$2.53 PP	-
Yakuza Kiwami 2	2.3 TF2	$4.62 PP	-
Yakuza Kiwami	1.7 TF2	$3.57 PP	-
Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles	2.2 TF2	$4.49 PP	-
YouTubers Life	0.8 TF2	$1.58 PP	-
Yuppie Psycho	0.4 TF2	$0.72 PP	-
ZERO Sievert	3.7 TF2	$7.56 PP	-
Zeno Clash 2	0.3 TF2	$0.71 PP	-
Zombie Army Trilogy	0.8 TF2	$1.68 PP	-
biped	0.9 TF2	$1.86 PP	-
rFactor 2	1.2 TF2	$2.38 PP	-
while True: learn() Chief Technology Officer Edition	0.8 TF2	$1.6 PP	-

 
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