There are Spiders in my Eye

There are Spiders in my Eye

A short play

A swirl of colors and energy bore into the eyes of an innocuous little puppet. As the darkness regained its composure and swallowed the room again, the puppet breathed in its first breath. It lacked lungs so the gesture of breathing was purely a symbolic one. The night was blue and methodical; a creature at the window tapped on the glass to rouse the puppet.

The puppets sole purpose in the world was to experience life and to report what it found to its creator. Its thoughts and actions were mechanical though and in no way did it need to eat, breathe, or rest like a living creature; though it did so anyway because these actions felt natural to it. For a moment there was a pause as the puppet gauged its surroundings and learned what it could. The room was dusty and the air was full of mold. Whoever had kept this room had long since abandoned it.

Standing on its own two legs for the first time, the puppet went to open the door to explore the world only to find the door was sealed shut with brick and mortar. Well, that was okay, it could just open the window and egress through there. On further inspection the window looked out into a miniscule square courtyard which was composed of a small, brown, grassy plot. On all sides of the courtyard were sheer concrete walls.

Well this was a pretty miserable situation, the puppet thought to itself. As it sat down and pondered what to do a spider slid down from the ceiling without him noticing and crawled onto and behind his eye. At first the puppet was excited that it had a new companion to share the joy of existence with – and then the puppet realized that the spider was spinning a web and attaching an egg sack to the puppet’s eye socket.

“Oh god there are spiders in my eye!” The puppet began to scream.

That was it, really. The puppet spent the next however many months trapped in a room thinking that it was starving to death. Eventually the spiders burst out of their sack but some stayed around to make his eye into their permanent home. This was an awful existence.

The Brats & The Dragon

The Brats & The Dragon

Valiant and Mischief had a way of always taking things too far. Valiant, despite his name, was never up to good things, and Mischief, much like her name, was always up to mischief. When separate they always made things mad and when they were together, as they always were, they made even the monsters that go bump in the night flee for their lives.

One day Valiant had found a massive bag of candy outside of a dumpster and decided to take it home. When his parents discovered it they threw it out; Mischief fished it out of the trash and they hid it in their room. Over the course of the next hour and a half they cracked two teeth each on too old jaw breakers and contests of who could bite to the center first. This, of course, wasn’t the end of it. In the spirit of taking things way too far, Mischief and Valiant spent the next three months consuming the entire bag of candy in secret and they were eating no small amount of the garbage every night. By the time they were done with it their teeth were black and rotten and they were forced to visit the dentist.

Dentists can choose to be nice. A dentist can take their time and carefully spot the sensitive parts of your teeth and gums and gradually work around them to avoid causing you pain. Dentists have that choice. The dentist that they went to chose to do a quick and nasty job since they were all baby teeth anyway. The pain was horrendous and Mischief made sure to pour all of the thumbtacks under his desk and beneath his chair covers as revenge. Not just all of his thumbtacks either; she snuck out to the office supply store next door while the dentist was working on Valiant and bought as many pack of tacks as she could with the money the tooth fairy left her; which was no small sum mind you.

Ever since that day the two siblings had more silver in their mouth than enamel and a healthy fear of ever going back to the dentist. Before either of them could fall asleep at night they would thoroughly brush and floss.

Now all of that is nice and good but right now there was madness and there is no greater madness than the quotidian nature of siblings. Valiant and Mischief are a bonded pair that antagonize and harass one another but in a genuinely loyal way. Much like a couple who have fallen into their twilight, these siblings regard each other with a sense of jaded caution; each knows enough to destroy the other and yet they dote on one another and protect each other without that being the reason why. They’re odd and strange and difficult to understand; and that makes them very dangerous to the creatures that are in their way.

“I’m your sister, aren’t I?” Mischief asked Valiant.

“You’re going to ask me for something.”

“Well, if I was your sister then you’d love me and if you loved me then you’d go into the bathroom and kill the bug in there.”

Valiant wasn’t going to go into the bathroom to kill a bug, especially not one that elicited the kind of scream that came out of Mischief. Bugs were creepy and crawly and felt a particular brand of icky when they touched your skin. The very thought of smashing a bug and feeling its inner goo-ooze about made Valiant shudder.

“Come on, it’s just a beetle!” Mischief pleaded to her brother. She had found it laying on its back struggling to right itself on the sink counter; its multitude of legs were writhing in the air as it was working to correct itself. Perhaps if it wasn’t the size of her fist or if its mandible hadn’t clacked into a hissing sound, Mischief would have gone about brushing her teeth without making this into an incident. Unfortunately it was and it had respectively and now it needed to die before she could go to bed.

“Fine, if you’re not going to help then we need to get a cat. Cats take care of pests like these. Where can we find a cat?”

“That’s your solution to every problem. I’ve told you, you find cats in alley ways that smell like hobos and pee.”

It was a strange law of the universe that street cats were attracted to the smell or hobos and pee or perhaps it was those smells that were attracted to street cats. Sometimes the smells would find their ways to the cats even if there weren’t any hobos; there was always pee though. One way or another there was always going to be pee. If you’ve never owned a cat then just know that they are little pee monsters.

As Mischief was getting on a coat to go outside, Valiant found his way over to her, “I’m coming with you. I want to pet the cats.”

“No you butt. You won’t kill the beetle for me so you don’t get to pet the cats.”

Valiant scrunched his nose at Mischief but she was already sneaking away. Of course Valiant could hear her tip toeing towards the door even if he couldn’t see her, but he understood that she didn’t want him to come along. This, of course, meant he’d have to trail her at afar so that he could play with the cats after she had found them.

Hiding yourself and following someone sounds all well and like a good idea until you actually try to execute it. As Mischief dodged around the corners and peeked behind the alleyways, the night conspired to mask her presence. Owls hooted, mice squeaked, and shadowy monsters scratched at the bricks. Valiant was used to these things so he wasn’t terribly scared or startled, but he certainly couldn’t keep up with Mischief like this and before long he was further behind her than he wanted to be.

Valiant had been listening for her footsteps the entire time and had just lost them when another pair of footsteps took off towards the haunted woods. That was strange – was Mischief in trouble? Valiant ran as fast as he could to try to catch up to them before they reached the woods. He failed but they were sprinting so desperately that they left deep footprints; he took a gulp and summoned up as much courage as he could to delve into the dark of the woods and save Mischief.

Meanwhile Mischief was walking down yet another alleyway without success. These alleyways were all much too clean and barren. Some had frogs and others had mystery boxes but there were no street cats to be found.

Then it caught her eye: a cat dove out of a dumpster down a stairwell into an open cellar. Mischief cracked a grin ear to ear and went in after it. She knew that cats were wily beasts and that it would escape and evade her if she wasn’t careful so she closed the door behind her as she went in. The cellar itself was dark with a glow of red from a burning furnace. The cat sat on the floor by the warm furnace licking itself.

Carefully, step by step, Mischief edged towards the cat until she was close enough then she pounced at it. As she predicted, the cat was onto her schemes and bolted for the door only to find it closed now. In a fit of confusion and desperation it bolted around the room in circles. Its escape was futile and it wore itself down after a few minutes, allowing Mischief to scoop it up. Ah, there is nothing better to pet than the sweet fur of a freshly caught street cat.

As the cat struggled against her hold, Mischief pet it roughly on the head and made her way to the door, which now refused to open. When she went to unlock the knob, she found that there was only a keyhole; what kind of monster thought to make doors that lock that need a key to open from the inside?

“Now you’ve done it you stupid child, we’re trapped!” The cat shouted at Mischief.

“Shut up cat, you have to come with me to kill a beetle in my bathroom.”

“I’ll do no such thing stupid child, I am a powerful werecat and since we’re trapped in here I’m going to eat you!” The cat began to hiss, foam, and snarl.

“You’ll kill that beetle or I’ll bite you!”

“No I won’t!” The cat barked out and so Mischief bit him. With a burning fsss of supernatural forces the cat howled in pain and subdued.

You see, werewolves are all too common in modern society, much like wizards, vampires, fairies, and frankensteins. They propagate too easily and then just bum about in cities acting as if they were people. Of course, just because they are commonplace and blend in does not mean that they benefit from any sorts of immunities to their natural enemies. As fire is to trolls, Mischief’s silver teeth are to werewolf-cats.

The cat gave one last mewl before it settled down and bowed its head in submission to Mischief. Now the only trouble was getting out of the basement.

If there was one creature that never had problems with basements it was dragons. You never heard silly stories of dragons becoming trapped in basements or other small situations because if they did they would just blow it up with fire. That’s when the idea struck Mischief: she’d blow the door open with the water heater in the room. With just a bit of luck there were tools for just that laying about in the boxes around, primarily a set of pliers and a wrench.

“Mr. Snufflebutt you’ll be helping me push the water heater to the door.” As she set the cat down, the two set to work pushing the water heater as close as they could to the door, stretching the tubing out as far as it would. Mischief didn’t understand the principles of physics or how pressure or combustion work, but she understood that if you clamp down flowing water then it bursts with enough force to put Valiant through a window. Valiant through a window was a unit of measurement here and it was surely enough to take down a door. With two cranks and a clamp, the tubing for the water heater was closed up and it began to heat up and boil and was soon shaking and ready to burst.

Leaping behind whatever she could, Mischief hoped that the burst of fiery breath from her makeshift dragon wouldn’t have enough blowback to harm her – though it was better to fail and be burned a bit than to be trapped in a prison forever.

Yet again with just a bit of luck and stalwart fortitude, as the water furnace gurgled and churned and exploded, the superheated shrapnel strayed away from Mischief and Snufflebutt, allowing them a pleasant reprieve from an anxious moment. They were free! Also the building was on fire. But they were free and that was all that mattered. Mischief egressed and found a nice spot on a dumpster to sit on while watching the fire department arrive.

“Oh, hi Valiant, did you follow me?” Mischief noted as she saw Valiant attempted to sneak about.

“I tried to but I think I just killed a ghost? I’m not sure.”

“Want to listen to the firetrucks? I got a cat.”

“Can I pet it?” Valiant asked hopefully, his voice exhausted from goodness knows what.

“You know what, sure. He’s a butt cat and you’re a butt, you can be butt buddies together.” And so Mischief and Valiant sat down together and poked, prodded, and generally harassed the poor werecat.

The Brats that Monsters Fear

The Brats that Monsters Fear

Valiant and Mischief weren’t born on any particularly special day or under any particularly special circumstances. They were siblings of about the same age and the same height. They weren’t twins but you could hardly distinguish the two apart aside from their scars. They had a penchant of getting into trouble and not the good kind of trouble either. Mischief had, as her name suggested, gotten into a fair bit of no-goodery one afternoon some months ago and broken into the sink cabinet. Now, for those of you not versed in mom-ery or dad-ery, this is where the chemicals are kept out of reach of the kids.

Mischief herself was a bright young girl who couldn’t picklocks; Valiant was a clever young lad who could. As good siblings do, most requests could be gotten with just a few sweet words and so Mischief asked Valiant to pretty please crack open the sink lock. He did and within minutes they had managed to bleach themselves. If you’re not very familiar with bleach you may think that it just looks like water and is good at cleaning things. The problem with bleach is that it burns things quite badly in its undiluted state and straight from the bottle is as undiluted as it is going to get. The both of them were sent to the chemical burn ward at the hospital after that. The left half of Mischief’s face was now a sickly pale white and her eyebrows were blonde in contrast to her otherwise chestnut hair. Her brother, Valiant, was blinded and there was a horizontal strip of burned white skin across his eyes that denoted where the chemical stream dripped down.

For good siblings these types of tribulations only act to bring them closer together and they, in many ways, became inseparable. Mischief felt no guilt for blinding Valiant and Valiant felt no resentment. The two didn’t spend time together because of the disability; Valiant just loved to hear his sister talk, as she did have a very sweet voice, and Mischief loved that someone was always there to listen to her.

After school the two would talk and play and get into all sorts of near calamities that no one could blame on them or get them in trouble for, much in part due to Valiant. To them, Valiant being blind was the greatest blessing of all. If the adults ever wanted to give them trouble, no one could ever put any blame on the little blind boy and his sister. It was wonderful and they got away with so much because of it.

One day after school they decided to dilly dally going home and go on an adventure instead.

“We always stay in the boring city but today let’s go into the haunted woods brother.”

“That sounds like a stupid idea. Yes lets.”

As most children, the two of them loved to play pretend. The difference with these two was that Valiant would imagine the things they did a thousand times more clearly than any other child.

“Now we’ve never been inside of the haunted woods before. What sorts of things do you think we’ll see brother?”

“Werewolves and ghosts, of course.”

“Everyone knows that werewolves aren’t real and that ghosts only show up at night. We’re not staying here until night, I’ll get hungry.”

“Then what monsters come out during the day?”

Mischief looked around for a moment, “There’s a lollipop shaped creature that looks like someone licked it until it became ill. It’s all runny and gross with their spit.”

“Well, that’s no good anymore, what else?”

It was no use; Mischief had gone off to play with the lollipop creature. Valiant frowned his mightiest of little frowns and decided to find some creatures of his own.

Valiant was not of the cowardly sort but he also wasn’t of the brave sort. He was of the little child sort that sort of wants to venture forth and do silly things but sometimes gets scared when it’s too strange. You see, this is actually a very common sort but no one likes to admit it.

“Don’t wander off too long while I play with the lollipop or you’ll get scared and cry again!” Mischief just had to shout as he was heading off.

It’s worth mentioning that just because Valiant was the sort that sometimes got scared, this didn’t mean he wouldn’t swallow those fears and rush head first into disaster if his pride was at stake. He was challenged and he’d show Mischief that he could do as he pleased without consequences and without crying.

Without Mischief the woods were cold and silent. Only wisps clouded the air with swishes and creaks. Every once in awhile a monster would try to play a trick and hide in the corner of Valiant’s eyes; only because they didn’t know his eyes were gone. Valiant was too clever for them, you see; he could hear their scurrying in the dead silence and he knew that he would outwit those monsters by being brave and continuing forth.

After more than a fair bit of time Valiant finally felt that his pride was reassured and he was ready to go back and look for Mischief. Unfortunately for him the wisps had clouded his senses and the trees sealed behind him. When he turned to try to follow his tracks he kept hitting dead ends. There were rocks and trees where before he had found solid footholds and paths. As he wondered aloud how this could have happened a raven swooped down and began to harass him. First it violated his hair and next it went to claw out his eyes. When it found that it had failed it grew displeased and cawed at him incessantly. Tired of the scratches and screaming of the bird Valiant demanded that the crow leave, “I have nothing for you stupid bird. Go away!”

The raven replied, “Trespasser! Trespasser! Kill yourself or I’ll steal what you love dear.”

Picking up whatever stocks and sticks he could off of the ground, Valiant hurled, blindly might I remind you, the debris at the bird to shoo it off. The bullets fell aimlessly without a marksman and the raven continued to shout at him.

“You’re not a bird at all. You’re lying to me you witch.”

The rough, guttural cry turned into a shriek that began to tear out Valiant’s hearing. If he didn’t wish to become deaf and blind he needed to find a way to egress. With his path back blocked, this meant he could only go forward, so with every ounce of self preservation Valiant turned and fled away from the cries. That was definitely no bird, it was a witch and it sought to do witch things. Valiant had heard many stories of the things that witches do but Mischief knew them better than him. He needed to find Mischief now so that he could best this malevolent beast and go home before supper was cold and Mischief was hungry.

Unfortunately, foolishly Valiant had thought about what he loved most in this world. A brother’s love for his sister can be the most potent of loves as only siblings can tell you. Yes they harassed, hurt, and harangued one another but they did so unabashedly for their kinship. A good sibling can tie you to a chair, leave you in the closet, and, while still fuming mad, still save you dinner and make up a lie so you don’t get in trouble. Brothers and sisters are strange like that.

With this knowledge in mind the raven went to work.

Valiant ran. He ran until the cries of the witch disappeared and even the wisps stopped following him. How much time went by was hard to measure so instead he measured it in stomachs. The first stomach was about two minutes, for that’s how long it took for him to feel the white hot burn of running too hard normally. Next the second stomach was a measure for how long it took to reach a second wind. The third stomach was when he had run so hard that he began to dry heave. Finally there was a fourth stomach and that measurement was when Valiant had stomached all of the running that he could and now he needed to sit down. His heart pounded in pain as he came to such a sudden stop but worse was his fear that he was absolutely and truly lost. Worst yet was that he couldn’t find Mischief to help him. Together they could conquer anything but alone, either of them was far from indomitable.

All just about seemed lost when suddenly iron creaked nearby and startled Valiant to his feet. It wasn’t the sound of the joints of a rusty iron giant; they lumbered and puffed when they moved. It also wasn’t the sound of a ghost chained up because it wasn’t rattling at all. This meant that it was a gate and something was coming out to get him.

“Oh you poor young boy, you must be freezing out here. Where are your parents? Here come inside and you can stay the night.” A voice trying to sound as friendly and concerned as possible greeted him.

Before Valiant could react he was snatched and shoved towards something and the gate behind him shut with an ominous yelp. It must have been an iron dog gate; Valiant would have to remember this when he made his escape.

The house smelled old and was covered in dust. Every step that Valiant took was betrayed by the floor itself as it moaned and wailed to reveal him. It took a moment to occur to Valiant that he was alone again. Whoever had swept him into this old home had vanished. Once more he turned to try to find the exit only to be lost. The hallway was his enemy here as no matter where he turned he couldn’t find the door he had just been ushered through. For now he was trapped. It would seem that despite his best efforts that witch had caught him.

Valiant found his way around by groping at the walls and doors until he found something worth finding. The jealous creatures of the house kicked in the warped wood of the walls and pulled up as many shards as they could to deter Valiant as he reached out to find his way and his hands were constantly pressing into splinters. Finally his search paid off and he found a door into a room that smelled more like trouble than old people.

“Oh hi Valiant, she got you too?” Squeaked Mischief as she complacently sipped on a juice box.

“Mischief, you’ll never believe this but a witch said she was going to take you if I didn’t kill myself.” Valiant whispered to his sister.

“I know, I found the pantry and there’s a meat locker there where she keeps people. I can’t say that I really like this old lady.”

“She’s a bird or a witch or something. How do you kill a bird witch?”

“Well, in stories if you try to kill a witch they always curse you and come back to life so you’ll have to be careful about that. Otherwise witches are just geriatrics who eat children so push them down some stairs like any one else over the age of seventy.”

“Do you know where the witch is right now?”

“Yeah, she’s upstairs preparing a room for us. Old lady zips around like nobody’s business. Weird old witch.”

Mischief had been out snooping it seemed and she had found everything that they needed to dispose of their captor, she just didn’t know it yet. Valiant whispered his plan into her ear, skipping as many details as he could so the house wouldn’t find out. The first step was to go to the kitchen and find the cooking oil.

With cooking oil in hand, Valiant took the task of venturing up the stairs as quietly as he could as he set Mischief off to find a bone or a slab of meat. When he neared the top, the unmistakable smell of sugar began to assault his nose and he could hear the songs of the witch coming from the sweet smelling room. Was she actually preparing a candy room for them to sleep in? Mischief was right; she was a weird old witch.

Wasting no more time, Valiant unscrewed the cap of the oil and began to pour in out along each of the steps and he crawled his way back down slowly and carefully. Once all twenty two and a half steps were coated with oil he went to check on Mischief, who had long since found a bone and had broken into the refrigerator in the kitchen.

“She has ice cream! It’s coffee flavored!” Mischief said, obviously much more perky than she had been a minute ago.

“Okay, give me a spoonful then I want you to scream as loud as you can.”

As her brother asked her to, Mischief took in a deep breath, then another, and a third then unleashed the most blood curdling bloody murder scream that she would as she stingily hoarded the ice cream carton. The house ached and croaked and the sounds of the woman upstairs began to thump around as she tried to figure out what happened; which only turned into an even louder set of thumps and bangs moments later. Just after each thud was a loud curse, screaming out against the unseen forces that had undone the old lady. Honestly it was mostly just cuss words. The final thud and snap sounded off from the old lady’s fall; Valiant and Mischief went to investigate the scene.

Sure enough the witch was dead and she spent all of her last breaths cursing the air and the house and everything else for it but not Valiant and Mischief. They were safe from the witch’s curse. Next in the plan was to break out of the iron gate but like any old dog it would yield for a bone and so Mischief threw the bone she had found as hard as she could against the iron door. Sure enough it opened and they were free to leave.

Now that they had escaped, there was only one question left on Valiant’s mind, “So how did you get caught and why didn’t you try to leave?”

Mischief stopped walking for a moment and thought about it, “Well, you wouldn’t know about it, but she had a lot of candy before you got there.” Of course.

“The haunted woods are fun but we’re so deep in them, how will we ever find out way out?”

“Don’t be stupid, the wisps and spirits only turn you around when you’re alone. We’re right next to town.” That was right, Mischief was here now so the woods were no longer silent or filled with creatures trying to find the corner’s of his eyes. The two went along their way and never breathed a word of the old witch to anyone else.

Silly Metaphor

Not unlike a teddy bear he felt squishy and cuddly despite the fact that he weighed nothing and was more skin than bone. It was a testament to how twisted my head made reality that I wanted nothing more than to squeeze him like a good poop. That made me giggle entirely too much and now I’m screaming internally to tell him that.

My nails dug deep into the wood like a metaphor gouging out a meaning. It was desperate and likely hopeless but the alternative was to be forgotten without ever touching the lips of another.

There’s a science to the silly, inane, and, at times, quotidian things in life. Like slipping a burger into a patty, if you do it wrong then everyone at the barbeque will get angry at you. I suppose that makes life a big science bbq and you’re just desperately groping me for the ketchup.

It’s a shit situation and you were sabotaged from the start. When it comes down to the wire there were never actually any scissors. We were handed a butterknife and told to make the best of it.

I realize that we’re holed up here like rats on a sinking ship but I feel like a kitten in a box; everything is new and exciting and holy shit there are things outside that I want to bat.

As a child, in an attempt to create as much treasure as I possibly could for future generations, I generated a disproportionate amount of trash for my size. Some say this was because I didn’t know any better but I say it was because I was a little shit and an internet activist called me out. To compensate, I counteracted any actual good they could have ever done with the force of an undergrad trying to show off to their friends at a party; I spewed everywhere.

For awhile I had thought I was a man. I acted as they did, played kickball like them, and even peed standing up. It wasn’t until any sense of sexuality that I had was sucked away in a vacuum of emotions, tension, love interests, and an actual vacuum that I came to see myself as a woman.

The dolphin slapped me in the face like the motherfucker who was my new dad. I’ve come to understand that pretty assholes do shit just like every other asshole.

It was pleasant to have his eyes grabbing me from behind and slipping inside of me. The fact that it was only his eyes was no small frustration though, I assure you.

Haven and Hearth

This video represents the best representation, explanation, and exploration of Haven and Hearth I've ever seen even after years of play and involved in the community. If you're interested in survival games with huge, lasting consequences then I'd strongly suggesting watching this video.

Mabinogi Update: Dream

The dream update for Mabinogi comes with a few nifty little things: new character cards based on life skills (Master Chef and Treasure Hunter), new dungeons, new peaca dungeon boss, an event with daily free rebirths, permanent weekly free rebirths, free premium services for the event, a bunch of bug fixes, and a new mobile app for Mabinogi.

Whether or not this update will come to the US Mabinogi will be seen. Even if we don't get the daily rebirth event, I hope we get permanent weekly rebirths. That would be excellent!

Update July 17th:

In an interview the Mabi development team revealed a bit more about what the dream update is bringing. Some of the high points are: hacking compensation, explanations of the new character cards, revamping dungeons, revamping textures, Mabinogi smartphone app, iOS Mabinogi, archery renewal, and in the future a reworking of spirit weapons.

Hacking happens and it sucks a lot; the devs want to make it so that if you are hacked you can get your items and gold back so that you don't just lose everything. The goal is to improve your experience and this is a great step towards that.

The Master Chef card comes with r1 cooking, finally, and access to tons of new recipes and ingredients as well as a special new ability called festival foods. It looks like a lot of these new features are tied to the Master Chef card but the basics will be available to everyone.

The Treasure Hunter card gives bonuses for exploring Iria. Excavating will provide special, unique treasures and Treasure Hunters will even be able to restore artifacts. They may even be getting special drops from Iria dungeons.

Dungeons are out of date and everyone knows this. The current system for passes is limiting, boring, and makes people avoid dungeons when they can. The revamp will be using the Hard Mode system as a basis to improve dungeons as a whole.

A lot of old textures are still around and just sort of meshed with the newer ones. If you want an example just compare Lemona Moon Armor with Thames plate and you'll see a world of difference in texture quality. The revamp will be to update old graphics so that they fit more with the new look of Mabi.

The Mabinogi Smartphone app is a bit confusing and I'm worried that I read a mistranslation of it, so if this is wrong I'm going to change it asap, but it looks like there will be assist characters on smartphones that can play with normal players. This lets you help your friends and even yourself by playing on your smartphone on the go.

Macs are finally getting Mabinogi. Some people may rejoice and finally stop using bootcamp. =)

The limitation of archery has always been the miss chance and this has made archery very suicidal to use at times. Since the combat update will introduce a natural lucky evasion chance, archery would normally be severely nerfed from this, so the archery renewal looks to fix these balance issues and make the class more viable and fun.

At some point spirit weapons may be updated in some way, shape, or form. Even the devs have no clue how they will improve them just yet.

Have fun in Mabinogi everyone and I hope these updates are as exciting to you as they are to me! Look forward to guns, magic crafting, and a bunch of other skills in the next few weeks too.

Mabinogi Black Dragon Raid Boss

The Black Dragon Raid Boss is a butt and is likely to kill you a whole bunch!

But there are ways to fight him that allow you to take minimal casualties.

Things to Bring:
- 100+ HP Potions (Even if you don't use them all)
- 40-60 Phoenix Feathers
- 40+ MP Potions
- 10+ SP Potions
- Bandages?

Raptors: How to
- Raptors are a very strange enemy and you cannot apply standard combat practices to them.
- They are multi-aggro.
- They have a stomp attack that ignores mana shield and hits health directly.
- Their knockback gauge is 3x as large as a normal enemy so even attacks that normally always knock an enemy back won't work on them!
- However, this means that you can hit a raptor like 14 times if you're using knuckles.
- Do not use skills such as Hailstorm, Shock, or Blaze on them.
- They heal non-wound damage almost instantly.

But this is all 100% okay because your job as Support is not to kill the raptors. Don't try to kill he raptors! Pull the raptors away from the boss dragon and hold them in combat to the side so that Assault and everyone else can do what they need to do.

Bards and Healers: A love song
- Bards can be one of the most handy users on the battlefield thanks to Enduring Melody and Battlfield Overture
- Everyone is constantly hurt so use party healing for maximum mana efficiency
- Keep your parties open and stay right next to the dragon boss so that you're doing some actual good.

If you're not in a full party or you're too far away to do any good, why are you at the raid at all? Support your fellow millitians or the Black Dragon will escape.

The Black Dragon
- He has Advanced Heavy Stander
- If you are under his front claws you'll take ~500 damage
- He has a ground pound attack that hits enemies in front of him.
- Defying physics, the dragon can swivel around to any new angle at any time
- It's hard to pin his hp but every 25,000 appears to be 1% so he's probably in the realm of 2,500,000hp
- Not that it matters, he heals hundreds of thousands of hp every few minutes.
- Archers, stay under his belly and rapid fire on him. If you can, avoid going out of his sides or being under any one of his legs
- Mages & Alchemists, stay under his belly and charge advanced magic to hit him with. He moves constantly so you will need to be fast
- Melee, when the dragon is about to fly up windmill. Windmill breaks him out of his flight animation and keeps him from doing his flying attack.
- Assault needs to be attacking him constantly. Even with a full server on the dragon you can fail to kill him because of how fast he heals.

This has been a very basic guide to fighting the Black Dragon raid. Good luck everyone!

Mabinogi Commerce Guide

[IMAGE]

Commerce 101

Commerce is one of the most dynamic and beautifully simple systems in Mabinogi. The game of commerce is all about profits and if you're not earning profits then you're commercing wrong.

The first step that you should always take in commerce is to gather as much information as you can. It only takes a minute or two to hop into the moongates for Tir Chonail, Dunbarton, Bangor, Tailteann, Emain, and Tara to see who is paying the most for your time. Multiply the quantity of goods that you can carry by the profit (green number) to see how much you will earn from a trip. This little detour will increase your profits for the rest of the day.

However, commerce is dynamic; prices shift constantly and excessive trade will change how much profit you are earning. Repeat your information gathering every day before you begin to commerce and if you notice your earnings drop off at any point then change routes.

No one town will always be the most profitable and no one route will always be the safest. Stay alert and watch prices carefully to make sure that you're in the know about where to trade and which routes are best.

Your time is valuable so measure which destinations will give you the most profit over the shortest period of time. There are handy charts here to help with that!  

Raise your level commerce rating in towns to earn discounts, unlock goods, and generally improve your profits. You raise your rating with a town by selling goods from that town a lot.

Commerce Mastery

There is a skill that earns you more gold, experience, and ducats per trip: Commerce Mastery. This skill increases your profits by 1% for every rank up to a total of 15% at rank 1.

This handy little skill does not show you that it is earning you anything anywhere except for the final profit screen. You train commerce mastery by earning profits through commerce. Split your sales up to level commerce mastery faster. [IMAGE]

While commerce mastery is nice, it is not necessary and probably not a wise investment of your AP until you have ranked a few combat skills. Unless you're already confident in your ability to handle bandits, don't bother with Commerce Mastery just yet.

Bandits

Bandits are a nasty lot that will steal your goods and harass you until you hate commerce. The solution is to keep your eyes out and watch for bandits whenever you are commercing.

A good merchant almost never spawns bandits. Even if you can handle fighting bandits, they are a huge waste of time. Most trade routes are only a few minutes long and a bandit fight can drag out for as long as 3 minutes. This means less profits. If you want to fight bandits then go bandit hunting through the Wanted Board. [IMAGE]

Sometimes there are nasty little bugs that can make bandits worse than they should be. Sometimes, when you spawn bandits all of the other bandit markers become invisible to you. You cannot hear or see them and the imp will not warn you about them. You can still spawn them by getting to close to them though. What this means is that you're going in blind and you're going to have to fight dozens of bandits.
You can fix this bug by map transitioning. It is advisable to do so if you notice that bandits are spawning out of nowhere.

Bandits will increase in difficulty as you increase the value of your cargo and the distance from the cargo source. Longer, more valuable trips will spawn stronger enemies. This should be taken as a general guideline and not a hard and set value.

Newbie Bandits: 2,000 Ducats or less cargo
Trained Bandits: 2,001 to 20,000 Ducats
Hardened Bandits: 20,001 to 50,000 Ducats
Veteran Bandits: 50,001 to 200,000 Ducats
Master Bandits: Towards the end of trips worth 200,000+ Ducats

It is up to you to know your limits with bandits. Different builds and strategies will work better on bandits than others. If you're consistently losing goods to bandits, try a level down and see if that helps at all.

You can spawn more difficult bandits than normal if you spawn them near the Smuggler. The smuggler is only around from 10pm to 6am in-game time every day. You will only be told the smuggler's location if you have a Life Talent active.

Routes

All numbers are recorded in seconds. Every 60 = 1 minute.
Foot movement speed is the same as humans, carts are 110%, elephants are 134%, and wagons are 188%.

Not all routes are equal, some routes are more dangerous than others.

Safest routes: Lake Abb Neagh, Tailteann, Sliab Cuilin, Dunbarton, Gairech Hills

Why: These areas are open and big. This lets you spot any bandits well ahead of time and go around them. There are almost no locations for bandits to hide behind such as forested areas or large rocks.

Dangerous routes: Blago Prairie, Corrib Valley, Dugald Isle, Sen Mag Plateau.

Why: These locations are either cramped or have a lot of places for bandits to escape your view. This often means that you will accidentally run into a bandit or that even if you spot them there will not be room to go around them.

You'll Probably Die on This routes: Osna Sail

Why: Osna Sail is the fastest way to go between Bangor and Emain Macha but it is cramped and there are a lot of hostile spawns there. Not only can you usually not avoid bandits if you see them, wolves will quickly aggro you and distract you from the bandits.

The Smuggler

The smuggler's name is Byrun. Byrun has a price chart separate from other towns and often pays more for goods. The catch is that any goods sold to Byrun lower your rating level with the town you bought the goods from equal to 2x the profit of your sale. If possible avoid selling goods to the smuggler until you have spare town rating you can afford to lose. You do not earn gold from trading with the smuggler.

The daily trade good will not lower your merchant rating with a town. The next item sold after the daily trade good is multiplied in value by 1.5x. You can only do this once per in-game day.

Towns will display the value of items of the smuggler if you have a Life Talent active and the smuggler has spawned. Notifications will also run across the top of the screen listing the smuggler's location and the daily trade good.

Bandits tend to be stronger than normal around the smuggler and even low value goods from nearby can spawn master bandits.

The location of the smuggler changes every in-game day. You can find where he is with handy charts such as this one: http://wiki.mabinogiworld.com/view/Smuggler#Locations

General Tips:

• Bandits always aggro 2 at a time.
• Bandits can only begin aggroing you when you have moved. Standing perfectly still at the start of an encounter is a great way to charge magic, alchemy, puppets, or archery skills.
• Bandits will only steal goods if they disappear with stars.
• Bandits normally only flee once they have 5 stars. They can flee with fewer stars if you're low on goods.
• A bandit who despawns with any stars at the end of combat will have stolen goods.
• Goblin Bandits will blindly rush at you by default. Defend or Counter them if you can.
• Human Bandits pause before they rush at you and will often load Windmill and Smash.
• Goblin Archer Bandits do an insane amount of damage and wound, will not pause, and are faster than you if you are human. They aim very quickly.
• Imp Bandits love to circle you, spam bolt spells, and generally be obnoxious. These should be your priority targets to kill since they have very little health and do the most damage of any basic bandit enemy.
• Giant Bandits use knuckles, so they have a 5 hit attack. They generally do low damage unless they crit. Giants will do nothing for a very long time, standing right beside you. If you windmill giants they will attempt to basic attack you when they get up. Normally you can leave them be while you kill other enemies.
• Boss Human Bandits are identical to Human Bandits but have a lot more health and do a lot more damage.
• Boss Ogre Bandits have a huge amount of health, damage, defense, and protection. It is almost impossible to kill these enemies by yourself at times. If possible, never let this enemy hit you; instead keeping them at bay with high knockdown rate skills such as firebolt, counterattack, smash, etc.
• If all else fails, bandits will leave you alone once they've stolen ~30% of your goods. Any that you spawn after that will just leave once an encounter starts.
• Lost goods can be recovered by bounty hunters. You'll get some ducats back in the mail. 
• Bounty Hunters will always spawn Veteran and Master bandits.
• Merchants with bounty hunters accompanying them probably want to be the ones to spawn the bandits.

My Dreams

I dream wistfully of being the swordsman, thrown aloft and pointlessly to his death. That there might be a chance to be a hero is all that matters. For a medal and a bow on stage I’d give my very life: to train, to prepare, and finally to the carnal embrace of battle itself. When the glory of the blade fades I just want to have mattered.

The reality of mediocrity is often worse than death. You sit and dwell in placid happiness waiting for the next dash of spice that you may lather it upon yourself and share stories of it with your friends.

Which is worse, I wonder; it’s a matter for the times.

I shout to be clad in bright metals, gleaming from their temper; listless words echoing my features. More emotion than catharsis, my visage shall bring tears. To inspire mortification my simulacrum shall be stolen.

Much like the dread of the Summer Solstice, my presence shall be worshipped and hated. For the tyranny that my unending heat brings yet inevitable necessity that is the rise of the sun. When I am tallest and brightest others cannot resist cursing my name as they bask.

I dream of these things for it is winter. I have no glory and the flowers that I pick may just be sticks. Perhaps floundering like this brings the most happiness to all so I lay down my cape and sword. I have and will never be adorned and so I dream of a dream where I may be more than a square in a rectangle.

We

Woe stems from fear; a fear that things might get better if things just worked out this once. When you’ve been in the pits for as long as you can remember and there is no hope of escape, then there is no woe, there is only reality. How much of that you can swallow is up to you.

This is a dangerous weapon to use on the poor and disenfranchised. Pushing woe into their lives – the hope that they can maybe, possibly, eventually climb beyond their current condition is what is truly evil. To elect a small few to rise and grow and give nothing for the labors of the rest is cruel.

Should this tactic be employed for too long it stops working. People give up. Generations of woe leads to apathy and the poor find other ways beyond your system to grant success.

When these bastard’s snatch away the status quo and usurp your power under their name through illegal trade, subversion, protest, peace, and violence then you have no grounds to complain. You are not popular, nor are you good. You may use fancy words to pretty up the situation but the fact of the matter is simple: you made their lives hell; they’re just sharing.

What Kills Me Isn't The Fact That I'm Sad; It's That I'm Feeling Better

I run my finger along my screen, tracing out the happy memories. They were happy, weren't they? My gut finally unclenches. When did it wrench its way into that position? How many weeks has it been like that? Months? Years? Since I met you.

Maybe they were once butterflies. I think now they're just anxiety.

Washing them away helps. That's the problem. I'm happier for this. When you do something like this you're supposed to be grief stricken. This is horrible, sad, and all around unpleasant. Yet here I am.

I'm so happy.
So happy.
So happy.
So happy.

This isn't a lie for once. I frown from the truth.

More Mabinogi Instruments

New instruments! Mabinogi will be getting a miniature grand piano, violin, and cello.
What? You're worried that they're going to be gatchapon only like the Electric Guitar? Stop worrying, they're not. You can get these instruments in-game. That means adorable tiny pianos for all.

So far the prices for Pianos are 5,000,000 ducats and Cellos are 100,000 ducats. This means that they are available through commerce and can be bought at the trade imp in any Uladh town."They have also added instrumental dyes to the Ducat Shops for 100k each."

Korean players will be getting these first and even having an event for them:
"[KR Event] On May 18th players loging in will receive a free Violin."

The update will come with new wigs, new pets, new items all around but come on, nothing is as exciting as getting one of those pianos.

Get ready for more musical mayhem in the game named after the bard's song. <3>

Source: MabiData

Cooing Nothings

No poet so sweet, no honey so pleasant, as any words you whisper to me.

Loneliness means that my heart knew joy.
For that I am content.

The Thought Process

The thought process:

Defense needs to scale well with Offense so that damage remains consistent if Health remains consistent. In this way characters can grow and specialize without terribly imbalancing things.

Older players cannot outgrow newer players by too large of a margin. Growth needs to be slow. Square root function. Slows growth. sqrt

Too slow. Slow as molasses. Too many dead levels.

Multiply the base and run it through a square root function. sqrt(base*2)

Faster, fewer dead levels, numbers stay reasonable as players get stronger.

Switch the square root function to defense. Increase the multiplier. Defense is slow but not too slow. sqrt(defense*4)

Offense is linear. Offense will always outpace defense. (offense)

Defense subtracts Offense before they are put into a multiplier. [(offense) – sqrt(defense*4)] * (Multiplier)

Maybe division would work better? Linear Offense divided by square root of defense.

Minimizes damage without negating it. Slow but not too slow. Too slow?

Divide variable multiplier instead. Makes numbers look bigger. Reduces outcome. [(offense/2) – sqrt(defense*4)] * (Multiplier/10)

Players feel strong, realize strength. Players see fast defense growth that tapers off.

Even as monoliths they aren’t overpowering.

Everyone is happy.

Small World

I arrive at your doorstep

It has been a sixteen hour day

Finding my way here was worth it

When I see your smile, I know

A kiss and a moment later

Your eyes are fixated on something else

I wait for hours

No avail

My smolder turns to a flicker

You give me another peck goodnight

Blowing out whatever there was left

Tomorrow is supposed to be better

Nothing ever changes

You don’t understand when I say

There isn’t room for me in your world

Everything and Everyone is More Important Than Me

I find it hard to be happy when I’m with you

I must be blatant

Dramatic

To warrant your gaze

Why can’t you just look at me?

Candy Box!

Lets talk about games: Candy Box!

This post is high in spoilers and spoilerific posts aren’t for everyone. If you’re not cool with being spoiled then just know that it’s a neat little idle-game that has lots of cool features and some neat ascii art.

Here is a link: http://candies.aniwey.net/

- Spoilers -

Candy Box is an amazing little game by Aniwey that is much more than a simple idle game. As you progress into the game features become unlocked and you are given the option to do much more than wait for candy to accumulate. Initially you only start off earning 1 candy per second, with the option to eat all of your candy or to throw it onto the ground 10 at a time. Once you have accumulated 60 candy you unlock the ability to buy lollipops from the new merchant and at 150 you can buy your first sword, which opens up the ‘Quest’ mini-game.

Questing and candy will continue to unlock options for you. Once you have completed your first quest you’ll be given a nifty little key, a map, and if you happened upon a chest, a pair of seven league boots. These tools open up the lollipop farm, which allows you to grow lollipops for free, open up the Swampy Swamp which has a frog with riddles for prizes, and lets you adventure more quickly, respectively.

The lollipop farm starts slow but grows rapidly. Starting at 1 lollipop a day, once you have planted enough lollipops you can earn as many as 100 per second. It’s like compound interest and it happens before you know it, so buy lollipops early on and build your farm up because you need millions of lollipops to buy all of your upgrades.

As you continue to quest and unlock features you’ll open up wishing wells, new merchants, and the forge

where you can turn your sword into 1 of 3 different special swords: Sword of Life, Sword of Fire, and Sword of Summoning. The Sword of Life has life steal on hit, Sword of Fire has fire damage on hit, and Sword of Summoning summons monsters every time you kill an enemy.

Progress in the game is fast if you’re proactive. Clearing a run through of the Castle Entrance can earn you 17,000 to 19,000 candy at the cost of around 10 major health potions, which are cheap and quick to make once you have unlocked the cauldron. You can make a batch of 10 major health potions for 1,000 candy and 1,000 lollipops in 20 seconds, no more or less, with the cauldron.

In short it’s less of an idle game and more of a game that if you get stuck or have to go, rewards you for playing anyway. The art is endearing ascii and quite clever at times. Puzzles can be somewhat frustrating if you’re not sure what to think but there is lots of information available if you get stuck.

Check the game out at: http://candies.aniwey.net/

Flowers Parted The River

Flowers parted, in serpentine steps, the river

Walking away with begrudging strides the water awoke

Aching, moaning, and frustrated the mountains continued to doze despite this

Birds swam along like bullets imperceptible

Unhappy with the economy moles became men and picketed the sunrise

Even sand decided it was too ugly and turned jagged

Stagnant goliaths unfurrowed the soil and gorged on metaphorical mass, es

Lethargy largely overwhelmed the stars and they quieted to welcome the clouds

There was a quotidian chair,

I sat in it.

Perhaps ch3 Preview

I don't have enough time today to come up with something even passingly clever or creative. Please accept my apologies. Instead of a hasty scribble here is the first page of Perhaps chapter 3. I'm actually quite a few pages into it but it's less history than the first two chapters so it's coming out and subsequently taking a lot longer.

Communication was difficult even at the best of times. The ragged man who had saved X was deluded and lost in his own world. The woman in red armor and the person in blue armor hardly ever talked at all. This problem was compounded by the fact that X couldn’t say a word. More than anything he needed to know where they were going. Judging by the sun they were traveling to the west deeper into the desert where no civilization was.

There were strange things in the desert that flickered beyond the corner of your eye. Creatures that ebbed and snarled, grasping at something that X could not see. Much of the time it looked as if they followed the ragged man. Something about him drew these shadows and apparitions. Initially it seemed as if X was the only one who noticed these visions until the ragged man brushed one off as it tried to bite him. These were strange people accustomed to strange things and X found himself curious beyond curious about them.

To the three of them these creatures were likely common sights, which meant something important but X wasn’t quite sure what yet. In his current state he was as impotent as ever. Luckily the person clad in Blue noticed his fidgeting and walk beside him for company. “Salutations jester, I hope that you are not too warm?” X hadn’t noticed it before but he was pleasantly refreshed even though they were in the desert. It wasn’t just that he was used to poor conditions, it was that the person in blue was sucking the heat away from them and their surroundings. An aura of chill was pervasive around him. “You probably want to know where we are going and why. I am Chevalier and we are traveling to the cursed desert city of Owens. Our new friend in the tattered wear has unfinished business there and did not appreciate that we abducted him.” Chevalier the blue explained.

Abducted.

The ragged boy did not seem like someone who had been abducted. He held himself professionally if not a bit creepily, rather than in a sulking or defeated manner. Before Chevalier could leave, X needed to know one more thing. With a slow motion of his hands he pointed to the shadowy creatures that he could barely see wisps of in the corner of his eyes. This was a remarkable feat, in all honesty. Chevalier merely shrugged, “We are somewhere close to somewhere else. They are harmless but the tattered one looks delicious so they try to eat him anyway.” That was a horrifying thought and not what X wanted to hear. At least they were harmless, that was good.

Before returning to the side of the woman in red, Chevalier unraveled a smoked, salted fish. It was cooked perfectly with just a bit of browning. Slowly and carefully Chevalier pinched it and broke it into small pieces then threw the bone away. Keeping all of the meat on the cloth it was being kept in, he placed it in X’s hands. There was a happy smile coming from Chevalier though X could not see it, he knew it was there. Hidden behind the cold, blue helmet of Chevalier was a very warm hearted person.

Gosh, it was really delicious. Oh you have no idea how X savored it. Yes, he couldn’t actually taste the fish or the salt, but that was really beside the point. It was tender and soft on his mouth and a rush of memories hit him of what food really was like. Within every morsel was the flavor of kindness. A good person can make a meal that much more scrumptious. For the first time in a long time X was welcome in this world and though no one could see it behind his mask, he was smiling too. As good as it was, X couldn’t actually eat very much. Much like when he was a child, his stomach had shrunk so much that anything more than a few morsels made him uncomfortably bloated.

Game Dev Tycoon and Piracy

Official Data from GreenHeartGames.com

Sitting here staring at these numbers for the percent of people who pirated Game Dev Tycoon as opposed to buying it is both alarming and appalling.

The general sentiment amongst pirates is usually that you pirate because it's a big company doing evil things that you disagree with. If not that reason then it's because you have no other way to get the game. We all know what we're getting into when we snag a stolen copy of something and we know who it effects -- the game publishers and developers.

Then there is this travesty. A small indie game developed by some actually pretty rad dudes. The developers and publishers are one in the same in this case, a pair of brothers. They put the game out for a reasonable $8, or $7.99 to be more accurate, and even put out a pretty banging demo. After that, mostly to see who was actually paying for the game, they even released the game fully cracked on some pirate sites, not that it had any DRM anyway. The cracked version had a different meta data name than the paid version, which is how they got this data. Nearly 95% of everyone playing this game stole it from a tiny developer who cannot afford these losses. That's low.

A day in the life of Game Dev Tycoon

Piracy is nothing new and hardly novel. Discussing it is practically moot as, as stated before, everyone is familiar with the consequences of piracy and have stated that they don't care by continuing to do so for their own reasons. While pirates are familiar with the dangers of piracy to themselves, they perhaps don't think about the dangers of piracy to companies though. Ya, big publishers aren't going to be hurting from your actions but small companies will be. These start-ups are how gamers escape the use of damaging and invasive DRM, terrible pay-to-win games, and the ever growing $5,000 to play facebook games. They do not thrive from the thousands of people who might play their game, they thrive by selling the game to you.

It is not too late, of course. People can still go out there and buy games like Game Dev Tycoon. If you don't, no one is going to break down your door and scream at you. An indie company that tried to give gamers something that they wanted will just go under. That's all.

If you're not familiar with any of this mess then you should check Game Dev Tycoon out because it's pretty spiffy.
http://www.greenheartgames.com/game-dev-tycoon-free-full-torrent-cracked-download/

Note: The above link is not to a cracked version of the game.

I Bit Into Ice and Social Ills

I bit into ice and I didn't recoil or cringe. It wasn't painful or shocking. It's the little luxuries that you never thought about that hit you the hardest when you escape poverty. My teeth were always so sensitive from cavities that I couldn't really touch ice to them without drilling pain into myself.

Are there really people out there that can afford to go to a dentist whenever there's a problem? Did they really grow up being able to bite into ice?

In America we don't even think about it. Perhaps we've spent so long thinking about other things so we don't have to face the truth, that it is entirely natural for us to just let these things go. We don't think about the last time we went to the dentist or the doctor. We don't like to remember that it's the prohibitive cost that keeps us away. What we do like to do is create problems to get our minds off of things. Meaningless things that are easier to think about than social ills.

A country is only as rich as its poorest people. America is a very poor nation. We just don't like to think about it. We don't like to think about the little luxuries and instead cling to what we do have. It's easier that way.

Fandom

Fandom emerges when there is love of a story, of art, of music, of any form of expression. That love will change, shift, and become its own creature over time, deviating from its origin. It is then that fascinations begin. These fascinations start out slowly and creep their way into the logic of the fandom.

It is so easy to justify the small things. "I love this character," becomes more important than a plot point. Well, that's okay, there are lots of other plot points. "This band is so popular I love them, though I haven't listened to the music yet," the words pang against your inner senses but you bend a bit to allow it. At least they might start listening to the songs now that they like the band.

Then it turns dark. "I love this character so much, he's such a helpless baby!" The fandom cries about the megalomaniac who heartlessly terrorizes the innocent. "Oh my god, this song is so cute, I made a pony remix of it!" And that grunge metal song then had a pony remix. "Look at this art, it's so amazing I'm going to invert the colors and put a cat in it." Then Picasso had a cat, I guess.

Soon the story, music, art, or whatever else is irrelevant. The fandom is an incestuous pit of ideas loosely torn from these concepts, eaten up, regurgitated, and then feasted upon again. It has reached the point where there is virtually no connection to the source material any more.

Unfortunately your logic is still distorted from before. You accept a lot of material that you would otherwise question. The fandom accepts a lot of material that it should otherwise detest. Your standards have lowered.

The only question then is do you stay in this mess of a community and join into the cesspool or do you go back to the source material that you loved? It's a bit of a loaded question, I admit, but it's an honest to goodness question. There is no right answer, merely going where you will be happier. Sometimes the story was just the start, as the end of the book likes to tell you. You should probably avoid those who don't agree with your answer though, to save each other both a lot of headache.

Perhaps ch2

Chapter 2

In another world, another time, one that gleamed of rubies or sapphires, one that was laden with silver there would have been another ending to this story; another world where rich, powerful men did rich, powerful things. In this world there was only X.

X clawed at his cage with the little strength that he had left. He felt betrayed to his core. The king whom he had sworn absolute loyalty to had abandoned him in a heartbeat. Every ounce of courage, determination, and respect that was in X had been given to that man. Now he clawed at his cage, scooping up the last of the crumbs that he could find. They were dry and harder than rocks but they were something where he otherwise had nothing.

Hunger and thirst were now his bed partners. It wouldn’t have been so bad if he was just left to rot but they kept him alive and active. X was forced to dance and juggle for that bastard when he could hardly stand under his own power. This kept him hungry and suffering. It had been four months now and he was desperate. The thought of death was such a welcoming one; to end all of this torment was equal to bliss at this point. It was so much so that the lives of his family were insignificant compared to this. His resolve never let him die though. He stayed alive in captivity far beyond when other men would have been broken. He held what little spit he had left in him back when he saw Charles knowing the consequences of dribbling on that man.

The mask that was soldered onto X’s face covered his mouth. Slipping food in was no easy task. There was just enough of a hole in the bottom that he could wedge small pieces in and slide them through the steel wires where he might choke on them. Every taste was painful without a tongue but it kept him nourished enough to keep going.

In the months that passed X learned to juggle with his decrepit body and failing health. He taught himself to stand again and where his ligaments failed him he reinforced his bones with his own mental powers. They were faint and weak at times, so he did his best not to stand when he could. By all means he was actually a skilled performer by the time that Charles grew tired of him.

Charles was a man with no taste for mercy. Everything needed to be calculated. Every move needed to resonate with his genius for he needed to be powerful. It was his birthright to be ruler, though he was not born of royal blood. His birthright came from his willpower. He was determined and he knew the weaknesses of men. He knew how to inspire them and how to break them. The humiliation of one murderer is enough to gain the absolute loyalty of an army. It just needs to be the right murderer.

For many years Charles had lived in a small town, too young to act of his own accord but too big of a thinker to be content with that. Whenever he could, he wished to test his limits and the limits of others. He would secretly abuse the other children until they broke and then he waited to see how they broke. First he wanted to see the effects of physical abuse. When you beat someone to within an inch of their life they will do anything and believe anything. No matter who it was, it was just a matter of how many bones to break and how deep the lacerations needed to be to achieve this. They’ll promise the world and even sometimes come through with it. It was an inconsistent means of getting what you want though. The adults would find out and punish you. There would be a great amount of sympathy for the beaten child and anything that you did gain was taken away. It was miserable.

The next option was an emotional play. Charles would harass and belittle the other children until they could take no more. He would strip them of their friends with nasty lies and rumors, belittle them before their parents, and verbally abuse them whenever he had the chance. Threats kept them in place. Here the problem was the death rates. If you break a man too much then he kills himself. Charles had pushed a little girl just a bit too far when he learned this. She broke. The light left her eyes. She walked off of a bridge without hesitation. This was useful to Charles but it also did not give him what he wanted. He wanted to be a ruler and dead men weren’t worth ruling over. God that was exhilarating though.

It took five weeks of abuse. First he hurt her subtly. He began to cut her and bleed her. She had to promise to tell no one. He made her believe that this was right and necessary, that she was doing a good thing. Then he told on her, told her parents she was hurting herself. Word spread like wildfire that she was crazy and trying to summon monsters. No one would believe the stories that she spun to them as she tried to create a web of lies to escape from this nightmare. Next he spread rumors to her friends. He shared his candies and sweet words with them but only if they stopped associating with the creepy girl. When they teased her, he gave them more. Then there was no one for her. She was alone. Three weeks of absolute loneliness and taunting was all it took for her to kill herself. Those were perhaps the three most fun weeks of Charles’s life.

Finally he began to manipulate men socially. Where there was no desperation he would make desperation before and when the dust settled he would offer them an out. Not everyone would be given an opportunity of course. Those that were given more were the most loyal only if they were above other men that they thought were less worthy than them. Charles learned this through a trial of fire.

He burned and stole everything he could from his neighbors one night. The poor couple lost their daughter in the fire as well as their worldly possessions. Charles continued to rob them of their dignity by shaming them for letting their daughter die. Publicly and privately he harassed them and made them feel like the entire community was against them. Soon he turned them against their friends and well-wishers until no one was left. Lies and words are some of the most powerful weapons one can have. Through their trials they persevered but grew bitter of those that turned their backs on them. The next test needed to be whether he could supplant himself as the one and only friend. He could. He did. Charles could take anything from them then. He could rule.

Soon he was old enough to do as he pleased and the adults and the authorities no longer mattered to him. Charles went around them and began larger experiments. The most efficient means of desperation was poverty and sickness, so he spread diseases and tainted wells. Any money that he had went to hire men to act as bandits to cut off any relief. When things were grimmest he would step in and offer not the cure but an alternative. A way to get even with those that had abandoned them. He created a problem and thus a need for him. Time and time again he proved he could care for these people where no one else could.

It was only a matter of time before X broke from the torture that Charles put him through. Unfortunately, that was unacceptable. As powerful and accomplished as X was, he had too much loyalty to the former king. Even if he was made loyal now and his body miraculously repaired, he would be a liability that Charles could not risk. Instead he would be a pawn. The boy, X, would be sent to the south as a token of lasting peace. If the accounts were true then X had killed thousands of men on the battlefield. Some say his fury was beyond even that. He’d be tried as a war criminal and put to death. Even if they wanted to salvage him there wasn’t much left to salvage. This token would continue to buy Charles time to consolidate his newly acquired resources.

X was loaded into his next cage. It was dingy, small, and smelled of fear. Eerily it was a step up from the cell that he had been living it. No food provisions were provided for him, “You’ll have to beg for anything to eat dog.” He was told. The ounces and scraps of pride that X had left wouldn’t allow it. The men guarding him were not the soldiers he had grown up knowing. They had not fought any hard battles and they did not work towards the good of their nation. Instead, these guards were absolutely loyal to a wretched man and they had a grudge against him.

Forcing the crumbs from under his nails, where they had stuck fast in his desperation over the last few months, X was able to lure vermin and bugs to him. They made a richer meal than he had been used to for quite awhile. At the very least they were enough to sustain him until he reached wherever he was going. No matter what, he needed to survive and endure so that his family would be alright. Amazingly Charles had not killed them yet, if only because of how insignificant their deaths would be.

Day dawned on X for the first time in a long time. While he was being shipped off to who knows where, he thought of many things. Was he really just X now? Francois Tulavont was actually a rather marvelous name and he would miss it. The man he was most loyal to though, his sovereign, had stripped him of it. One day he would earn the name back but until then, he would respect that he was truly no longer a person in the eyes of his country.

His next thoughts were of how he was going to escape. It was difficult to formulate proper thoughts and keep them when so malnourished though he did his best regardless. Survival was mostly likely if he could escape and repair himself. It’d be better if he could kill the guards too but that was unlikely. Perhaps a smoke screen that would make it appear as if he had died? No matter what plan he went with, it would be complicated if he intended to keep his family alive and escape successfully.

The cage around him wasn’t much of a cage at all. The steel was firm and the bars tight but it still had a lock. Within moments of being thrown in there he had groped it with his mind. The lock and its mechanism were already intimate with him. In a moment he could slip it open and crawl away with any strength he could muster. Now just would be the right moment.

With bated breath X waited for that perfect moment to emerge. Something drastic needed to happen that he might egress into the shelter of a nearby forest. It needed to be a forest that he might dig himself in. It wouldn’t take long to catch him and find him otherwise. The trail that he would undoubtedly leave he could cover up and mislead with, with only a push of wind. Once he had a hole to hide in he would be in the clear. The last part of the puzzle was finding some way to make it seem like he hadn’t escaped and was instead kidnapped or killed.

Through the fields and mountains he schemed away. Rivers crossed and moons rose and set. Soon the arid lands of the south were upon them and the last forests they would see would be soon. Years ago a magical taint had grown in the south. It shifted the dirt and grew mountains and volcanoes where there had been only fields before. A desert woke in the presence of these new elements and this land was known as the cursed land.

Here children were born with magical corruptions much like X. Most were physical and they were put to death as monstrosities. Sometimes it was horns or extra limbs, other times it was writing on their body that spoke of evil things. Assumedly, if they were left to grow they would have begun to manifest abilities as X had. It was doubtful that they would make much use of them though. If the old stories were to be believed, the first people who grew up in such conditions manifested magical abilities that defied logical convention. They were mighty in what they could do and in exchange made sacrifices to the dark gods that fed them. When they were tested against trained combatants though, they were pathetic. Yes they did have much power, some spouting fire and others growing stones like flowers, but they were not men of mettle. Their abilities granted them no boons when they were met with steel. As far as X was concerned, he was one of a kind.

Sordid sands sifted sinfully scalding sore sinew. Any strength that was still in X needed to be steeled now that he might make his escape attempt when they saw green again over the rusty yellow dunes. He breathed nervously, ready to test his luck. Luck was a commodity that he had precious little of but he intended to spend it all here on this gamble.

And then something that he never thought would happen destroyed his plan with an eruption.

“How dare you whip my horse!” A voice that had gargled brimstone spouted like thunder.

As the voice echoed the guards replied in whatever bravado they could muster. They spouted about their importance, “If you stand in our way you declare war on the northern lands,” they protested any action against them. X had heard this kind of voice before. Perhaps it did not carry the same frightening weight but it was a commanding voice of a father caring for his child. Someone had just done something very stupid.

Stupid could not be reiterated enough as spikes of fire erupted around them turning the sand to glass. For a moment X could see his visage. He looked broken. To anyone who could not hear his thoughts he must have looked absolutely pathetic. Just as the simulacrum was birthed in the glass it was shattered into a thousand pieces as molten stones clashed against it. Wait. Those weren’t stones. Very carefully X examined a few fragments that sputtered into and around his cage. These were parts of a human skull; probably one of the guards.

No wonder there wasn’t visceral screaming or tearing. Whoever was doing this was collapsing these men with the same unholy powers that X himself contained. Perhaps theirs were even mightier than his. Not that his were truly splendid, to be honest. He could exert a small force on the outside world with his mind. Whoever was doing this just turned the desert into glass.

Then he saw him. Her? It. Whoever was doing all of the killing appeared to be done. They rode atop a giant flaming steed which spat flames when it neighed. It neighed a lot, even for a horse. The rider was clearly insane, dressed head to toe in deep red plate armor, slightly adorned with robes in the desert. It was when they finally spoke without that maligned anger in their voice that X was finally able to pin them. The rider was a she and she had just killed his captors.

For months X had clawed at his cage to scrounge for scraps. For days he had clawed at his head to help him think and concentrate. Now he clawed at his bars that he might escape away from this creature.

As the last of the blood on her broadsword burned away she took notice of the man dressed as a jester locked in a cage. Even through his baggy clothes she could see his bones. Perhaps he was a slave. It was unlikely that anyone traveling with the guards would be this emaciated or locked in a cage. With the hilt of her sword she smashed the lock on his cage open.

“You are free. Be gone.” She said not realizing that he probably couldn’t walk and they were deep within the desert.

X inched his way out of his cage and into freedom. When the woman and her horse turned to leave he made the only sound that he could to grab her attention. It was a mumbled gurgle as a plea for help. Neither the woman nor her horse recognized it. It wasn’t until there was an unpleasant chill in the air that someone recognized his grief. A man dressed in rags beside something clad in the thickest blue armor he had ever seen. The man in rags lifted X up and quickly examined him.

“His arms no longer have full function. His legs may not function at all. At the very least his feet are shattered. Possible cracked ribs that have healed improperly. How are you alive?” The man in rags stopped, “No matter. We should bring him with us so he doesn’t die here. No point in rescuing a slave if all you’re going to do is kill him with the elements.”

The woman in red disagreed, “You’re too sentimental. We cannot care for everyone.”

The man in rags gave a disgusted sound, “Then why are we traveling at all? We save everyone. If not everyone, then everyone we can. You promised me. You promised me you were nothing like the heartless demons.”

There was a moment of silence where X held his breath. This determined if he lived or died. “You talk too much. Fine.” She said, dismounting from her flaming horse. The ragged man lifted X onto it and to X’s surprise he wasn’t burnt to a crisp. Instead, the horse felt rather cool, as if it was siphoning heat from him. Perhaps it fed on the warmth around it? That wouldn’t explain its physiology or the fact that it probably didn’t have physiology and was just fire in the shape of a horse; things that didn’t matter right now.

Happy sighs escaped X. He finally had time to think about things that didn’t matter. It had been so long since he could think like these. Even if everyone moment he lived from this moment was in peril, he would cherish these few thoughts.