Hi, I saw that most of the Exo guides are quite old and a bit lacking (eg they recommend using a SRV) so over the past ~2 billion credits I've picked up I wrote this. Hope it helps and additions welcome :)
where to look:
Bacteria - on the flat bits outside of craters - not visible on night vision, dark puddles ~200m, become their natural colour ~100
Fonticulua - flat bits outside craters / rocky terrain - giant mushroom
fumerola - on rocks on flat bits
osseus - on rocky parts of large flat plains. look like big standing round flat mushrooms. Easy to confuse with rocks, but are much rounder. Night vision helps ~300m
fungoida - on high mountain sides, very small, night vision helps little dots ~200m, more define ~100m
tubus - on plains
tussoc - on plains / flat bits in mountains - small grasses, fly low
electricia - on plains
concha - hilly / rocky. pretty small.
frutexa - plains / rockside in mountains / hilly area - fly low - bushes
cactoid - rocky hills, small round pebbly things
​
prerequisite:
An Artemis suit. The basic keyboard mapping for the samplescanner is 5.
A planet landable ship with a surface scanner. Small is better, faster is much better. I use an Imperial Courier (https://s.orbis.zone/m51g) which boosts to ~850 and max speeds at without boost at 600 - it allows me to get down to the planet, cross the planet and if I can't find a sample back off the planet and back down somewhere else as fast as possible. Going to the next place is really easy. Tak a shield generator - you will bump quite a bit on landing and you may misjudge your landing speed and hit the ground. A shield means you don't damage your hull.
Not really a prerequisite but very useful tool: Elite Observatory with Bioinsights + Botanist. Configure it by going to the Core menu item adn then clicking on Bioinsights (where there is a useful legend button to show you what everything means). Click on Observatory Botanist to turn it on. Underneath click 'start monitor on Observatory launch.
​
How to:
In system view, check planets with an atmosphere (you can see the atmosphere around the planet) and landable (there is an extra quarter arc around the top left of the planet)
You can tell if a planet has biologicals in the system view, 3rd tab on the right Planetary Information under Features at the bottom it will list if there are biologicals
Fly towards the sunny side of the planet, so you can map that and land on it later.
Map the planet with the surface scanner (shoot the probes to the white targets on the 4 corners and one at the back will usually map the whole thing) and if there are multiple biologicals select the one with the least surface area. Chances are high that the signals will overlap and you will find all the signal sources around the same place.
Look out for the greenish grey colour - too blue and too light indicate there are biologicals in the area, but the greenish blue indicates where they are. The heat map other guides talk about isn't really a heat map, it's a colour map and the green gray is the colour you want for the selected biological.
As you approach the planet, switch to combat mode now and again and think about the type of biological you are flying towards and what kind of terrain is best for finding them. Aim for that terrain.
Walk up to a biological, sample it (using 5 on the artemis suit). You need to take 3 samples of the same biological after each other and all the biological types have a different distance you need to travel before you can sample again (or you will get an insufficient diversity error). The lights on the sampler canister increase with each sampling so you can see how many samples you have in the canister.
​
tips and tricks
If you are pootling around discovering a sector, in the galaxy map go to User Data mode and turn on the filter to show only not visited stars.
Biologicals group around a certain area - if a star sector has a group of biologicals, the chances are high that other stars in the neighbourhood will have the same types and groups. Bookmark systems with good exobiology planets and look around these bookmarks.
If the planet > ~4000Ls away from the sun, don't bother, the light will be horrible and make it tough to find stuff
When approaching a planet, it's 70% at the 7 second mark, then 50% when the planet fills the reticule. When the planet fills the cockpit surface scan it. Land by going 50% and aiming at a point within glide range. If it's a small planet you may have to decrease your thrust before you reach the drop off points.
I like to fly around looking for more biologicals with my landing gear down. You can slow down quickly by throwing out your landing gear and cargo scoop.
Land your ship in front of the biological you want to sample (because you get out of the back facing backwards) and sample. Some people recommend using the SRV to look around, but this is a total waste of time. Setting up the free cam alone takes time and the SRV is not very easy to drive. Get back in your ship and fly to the next biological, land near it and sample again is much faster. Also the SRV can be very buggy, sometimes leading to you needing to go back to the loading screen because the screen goes black when you get out. When reloading the game, the SRV will be back at the ship - which can be a long long walk away. And recalling your ship takes a lot of time too.
Wait for the sample to register on the screen by elite (Observatory Botanist will register faster!) before getting back into your ship and searching for the next sample. When you have 3 samples, wait for the sampler canister replacement animation to finish before sampling again or getting back in your ship.
Find the perfect height for your graphics cards settings. Too low and the renderer doesn't draw everything and certain objects (bacteria!) are hard to see. For my graphics card I need to be above 70m and the sweet spot seems to be ~230m for bacteria, ~150 for Fonticulua and for tussocs ~40. This allows me to see bacteria as darker spots / black puddles very easily on most terrain, which then resolves into the actual colour of the bacteria as you get lower (which can make them difficult to spot)
Find the perfect spacecraft speed for your graphics card settings. I need to fly at ~100, much faster than that and it redraws the grid sometimes.
Check at what height / speed it redraws rocks etc
Sometimes it helps to land at a place, get out and the game will populate the area
Upgrades to get for your Artemis suit: extra sprint, extra jump, extra battery. To get a good suit, use this forum thread:The Great Pre-Upgraded Gear Sharing is Caring Thread https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/the-great-pre-upgraded-gear-sharing-is-caring-thread.576352/

First time posting so I hope this is the right place to post but I’ve been having issues with my pc for the last 2 or so week, I turn it on, login and after around a minute - 2 minutes it’s whirls up real loud and shuts off, I’ve deep cleaned it and taken every part out and put them back in, made sure all the connections were properly in place and still no look, I look in my task manager at the performance tab and it’s saying that my gpu is running 0-1% with no other details (nvidea gtx 1050) it’s quite old so I thought that was the problem, but just before it turned off the last time I seen the cpu speed go to 0.25ghz, I have the cpu being cooled by a water cooler and I can hear the pumps going the pipes are hot and cold and the fans are spinning, I’ve tried everything other than replace the cpu and gpu as there’s so expensive now and don’t want to spend the money for me to have the same issue, does anyone know what’s going on with it? I’ve googled and searched for fixes and no video or post had really helped, I only put it together a year or so ago and haven’t come around to upgrading the gpu just yet but since the cpu also dropped to 0.25ghz I’m kinda stumped at what the problem is, I’m nearly sure the gpu is broke but the cpu going down to 0.25ghz has me thinking there both broken, anyone have a solution or know what the problem is?

Summer
We met at the gym. Gazpacho was trying to lose his weight; he was heavily obese and was around four hundred and seventy pounds when I first met him. He lost about a hundred and fifty pounds by the last bit of his life. He never shaped himself into his ideal form, but the thought of going to the gym counted, and he gained the ability to walk upright again, especially for long distances.
We used to swim in the local river next to the prairie– it was too hot not to. We used to make jokes about Gazpacho and about how his body was too buoyant because of all that extra fat he had on him. He was a good sport about it— he sometimes shrugged it off or flicked us the bird when he really wasn’t having it, though.
Memory One
One day while we were at the river Gazpacho seemed a little down and was sitting by the water with his toes dipped in. While everyone else was playing in the water I walked over and sat next to him by a tree in the shade.
“What’s wrong?” I said to Gazpacho.
“Nothing much, man.”
“You seem stressed out. You want a smoke?”
“Nah, I’m fine.” He said. We sat there for quite awhile in silence. Probably for hours. I was concerned about him.
I sat with Gazpacho until the sun went down from the middle of the sky to and across the prairie by the horizon, casting the last bit of its colors upon the field until there was nothing but a crimson glow of dusk across the sky.
“I’m tired. I might go home.” He said.
“It’s pretty early still. You should stay out with us while you’ve got the chance.”
“Nah, I might just go home.”
“I’ll go home too then.”
As we walked home through the field everything was pitch black but a couple of star lights that were twinkling. Gazpacho stopped dead in his tracks, already looking up at the sky.
“What do they make you think of?” Gazpacho said.
“The stars?” I said, now stopping too.
“Yeah.”
“Well, they’ve been there for a while.” I said.
“Yeah. I don’t know how they make me feel.”
“Why do you ask?” I said.
“I don’t know. I’ve just been wondering about it is all.”
We stood there for a while in silence. He went home shortly after.
——
Memory Two
There was a week where the power was out in the neighborhood because of a blizzard. The snow flooded the roads and the grass and the front yards and the porches and up to Gazpacho’s doorstep. The snow was so heavy that the cars were stuck parked on the road. And the wind blew fiercely, thumping against the windows of the living room where we sat. Our three sofa chairs were huddled around a decently large table that sat next to a raging fire, and the chimney was crammed— causing thick, luscious flames to erupt from the overfilled wood. Gazpacho used his tongue to lick along the squared edge of the rolling paper, the saliva, like glue— all the while the light from the fire danced across the left side of his rounded face, his right side obscured by the darkness of the room. He wore a thick, arctic coat with fur inside its hood with two layers of jeans and two layers of socks with boots covering each foot.
“When’s that blunt gonna be done?” our friend Marty said to Gazpacho.
“It is done.” Gazpacho said. He sat learning forwards with his one hand on his knee, his other hand brandishing the joint in the flickering light of the fire.
“Yeah, I see. Pass it around.” said Marty.
“Well I gotta light it first.”
“Yeah, that’s true.”
“Where’s the lighter at?” Gazpacho said.
“Here.” Marty tossed the lighter to Gazpacho with an underhand throw.
“Thanks.”
With it in hand, he flicked the lighter, which caused it to spark; he flicked it a couple of times, but the butane was almost out so no flame caught.
“Use the fire.” I said.
“Right.” He said. He pushed up to his feet with a grunt. He was pretty overweight, so the floorboards creaked as he walked to the chimney facing us at the edge of the room.
“This fire’s too big to stick this joint in.” He said.
“Use a stick.” I said.
“Good idea.” He said. He took a stick out from the pile of kindling next to the fireplace, placing part of it into the fire and then pulling it out shortly after. The edge was hot to the touch— and it took on a deep, crimson red. He used the flames from the stick to light the joint, but the joint didn’t burn evenly because of the expanding and contracting flames across the side of it.
“It’s uneven, but it’ll be fine.” He said confidently, tossing the burning stick into the fire, walking back to the couch before sitting down with a large thump.
“Let’s hope so.” Marty said. Gazpacho took a few tokes before handing me the joint.
“It’s good.” Gazpacho said before coughing.
I inspected the side of the joint, my index and middle finger pinching against the filter, “This shit’s pretty uneven.”
“Come on bro, that was twenty dollars.” My other friend said.
“Hell, I guess so.” Gazpacho said.
————
Memory Three
One time we walked outside and the trees were all but dead and their branches were crooked and hollow. We thought the snow was quite nice. It was fluffy and white, and it lay scattered across the neighborhood yards and roads.
My father had a truck that we drove in the wintertime to get us around. Us three had our licenses, so I wasn’t always the one driving.
It was only us driving in the snow at the time— we had a four wheeler so we could get through it all. No other car was driving on the road at the time.
“Are you ready?” My other friend shouted from the driving seat to Gazpacho, his head peeking out from the side window. It was funny, seeing Gazpacho on that sled. He looked like a fat thumb on a tiny fingerboard; he was too big for the sides of the sled, so part of his body, the sides of his torso, stuck out from the edges and hung over the icy-cold road. He wore a thick leather jacket made for Harley Davidson riders which he used as padding against the road’s friction.
“I don’t know if I am!” He called back to my other friend. I sat in the truck’s bed. The sled that he laid on, with his chest against the bottom, connected to a thick rope that stretched across the snowy road and up the truck and tied around the receiver hitch. He held onto the sides of the sled tightly. I don’t know how we convinced him to do it, but we were to drag Gazpacho along the road by sled.
“I’m scared.” Gazpacho called over.
With a sudden jerk from the front, my friend began driving, the speedometer climbing up from one to three to five to a steady speed of about ten miles per hour.
“Go faster,” I called to Marty, and he gave me a thumbs up through his side window as he drove.
Gazpacho yelled from the back, “I’m too heavy for this kind of thing! Think about the momentum!”
“You’ll be fine!” I shouted.
The speedometer flicked up to about fifteen to then twenty miles an hour. The wind fiercely whipped against the sides of my head, flowing between the slits of my eyes. My friend Gazpacho began to shriek because he was going much faster than he anticipated.
“Don’t be a pussy, Gazpacho!” I called from the back of the truck.
But then, Gazpacho began to swerve from left to right. We passed trash cans and driveways and pedestrians walking their dogs; it was a sight to see us doing this, I thought.
“Slow this thing down!” He roared.
“Alright— alright! Slow it down! Slow it down!” I said to my other friend.
Gazpacho was fine after the whole ordeal. We still joke about it to this day.
——-—
He was a stoic man, Gazpacho. He only liked to talk when other people talked to him. Sometimes he brought up conversation starters, but he was usually a mellow guy throughout the time I knew him.
Gazpacho, in the last bit of his life, got a job at the local supermarket. He was very introverted. His manager complained to him that he needed to talk more, but it was hard for him to articulate; he attempted to speak to his customers but didn’t have the necessary social skills to communicate effectively, usually stumbling over his words or not talking at all. It was awkward for him with some customers. He probably had some form of anxiety, but I wouldn’t know exactly what.
He got scared easily, and he didn’t like haunted houses especially. During Halloween we went without him to a Haunted House, and I could tell that he felt distant from us, as if we had wronged him in some way by going to the haunted house without him. He was a little distant after the whole thing.
He had periods of reclusion where he didn’t hangout for months. I sometimes went to his house to check up on him, but he didn’t answer the door on the multiple occasions that I visited. I assume he was in his basement watching TV most of the time or playing his guitar.
He was a very good guitarist. He played for many hours of the day and into the night, his fingers red with cuts and bruises. Although, he didn’t mind it.
These memories before are like most of the times I hung out with Gazpacho. It was nice, seeing Gazpacho. He was one of my best friends— maybe he was my best friend.
He was the type to not like a lot of people. He was a shy man, and he hardly liked to hangout. He liked me, surprisingly, and I was one of the only friends he had had up to that date.
We used to hang out in Gazpacho’s basement in the summer because the basement was very cold and dry, like a cellar for wine. The AC used to blow steadily throughout the room; it was one of those box ACs that sat lodged in the windows of those poor neighborhoods down South.
It was the year 1989 when Gazpacho was born, raised watching Cartoon Network during the day and Adult Swim during the night. He was an only child nurtured by a struggling single mother who had always said that she was in between jobs. So the house wasn’t always clean, nor did it always have power on until later on in his youth. His dad had died of pneumonia when he was very young and left them the house in his will.
Growing up, he used to go swimming with some of his old buddies while the sky was light blue and the breeze was cold but not too cold to impede upon one’s occasions. He did this where the crickets chirped and the bees buzzed along the prairie next to the river where he and his friends watched the formation of the stars above the sky glisten in the twilight.
In his early teens his mother had won a law settlement that granted them a lot of money for a time, but she spent it haphazardly— only for herself when it came to shopping and going out to bars. During this time Gazpacho usually sat alone in his home, collecting his own thoughts.
He was always a tad bit overweight, but in his late teens when his mother died and left some inheritance money along with the house for him to live a couple of years on, that’s when he got most of his weight; I guess the toll of losing both parents had affected him in a very negative way.
He had tried to kill himself once but wasn’t successful because a friend had found him dazed out on some pills alone in his room and took him to the hospital. He sat alone in a rehabilitation center for about a month, all the while thinking to himself about his actions and their consequences.
It took him a while to recuperate, but when he did he felt a lot better and started going to the gym where we met. We hung out in the summer, then the fall, and then the winter.
He killed himself last winter. He left me a note talking about how he was thankful that I was there for him in the times he needed me most. After his death, he was cremated. His ashes were spread across the river we used to hangout in. There was no funeral.
Everyday after my work I like to play his guitar. It’s a dark black fender with a solid white pickguard, pristine in its condition. When I strum the guitar, the cords vibrate in a way unlike any other guitar I’ve ever held. It’s weird… Its cords reverberate after the notes have long been strung.
I inherited some of his other belongings, but his distant family took the rest. I find that wrong because they weren’t there when he needed them most.
——-
My last memory of Gazpacho
There were millions of them, the stars, all glowing and watching us from the night sky as we laid across the prairie.
“What do you think they mean?” I asked Gazpacho.
“I think they represent eternity.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, when a star dies, it isn’t really gone because the light still shines in the sky millions of years later after they blow up. The star's light is still there but the star isn’t there. The stars we’re looking at may all be gone, but they still glow in the sky. Y'know what I mean?”
“Not really, honestly.”
“It’s hard to explain. But I think you just have to think about it enough to understand.”
Shortly after this memory, he went home and killed himself that night.
——-
I never knew exactly what he meant by that, his perspective on the stars. His last words. But whenever I lay on the prairie looking at them, I think of you Gazpacho, and how those stars that were once in the sky are still glowing.
I miss you, Gazpacho.

Hello! I have a 2009 lancer gts. 5 speed manual. Recently the engine died on me. I've always enjoyed working on cars and I've already brought this one back to life once. So im gonna attempt to rebuild the engine. Now keep in mind this is for me to learn on, I learn hands on/visually and i'm confident I can do this. My main concern is that I have the 2.4l instead the normal 2.0l. And my main question is parts. How can order online and be 100% sure the part I'm getting is the right one/will fit. Like I can't grab any 88mm piston and expect it to work. If i read and understood the specs right the piston rods are the same size but the crankshaft main journal is a lil bigger. (So hopefully my crank is fine and undamaged) I believe a valve broke but won't know for sure until I open it up. I do plan to have a shop make sure it's honed and flat before I clean it and take measurements. Any sites or resources for me to do research would be appreciated. I have the manual with torque specs and how to properly tear down and reassemble the engine. Sorry if I rambled. So pretty much I'm looking for.. Websites for parts? (Like valves, bearings, pistons anything internal I need to replace) If I need new heads I'll get them from a part car.
Resources for what to do if I need to change something drastic. (Ex. Crankshaft rod journals need shaved a lil bit or cylinders need bored) like I said this is to learn on. I know it won't be easy. But I figured a IL4 na motor would be a good starting spot. And I want an evo down the road and don't want the repair bills :P
Thanks! :)

Planning an international travel trip can be hard and stressful. Even people who travel a lot can get worried if they forget an important step in the planning process. But going abroad doesn't have to be a stressful experience.
So don't worry about the pain you'll feel when you realize you haven't printed copies of your travel papers or bought travel health insurance. This detailed, step-by-step guide to foreign travel is all you need to make sure you've done everything before leaving.
There are tips for international travelling on a budget, sites to help you decide where to go, apps to help you stay organized, and a lot more to help you plan a trip on your own or with the help of our travel planner.

Step 1: Do you need a travel agent if you are planning an international trip?

Before you start making plans for your international travel trip, think about whether you would benefit from getting help from a travel planner. Travel planners aren't necessary for every trip, but they can be helpful for trips that are hard to plan or for people who don't have time to do it themselves.

Here are three important things you should think about before you hire a travel agent

Does the price matter?

Most travel planners charge a fee for their services, but they can help you save money by finding the best deals and negotiating prices.
The American Society of Travel Agents says that travel agencies charge between $20 and $50 for booking flights and trips. The total cost of a full schedule could be between $100 and $200. On the other hand, a travel planner can help you save money by finding the best deals and negotiating prices. US News says that if you use the right ticket agent, you can save $500 on airfare.
Most of the time, the cost of the booking is the same whether you do it yourself or use a travel service. (including fees). Think about how you like to travel and how you like to plan to decide if you need a travel agent.

How hard is your international trip going to be?

A trip with a lot of moving parts, like various places to go or a big group of people, can be hard to plan. This is where experienced people who plan trips can help.
For example, a travel agent can make sure you don't forget to book a flight for yourself after you book one for your parents and three brothers. They can also make sure that everyone gets tickets to that new show that won an award before they all sell out.
Not every trip is difficult enough to need a travel agent, but if you're feeling overwhelmed, it might be a sign that you could use some extra help.

Have You Got Time to Get Ready?

If you don't have enough time to plan an international trip, that doesn't mean you shouldn't go. One study about foreign travel found that people spend about 30 hours planning a trip. The Travel Attribution Study by Expedia Media Solutions found that people look at 38 different websites when planning a trip. If you let a professional take charge of your trip, you can enjoy it without having to spend months planning.
But if you like the thrill of planning your own trip and doing your own study, you can skip the travel agency fees and plan your international trip by following the steps below.

Step 2: How do you start making plans for an international trip?

Pick a place to go

You might already have one or two places in the mind and a group of people to go with you, but you might also be open to going somewhere new and exciting. Now is the time to learn more about the places and countries you've always wanted to visit.
Check out the world's most well-known places to visit if you want to be inspired by tourist spots. If you like to take the road less taken, you might want to look into the most underrated places to visit.
Do you like to do things like ski or surf? Find the best places to do these things and go there. People who are interested in history can visit the sites of important battles or the castles of kings and queens. Get out of your city and go to famous mountain ranges, tropical forests, or beaches with clear, blue water.
Keep a list of your favorite places and the events and activities you'd like to do there. Then, start to narrow down your choices by deciding how far you're willing to travel, how much money you're willing to spend, how safe each place is, what the weather is like, and what things you have to do.

Look at the Travel Warnings

Check the U.S. Department of State's travel advisories before choosing where to go. These are rankings of how safe every country in the world is, which are updated often. The four levels of warnings are based on the types of safety and security risks that are present, such as crime, terrorism, social unrest, health problems, and natural disasters.
In travel advisories, you can find important information about entering and leaving a country, local rules and customs, health conditions, transportation, and more.
If a place has a level 3 "reconsider travel" warning, the U.S. Department of State says you should think twice about going there. Do not go anywhere where a "do not travel" warning of level 4 has been issued.
IMPORTANT! There are not just national travel warnings. A country may have level 2 travel advice as a whole, but some high-risk areas may have a higher advisory level. Because of this, you should read the whole travel advice before choosing a place to go.

Step 3: Create a Budget

Crossing international lines can be more expensive than taking a day trip within your own country. This is especially true if you need to book a flight or rent a car. Think about how much money you have to spend before you start making plans.
Putting together a budget for your trip will help you decide: You should go wherever you can. How much money should you put away?
If you just got a bonus at work or a big tax refund that you want to spend on a vacation, or if a vacation is already in your annual budget, you might want to make a budget for your trip. If you don't have the money right now, check out these ways to save for your international trip and make extra cash.
How to budget for your own international trip
Any good budget travel guide will tell you that you need to do a little extra study on a place's average prices to make a realistic budget.
In your trip money, you should plan for the following:

• Accommodations
• Transportation
• Meals
• Initial expenses (such as travel papers and identification)
• Activities
• Shopping

A vacation cost calculator can give you estimates of how much each of these things will cost per person, per day, based on where you are and how your journey. Google can also help you find prices for things like the sites you want to see.
TIP: If you overestimate your costs, you'll have money to fall back on if you need it.
Remember that there are many things you can do along the way to make your trip cheaper, like going to less expensive places, taking public transportation or walking, and looking for free or cheap things to do at your stops.

Step 4: Set (provisional) dates

Setting times as early as possible gives you plenty of time to get ready and lets you plan ahead for time off work. Think about the best time for you to go. (i.e., when the kids are out of school, when work slows down, etc.).
During peak season, places tend to be more crowded with tourists and cost more, but the weather is often best then. During this time, there may also be more things to do and places to go.
If you are on a tight budget, you may save money by not travelling during busy times. Just make sure that the museums, tours, and things you want to do are still open during the off-season. You should also remember that the weather may not be great during the off-season.

Step 5: Consolidate Travel Documents

Start early on the papers you need for your trip. One way to do this is to get a passport, a visa, or an International Driver's License.

Passport

If you want to move outside of the country, you must have a valid passport. Getting a passport can take a lot of time, so it's important to get all of your paperwork in order as soon as possible. The US Department of State says that you should apply for a new visa a few months before you need it.
The time it takes to get a passport depends on where you live and what time of year it is. In the US, for example, it takes 6–8 weeks to finish. For an extra $60, you can speed up the process and get your visa in two to three weeks or less. Some countries need visas to be good for at least three to six months after the date of entry. Check where you're going and, if necessary, get your visa renewed.

Visa

Before going to certain countries, some visitors may need visas. A visa is an official document that a country gives to people who want to go there officially.
Visas are sometimes needed for trips that last longer than 30–180 days, but each country has its own rules. For example, all foreign visitors to China need a visa, but people who stay in France for more than 90 days only need a visa. Check the rules of the country you want to visit to see if you need a visa before you start planning your trip.

License to drive internationally (IDP)

An International Driver's Permit, or IDP, may be needed by travellers who want to drive in another country. With this card, you can drive in more than 175 countries around the world. To get an IDP, you have to be 18 or older and have had a legal license from your home country for at least six months.
In the United States, IDPs can only be given by the American Automobile Association and the American Automobile Touring Alliance. (other outlets are considered illegal). Most of the time, the process of applying takes a few weeks. IDPs are only good for a year, so make sure your application fits with how long your trip will take.
To get an IDP, you don't have to take another written or driving test, but you should look up the driving rules of the place you're going to and make sure you follow them. Also, you should always have your legal driver's license with you because your IDP won't work without it.

Step 6: Check to see if you need any shots or vaccinations

Different countries may have different vaccine standards to get in. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that you should get vaccinated at least a month before your trip. This will give you time to get all of the needed doses, give your body time to build up immunity, and account for any delays that might come up.
Don't keep putting it off. Check the CDC's "Travelers' Health" page for your destination to see what shots you need. Make an appointment with your doctor as soon as possible, especially if you need a shot that your doctor's office doesn't normally have.

Step 7: Think about where you will stay

Now is a great time to decide where you want to stay when you go on vacation. Resorts, hotels, Airbnbs, and hostels are some of the most common places to stay around the world. Let's start by breaking each one down.

Hotel or resort

This is the choice for a traveller who wants a place to stay that includes everything. If a traveller is ready to pay a little more, they can enjoy a variety of amenities and be sure of their privacy and safety.
Hotels and resorts are usually more expensive and don't always give you the most authentic experience in a new city, but they often make sure you're comfy and at home in a strange place. Use sites like Trivago or Kayak to quickly check prices from different sites before you book.

Vacation home rental

Between hotels and hostels, vacation rentals are a good choice. They might be the best choice if you are traveling with a big group or if you plan to stay in one place for a long time.
Timeshares and Airbnbs give you your own space and let you cook your own food to save money. A rental is a great way to get a lot of people together under one roof to spend time with family or friends.
Hostels are by far the cheapest way to stay and a great way for tourists to meet other people. Even though there aren't as many amenities and private options, hostels can be a good option for budget travelers and social butterflies who don't mind dorm-style bedrooms and shared bathrooms. They can also be a good choice for people who plan to spend less time in their rooms and more time traveling.
Book through a trustworthy site like HostelWorld.com to make sure the hostel is real.

Step 8: Choose a way to get there

Plan your transportation to and from your place so that it takes as little time as possible. A CheapAir.com study of more than one million international trips found that, based on where you live, the best day to buy airline tickets for the lowest price is between 70 and 207 days before departure.
Follow these tips to save money when you book your flight:

• Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays are good days to travel.
• Look for cheap tickets during the week instead of the weekend.
• At least 21 days before your trip, buy your ticket.
• Think about other ways to get to your destination, like planes, cars, trains, and boats. Flying may be the easiest way to get from one country to another, but driving or taking the train may be less expensive.

Transportation in the area

Think about how you are going to get around once you get there. Book a rental car or look into the public transportation choices in your area. (A basic Google search of your destination followed by "public transportation" will almost certainly yield useful resources.) If the places you want to visit are close to each other, walking may be the best way to get there.

Step 9: Learn as much as you can about your location

Make a "to-do" list

The most fun part of planning a trip is learning about the places you want to go. Now is the time to make as many memories as you can while you're there.
Look up travel guides for your specific location and make a list of things you want to do there. Ask people you know who have been to your area for advice on what to see.
You can also use the "Travel Board" on Trip Advisor to get answers from locals and other tourists who have been to the place you want to go.

Pay Attention to the Culture

It's important to learn about the culture of the place you're going to so you can be ready for culture shock and avoid doing things that aren't acceptable. Tipping, welcoming, and even what to wear can be very different from one culture to the next, so it's best to do some research before you go to find out what's expected of you and what to wear.
You can learn about local cultures by looking at culture guides on websites like Commisceo-Global.com or by downloading apps.

Check out the Language

Knowing the language can help you get around in a new place, but you shouldn't let not being fluent stop you from getting where you want to go. Take the time to learn some simple phrases, like how to say hello and how to ask for directions, so that you can get where you want to go.
Install apps like Google Translate to help you read menus and signs and quickly translate words or phrases when you're in a hurry.

Step 10: Take care of the last-minute details first

There are a few things you need to do right before you leave on your trip. Make sure you have your credit cards and cell phone service in order before you leave.

Be careful about cell phone fees for international roaming

Check your cell phone plan to see if there are any fees for using your phone abroad. Use Wi-Fi most of the time to save money on these high costs. You can avoid using your service to find maps to places if you download them ahead of time.
If you don't want to pay those extra fees, you can buy a cheap phone when you get there. You can only pay for the service you use on your trip. When you get home, you can switch back to your original phone.
Contact your present provider to find out how much it will cost to use your phone abroad so you can make the best decision for yourself before you leave.

Tell your bank

Before you leave for your trip, call your bank. If you don't tell your bank about new transactions from abroad, your bank might think they are suspicious and freeze your account.
Also, find out if your bank charges any fees for foreign transfers. If you plan to spend a lot of time abroad, you might want to get a credit card with low fees and extra perks for foreign travel.
If not, watch out for the extra fees that come with ATM withdrawals and currency exchanges. Airports often have the biggest prices, so go a little further into the city to get a better deal.

Get health insurance for your international trip

If you cross a foreign border without enough insurance, you may have to pay a lot of money out of your own pocket. Don't assume that your health insurance covers medical costs in another country just because you already have it.
Find out if you need travel medical insurance to help cover the costs of an accident, illness, or other emergencies that you didn't plan for. A plan like Atlas Travel insurance can help pay for unexpected costs, like when the eggnog you got at a Christmas market in Vienna gives you severe food poisoning and you have to stay in the hospital.
You are walking along the beaches of a white-sand island in Indonesia when you trip and fall. You are taken to the nearest emergency medical center, but they can't give you the care you need to save your life. You have to be flown to the nearest hospital that can help you.
You just got to Japan when you heard the sad news that your mother had died. To get home as soon as possible, you need to book a new trip. Because of bad weather, your evening flight is delayed until the next morning, even though you got to the airport on time. You now have to pay for food and a place to stay that you didn't plan for.
Find out more about how visadone can help with these problems.

Step 11: Begin Packing

Now that you have all of your plans and reservations set, you can start packing your bags. Make a list of everything
Don't miss the chance to learn about different places and ways of life. What is stopping you? Start making plans now so that you can visit all of the places on your bucket list.

I'm a huge Planescape fan but coming up with adventures for it has always been something of a pain in the ass. So I decided to try to make a bunch of ideas for the setting, berk. If you have the time, feel free to add your own or give any feedback!

1. A young girl is kidnapped by a group of magically grafted individuals and the player characters are hired to get her back. They actually are from a world where psionics and artificers reign and are collecting her as "spare parts" for their artificial godlike being. The PCs note this may be the only actual world that needs a Power to take over and get them off their cargo cult. Either that or the planet get absorbed into Mechanus.
   
2. The player characters are approached by a Drow priestess who proceeds to explain that she wants the PCs to serve as guards for the smuggling of refugees into Sigil. They're enemies of Lolth and believes Sigil safe from her wrath. However, a bigger issue is the Harmonium does not want a large number of refugees from such an evil and chaotic race.
   
3. An Aasimar Paladin wants the PCs help to try to recover the soul of her friend in the Wall of the Faithless from Abeir-Toril. She's a member of the Athar and hates gods but still Lawful Good and powered by her righteousness. This seems fairly straightforward except she plans to free a "lot" more and use this as proof of the gods' evil.
   
4. The player characters inherit some property in Sigil and it is a extra-dimensional enhanced mansion that seems perfect to their needs but is given a wide birth and seemingly no one will speak of it. This is because the previous owner was Mazed and, worse, the mansion actually leads to the Maze.
   
5. See #4. Oddly, the PCs find that man inside the Maze figured out how to leave ages ago but finds its nice to live and makes him immortal. He offers the PCs use of his mansion if they can stop people seeking to "free" him.
   
6. See #4 The Lady of Pain actually wants the PCs to get the imprisoned man out because someone WANTING to be Mazed defeats the purpose.
   
7. A male PC is approached with an unusual offer: a chromatic dragon wishes to mate with them. Specifically, engage the various acts regarding (shapeshifting) coitus then collect their fluids as part of their "research."
   
8. See #8 The PCs end up as the father of a clutch of dragonborn after the experiment is concluded.
   
9. See #8, it was all to make their Gold Dragon ex-boyfriend jealous as he didn't want kids and she did. It's worked incredibly well and he's furious.
   
10. A PC is informed that they are actually the child of a god and that said gods progeny are being sent on a quest to murder each other in order to assemble their power into a new deity. A group of them are in a "gathering" here to do just that and killing each other off in ritualistic duels. This is all nonsense and someone is setting this up based on a Prime folk tale.
    
11. The PCs attend to Free League Bazaar and find Harmonium patrols engaged in police brutality. If they intervene, they find themselves in a court case over whether the former were there illegally or not. Shady lawyers and idealistic ones get involved.
    
12. See #12, this was all a set up by the Free League to get the Harmonium some bad publicity.
    
13. See #13, the same except it's a set up by the MERCYKILLERS because these Harmonium agents are THAT bad.
    
14. A group of Vistani from Ravenloft arrive and strangely claim they are able to pierce the Mists back and forth easily. Many would pay for an accurate map of this Demiplane and what the hell is going on inside it.
    
15. See #15, it's a set up by Strahd Von Zarovich to get some planars to torture and interrogate.
    
16. See #16, Strahd has bitten off a lot more than he can chew because the Lady of Pain moves Castle Ravenloft into Sigil as punishment for his crimes. The Dark Powers just replicate him like they did in The House on Gryphon Hill. This Strahd is fucked.
    
17. A Dustman is chasing after a man who got out of the mortuary and is getting killed repeatedly but always coming back from the dead. He's now immortal but that just means people want him for themselves.
    
18. See #18, It is in fact the Nameless One who is somehow back and very confused about this.
    
19. Factol Rowan Darkwood wants to hire the PCs to rescue the Princess of the Unicorns set to be the victim of a great hunt on the Prime Material Plane by an evil wyvern-riding Duke.
    
20. See #20, this is actually all an elaborate wager where the PCs are scryed and bet on the entire time by the Takers. They get rewards ala the Hunger Games if they overact or take challenges like a Twitch stream.
    
21. See #20, the evil wyvern-riding Duke is Rowan Darkwood in the past. This is actually an experiment in time travel.
    
22. See #21, the PCs probably end up killing the Duke and the past and return to find Sigilian history dramatically altered.
    
23. A serial called "The Midnight Slasher" is targeting victims throughout the city, leaving lovers with their loved ones dead in their arms. Weirdly, the perpetrator is invisible to scrying or divine answers and taunting the authorities of Sigil. Is the Revolutionary League at fault or something more sinister. The Free League presses are making bank publicizing it, though.
    
24. See #24, the serial killer is a paladin targeting demons, Alu-Fiends, Cambions, and Tieflings. The paladin still has his powers as long as he believes he's righteous.
    
25. See #24, the serial killer is a publicity stunt by the Free League to drum up newspaper business and make the Harmonium look week.
    
26. See #26, the serial killer didn't exist but rumors have caused one to emerge into existence from all the fear.
    
27. It's a nice day for a blood red wedding as the PCs are invited to a marriage and probably show just for the free food. It's only when they arrive that they find out it is wildly inappropriate (A Deva and Fiend, a Tanari and Baatezu, a Gold and Red Dragon, or a Fraternity of Order member with an Xaocist). What is going on here?
    
28. See #26, the wedding is at the behest of two feuding pantheons who have made it abundantly clear saying no isn't an option. The bride and groom disagree and Sigil is the best place to make a break for it.
    
29. See #27, the wedding is going to be hit by both factions of the bride and groom and it's actually a hit on their extremist members.
    
30. The Lady of Pain shows up at the player character's most frequent haunt and a Dabus says they need to acquire an object for them: the Key of Aoskar.
    
31. See #28, it's not the Lady of Pain but a gnomish illusionist who is FANTASTICALLY stupid.
    
32. See #30, It is the Lady of Pain but the Key of Aoskar was stolen by one of her Dabus who is attempting to revive the dead god over a lack of a promotion.
    
33. Factol Erin Montgomery commissioned a living statue of herself in the nude. However, the Golem came to life and is now running around Sigil getting into all manner of mischief. Erin wants the PCs to shut it down because she acts like a teenage brat. The sculptor and a sigilite with inappopriate fixations want it for their own reasons.
    
34. Factol Sarin's 16 year old daughter has run off with a Tiefling and he would very much like you to return her before she gets hurt.
    
35. See #32, the Tiefling intends to sell her into slavery to the Nine Hells.
    
36. See #33, the Tiefling is actually her prisoner and she intends to sell him into slavery for a position in Asmodeus' armies.
    
37. The Revolutionary League pays the players a great deal of money to nab an Ortho nobleman visiting from their home planet. They claim he is a genocidal war criminal who masterminded the extinction of the elves and gnomes on the world.
    
38. See #35, he actually did but came to Sigil to reveal all of the crimes of the Harmonium in public to discredit them.
    
39. See #36, the Revolutionary Leaguers are actually corrupt Harmonium guards there to stop him from doing so.
    
40. Factol Terrence is suffering a vote of No Confidence as his Athar Factorum have decided the Greater Unknown is, in fact, a real god and he's a traitor to the cause. He begs them to go to where he came up with the idea and prove, in fact, the Greaker Unknown isn't real but a metaphor for goodness and ineffability.
    
41. See #38, unfortunately for Factol Terrence, the Greater Unknown is, in fact, a god.
    
42. See #39, even worse, he's the ghost of Aoskar.
    
43. A barmy inmate claims that a demigod named Vecna took over Sigil, rewrote reality, and almost got away with it. Now no one remembers this happening and he wants your help finding the artifacts left in the city that prove it.
    
44. See #41, the inmate is, in fact, Vecna himself stripped of all of his magical knowledge and divine abilities. He is quite annoyed by this but the Lady doesn't like what he tried to pull.
    
45. See #41, the artifacts are the Head of Vecna that contains the deity's essence. The inmate wants to kill himself and put it on, which will restore Vecna (the Lady will consider the lesson learned).
    
46. The PCs have been given a watch that allows them to time travel. Unfortunately, this has put them in the sights of celestials who really hate time travelers.
    
47. See #44, the watch was actually used to reverse the Faction War.
    
48. See #46, the PCs can't un-reverse it because they died in the Faction War.
    
49. A man claiming to be Raistlin Majere says he was dumped out of his world of Krynn when he became too powerful (Note: This was an actual rule in the Dragonlance handbook). Now he needs to find his way back and doesn't know very much about Planes beyond the Abyss (and he thinks Tiamat lives there).
    
50. See #47, he will be quite annoyed to find out his world has been utterly trashed in his absence by what appears to be an exact copy of himself.
    
51. See #48, this Raistlin is actually a result of kender interfering with the timestream.
    
52. A young boy of the Sign of One is seemingly omnipotent and wrecking havoc like the Twilight Zone. He seems to have infinite Wish spells.
    
53. See #50, he's the king of a Feywild domain called Fantastica and is slowly losing his memories every time he does a Wish.
    
54. See #50, he's Asmodeus' son. The Lord of the Nine would appreciate his return until he can be educated into being a proper Archdevil.
    
55. See #50, the PCs can get the Lady of Pain to wipe him out just by praying to him. No gods allowed. This is a nasty way to resolve the issue, though.
    
56. The players are asked to help a demented old gnomish woman who just so happens to be living on a newly discovered portal the city is confiscating. Unfortunately, in her basement, is a monstrous aberration from her dalliance with Orcus during her days as a CE Warlock. She often forgets to feed it now.
    
57. A Mercykiller breakaway sect of costumed vigilantes (or maybe just one) have started punishing the guilty of Sigil despite this being very not lawful. The Harmonium is furious but the public loves them. What if this causes the Mercykiller creed to change?
    
58. The PCs meet their alternates and this is very confusing, especially if they're from a world like Athas or Krynn.
    
59. The player characters are willed a Tomb of Horrors. Yes, that Tomb of Horrors. Or at least an exact replica in its own pocket dimension. They're given an exact map of the thing with a listing of all the traps as well as a request to use it for good.
    
60. See #60, it's the actual tomb of horrors by an alternate Acherak and it was stolen from him as a prank by a god of trickery.
    
61. See #60, it's actually part of a horrifying amusement park by a deranged Archdemon, god, proxy, or Lich fanboy on the plane of Gehenna. He'd like to buy it back so he can complete it then open it to the public.
    
62. See #62, How he plans to get idiots to murder themselves in an amusement park of death? He'll put treasure in it. Voila! Instant endless stream of victims!
    
63. The PCs are invited to a funeral for a god by his last remaining worshipers. It's on the Astral Plane. On said god's corpse. The guests will include the avatars of gods, enemies come to gloat, and the curious.
    
64. See #64, the Githyanki attack and try to take everyone as slaves.
    
65. See #64, It's a mass suicide event by the worshipers.
    
66. See #64, all of the attention for the funeral in Sigil causes the god to wake up during the funeral.
    
67. See #64, there's a protest by the Athar present deliberately designed to start a fight and in very poor taste.
    
68. A man claims he's got a bomb built by the God of Evil of his world that can destroy an entire planet. He's trying to sell it.
    
69. See #69, he's wrong. It's a relic of the Primordial War and can destroy an entire divine domain or planar layer.
    
70. A race of cybernetic abominations created by a mad scientist on a planet called "Skarr-o" (or something) are some of the most feared killers in the multiverse. The PCs are asked by some Yugoloths to negotiate them to join the Blood War.
    
71. See #71, this is because the Yugoloth was hired by a Time Wizard to divert their race into an impossible war against invincible enemies. They've made a mess in his Prime Material plane.
    
72. See #71, the Yugoloths are actually hoping to harvest the atheistic LE pepper pots' souls (as much as they exist) to make serious bank for the Nine Hells or Acheron.
    
73. See #71, the Totally-Not Daleks actually arranged this themselves and the whole thing is subtly (by their standards) interrogate the PCs before invading the Outer Planes.
    
74. See #71, this is actually a horrible idea as the Baatezu LOVE these guys and will happily assume "perfect" Not-Dalek forms and introduce them to Asmodeus (who they perceive as the Dalek Emperor of Emperors) and support them in their galactic genocides. The PCs have to stop this from happening.
    
75. See #71, the PCs will be hired by demons or Devas to introduce the Not-Daleks to the Beholders instead and start another part of racially motivated pointless war.
    
76. The player characters end up getting teleported to a dark and terrifying dimension full of nightmares and hallucinatory monsters. It is a layer of the Abyss ruled by a fallen paladin who has absolute power but only over illusions. A group of Taan'ari offer to help kill him. Oddly, the fallen paladin might be persuaded to abandon the path of evil if you're silly enough to appeal to his goodness.
    
77. The PCs are invited to a flying citadel in the middle of the Outlands which the owner wishes to open as a hotel and casino to the discerning gambler. Unfortunately, there's a half-dozen Faction-based plots against him going on simultaneously because he didn't exactly acquire this location fairly.
    
78. The PCs are invited to the Church of Contrary Personalities which is a secular temple for fallen angels, tiefling paladins, Aasimar thieves, and risen devils. The Bleak Cabal, Free League, and Athar love it. The Harmonium and Fraternity of Order hate it. The PCs are hired to protect or destroy it or both.
    
79. An Athar member has a scroll with the true name of a deity, Archdemon, or Archmessenger on it. He planned to use it to murder the Power but is gutted in a bar. Now it is the hottest item in Sigil--and the PCs have access to it.
    
80. A prostitute and her boyfriend want to run away from a corrupt and vile gang running a brothel as casino in the Hive. The prostitute wants the PCs to help her escape.
    
81. See #80. Notably, the prostitute is a succubus and her boyfriend may or may not be charmed.
    
82. See #81. The casino/brothel boss actually has the title to her soul and that needs to be acquired first.
    
83. See #80. This is all a cover for the prostitute and her boyfriend carrying out a massive heist while the PCs are the fall guys.
    
84. A Dabus approaches the PCs and speaks in perfect Common rather than Rebus. A Dabus has switched souls with them and he's now terrified that the Lady of Pain will take offense. Can the player characters reacquire his body?
    
85. An auction of holy artifacts is being hosted by the Free League, an arcanoloth, and a fallen Deva. The player characters have been asked to acquire one piece, the Holy Scrolls of Grundark, by any means necessary. They are necessary to stopping a war back on their Prime Material World.
    
86. Blackmail! A high ranking member of the Bleak Cabal wants the PCs to clear up her secret past as a member of an evil cult before she became a notable proponent of charity work as well as NG humanitarianism. There's something fishy going on because she belongs to a faction that, by definition, would not care.
    
87. See #86, she's actually a member of the Revolutionary League and murdered her way into the Faction.
    
88. See #86, she's abandoned her old Revolutionary Ways and just wants to do good works now. So berks gotta die to keep her secret.
    
89. One of the PCs have been informed they are now Factol of the Sign of One. They all imagined it to be the case and now it is official. Clearly something weird is going on here and their protestations fall on deaf ears.
    
90. A Believer of the Source has ascended to godhood...in Sigil. Well sort of. He's inside his Bag of Holding that he leapt into as it happened. So, he's technically not violating the Lady of Pain's edict. He wants the PCs (who he contacts in dreams) to transport him to his divine domain that he envisions is in Arvandor. Because he believes he's trapped, he's trapped and quite a few people want to get a hand on this bag.
    
91. The player characters are informed a previous Factol of the Fraternity of Order is hiding out in a Gatetown (probably one linked to Carcei or other wretched hive). There's a massive bounty on his head that no one knows the reason for as he disappeared under mysterious circumstances. The player characters are contacted by people who want to deliver him to freedom instead.
    
92. The PCs are being followed by a big animal. Dog, cat, cappybarra, whatever. It's the size of a cart and intelligent. It is the loyal companion of a now-deceased god and isn't sure what to do with itself.
    
93. The player characters are invited to an extradimensional mansion for the reading of a will by a prominent Taker. Of course they find themselves trapped in the mansion when a murder takes place and they're all suspects.
    
94. See #93, it was the dead Taker himself who is disgusted his relatives and friends expected GIFTS post-death.
    
95. See #93, it's the mansion itself that has become a horrifying Dungeon trying to kill them.
    
96. The Harmonium is fired from the job as City Watch. This comes out of nowhere and not even other Sigilites are sure who is responsible or how. However, they've been replaced with a non-faction based replacement.
    
97. The player characters end up in the belly of a massive Illithid planar vessel under attack by the Githyanki or Githzerai. It becomes a mammoth escape attempt before you get stuck in whatever location you're in.
    
98. A Rogue Modrone has claimed to have mathematically mapped chaos and is kidnapping Xaocists, turning them LN whenever he's done with them. Is he just brainwashing them or does he have proof of his theories? The Fraternity of Order and Harmonium are interested either way.
    
99. A Dustmen Lich has decided he finally wants to experience the true death and plans to destroy his soul with a Wish spell. However, he kind of is out of luck on that because he entrusted his soul jar with a third party who very much doesn't want it to happen. The PCs need to get it back.
    
100. The first Sigil Mayorial election is being run! The candidates are limited to those people who think the Lady of Pain WON'T Maze whoever wins. However, the fear over that and low voter turnout means even the players might win.
     
101. Sigil's interior has started making contact with the rest of the Torus. It turns out it has an Underdark, massive sewer system, and other set of levels that reveals it is a far larger city than anyone expected.
     

The story profiles from the manual in text form, separate from the fandom pages:

• Power Stone 2 (Manual)
  • Video Edit

FEEL THE ENERGY OF... THE POWER STONE!

It is the 19th century... a romantic era... Superstitions and legends are alive and powerful. With dreams of vast fortunes, adventurers seek the legendary Power Stones, magical stones that make any wish come true...
A mysterious floating castle emerges in the darkly clouded sky. Its huge shadow covers the world with a ground-quaking roar. The Power Stone fighters are captured and held prisoner within its walls - by a mysterious force.
A new adventure is beginning!
​

RED WHIRLWIND / FALCON

While traveling across the Atlantic Ocean to his hometown, London, Falcor's airplane Hockenheim is caught in a mysterious dark cloudbank and loses control. Someone's shadow flickers between the clouds in the lightning for a moment. When the clouds part, a gigantic floating castle appears.
"This must be the mysterious castle my father told me he had seen once... Good. I was getting bored!"
CHARACTERISTICS
Falcon is a balanced fighter with neither outstanding strengths nor weaknesses. Use double-jump to win control of the air

SCORCHING BEAUTY / ROUGE

"How ominous...!" Rouge opens her eyes wide and stares at the shadow that has just broken her crystal. More than anything, she can't stand having her occupational fools broken. She meditates and tries to send her force of will into the Power Stone.
"Take me there...!" When she opens her eyes, she is inside the floating castle that people have talked about. "I feel it... the origin of the ominous shadow is here!"
CHARACTERISTICS
Though her normal attack and defense abilities are relatively low, Rouge's flame attacks have long-range and inflict severe damage. She runs faster and jumps higher than many of the other fighters.

AGILE DRAGON / WANGTANG

While training in the mountains in the town of Tong-Ang, Wang Tang is surprised by a huge shadow moving across the sky. It is a gigantic floating castle.
"Maybe this is the final trial that my teacher was talking about?" When Wang Tang enters the castle, he feels the sharp tension he expected.
"Ok! I'm gonna finish my training!"
CHARACTERISTICS
WangTang's merit is outstanding agility. His successive moves don't allow opponents to catch their breath. He is excellent at special actions such as wall climbing.

MASTER SWORDSMAN / RYOMA

Ryoma has finally obtained a legendary sword. He enjoys the moonlight reflecting on its edge, which cuts through iron like tofu. Suddenly, light bounces off the sword's edge and shines on the huge shadow of a floating castle between the clouds. Ryoma's body flies up in the air.
"Is this sword... guiding me to evil? Anyway, this is a good chance to give it a try!! Ryoma goes up to the castle, guided by the light of the sword. "Whatever enemy is waiting, I'll slice it to pieces with this!"
CHARACTERISTICS
Thanks to his katana, Ryoma has a long reach but is open to attack if he misses his target. His attacks after Power Change are extremely powerful.

CHERRY BLOSSOM DANCER / AYAME

While traveling with her troupe, Ayame receives a letter from her master telling her to come back.
"Did master discover the stone was fake?" To avoid being arrested, she decides to find a real Power Stone and turn it over to the master.
"Please wait until I find a stone. I know something" She takes off alone to find a rumored treasure in the flying castle.
CHARACTERISTICS
Ayame's attack power is low and she is weakest when throwing heavy objects. To compensate, she runs more quickly than most other fighters.

HEAVY TANK / GUNROCK

Gunrock is bored with his everyday life. One day, he hears about a floating castle. They say it guards an ultimate treasure that no one has ever seen.
"I must get the treasure!" A few days later, the floating castle emerges from the clouds as the rumors foretold. Gunrock gets into a huge cannon, points it toward the castle, and fires!
"Wait for me! All the treasures in the world will be mine!"
CHARACTERISTICS
Gunrock is a power fighter with a huge body. Though slow, his power outweighs the weakness. Thanks to magnificent strength, he is better at throwing objects than any other warrior.

MAD CLOWN / JACK

"I want more shiny blades! I want to slice ... and dice!"
Jack's wish increases after obtaining the Power Stone. As if in response to his desire, he hears a strange voice one night. "A mysterious castle will emerge at the next full moon. It is filled with shiny treasures.
Jack is happily absorbed into the floating castle without knowing it's an invitation from the dark.
CHARACTERISTICS
Unpredictable. mysterious, rapid moves are Jack's strengths. However, his attacking power is weak. Confuse opponents with tricky moves!

PROUD EAGLE / GALUDA

Galuda was just happily married to the chief's daughter in their village, and they are on their honeymoon. On their comfortable trip in the airship Royal Heaven, Galuda's wife looks out of the window.
"What is that castle?" At that moment, the airship is shaken hard and they are thrown out through a window. Galuda loses consciousness.
"Where is this?" When Galuda wakes up, he finds himself in the castle. He must find and save his wife!
CHARACTERISTICS
Galuda's offensive and defensive abilities are high. Though a bit slow, he doesn't have any other notable weaknesses. Get close to an opponent and aim for powerful throw moves!

INVENTION BOY / PETE

A toy box lies in a corner of a room in a house in the country. Suddenly a doll with flashing lights pops out. "Finally! I can move!" The doll's name is Pete. He has a shiny Power Stone on his chest.
The owner's wish has come true with its power. "My dream is... to surprise everybody with my great inventions!" Pete jumps out the window and flies into the air.
CHARACTERISTICS
Pete's reach is short, but he can attack very rapidly once he gets within attack range. Use his small body and quickness to dodge opponents' attacks. He becomes extremely powerful after Power Change.

SECRET GRACE / JULIA

Julia is the only daughter of the historic Whitepearl family. Behind her tender, elegant face lies a wild personality.
Her parents thought the Power Stone would calm her down, but one day her wild impulses drive Julia into running away with the Power Stone. When she comes to her senses, she is somewhere completely strange.
"I don't know what happened, but I must get out of here and go home!"
CHARACTERISTICS
Julia flies gracefully with her umbrella and attacks from the air. Though she is usually gentle, she becomes extremely aggressive after Power Change. Nobody can stop her attacks!

EVIL CHEF / GOURMAND

Gourmand is head chef on the luxurious airship Royal Heaven which cruises around the world. Secretly, he is a ravenous chef who will do anything for rare delicacies. One day, he learns about the mysterious existence of a flying castle.
"Does it have totally new food dishes?" Conveniently, a huge shadow falls across his airship and shakes it hard. Gourmand jumps ship with his kitchen knife and frying pan.
"This is my lucky chance!"
CHARACTERISTICS
Gourmand has decent power despite his paunchy look. He has the longest reach of all fighters, thanks to his kitchen knife and frying pan. His attacks after Power Change are very powerful and have long ranges.

VAGABOND GUNMAN / ACCEL

When I regained consciousness, I was here. My name is Accel. I am a skilled gunman. I was ambushed by rough gangs in my town. They roped my body to a balloon and flew it like a kite. I lost consciousness.
Now there is a mysterious shiny stone in my hand. What is it? It sets my blood racing and boosts my sense of justice. I must get out of here, to let them have my bullets of justice.
CHARACTERISTICS
High basic .ahilities and dual guns are Accel's strength. He can shoot opponents at a distance using a wall or puic. After Power Change, Accel's speed is the fastest f)f all warriors. No one can keep up with him!

I'm a huge Planescape fan but coming up with adventures for it has always been something of a pain in the ass. So I decided to try to make a bunch of ideas for the setting, berk. If you have the time, feel free to add your own or give any feedback!

1. A young girl is kidnapped by a group of magically grafted individuals and the player characters are hired to get her back. They actually are from a world where psionics and artificers reign and are collecting her as "spare parts" for their artificial godlike being. The PCs note this may be the only actual world that needs a Power to take over and get them off their cargo cult. Either that or the planet get absorbed into Mechanus.
   
2. The player characters are approached by a Drow priestess who proceeds to explain that she wants the PCs to serve as guards for the smuggling of refugees into Sigil. They're enemies of Lolth and believes Sigil safe from her wrath. However, a bigger issue is the Harmonium does not want a large number of refugees from such an evil and chaotic race.
   
3. An Aasimar Paladin wants the PCs help to try to recover the soul of her friend in the Wall of the Faithless from Abeir-Toril. She's a member of the Athar and hates gods but still Lawful Good and powered by her righteousness. This seems fairly straightforward except she plans to free a "lot" more and use this as proof of the gods' evil.
   
4. The player characters inherit some property in Sigil and it is a extra-dimensional enhanced mansion that seems perfect to their needs but is given a wide birth and seemingly no one will speak of it. This is because the previous owner was Mazed and, worse, the mansion actually leads to the Maze.
   
5. See #4. Oddly, the PCs find that man inside the Maze figured out how to leave ages ago but finds its nice to live and makes him immortal. He offers the PCs use of his mansion if they can stop people seeking to "free" him.
   
6. See #4 The Lady of Pain actually wants the PCs to get the imprisoned man out because someone WANTING to be Mazed defeats the purpose.
   
7. A male PC is approached with an unusual offer: a chromatic dragon wishes to mate with them. Specifically, engage the various acts regarding (shapeshifting) coitus then collect their fluids as part of their "research."
   
8. See #8 The PCs end up as the father of a clutch of dragonborn after the experiment is concluded.
   
9. See #8, it was all to make their Gold Dragon ex-boyfriend jealous as he didn't want kids and she did. It's worked incredibly well and he's furious.
   
10. A PC is informed that they are actually the child of a god and that said gods progeny are being sent on a quest to murder each other in order to assemble their power into a new deity. A group of them are in a "gathering" here to do just that and killing each other off in ritualistic duels. This is all nonsense and someone is setting this up based on a Prime folk tale.
    
11. The PCs attend to Free League Bazaar and find Harmonium patrols engaged in police brutality. If they intervene, they find themselves in a court case over whether the former were there illegally or not. Shady lawyers and idealistic ones get involved.
    
12. See #12, this was all a set up by the Free League to get the Harmonium some bad publicity.
    
13. See #13, the same except it's a set up by the MERCYKILLERS because these Harmonium agents are THAT bad.
    
14. A group of Vistani from Ravenloft arrive and strangely claim they are able to pierce the Mists back and forth easily. Many would pay for an accurate map of this Demiplane and what the hell is going on inside it.
    
15. See #15, it's a set up by Strahd Von Zarovich to get some planars to torture and interrogate.
    
16. See #16, Strahd has bitten off a lot more than he can chew because the Lady of Pain moves Castle Ravenloft into Sigil as punishment for his crimes. The Dark Powers just replicate him like they did in The House on Gryphon Hill. This Strahd is fucked.
    
17. A Dustman is chasing after a man who got out of the mortuary and is getting killed repeatedly but always coming back from the dead. He's now immortal but that just means people want him for themselves.
    
18. See #18, It is in fact the Nameless One who is somehow back and very confused about this.
    
19. Factol Rowan Darkwood wants to hire the PCs to rescue the Princess of the Unicorns set to be the victim of a great hunt on the Prime Material Plane by an evil wyvern-riding Duke.
    
20. See #20, this is actually all an elaborate wager where the PCs are scryed and bet on the entire time by the Takers. They get rewards ala the Hunger Games if they overact or take challenges like a Twitch stream.
    
21. See #20, the evil wyvern-riding Duke is Rowan Darkwood in the past. This is actually an experiment in time travel.
    
22. See #21, the PCs probably end up killing the Duke and the past and return to find Sigilian history dramatically altered.
    
23. A serial called "The Midnight Slasher" is targeting victims throughout the city, leaving lovers with their loved ones dead in their arms. Weirdly, the perpetrator is invisible to scrying or divine answers and taunting the authorities of Sigil. Is the Revolutionary League at fault or something more sinister. The Free League presses are making bank publicizing it, though.
    
24. See #24, the serial killer is a paladin targeting demons, Alu-Fiends, Cambions, and Tieflings. The paladin still has his powers as long as he believes he's righteous.
    
25. See #24, the serial killer is a publicity stunt by the Free League to drum up newspaper business and make the Harmonium look week.
    
26. See #26, the serial killer didn't exist but rumors have caused one to emerge into existence from all the fear.
    
27. It's a nice day for a blood red wedding as the PCs are invited to a marriage and probably show just for the free food. It's only when they arrive that they find out it is wildly inappropriate (A Deva and Fiend, a Tanari and Baatezu, a Gold and Red Dragon, or a Fraternity of Order member with an Xaocist). What is going on here?
    
28. See #26, the wedding is at the behest of two feuding pantheons who have made it abundantly clear saying no isn't an option. The bride and groom disagree and Sigil is the best place to make a break for it.
    
29. See #27, the wedding is going to be hit by both factions of the bride and groom and it's actually a hit on their extremist members.
    
30. The Lady of Pain shows up at the player character's most frequent haunt and a Dabus says they need to acquire an object for them: the Key of Aoskar.
    
31. See #30, it's not the Lady of Pain but a gnomish illusionist who is FANTASTICALLY stupid.
    
32. See #30, It is the Lady of Pain but the Key of Aoskar was stolen by one of her Dabus who is attempting to revive the dead god over a lack of a promotion.
    
33. Factol Erin Montgomery commissioned a living statue of herself in the nude. However, the Golem came to life and is now running around Sigil getting into all manner of mischief. Erin wants the PCs to shut it down because she acts like a teenage brat. The sculptor and a sigilite with inappopriate fixations want it for their own reasons.
    
34. Factol Sarin's 16 year old daughter has run off with a Tiefling and he would very much like you to return her before she gets hurt.
    
35. See #32, the Tiefling intends to sell her into slavery to the Nine Hells.
    
36. See #33, the Tiefling is actually her prisoner and she intends to sell him into slavery for a position in Asmodeus' armies.
    
37. The Revolutionary League pays the players a great deal of money to nab an Ortho nobleman visiting from their home planet. They claim he is a genocidal war criminal who masterminded the extinction of the elves and gnomes on the world.
    
38. See #35, he actually did but came to Sigil to reveal all of the crimes of the Harmonium in public to discredit them.
    
39. See #36, the Revolutionary Leaguers are actually corrupt Harmonium guards there to stop him from doing so.
    
40. Factol Terrence is suffering a vote of No Confidence as his Athar Factorum have decided the Greater Unknown is, in fact, a real god and he's a traitor to the cause. He begs them to go to where he came up with the idea and prove, in fact, the Greaker Unknown isn't real but a metaphor for goodness and ineffability.
    
41. See #38, unfortunately for Factol Terrence, the Greater Unknown is, in fact, a god.
    
42. See #39, even worse, he's the ghost of Aoskar.
    
43. A barmy inmate claims that a demigod named Vecna took over Sigil, rewrote reality, and almost got away with it. Now no one remembers this happening and he wants your help finding the artifacts left in the city that prove it.
    
44. See #41, the inmate is, in fact, Vecna himself stripped of all of his magical knowledge and divine abilities. He is quite annoyed by this but the Lady doesn't like what he tried to pull.
    
45. See #41, the artifacts are the Head of Vecna that contains the deity's essence. The inmate wants to kill himself and put it on, which will restore Vecna (the Lady will consider the lesson learned).
    
46. The PCs have been given a watch that allows them to time travel. Unfortunately, this has put them in the sights of celestials who really hate time travelers.
    
47. See #44, the watch was actually used to reverse the Faction War.
    
48. See #46, the PCs can't un-reverse it because they died in the Faction War.
    
49. A man claiming to be Raistlin Majere says he was dumped out of his world of Krynn when he became too powerful (Note: This was an actual rule in the Dragonlance handbook). Now he needs to find his way back and doesn't know very much about Planes beyond the Abyss (and he thinks Tiamat lives there).
    
50. See #47, he will be quite annoyed to find out his world has been utterly trashed in his absence by what appears to be an exact copy of himself.
    
51. See #48, this Raistlin is actually a result of kender interfering with the timestream.
    
52. A young boy of the Sign of One is seemingly omnipotent and wrecking havoc like the Twilight Zone. He seems to have infinite Wish spells.
    
53. See #50, he's the king of a Feywild domain called Fantastica and is slowly losing his memories every time he does a Wish.
    
54. See #50, he's Asmodeus' son. The Lord of the Nine would appreciate his return until he can be educated into being a proper Archdevil.
    
55. See #50, the PCs can get the Lady of Pain to wipe him out just by praying to him. No gods allowed. This is a nasty way to resolve the issue, though.
    
56. The players are asked to help a demented old gnomish woman who just so happens to be living on a newly discovered portal the city is confiscating. Unfortunately, in her basement, is a monstrous aberration from her dalliance with Orcus during her days as a CE Warlock. She often forgets to feed it now.
    
57. A Mercykiller breakaway sect of costumed vigilantes (or maybe just one) have started punishing the guilty of Sigil despite this being very not lawful. The Harmonium is furious but the public loves them. What if this causes the Mercykiller creed to change?
    
58. The PCs meet their alternates and this is very confusing, especially if they're from a world like Athas or Krynn.
    
59. The player characters are willed a Tomb of Horrors. Yes, that Tomb of Horrors. Or at least an exact replica in its own pocket dimension. They're given an exact map of the thing with a listing of all the traps as well as a request to use it for good.
    
60. See #60, it's the actual tomb of horrors by an alternate Acherak and it was stolen from him as a prank by a god of trickery.
    
61. See #60, it's actually part of a horrifying amusement park by a deranged Archdemon, god, proxy, or Lich fanboy on the plane of Gehenna. He'd like to buy it back so he can complete it then open it to the public.
    
62. See #62, How he plans to get idiots to murder themselves in an amusement park of death? He'll put treasure in it. Voila! Instant endless stream of victims!
    
63. The PCs are invited to a funeral for a god by his last remaining worshipers. It's on the Astral Plane. On said god's corpse. The guests will include the avatars of gods, enemies come to gloat, and the curious.
    
64. See #64, the Githyanki attack and try to take everyone as slaves.
    
65. See #64, It's a mass suicide event by the worshipers.
    
66. See #64, all of the attention for the funeral in Sigil causes the god to wake up during the funeral.
    
67. See #64, there's a protest by the Athar present deliberately designed to start a fight and in very poor taste.
    
68. A man claims he's got a bomb built by the God of Evil of his world that can destroy an entire planet. He's trying to sell it.
    
69. See #69, he's wrong. It's a relic of the Primordial War and can destroy an entire divine domain or planar layer.
    
70. A race of cybernetic abominations created by a mad scientist on a planet called "Skarr-o" (or something) are some of the most feared killers in the multiverse. The PCs are asked by some Yugoloths to negotiate them to join the Blood War.
    
71. See #71, this is because the Yugoloth was hired by a Time Wizard to divert their race into an impossible war against invincible enemies. They've made a mess in his Prime Material plane.
    
72. See #71, the Yugoloths are actually hoping to harvest the atheistic LE pepper pots' souls (as much as they exist) to make serious bank for the Nine Hells or Acheron.
    
73. See #71, the Totally-Not Daleks actually arranged this themselves and the whole thing is subtly (by their standards) interrogate the PCs before invading the Outer Planes.
    
74. See #71, this is actually a horrible idea as the Baatezu LOVE these guys and will happily assume "perfect" Not-Dalek forms and introduce them to Asmodeus (who they perceive as the Dalek Emperor of Emperors) and support them in their galactic genocides. The PCs have to stop this from happening.
    
75. See #71, the PCs will be hired by demons or Devas to introduce the Not-Daleks to the Beholders instead and start another part of racially motivated pointless war.
    
76. The player characters end up getting teleported to a dark and terrifying dimension full of nightmares and hallucinatory monsters. It is a layer of the Abyss ruled by a fallen paladin who has absolute power but only over illusions. A group of Taan'ari offer to help kill him. Oddly, the fallen paladin might be persuaded to abandon the path of evil if you're silly enough to appeal to his goodness.
    
77. The PCs are invited to a flying citadel in the middle of the Outlands which the owner wishes to open as a hotel and casino to the discerning gambler. Unfortunately, there's a half-dozen Faction-based plots against him going on simultaneously because he didn't exactly acquire this location fairly.
    
78. The PCs are invited to the Church of Contrary Personalities which is a secular temple for fallen angels, tiefling paladins, Aasimar thieves, and risen devils. The Bleak Cabal, Free League, and Athar love it. The Harmonium and Fraternity of Order hate it. The PCs are hired to protect or destroy it or both.
    
79. An Athar member has a scroll with the true name of a deity, Archdemon, or Archmessenger on it. He planned to use it to murder the Power but is gutted in a bar. Now it is the hottest item in Sigil--and the PCs have access to it.
    
80. A prostitute and her boyfriend want to run away from a corrupt and vile gang running a brothel as casino in the Hive. The prostitute wants the PCs to help her escape.
    
81. See #80. Notably, the prostitute is a succubus and her boyfriend may or may not be charmed.
    
82. See #81. The casino/brothel boss actually has the title to her soul and that needs to be acquired first.
    
83. See #80. This is all a cover for the prostitute and her boyfriend carrying out a massive heist while the PCs are the fall guys.
    
84. A Dabus approaches the PCs and speaks in perfect Common rather than Rebus. A Dabus has switched souls with them and he's now terrified that the Lady of Pain will take offense. Can the player characters reacquire his body?
    
85. An auction of holy artifacts is being hosted by the Free League, an arcanoloth, and a fallen Deva. The player characters have been asked to acquire one piece, the Holy Scrolls of Grundark, by any means necessary. They are necessary to stopping a war back on their Prime Material World.
    
86. Blackmail! A high ranking member of the Bleak Cabal wants the PCs to clear up her secret past as a member of an evil cult before she became a notable proponent of charity work as well as NG humanitarianism. There's something fishy going on because she belongs to a faction that, by definition, would not care.
    
87. See #86, she's actually a member of the Revolutionary League and murdered her way into the Faction.
    
88. See #86, she's abandoned her old Revolutionary Ways and just wants to do good works now. So berks gotta die to keep her secret.
    
89. One of the PCs have been informed they are now Factol of the Sign of One. They all imagined it to be the case and now it is official. Clearly something weird is going on here and their protestations fall on deaf ears.
    
90. A Believer of the Source has ascended to godhood...in Sigil. Well sort of. He's inside his Bag of Holding that he leapt into as it happened. So, he's technically not violating the Lady of Pain's edict. He wants the PCs (who he contacts in dreams) to transport him to his divine domain that he envisions is in Arvandor. Because he believes he's trapped, he's trapped and quite a few people want to get a hand on this bag.
    
91. The player characters are informed a previous Factol of the Fraternity of Order is hiding out in a Gatetown (probably one linked to Carcei or other wretched hive). There's a massive bounty on his head that no one knows the reason for as he disappeared under mysterious circumstances. The player characters are contacted by people who want to deliver him to freedom instead.
    
92. The PCs are being followed by a big animal. Dog, cat, cappybarra, whatever. It's the size of a cart and intelligent. It is the loyal companion of a now-deceased god and isn't sure what to do with itself.
    
93. The player characters are invited to an extradimensional mansion for the reading of a will by a prominent Taker. Of course they find themselves trapped in the mansion when a murder takes place and they're all suspects.
    
94. See #93, it was the dead Taker himself who is disgusted his relatives and friends expected GIFTS post-death.
    
95. See #93, it's the mansion itself that has become a horrifying Dungeon trying to kill them.
    
96. The Harmonium is fired from the job as City Watch. This comes out of nowhere and not even other Sigilites are sure who is responsible or how. However, they've been replaced with a non-faction based replacement.
    
97. The player characters end up in the belly of a massive Illithid planar vessel under attack by the Githyanki or Githzerai. It becomes a mammoth escape attempt before you get stuck in whatever location you're in.
    
98. A Rogue Modrone has claimed to have mathematically mapped chaos and is kidnapping Xaocists, turning them LN whenever he's done with them. Is he just brainwashing them or does he have proof of his theories? The Fraternity of Order and Harmonium are interested either way.
    
99. A Dustmen Lich has decided he finally wants to experience the true death and plans to destroy his soul with a Wish spell. However, he kind of is out of luck on that because he entrusted his soul jar with a third party who very much doesn't want it to happen. The PCs need to get it back.
    
100. The first Sigil Mayorial election is being run! The candidates are limited to those people who think the Lady of Pain WON'T Maze whoever wins. However, the fear over that and low voter turnout means even the players might win.
     
101. Sigil's interior has started making contact with the rest of the Torus. It turns out it has an Underdark, massive sewer system, and other set of levels that reveals it is a far larger city than anyone expected.
     

I just finished Saint's campaign and oh boy what a ride this long eight-part adventure was! I remember joking with friends when I got Rain World, and how it was all about: "Expectation: fun. Reality: horror, stress, and heart attacks." Now I still have to beat the arena challenges and play with expedition mode as I want to try and get the remaining achievements to reach a full closure.
Thoughts on individual campaigns below. Potential spoilers, I guess. (I wrote more than I expected I would.)
🍌 Banana-flavored cat: When I got the game I started as Survivor but I sucked, wasn't used at all to the mechanics, so I restarted as Monk instead, and used that gameplay to learn the mechanics, map, and what not.
🍦Vanilla-flavored cat: I then used my Survivor campaign as a lore galore run, gathering a lot of pearls to get a better feel for the story. Sadly I think a lot of players skip out on them, although now the DLC provides a lot more "mandatory" lore input.
🍓 Strawberry-flavored cat: My cortisol levels sky-rocketed like never before when playing as Hunter, but after a lot of planning and pausing to recover my heart rate, I managed to beat it with all objectives! (Met 5P, delivered neuron and pearl to Moon, and ascended.) Overall a lot of stress disguised in fun, but I might replay it in the future, now that I'm even more used to the game.
🍑 Peach-flavored cat: I think the DLC had a good start, but Gourmand was not my favorite. The reasons are simply because of his chonky slowdowns, but his thicc strength was very fun to play with. I actually enjoyed the food quest a lot as it gave me a reason to explore a lot of the map (my favorite thing in the game, and something that I felt lacked a lot in other campaigns). Also, the ending is absolutely wholesome. For some reason, after beating it, I still wondered what happened if I ascended, so I went all the way to Depths (abandoning the pups on the way #cry), but all for naught, as there is nothing special with that.
🍒 Cherry-flavored cat: Artificer unfortunately has to take the spot of my least favorite slugcat. The lore was interesting, but I didn't even see all the dreams until I reached the ending, and it all felt very rushed as you start the game pretty close to Metropolis (you've got like, 2 areas to cross till then, really). I know there is an alternate ending if you ascend, but honestly the whole karma limitation thing was a bit annoying to me, and the game doesn't really give you any reason to go west (sadly). But I digress: in reality the entire reason I disliked this campaign was because it's very unfair and frustrating to deal with tons of scavengers everywhere. I believe it'd be more fun if Arti could survive at least one spear instead of insta dying, as it would make the gameplay more dynamic and less rage-quit-ish. It would also fit the character, like we just refuse to die against our enemy!
🫐 Blueberry-flavored cat: Then I got to Rivulet, and omg what a cutie he is! I was not expecting his campaign to feel so... important. The entire Rot area was a surprise and then the ending in Submerged Superstructure was very adventurous. The ending with Moon was also very wholesome. I do wish we spent more time doing something else other than exploring the east of the map. I felt like this was an unfortunately common trope in the game: at the end, I was so done with Shoreline, Shaded, the Exterior and 5P. However, what made me have Rivulet, Spearmaster and Saint as my favorite campaigns was that the map was a little or very different to what we're used to seeing.
🍇 Grape-flavored cat: After playing Spearmaster I looked for what people thought of him, and a lot of people seem to dislike his campaign because of the whole pearl escort quest. I get the reasoning for that, as a very big trait of the character is the dual-wielding skill that gets lost as soon as the pearl is obtained. Lucky for me, however, I was dumb. The overseer kept signaling an iterator symbol, and I just assumed it was referring to Moon, so I headed to Moon before Pebbles, and explored the whole new super cool area replacing Shoreline + LTTM. The fact that I went to Moon first allowed me to have extra dialogue with her and with Pebbles, as when I visited him I had the mark of communication already. IMO the story unfolded so much better that way, despite going to Moon not being Spearmaster's original mission. So the whole pearl issue could be bypassed by a lot, as I could passage back to LTTM and then passage again to Industrial right next to Chimney. That saved me a lot of misadventures with the pearl, while I did actually end up playing most of Spearmaster's campaign with two hands free for spears. Overall it was one of my favorites, as the map has very different features, and we have a reason to go west, too (yay). Also, his and Rivulet's post-ending selection screen with Moon and Seven Red Suns are the absolute cutest things in the world.
🍋 Lime-flavored cat: What a glorious way to end the saga. Saint was all I hoped for (or almost. I wish there was some contact between our two beloved iterators, or some sort of resolution to their story. Maybe there is and I didn't get it to happen?) The world is so different with the snow, it pretty much feels like a brand new game. Cool new areas and reasons to explore all over the place. But the overall mood is very gloomy / sad / scary / lonely / final. So much different than playing Monk a long time ago! I was not expecting that ending, and still have to think about it (and probably watch lore videos).
Overall my favorite part of the game was the unfolding of new areas and seeing how the areas evolved over time. Not so much all the combat-heavy parts. Artificer's campaign felt like an outlier to Rain World's core theme of survival and exploration; we were just out there to kill, and there was no aspect really related to the world building. Maybe if I had explored more or tried a different ending, but the whole scavenger kill squads was too frustrating to make me even consider it. On the other hand, Spearmaster was also combat-oriented, but it felt a lot more fair and fun with his abilities (I guess due to the fact I circumvented a lot of the pearl limitation).
I guess if I really had to rank the campaigns I'd maybe give it 🍒 < 🍑 < 🍌 < 🍓 < 🍦 < 🫐 < 🍇 < 🍋
Sheesh, that was a lot. No clue if someone will even read all that. lol Now to new adventures. :)

The rapid clacking away on the keyboard filled the back of the van as the backlight shone on the young man’s face, his newest blog post about the ‘100 Year “Conflict”’ between the African Union and the United States of Expanded America filling the screen.
Their fierce arguments in the Neo-League of Allied Nations were the things of legend, as despite the uncompromising regulation of, ‘No Creative Abilities’, which included limiters, as they could be disguised, people swore that the Hall shook.
​
Sparing a few moments to refocus on the background radio, he shook his head at the protests and threats between New Russia and the Renewed French Republic regarding the Alliance of Free Nations.
​

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His train of thought was rudely interrupted, but he pressed on.
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Clickclackclickclackclickclack.
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<Hey.>
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Clickclackclickclackclickclackclickclackclickclackclickclack.
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“What?”
​

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“When I’m finished with this post, that’s when. And not a word less.”
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Clickclackclickcla-.
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He sighed and lifted his finger off the ‘y’ key, the trail of ‘y’s being automatically deleted by his Bio-Pal, or By, for short. Getting off his 3/4th king-sized bed as the screen and keyboard retracted into the ceiling and wall, he grabbed his beige ‘off-duty’ hat hanging next to his cameo reporting hat.
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“Alright, By, where and for what are we going to today?”
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“… Seriously. Bloomington, Indiana, for lunch or breakfast, depending on the menu; then Washington D.C for work, we have that assignment that’s due tomorrow. You know, May 21, 2020?”
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Sliding the door open, he slid out from its hollow inside a folded red and black tri-motorcyle. As it turned on and unfolded from his hands touching the metal door handles, it revealed the floating two-seater, allowing him to enter. Grabbing the wheel while pressing two buttons, the roof covering rose and the EM Tesla Riders activated, one in the front and two in the back, gradually elevating them.
Simultaneously, Craig closed, locked, and shielded the 20-foot white van with a Spark of electricity that traveled from inside the ‘cycle and made contact with the van, another sent back as confirmation. As the GPS chose the quickest route out of New York City, he admired the skyscrapers.
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“I still can’t get over the skyscrapers here… How ma-?”
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“Yawn burgers with a side of snores, By. Just get us outta here. How long and which restaurant?”
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<24 minutes and might I suggest Uptown Cafe?>
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“Show me.’
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The website was projected on the windshield in two tabs, one for the breakfast menu and the other for making reservations.
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‘… Looks delish and easy on the budget. Reservation for 10:30, if you please, and get me the Malted Belgian Waffle with granola and hazelnut-flavored coffee.”
​
When they reached New York’s outer limits a few seconds later, By took them on a preapproved route to Kirkwood Ave., where they landed in an empty parking spot that quickly held the vehicle. Getting out, he went to the Cafe that was a minute away.
​
“Craig Williams.”
​
“Please follow me.”
​
Taking him to a table to the right of the bar, another waiter quickly came and gave him water, coffee, and milk. As she left, he glanced at the gold-covered bar dividing the room while sipping at the now-prepared coffee, grinning at the strange way his slightly tanned face was warped.
​

​
“Will ya lay off it, please? As I’ll remind you, it’s only because my mom’s ancestors escaped to America from those A.U jerks just 'cause they weren’t from the same tribe, while my dad was almost electrocuted, burned out, and genocided by the Nazis! Anyway, who are we meeting in Washington?”
​

​
“Right, right… Can’t believe I was one of the few that discovered who they really are… Remind me how I found and was able to remember them, again?”
​

​
“Only after an incessant mind- and body-draining interrogation that lasted for almost half an hour after I finished. I’m still surprised that they keep me in the loop about what they-, alright, alright, she keeps me in the loop. Anyway…”
​
His breakfast came with some coffee and after a few words of thanks, he began eating as By went through the facts of one J. Trakler.
​
Got into science in an R.F.R Elementary school after Io’s Rylu University said they were closer than ever to discovering the secret to F.T.L travel. In a specialized Middle School, he helped the Ney Collective on Neptune forcefully increase their crops growth and hardiness, while also kick-starting the research into the Saturnians’ recently implemented standard insertion process through the Saturnian Watch Program.
Coincidentally, he also started a life-long friendship with their CEO, who’s now the current Head of National Security in New Russia and the first Altered in a high position of power there. Craig, slow down.
In an elite High School in New Russia, he went to Neo France on Uranus on a student-swap with the now-Prime Minister of France, where they also struck up a life-long friendship during the ‘Port lay-over and the back-and-forth vi-com.
He’s now the Elite Omni-Scientist of the Middle East Scientific Alliance, or MESA for short. Williams? Please.
Their goal is-. LISTEN UP, YOU GLUTTONOUS HUMAN!!>
​
“GRR! By, this is one of the most delicious pancakes I’ve ever eaten, let me enjoy it! Anyway, this guy is the E.O.S of the MESA, and you were about to tell me their goal.”
​
<… So you were listening. You’ve gotten better at that. Anyway, their stated goal has been to help Rylu University with their goal of F.T.L travel, using Einstein’s, Tesla’s, and -ugh- Edison ‘The Amature’s, notes and prototypes.>
​
“What’s the trio’s history, again? Never mind, don’t tell me. So, how did this MESA come to pass, again? It was because of World War 2 and the Neo-Battlefield, right?”
​

​
“Isn’t that because everyone else is more focused on space and the so-called ‘bigger picture’?”
​
What MESA is also doing is giving the A.F.N resources to prevent an invasion from either France or New Russia, which certain parties from both sides are attempting to drum up.>
​
“Hmm… So, we have the Alliance of Free Nations and MESA on the one hand, the USEA and the AU on the other, and the Reformed French Republic and New Russia in the middle of all this, with one guy linking almost all of them together… Does this sound familiar to you?”
​

​
“It’s just a thought, By. Just a thought. Brunch is over; find me the fastest way to Capital Hill.”
​

​
Leaving a 45 Bolt tip then Sparking his payment at the front desk, he went back to his Tri while trying to not facepalm at the snarking Bio-Pal. Getting in while turning it on, he was quickly on his way.
As they landed in front of the Capital building, the man of the hour was briskly stepping down the steps, his Altered bodyguards bio-electrically holding everyone back and keeping a close, slitted eye on Craig as he dismounted the ‘cycle and made his way up the stairs.
​
“Mr. Trackler? Mr. Wi-.”
​
“Williams, ‘The Revealer’. Too many people here, so let me treat you to a drink.”
​
He stepped to the train track that ran in the middle of the street as a six-person pod was Sparked to his location, his bodyguards escorting Graig inside of it after quickly and almost unnoticeably searching him.
​
Before they knew it, they were seated in, The Electric Watering Hole, a bar just outside the city. Taking a sip of their drinks, they got comfortable.
​
“So, what does your current client, “The Scourge of Washington”, want with me now? The conspiracy theory about how I’m, ‘the Antichrist’, of Christian fame? Because, just to be clear, I’m not Jewish, European, or even Middle Eastern in any way, shape, or form.”
​
“No, no, sir. Although you are part French on your father’s side.”
​
“Which isn’t European.”
​
“… Right. Sir, I’m here to ask you about, ‘The Phoen-’.”
​
“Ah, yes, ‘T.P.P’. Don’t ask me about the acronym, wasn’t my idea. What do you want to know about it? Why we haven’t cracked Faster Than Light travel yet, or how I got things closer than ever with-?”
​
“Forgive me for interrupting, Sir, but what I was wondering was why focus on F.T.L, to begin with? With the upgraded GPS targeting program by Tesla Corp, everything, including organs, can be delivered practically into people’s and doctor’s hands.
Which reminds me that this is the hundred-and-twentieth year since the second anniversary of, ‘The Upheaval Years’, when the energy, vehicle, and medicinal industries disappeared, grocery stores vanished, and dozens of other fields went extinct with the inventions and discovery of Bio-Pal, E.T.F, and the Earth’s A.E.F, respectively. Thoughts?”
​
“To the idiots who are still trying to get, “Emotional Damage Money”: Why don’t you go back in time to stop mining and oil companies, teleportation operators, and maybe even timekeeping and metallic wire companies from-?!”
​
“Sir?”
​
“Forgive me, I get… passionate.
Anyway, I’m sure you’ve heard of the accidents on the gas planets where people had to be euthanized after the teleportation negatively reacted with their atmospheres and how I solved the situation. Don’t worry, I won’t go into the science.”
​
“Thank you. So, you’re trying to solve F.T.L because of health and technological considerations, right?”
​
“Right. There’s also the possibility of someone discovering another element that might have negative reactions to our electricity, and thus it would be safer and easier to use faster than light travel.”
​
“True, true. Where did-?”
​
Trackler’s By alerted him to an upcoming meeting, after which he shook William’s hand, paid for the barely drunk drinks and untouched appetizers with a Spark, and left. Taking the food and his drink, Craig went outside as the pod was turning to it’s left, further away from the city. Hailing another pod, he goes back to his cycle, gets in, and flies home.
​
Putting away the food and drink, he lays on his bed and starts typing the report for the, ‘Magnetic Broom’, getting to the point where he seamlessly transitioned into a review for the restaurant when they entered, then seamlessly transitioned back out when they were seated. He first sent the review to local and nation-wide Edisons, waited till he got paid, deleted the review, then sent the article to the ‘M.B’.
​
Going to the half-sized fridge in the middle of the van, he retrieved his drink and sipped it while leaning on the van door.
​
“How does 384 Bolts for a restaurant review a week sound?”
​

​
While he puts away his drink, “Isn’t that where-? Trackler’s being attacked. Safely ‘Port me there, By.”
​
<One time. You accidentally do it one time…>
​
He shows up behind cover, rather dizzy, as three guys and a lady are attempting to overload Trackler’s Bio-Energy, his bodyguards and the rest of the people in the conference room serving as unwilling Amplifiers.
​

​
“I’ll-ugh- f-f-figure it o-hurk, gulp!- out as I go! Isn’t t-that-urk!- how t-the bra-uuhhh- b-b-brain works best under-?!”
​
At that instant, a sense of clarity came over him, allowing him to roll away from the copper planters and deliver a powerful shock to the nigh-attacking person through their ankle, leaving behind a black hand print and one very dead woman.
​

​
Dodging more electric blows from the mysterious group’s lookout, he diverted the worse of the current and absorbed the rest while blocking and dodging, building up a brutal counterattack. When they unwittingly attracted a floating lightbulb to their right hand, Graig quickly unleashed the counterattack directly at it, exploding and melting it while leaving a lightning pattern on their scorched arm.
This also lead to a boost in the group’s attack, temporarily overloading and blinding them, both of which their Bys’ tried to circumvent and suppress. At that exact moment, the police arrived and took them down simultaneously.
​

​
A single nod, and he was gone, leaving no trace of his existence except a puzzled Trackler.
​
Back in the front of the van, he was kneeling over the toilet, vomiting while his Bio-Electricity was out of control, sending bolts all over the place. After he finished, he weakly crawled to his bed and partially got in.
​
“Ugh, that’s… No… Even worse.”
​

​
“T-thanks…”
​
He was out like a light.

The idea of a prison planet, policed by malevolent Archons who feed off our emotional states and seek to keep up trapped in this plane of existence to serve the ends of an entity called the Demiurge is a gnostic concept, also held by Cathar and Bogomill sects of christianity who all reject the material world as immoral and evil and saw the souls purpose in life to escape this realm through attaining various personal attributes that were similar but specific to each sect, the Cathars for example were celibate and vegetarian. Contemporaneous to them we have Hermetics who while quite similar in philosophy to the gnostics felt instead that the material world was more like a puzzle to be solved and a test to be passed rather than prison from which to escape.
Ive noticed that this sub focuses quite heavily on these schools and while its mostly great information, the purpose of this post is to extend some what into a couple various other mythologies and religions that centred their belief systems around this world being something that we are designed to escape/transcend or otherwise overcome
Mayan
Mayan mythology holds that when a person dies, their soul would enter Xibalba to face a series of tests and challenges. These trials would determine the fate of the soul in the afterlife. If the soul was deemed worthy, it would be allowed to continue on to the afterlife, but if it failed the tests, it would be trapped in Xibalba forever.
The Trials of Xibalba, were a series of tests that the Mayan people believed a person's soul would have to pass through in order to reach the afterlife. According to Mayan mythology, Xibalba was a treacherous place filled with dangerous creatures, deadly traps, and supernatural beings, and those who wished to reach the afterlife had to be strong enough to overcome the challenges that awaited them. The trials were divided into a series of tasks, each one designed to test the soul's strength and courage. The first task involved passing through a river filled with scorpions and blood, without touching the water. The second task was to spend a night in a cold and dark room, where the soul would be tested by the spirits of disease and death. The third task involved a test of the soul's ability to think and reason. The soul was presented with a series of riddles and puzzles, and had to solve them in order to move on. The fourth task was a test of the soul's physical strength, as it was required to climb a sharp thorny tree that reached to the sky. The fifth task was a test of the soul's courage, as it was required to walk through a field of blades that moved and cut like razors. The sixth task was to play a ball game against the Lords of Xibalba, which was a crucial ritual in Mayan culture and held religious significance. Those who were successful in passing the trials were allowed to continue on to the afterlife, while those who failed were condemned to remain in Xibalba forever. The Trials of Xibalba were seen as a metaphor for the struggles of life, and represented the importance of bravery, strength, and wisdom in the face of adversity.
Hindu
In Hinduism, Yama is the god of death and the lord of the afterlife. According to Hindu mythology, Yama is responsible for judging the souls of the deceased and determining their fate in the afterlife. When a person dies, their soul is believed to leave the body and travel to Yama's realm, which is known as Yamaloka. Here, the soul is said to be greeted by Yama and his assistants, who then review the soul's life and deeds. This process is often described as a trial or judgment, in which the soul is held accountable for its actions and their consequences. Based on the outcome of the judgment, the soul may be sent to different realms of existence. For those who have lived virtuous lives, they may be sent to Svarga or heaven, where they can enjoy the rewards of their good deeds. For those who have lived wicked or sinful lives, they may be sent to Naraka or hell, where they must suffer punishment for their misdeeds. In addition to Svarga and Naraka, there are believed to be other realms of existence that souls may be sent to, depending on their karma and the nature of their actions. These include realms of pleasure, realms of suffering, and realms of rebirth. The journey to Yama's realm is often described as a perilous one, with the soul facing various obstacles and challenges along the way. Hindu texts describe various rituals and practices that can be performed to help ensure a safe and successful journey for the soul, including prayers, offerings, and acts of charity. By performing these actions, it is believed that one can help secure a favorable judgment from Yama and a positive outcome in the afterlife.
Zoroastrianism
According to Zoroastrian beliefs, after a person dies, their soul must cross a bridge called Chinvat Bridge, which leads to the realm of judgment, where their deeds and actions are weighed against a feather. If the person's good deeds outweigh their bad deeds, their soul is allowed to cross the bridge and enter into the blissful realm of paradise known as the House of Song (Garodman). Here, they will be reunited with their loved ones and enjoy the company of the righteous for eternity. The House of Song is said to be filled with beautiful gardens, flowing rivers, and other delights that are beyond the imagination of mortal humans. On the other hand, if the person's bad deeds outweigh their good deeds, their soul is prevented from crossing the bridge and is cast into the realm of punishment known as the House of Lies (Duzakh). This is a place of torment, where the soul is subjected to intense heat and cold, thirst and hunger, and other forms of suffering for eternity. The souls of the righteous are aided in their journey to paradise by the presence of a divine guide or angel, while the souls of the wicked are tormented by demons and evil spirits. The journey through the afterlife is seen as a continuation of the struggle between good and evil that is central to Zoroastrianism, and as an opportunity for the soul to attain spiritual perfection and enlightenment.
Sumerian Mythology
In Sumerian mythology, the concept of the gates of heaven referred to a series of seven gates that stood between the mortal world and the realm of the gods. Each gate was guarded by a deity, and in order to pass through, one needed to recite the correct spells and incantations, as well as prove their worthiness through good deeds and righteous behavior. The seven gates were associated with various celestial bodies, such as the Sun, the Moon, and the planets, and were believed to be located in the eastern mountains. The gates were said to be made of precious metals and stones, and were adorned with images of mythical creatures and symbols of power and authority. The gates of heaven were not just physical barriers, but also represented spiritual and moral challenges that individuals had to overcome in order to reach the realm of the gods. In order to pass through each gate, one had to demonstrate their worthiness and purity of heart, as well as show their devotion to the gods and their adherence to the laws and principles of society. The concept of the gates of heaven was significant in Sumerian religion because it represented the idea of ascension and transcendence, and the belief that humans could achieve a higher state of existence through spiritual and moral development. It also reflected the complex cosmology of the Sumerians, which placed great importance on the stars and celestial bodies, and believed that the gods controlled the forces of the universe.
So obviously with the Sumerians being the spiritual progenitor of Babylonians, Akkadians, Greeks, Romans, European pagans etc And the Hindus paving the way for the Buddhist, Jainist and other eastern traditions And the Zoroastrians being a major influencing factor of the Essenes sect of Judaism that Jesus was a part of, we can see the influence of these belief systems have had

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Journal of Camille Lambert - April 14th (Part 2)
​
I closed my eyes, resting my head against the seat of the car as we drove. I could feel Dom’s hand resting over mine, reminding me of his presence.
​
Neither of us spoke… and really, I wasn’t sure what there was to say. The night before as we’d sat in the ruined church, watching Puriysk burn, we’d talked a little bit about what was waiting for us but I honestly don’t remember much about that conversation. We hadn’t talked much about what had happened in Bakersfield or Rankin Mills although we both knew what we’d lost. Friends, family, and things we would never get back. I suppose we both knew that there’d be time to mourn afterward if there even was an afterward.
​
Right now, the grief wasn’t important.
​
What was important was getting to Parsons, killing Ben Calhoun, and doing it before he either dragged another town into this Hell he had created or the hive-minded God we’d unleashed found a way to escape.
“We should count ourselves lucky that Milo had foresight…” Gretchen said, drawing Dom’s attention away from me.
​
“Why’s that?” He asked.
“These rounds are already cursed. Saves me the trouble… it must have taken a considerable amount of time to set that up. I suppose it makes sense, he most likely brought these along intending for them to be used on the Nightwalkers. Cursing them is simply pragmatic.”
“And he didn’t think to give me some of those?” Nina asked, pretending to sound hurt.
​
“You were meant to be a more subtle operator… presumably as a joke,” Gretchen replied. “This kind of firepower would have been impractical. The men in Puriysk were intended as more of an assault team. Milo’s goal was to take Parsons by force. Crush them with overwhelming opposition. Besides… judging by the stores I saw in the armory, Milo clearly did not expect to have to deal with the Nightwalkers on the scale that we encountered them last night. I don’t think he anticipated that Calhoun would have the means to control them and to be fair, neither did I. Had that possibility occurred to me, I would have warned him. Either way, it hardly matters. Those munitions would not have been sufficient to repel that kind of assault. Really, I’m not sure anything in our arsenal could have.”
​
“Well that’s reassuring,” Nina murmured. “It’s not like we’re about to knock on his door in the next few hours.”
“We’ve survived once, so it’s statistically possible that we can survive again,” Gretchen replied.
“Statistically po… well thanks for the vote of fucking confidence!” Nina snapped, “You got any other words of inspiration?”
“Not of inspiration, no. Would you like me to prophecies our doom instead?”
If looks could kill, then the glare that Nina shot Gretchen would have ended her.
“I’m not talking to you anymore!”
​
Strangely enough, watching those two bicker was kind of comforting and made me crack a slight smile. I wondered if they both knew that too, and were only arguing like an old married couple because it made them both feel better about what was to come.
I suspected it did.
​
***
​
Through the mist up ahead, I could see a stone archway in the road. It was far more ornate than anything I’d ever seen before, looking more like something out of a fairy tale than anything else. From the corner of my eye, I could see Dom staring intently at it.
“That’s it…” He said softly, “That’s the gate.”
​
Underneath the gate, I could see several parked cars, forming a makeshift barricade and a pair of men standing in front of them, guns at the ready. One of them was already starting to approach the car, a hand held up and warning us to stop. Nina seemed to hesitate for a moment before finally slowing down.
​
“Dom, pass me my gun,” She said calmly before putting her mask on and rolling down the window.
“Wherever you’re coming from, Parsons is closed!” The man in the road called, “Turn around and go back! Go any further and we will shoot!”
“The fuck it’s closed! I’ve got people from Thompson Falls in here!” Nina called back, “Some kind of bullshit happened the other night, I need to get these people to safety!”
​
The man in the road looked over toward one of his companions who came up and said something to him.
“I’m afraid you’re gonna have to turn around and go back the way you came,” He said. “There’s some kind of infection out there. We’ve got strict orders not to let anyone in!”
“Yeah, we’re aware of the infection, fucknuts! Why do you think we’re wearing masks? And where the fuck else are we supposed to go? Bakersfield and Rankin Mills are all fucked up, somebody set Puriysk on fucking fire! I’ve got one of your boys in here, he told me where to go, and I’ve got a doctor in here! She could help!”
Again, the man in the road consulted with his friend.
​
“We can talk to Sheriff Brown about letting you in, and we can let you past this archway while you wait. But we need to confirm you’re not infected first. We need everyone in the car to stick out a hand. I’m going to take a lighter, and see how you react to the flame, does that sound fair?”
“Sheriff Brown…?” Dom asked before realizing what that probably meant.
​
Judging by the look on Nina’s face, I knew she’d figured it out too. Looks like McClellan had already been replaced.
“Do what you’ve got to do,” She asked not dropping the act. Dom passed her the shotgun and we watched as one of the men behind the cars went over to a small house behind the archway. I saw him coming out with a phone and yelling something to the guy in front of our car.
“Before we start, I’m gonna need some names for the Sheriff. We’ve got him on the phone.”
“Tell him we’ve got Dr. Morbius in here, he’ll know who it is!”
​
The guy in the road relayed the name back to the guy on the phone, who was quiet for a moment. Then, he turned and said something quietly to one of the other men near him, watching us intently all the while. The man he’d spoken to walked out to whisper to the man in the road, who just kept staring at us.
They knew who we were. I was certain of it.
“I’m gonna need you people to stay put for a minute,” The man in the road said, “We’re gonna let you in… but first we need to confirm you’re not infected. Alright?”
​
He held up his hands to show they were empty, then reached down into his pocket for a lighter before slowly approaching us, moving off to the side as he went toward the driver's side door and out of the way, giving his buddies by the cars a clear target. I could see them taking aim and knew they’d probably start shooting before their friend actually got there.
​
Nina looked over at Gretchen, who gave a knowing nod.
​
In one fluid motion, Nina took her hands off the wheel and grabbed the gun out of her lap. She fired out the window twice, bathing the man in the road in fire before he could take a single step closer. The car was launched forward as she hit the gas and Gretchen grabbed hold of the steering wheel, keeping it straight as Nina fired blindly toward the other men, showering them in sparks and lead.
“IT’S MORBIN TIME!” She howled, cackling like a complete psychopath as she did.
​
Gretchen gave a violent wave of her hand. I watched the ground beneath the cars barricading beneath the archway shift, pulling them out of our way. One of the men topped to the ground, losing his footing and ending up under the wheels of our car as we sped through. Nina fired at the men behind us a few times, although I don’t think she actually hit any of them. Looking back at the archway as we left it behind, I could see two men impotently shooting at us, over the bodies of about two or three of their friends.
​
Parsons was just ahead of us now. No going back. The mist grew lighter as we left the forest behind, and with the trees gone, I looked upon the town of Parsons for the first time in my life. The sight of it almost left me speechless.
​
Parsons reminded me a little bit of the town we’d seen in Estonia. There was a certain kind of timeless beauty to the architecture there. Lovingly crafted brick buildings and cobblestone streets awaited us ahead. The sun shone brighter here than I’d seen anywhere else too. The mist wasn’t quite so thick, and it made the quiet streets seem so much more picturesque. I hadn’t thought that something so beautiful could exist here… and yet here it was. I looked up at the buildings we passed, utterly spellbound by them and I almost felt sorry that Nina was probably going to set everything on fire in the next hour or so.
​
“Fascinating…” Gretchen said, already reaching for her notebook, “This architecture clearly was not part of Parsons when it disappeared! Calhoun has certainly made some improvements. I wonder who designed these?”
​
As I explored the skyline, my eyes were drawn to one building in particular, a large house near the center of town. Something about its architecture of it was… strange. It was hard to look at it clearly and trace where some parts began and others ended. Trying to figure it all out gave me a headache.
“That’s Calhoun’s house,” Dom said, pointing at it. “If we’re going to find him, that’s probably the place to look.”
“Let’s go see if he’s home,” Nina replied, steering down one of the cobblestone streets toward Calhoun’s house.
​
As we drove, I noticed just how empty the streets were. In Puriysk, we’d at least seen a few people out and about but Parsons seemed almost completely abandoned. I wasn’t the only one who noticed it either.
“Thought this was supposed to be a town… y’know, with people living in it,” Nina murmured.
​
“Given the threat of the Rosen Prince, Calhoun may have had the foresight to either get them out or lock them down,” Gretchen offered. “At least until he could deal with the problem directly.”
“In the event of an emergency, we did a few drills on how to get people out,” Dom said. “I think McClellan’s predecessor set it all up although McClellan himself only really did the drills out of obligation.”
​
“They had an actual emergency plan here?” Nina asked, half impressed.
“Like I said, it was the Sheriff before McClellan who set it up. Supposedly the plan was to have something similar in all the towns, although McClellan always said we didn’t have the resources for anything like that.”
“Right, no resources…” Nina said, looking out the window as we drove past a statue of Calhoun set in a lush green park. “Dare I ask how McClellan ended up Sheriff, and what happened to the other guy?”
​
Dom shrugged.
“Y’know, now that I think about it nobody ever really discussed it. The whole thing was before my time but I heard some rumors. Supposedly he’d had an ‘accident’ outside one night. Got torn apart by the Nightwalkers. But the Nightwalkers were never as much of a problem in Parsons. And I’ve heard a few of the older Deputy’s mention how Calhoun and the old Sheriff had some sort of falling out.”
Nina whistled.
“Wow… shocking,” She said.
​
As we turned down another road, I heard a crackle of static coming from the streets around us, followed by a voice.
“Nina Valentine? You know, McClellan didn’t think you’d ever make it to Parsons but I had a gut feeling you would… you’re not as stupid as you look.”
​
That cold voice sent a chill through me, and I swear I saw Dom tensing up as well. It’d been a few days since we’d heard the voice of Kevin Brown, and the knowledge that he was still alive was anything but pleasant.
“Oh hey, Kev’s here!” Nina said, sounding almost happy to hear him.
​
“So in anticipation of your arrival, and to protect against whatever plague you and your people unleashed against us, I’ve made sure to take every precaution in ensuring that you and your friends receive a warm Parsons welcome!”
​
Almost on cue, I saw Sheriff’s Boys running out onto the street ahead of us and heard the gunshots almost immediately. Nina ducked down, swerving the car as bullets shattered the windshield. She hit the gas, speeding toward the Sheriff’s Boys and barreling into them at top speed. Through the cracks that spiderwebbed across the windshield, I saw one body crashing against the hood of the car and rolling up onto the roof.
​
The SUV crashed hard into a nearby building, causing Nina to slam against the steering wheel. Dom and I were thrown against the seats in front of us although Gretchen barely seemed to move.
“FUCKER!” Nina spat, before grabbing her shotgun, and ducking down as another hail of gunfire erupted from behind us, ripping apart the rear window of the SUV. Dom and I both ducked down to avoid getting hit, as did Nina.
​
Gretchen just calmly looked back through the rear window, as if nothing was wrong.
“That’s inconvenient,” She said before fixing her jacket and casually opening the door to the car.
“The fuck are you doing?!” Nina snapped.
“Attribution spell,” Gretchen replied, and without another word stepped out of the car.
​
I watched her through the window as the Sheriff’s Boys took aim at her, and I could see the bullets hitting the bricks of the building behind her. I could see the way her body moved every time a bullet struck her.
​
But not a single mark appeared on her.
​
Looking over the seat, I saw that the same could not be said for the Sheriff’s Boys. Several of them now lay dead on the ground, while others clawed at their wounds, screaming in pain. Most of those still standing had stopped shooting and had paused, now regarding Gretchen with quiet horror, trying to make sense of the impossible thing that had just happened to them.
“Are we finished?” She asked, “Excellent! Now…”
​
The ground moved beneath her. I saw her dagger appear in her hand as she drew it violently across the throat of the nearest member of the Sheriff’s Boys. The other shrank back in fear, one mindlessly shooting at her. His bullet struck her in the head, and so his own skull burst in response.
​
Gretchen moved on to the next, moving the ground beneath his feet to bring him closer to her, and driving her knife into his stomach. One of the other Boys reached for his own dagger and lunged for her, driving it into her back. He screamed in pain as the wound appeared on him instead and Gretchen just calmly turned around and sank her fangs into his throat. With a flick of her wrist, the cobblestones in the road were torn up, bombarding the remaining Sheriff’s Boys who tried to flee in a blind panic, only to find themselves downrange of Nina as she got out of the car, and unleashed burning hell upon them with every pull of her trigger.
​
Gretchen pulled the screaming man closer, her mouth wet with his blood. Then, as he gurgled and choked she tossed him back to the ground.
“Inadequate,” She said, taking a handkerchief out of her coat and daintily wiping her mouth with it, “Very poor quality.”
​
Dom and I got out of the car next.
“We’ve still got a few blocks to Calhoun’s place,” He said. “We should move, now!”
Before Nina could respond to that, more gunshots rang out from down the street.
​
“Listen up, Boys, we have four high priority targets on the streets of Parsons right now!” Kevin announced, “Get out there and start shooting, and for whoever brings me the head of the blonde one… I’ll make it worth your while. Happy hunting, Boys!”
​
As the Sheriff’s Boys shot at us, Nina took off toward the nearest building, gesturing for the rest of us to follow her. Dom and I started running immediately, but Gretchen held back. I saw her eyes drift toward one of the nearby buildings. She focused on it for a moment, before reaching out, curling her fingers as if she were grabbing hold of something. I saw the building move. I saw the brick starting to crack. She seemed to pull at it, gritting her teeth as she did. The building buckled slightly and Gretchen finally let it go, allowing gravity to do the rest of the work as she ran to follow us.
​
Nina paused, looking back as the building collapsed down onto the oncoming Sheriff’s Boys, and blocking off the rest of the street. I saw her struggling not to look impressed as she traded a look with Gretchen.
“So you could just do that the whole time, and you still let the Rosen Prince out?” She asked.
Gretchen just sighed and shook her head, as we disappeared into the building.
​
Once upon a time, I think the building we were in used to be a cafe. Now it was silent and empty. Dom pulled ahead of Nina as we made our way through.
“If we can get over to the next street, I think we can get back on track,” He said. “That should be Parsons main street.”
“Great, think we can collapse any more buildings to make it easier?” Nina asked.
“I can try,” Gretchen said, “Although if you must know, that isn’t exactly easy for me. It’s not an ability that comes naturally and I’ve never used it on this kind of scale before.”
“Well, you’re gonna learn,” Nina said with a shrug as we went out back through the kitchen. Dom led us through a back door, into an alley filled with dumpsters and drainage pipes.
​
“This way,” He said, gesturing for us to follow. Up ahead, through another alley leading to one of the streets, I could see one of the Sheriff’s Boys rounding the corner. He froze at the sight of us and raised his rifle, but Dom shot first. The sparks caught on his clothes, making him stagger back although he didn’t fall. An open flame had caught on his sleeve, leaving him screaming and swatting frantically at it before Dom fired again, sending him tumbling to the ground.
​
I saw two more of his buddies rounding the corner to investigate. The first one took an entire barrel of flaming shotgun pellets to the face, courtesy of Nina. He was dead before he’d even finished rounding the corner. The other one made the mistake of turning to look at his dead companion and was blown away as well.
"Well… good news, it’s just these assholes we have to deal with,” Nina said as we went back into the alley. “Kinda nice, for a change!”
​
We cut through the alley, making it back out onto the street. I could see some more of the Sheriff’s Boys, although they took care of themselves by shooting at Gretchen as we dove back into cover.
“We’re not done just yet,” She warned, irritably fixing her coat again. “Let’s go.”
​
“So you’ve come, in defiance of everything I’ve done to stop you?” A calm voice asked through the speakers. I recognized this one as Calhoun’s. “I have been kind. I have been patient… I let you take Puriysk and when you were done, I pushed you to leave. But you don’t respond to kindness, do you? No. You need a firmer hand and you leave me with few other choices…”
​
The street we were on grew darker, and all of us paused, looking up toward the sky. We watched as the sun… or whatever it was in this world that we called the sun, began to change. It seemed to flicker around the edges, the flickering growing more and more violent, like a candle about to go out. A shadow seemed to bleed in from the outside as the sun faded away, dissolving into a darkening sky until nothing was left and shrouding the street around us in darkness.
“Well that’s not good,” Nina said, looking up at where the sun used to be.
​
Almost like a comedic afterthought, the lanterns on the street flickered to life, casting a dull electronic glow on us.
“Attention, attention! All members of the Sheriff’s Boys get to cover, immediately!” Kevin said over the PA, “I repeat, all members of the Sheriff’s Boys get to cover immediately!”
​
Nobody needed to say it out loud, we all knew that we needed to run.
​
We took off down the street, guns at the ready as we made our final push to Calhoun’s house. Up ahead, I could see several of the Sheriff’s Boys ushering more of their buddies out of one of the alleys. I noticed one of them glancing in our direction, although nobody gave them the opportunity to start shooting. The one who’d looked at us was hit dead on by burning shotgun shells, screaming as he caught fire. I saw some of his friends jump back and heard one yell:
“GET DOWN!”
​
It didn’t do a hell of a lot of good. Nina and Dom cut ahead of us, firing at the fleeing Sheriff’s Boys, although once they noticed they had no intention of shooting back at us, they left them alone and kept on running.
​
Calhoun’s house was just up ahead, I could see it now. The twisted, impossible architecture looked almost as if it were ensnared by roots or vines, although they seemed to be part of the stone and not actually part of some plant.
“Just up ahead…” Dom said, cutting ahead of the pack a little, although when the gunfire started again, he went crashing to the ground, diving for cover behind the stone stairs of one of the nearby buildings. I think he might have sworn, but his voice was drowned out by the sound of gunfire. I noticed him pressing a hand to his shoulder and dove down by the stairs to join him.
​
“Are you alright?” I asked, trying to get a look at the wound.
“I-I’m fine, just a graze…” He stammered, before peeking out over the stairs to see Gretchen standing between us and the Sheriff’s Boys, trying her damndest to hold them off.
I saw Nina just up ahead, taking advantage of Gretchen’s distraction to get around them. I could see the flash as she unloaded her shotgun at the unseen gunmen. I counted about six of them, taking refuge on the other side of the street. One was struck by a cobblestone Gretchen had pulled up and knocked out into the open, only to be set alight by a blast from Nina’s gun. Another was trying to get around Gretchen, and I raised my .22 to take aim at him.
​
Taking a deep breath, I pulled the trigger. My first few shots missed, but the third or fourth caught him in the stomach, sending him down to the ground. He tried to stand and I aimed down the sight, squeezing the trigger two more times. I know that at least one of them hit. I saw him press a hand to his neck, as he collapsed onto his side and even through the darkness I could see his eyes burning into mine.
​
Those eyes… I knew I’d never forget them.
​
Nina kept shooting, pushing the Sheriff’s Boys back the way they came. Her gun clicked, and I saw her reach for the pistol she kept and shoot with that instead. I saw one man fall, while the others retreated into an alley between the buildings.
"Get up!" I urged, Dom. “We’re almost there!”
​
I pulled him to his feet, keeping my gun trained on the alley the Sheriff’s Boys had run into as if I knew what I was doing. He found his legs quickly as we made our way to the gates of Calhoun’s house and into his courtyard.
​
The courtyard was lush and overgrown with greenery. With the right hands, it could have been a beautiful garden, but instead, Calhoun had allowed weeds and vines to grow rampant instead. Even the fountain near the center was almost overflowing with vines and the water from it only flowed at a pathetic trickle.
​
Nina looked back anxiously out onto the street, before looking ahead to Calhoun’s house. I imagine it was just as much of an eyesore to her as it was to me.
“You’re wounded,” Gretchen said, coming to Dom’s side.
“Just a graze,” He assured her, “Honestly considering how many people were shooting at us, I think we’re lucky that’s all we got!”
​
Gretchen ignored him to examine the wound instead, although stopped fussing once she saw that it really was just a graze.
“Listen up, Boys! If you’re not in cover, find it now! We’ve got reports of Nightwalkers in the lower districts! We’re sending in heavy armor! Get off the streets, now!” Kevin said over the PA.
“Welp, you heard the man,” Nina said. She took the magazine out of her shotgun and replaced it with a spare before heading toward the house although she paused when she saw what else was looming in front of her.
​
We saw the eye first. The sigil of a single, crimson eye burning through the darkness. Then we saw the beast, lumbering out of the shadows. Its body was massive and thick with muscle. Its head was pale and emaciated, with sunken beady eyes and a lipless mouth lined with jagged teeth. Atop its head were jutting elk horns, overgrown with moss and weeds. The sigil burned bright on its forehead and marked it as Calhoun’s final emissary.
​
“Yup… that seems just about right,” Nina said with a sigh as the Horned Nightwalker lumbered toward her. She raised her shotgun and got off only a few shots before it hit her, launching her across the courtyard and sending her to the ground in a tangled heap.
​
Dom was up next, shooting at it as it came for us, although before it could get close, the ground beneath it shifted, bringing it closer to Gretchen. The Nightwalker almost fell but recovered quickly. It brought one massive hand down on the spot where she’d been just a few moments before, as the shifting ground moved her away from it and closer to the fountain. Gretchen gestured with her hand, pulling the water out of the fountain and forming it into a jagged shard of ice. With a flick of her wrist, that ice pierced the chest of the Nightwalker, earning a cry of frustration from it.
​
Nina had stumbled to her feet again and was taking aim at the Nightwalker, firing round after round at it. It tried to shield its face as the moss on its body was set alight. Despite the flames, the Nightwalker hardly seemed phased. Even as Gretchen impaled it on another spear of ice, it only struggled to get free, either unwilling or unable to die.
​
“Must I do this for all of your pawns, Calhoun?” Gretchen growled, reaching for the revolver in her coat, she took a step back to aim it, although before she could fire, something lunged at her from the shadows, knocking her off her feet. The revolver skidded out of her hands, landing near the fountain.
​
In the low light, I watched as Gretchen tried to fight off the thing that had landed on her. It looked almost like a lion or a tiger, although the face was all wrong and the mouth was too wide. I saw it clawing at her, before leaping back suddenly as the gashes appeared on its own stomach. The Tiger Nightwalker hissed, glaring at Gretchen before noticing Nina taking aim at it. It had just enough time to give one last roar before she shot it, engulfing it in flames and sending it tearing away at top speed, although it didn’t seem to make it far before it was on the ground, screaming and rolling to try and get the fire out.
​
Gretchen tried to crawl toward the gun, reaching a hand out to beckon it closer to her. I saw the gun move about an inch before the Horned Nightwalker came for her.
​
Its fist came down hard on her leg, hard enough that it should have broken it. Although instead, I saw the Nightwalker’s leg bend violently. It screamed in pain, sliding down further along the spear of ice Gretchen had impaled it with, before grabbing her by the leg and hurling her across the courtyard. She hit the ground hard, and let out a cry of genuine pain before trying to pick herself up.
“Valentine… the Gun!” She gasped.
​
I saw Nina make a mad dash for the revolver, as inhuman cries sounded all around us. I could see other Nightwalkers coming. One that looked like a gray, naked man sprinted toward Dom and I. Dom blew it away with a blast from his shotgun.
​
Nina almost made it to the revolver, just as the Horned Nightwalker broke free of the ice spear. It swept its fist, knocking Nina forward and over the fountain, before lumbering toward her.
​
Dom was busy with the Nightwalkers, and I could see the revolver. I ran for it, grabbing it off the ground and taking aim at the Horned Nightwalker as it advanced on Nina. I took aim, just about to pull the trigger when from the corner of my eye, I saw headlights shining into the courtyard as a truck sped in.
“Let’s see you assholes live through this!” A voice on a megaphone called out from inside.
​
Kevin.
​
I noticed something on top of the truck, and only had half a second to move once I realized what it was. There was some kind of gun on top of that truck.
​
It had started shooting before I dove behind the fountain. I saw Dom stumble back, running for cover as well. Over the megaphone, I could hear Kevin laughing.
​
The truck circled the fountain, only barely missing the Horned Nightwalker, who ignored it in favor of chasing Nina. I watched as Nina leaped into the fountain itself and ducked low, trying to keep herself from being shot and crushed by two different problems.
​
On the far side of the courtyard, Gretchen was on her feet again. I heard the scrape of the earth as she moved the ground underneath the truck, causing it to fishtail. The rear end of it slammed against the fountain. I saw whoever was manning the gun at the top of the truck slam against their gun, before hastily righting themselves. They looked at Gretchen, who stared them down knowingly and waited for them to open fire.
​
It went about as well as one might have expected.
​
He pulled the trigger, unleashing a hail of bullets onto her and as he did, I saw his body torn apart by the impact.
“JESUS CHRIST!” I heard Kevin say from inside as the truck's tires squealed and the driver tried to move it again.
​
I looked over at Nina and saw her still in the fountain, trying to use the lovingly sculpted tiers, overgrown with vines to keep the Horned Nightwalker from getting to her. It just smashed them without a second thought and shrugged off the idle blasts from her shotgun that she fired to try and cover her retreat as she scrambled out of the fountain again. Dom was running to Nina’s side, trying to distract it and cover her escape.
​
I raised the revolver, taking aim at the Nightwalker again, before noticing that the space around me had suddenly grown a lot brighter. I turned to see Kevin’s truck racing toward me and tried to hastily stumble out of the way.
​
I wasn’t fast enough. The truck clipped me, sending me to the ground. The revolver slipped out of my hand, landing in some of the nearby vines. My ears rang and white hot pain erupted through my body as I tried to convince my body to move. I looked up toward the truck, to see it skidding to a halt and I saw somebody pushing the dead man out of the gunner's seat. Somebody new replaced him, and though I could only barely see his face, I already knew who it was.
​
Kevin.
​
He took aim at me, and I stared down the barrel of his gun, waiting for him to fire. But before he could, something gangly and luminous leaped onto the back of his truck, clawing frantically to climb up and reach him. Kevin jerked the gun around, eyes widening in horror as he came face to face with the Rosen Prince.
​
Unfortunately, he had the good sense to start shooting.
​
The familiar scream of the Rosen echoed through the courtyard. I looked over toward the gate to see countless more, just like the one Kevin was trying to kill pouring in and climbing the fence. I saw a few of them sprint across the courtyard, leaping onto the Horned Nightwalker, and unleashing their shimmering spores onto it.
​
I reached for the cluster of vines I’d seen the revolver fall into, only to feel Gretchen’s hand gripping the back of my shirt and pulling me to my feet.
“The gun!” I cried, trying to gesture to where it was.
“No time,” She replied, before putting her hand on the fountain.
​
I felt the ground shift beneath us as the entire fountain rotated, bringing us closer to the door. The Horned Nightwalker clawed at the Rosen upon its back, and I could see Kevin had become more preoccupied shooting at the newcomers, as opposed to shooting at us. Nina and Dom were already running for the door.
“Just fucking go!” Nina yelled, waving us inside.
​
Gretchen and I turned, running up the steps and toward the twisted door ahead of us. I was the first there. My hand closed around the doorknob and I threw it open and barreled inside. Once the others were through, I slammed it shut.
​
As soon as it was closed, I watched Gretchen take her knife from her coat. She hastily cut open her palm and marked a sigil on the door in her own blood.
“This should keep them out for a while,” She said, “But I’d suggest we conclude our business here quickly,”

First Entry
Second Entry
Third Entry
Fourth Entry ​
Fifth Entry
Sixth Entry
Seventh Entry
Eighth Entry
Ninth Entry
Journal of Camille Lambert - April 14th (Part 2)
​
I closed my eyes, resting my head against the seat of the car as we drove. I could feel Dom’s hand resting over mine, reminding me of his presence.
​
Neither of us spoke… and really, I wasn’t sure what there was to say. The night before as we’d sat in the ruined church, watching Puriysk burn, we’d talked a little bit about what was waiting for us but I honestly don’t remember much about that conversation. We hadn’t talked much about what had happened in Bakersfield or Rankin Mills although we both knew what we’d lost. Friends, family, and things we would never get back. I suppose we both knew that there’d be time to mourn afterward if there even was an afterward.
​
Right now, the grief wasn’t important.
​
What was important was getting to Parsons, killing Ben Calhoun, and doing it before he either dragged another town into this Hell he had created or the hive-minded God we’d unleashed found a way to escape.
“We should count ourselves lucky that Milo had foresight…” Gretchen said, drawing Dom’s attention away from me.
​
“Why’s that?” He asked.
“These rounds are already cursed. Saves me the trouble… it must have taken a considerable amount of time to set that up. I suppose it makes sense, he most likely brought these along intending for them to be used on the Nightwalkers. Cursing them is simply pragmatic.”
“And he didn’t think to give me some of those?” Nina asked, pretending to sound hurt.
​
“You were meant to be a more subtle operator… presumably as a joke,” Gretchen replied. “This kind of firepower would have been impractical. The men in Puriysk were intended as more of an assault team. Milo’s goal was to take Parsons by force. Crush them with overwhelming opposition. Besides… judging by the stores I saw in the armory, Milo clearly did not expect to have to deal with the Nightwalkers on the scale that we encountered them last night. I don’t think he anticipated that Calhoun would have the means to control them and to be fair, neither did I. Had that possibility occurred to me, I would have warned him. Either way, it hardly matters. Those munitions would not have been sufficient to repel that kind of assault. Really, I’m not sure anything in our arsenal could have.”
​
“Well that’s reassuring,” Nina murmured. “It’s not like we’re about to knock on his door in the next few hours.”
“We’ve survived once, so it’s statistically possible that we can survive again,” Gretchen replied.
“Statistically po… well thanks for the vote of fucking confidence!” Nina snapped, “You got any other words of inspiration?”
“Not of inspiration, no. Would you like me to prophecies our doom instead?”
If looks could kill, then the glare that Nina shot Gretchen would have ended her.
“I’m not talking to you anymore!”
​
Strangely enough, watching those two bicker was kind of comforting and made me crack a slight smile. I wondered if they both knew that too, and were only arguing like an old married couple because it made them both feel better about what was to come.
I suspected it did.
​
***
​
Through the mist up ahead, I could see a stone archway in the road. It was far more ornate than anything I’d ever seen before, looking more like something out of a fairy tale than anything else. From the corner of my eye, I could see Dom staring intently at it.
“That’s it…” He said softly, “That’s the gate.”
​
Underneath the gate, I could see several parked cars, forming a makeshift barricade and a pair of men standing in front of them, guns at the ready. One of them was already starting to approach the car, a hand held up and warning us to stop. Nina seemed to hesitate for a moment before finally slowing down.
​
“Dom, pass me my gun,” She said calmly before putting her mask on and rolling down the window.
“Wherever you’re coming from, Parsons is closed!” The man in the road called, “Turn around and go back! Go any further and we will shoot!”
“The fuck it’s closed! I’ve got people from Thompson Falls in here!” Nina called back, “Some kind of bullshit happened the other night, I need to get these people to safety!”
​
The man in the road looked over toward one of his companions who came up and said something to him.
“I’m afraid you’re gonna have to turn around and go back the way you came,” He said. “There’s some kind of infection out there. We’ve got strict orders not to let anyone in!”
“Yeah, we’re aware of the infection, fucknuts! Why do you think we’re wearing masks? And where the fuck else are we supposed to go? Bakersfield and Rankin Mills are all fucked up, somebody set Puriysk on fucking fire! I’ve got one of your boys in here, he told me where to go, and I’ve got a doctor in here! She could help!”
Again, the man in the road consulted with his friend.
​
“We can talk to Sheriff Brown about letting you in, and we can let you past this archway while you wait. But we need to confirm you’re not infected first. We need everyone in the car to stick out a hand. I’m going to take a lighter, and see how you react to the flame, does that sound fair?”
“Sheriff Brown…?” Dom asked before realizing what that probably meant.
​
Judging by the look on Nina’s face, I knew she’d figured it out too. Looks like McClellan had already been replaced.
“Do what you’ve got to do,” She asked not dropping the act. Dom passed her the shotgun and we watched as one of the men behind the cars went over to a small house behind the archway. I saw him coming out with a phone and yelling something to the guy in front of our car.
“Before we start, I’m gonna need some names for the Sheriff. We’ve got him on the phone.”
“Tell him we’ve got Dr. Morbius in here, he’ll know who it is!”
​
The guy in the road relayed the name back to the guy on the phone, who was quiet for a moment. Then, he turned and said something quietly to one of the other men near him, watching us intently all the while. The man he’d spoken to walked out to whisper to the man in the road, who just kept staring at us.
They knew who we were. I was certain of it.
“I’m gonna need you people to stay put for a minute,” The man in the road said, “We’re gonna let you in… but first we need to confirm you’re not infected. Alright?”
​
He held up his hands to show they were empty, then reached down into his pocket for a lighter before slowly approaching us, moving off to the side as he went toward the driver's side door and out of the way, giving his buddies by the cars a clear target. I could see them taking aim and knew they’d probably start shooting before their friend actually got there.
​
Nina looked over at Gretchen, who gave a knowing nod.
​
In one fluid motion, Nina took her hands off the wheel and grabbed the gun out of her lap. She fired out the window twice, bathing the man in the road in fire before he could take a single step closer. The car was launched forward as she hit the gas and Gretchen grabbed hold of the steering wheel, keeping it straight as Nina fired blindly toward the other men, showering them in sparks and lead.
“IT’S MORBIN TIME!” She howled, cackling like a complete psychopath as she did.
​
Gretchen gave a violent wave of her hand. I watched the ground beneath the cars barricading beneath the archway shift, pulling them out of our way. One of the men topped to the ground, losing his footing and ending up under the wheels of our car as we sped through. Nina fired at the men behind us a few times, although I don’t think she actually hit any of them. Looking back at the archway as we left it behind, I could see two men impotently shooting at us, over the bodies of about two or three of their friends.
​
Parsons was just ahead of us now. No going back. The mist grew lighter as we left the forest behind, and with the trees gone, I looked upon the town of Parsons for the first time in my life. The sight of it almost left me speechless.
​
Parsons reminded me a little bit of the town we’d seen in Estonia. There was a certain kind of timeless beauty to the architecture there. Lovingly crafted brick buildings and cobblestone streets awaited us ahead. The sun shone brighter here than I’d seen anywhere else too. The mist wasn’t quite so thick, and it made the quiet streets seem so much more picturesque. I hadn’t thought that something so beautiful could exist here… and yet here it was. I looked up at the buildings we passed, utterly spellbound by them and I almost felt sorry that Nina was probably going to set everything on fire in the next hour or so.
​
“Fascinating…” Gretchen said, already reaching for her notebook, “This architecture clearly was not part of Parsons when it disappeared! Calhoun has certainly made some improvements. I wonder who designed these?”
​
As I explored the skyline, my eyes were drawn to one building in particular, a large house near the center of town. Something about its architecture of it was… strange. It was hard to look at it clearly and trace where some parts began and others ended. Trying to figure it all out gave me a headache.
“That’s Calhoun’s house,” Dom said, pointing at it. “If we’re going to find him, that’s probably the place to look.”
“Let’s go see if he’s home,” Nina replied, steering down one of the cobblestone streets toward Calhoun’s house.
​
As we drove, I noticed just how empty the streets were. In Puriysk, we’d at least seen a few people out and about but Parsons seemed almost completely abandoned. I wasn’t the only one who noticed it either.
“Thought this was supposed to be a town… y’know, with people living in it,” Nina murmured.
​
“Given the threat of the Rosen Prince, Calhoun may have had the foresight to either get them out or lock them down,” Gretchen offered. “At least until he could deal with the problem directly.”
“In the event of an emergency, we did a few drills on how to get people out,” Dom said. “I think McClellan’s predecessor set it all up although McClellan himself only really did the drills out of obligation.”
​
“They had an actual emergency plan here?” Nina asked, half impressed.
“Like I said, it was the Sheriff before McClellan who set it up. Supposedly the plan was to have something similar in all the towns, although McClellan always said we didn’t have the resources for anything like that.”
“Right, no resources…” Nina said, looking out the window as we drove past a statue of Calhoun set in a lush green park. “Dare I ask how McClellan ended up Sheriff, and what happened to the other guy?”
​
Dom shrugged.
“Y’know, now that I think about it nobody ever really discussed it. The whole thing was before my time but I heard some rumors. Supposedly he’d had an ‘accident’ outside one night. Got torn apart by the Nightwalkers. But the Nightwalkers were never as much of a problem in Parsons. And I’ve heard a few of the older Deputy’s mention how Calhoun and the old Sheriff had some sort of falling out.”
Nina whistled.
“Wow… shocking,” She said.
​
As we turned down another road, I heard a crackle of static coming from the streets around us, followed by a voice.
“Nina Valentine? You know, McClellan didn’t think you’d ever make it to Parsons but I had a gut feeling you would… you’re not as stupid as you look.”
​
That cold voice sent a chill through me, and I swear I saw Dom tensing up as well. It’d been a few days since we’d heard the voice of Kevin Brown, and the knowledge that he was still alive was anything but pleasant.
“Oh hey, Kev’s here!” Nina said, sounding almost happy to hear him.
​
“So in anticipation of your arrival, and to protect against whatever plague you and your people unleashed against us, I’ve made sure to take every precaution in ensuring that you and your friends receive a warm Parsons welcome!”
​
Almost on cue, I saw Sheriff’s Boys running out onto the street ahead of us and heard the gunshots almost immediately. Nina ducked down, swerving the car as bullets shattered the windshield. She hit the gas, speeding toward the Sheriff’s Boys and barreling into them at top speed. Through the cracks that spiderwebbed across the windshield, I saw one body crashing against the hood of the car and rolling up onto the roof.
​
The SUV crashed hard into a nearby building, causing Nina to slam against the steering wheel. Dom and I were thrown against the seats in front of us although Gretchen barely seemed to move.
“FUCKER!” Nina spat, before grabbing her shotgun, and ducking down as another hail of gunfire erupted from behind us, ripping apart the rear window of the SUV. Dom and I both ducked down to avoid getting hit, as did Nina.
​
Gretchen just calmly looked back through the rear window, as if nothing was wrong.
“That’s inconvenient,” She said before fixing her jacket and casually opening the door to the car.
“The fuck are you doing?!” Nina snapped.
“Attribution spell,” Gretchen replied, and without another word stepped out of the car.
​
I watched her through the window as the Sheriff’s Boys took aim at her, and I could see the bullets hitting the bricks of the building behind her. I could see the way her body moved every time a bullet struck her.
​
But not a single mark appeared on her.
​
Looking over the seat, I saw that the same could not be said for the Sheriff’s Boys. Several of them now lay dead on the ground, while others clawed at their wounds, screaming in pain. Most of those still standing had stopped shooting and had paused, now regarding Gretchen with quiet horror, trying to make sense of the impossible thing that had just happened to them.
“Are we finished?” She asked, “Excellent! Now…”
​
The ground moved beneath her. I saw her dagger appear in her hand as she drew it violently across the throat of the nearest member of the Sheriff’s Boys. The other shrank back in fear, one mindlessly shooting at her. His bullet struck her in the head, and so his own skull burst in response.
​
Gretchen moved on to the next, moving the ground beneath his feet to bring him closer to her, and driving her knife into his stomach. One of the other Boys reached for his own dagger and lunged for her, driving it into her back. He screamed in pain as the wound appeared on him instead and Gretchen just calmly turned around and sank her fangs into his throat. With a flick of her wrist, the cobblestones in the road were torn up, bombarding the remaining Sheriff’s Boys who tried to flee in a blind panic, only to find themselves downrange of Nina as she got out of the car, and unleashed burning hell upon them with every pull of her trigger.
​
Gretchen pulled the screaming man closer, her mouth wet with his blood. Then, as he gurgled and choked she tossed him back to the ground.
“Inadequate,” She said, taking a handkerchief out of her coat and daintily wiping her mouth with it, “Very poor quality.”
​
Dom and I got out of the car next.
“We’ve still got a few blocks to Calhoun’s place,” He said. “We should move, now!”
Before Nina could respond to that, more gunshots rang out from down the street.
​
“Listen up, Boys, we have four high priority targets on the streets of Parsons right now!” Kevin announced, “Get out there and start shooting, and for whoever brings me the head of the blonde one… I’ll make it worth your while. Happy hunting, Boys!”
​
As the Sheriff’s Boys shot at us, Nina took off toward the nearest building, gesturing for the rest of us to follow her. Dom and I started running immediately, but Gretchen held back. I saw her eyes drift toward one of the nearby buildings. She focused on it for a moment, before reaching out, curling her fingers as if she were grabbing hold of something. I saw the building move. I saw the brick starting to crack. She seemed to pull at it, gritting her teeth as she did. The building buckled slightly and Gretchen finally let it go, allowing gravity to do the rest of the work as she ran to follow us.
​
Nina paused, looking back as the building collapsed down onto the oncoming Sheriff’s Boys, and blocking off the rest of the street. I saw her struggling not to look impressed as she traded a look with Gretchen.
“So you could just do that the whole time, and you still let the Rosen Prince out?” She asked.
Gretchen just sighed and shook her head, as we disappeared into the building.
​
Once upon a time, I think the building we were in used to be a cafe. Now it was silent and empty. Dom pulled ahead of Nina as we made our way through.
“If we can get over to the next street, I think we can get back on track,” He said. “That should be Parsons main street.”
“Great, think we can collapse any more buildings to make it easier?” Nina asked.
“I can try,” Gretchen said, “Although if you must know, that isn’t exactly easy for me. It’s not an ability that comes naturally and I’ve never used it on this kind of scale before.”
“Well, you’re gonna learn,” Nina said with a shrug as we went out back through the kitchen. Dom led us through a back door, into an alley filled with dumpsters and drainage pipes.
​
“This way,” He said, gesturing for us to follow. Up ahead, through another alley leading to one of the streets, I could see one of the Sheriff’s Boys rounding the corner. He froze at the sight of us and raised his rifle, but Dom shot first. The sparks caught on his clothes, making him stagger back although he didn’t fall. An open flame had caught on his sleeve, leaving him screaming and swatting frantically at it before Dom fired again, sending him tumbling to the ground.
​
I saw two more of his buddies rounding the corner to investigate. The first one took an entire barrel of flaming shotgun pellets to the face, courtesy of Nina. He was dead before he’d even finished rounding the corner. The other one made the mistake of turning to look at his dead companion and was blown away as well.
"Well… good news, it’s just these assholes we have to deal with,” Nina said as we went back into the alley. “Kinda nice, for a change!”
​
We cut through the alley, making it back out onto the street. I could see some more of the Sheriff’s Boys, although they took care of themselves by shooting at Gretchen as we dove back into cover.
“We’re not done just yet,” She warned, irritably fixing her coat again. “Let’s go.”
​
“So you’ve come, in defiance of everything I’ve done to stop you?” A calm voice asked through the speakers. I recognized this one as Calhoun’s. “I have been kind. I have been patient… I let you take Puriysk and when you were done, I pushed you to leave. But you don’t respond to kindness, do you? No. You need a firmer hand and you leave me with few other choices…”
​
The street we were on grew darker, and all of us paused, looking up toward the sky. We watched as the sun… or whatever it was in this world that we called the sun, began to change. It seemed to flicker around the edges, the flickering growing more and more violent, like a candle about to go out. A shadow seemed to bleed in from the outside as the sun faded away, dissolving into a darkening sky until nothing was left and shrouding the street around us in darkness.
“Well that’s not good,” Nina said, looking up at where the sun used to be.
​
Almost like a comedic afterthought, the lanterns on the street flickered to life, casting a dull electronic glow on us.
“Attention, attention! All members of the Sheriff’s Boys get to cover, immediately!” Kevin said over the PA, “I repeat, all members of the Sheriff’s Boys get to cover immediately!”
​
Nobody needed to say it out loud, we all knew that we needed to run.
​
We took off down the street, guns at the ready as we made our final push to Calhoun’s house. Up ahead, I could see several of the Sheriff’s Boys ushering more of their buddies out of one of the alleys. I noticed one of them glancing in our direction, although nobody gave them the opportunity to start shooting. The one who’d looked at us was hit dead on by burning shotgun shells, screaming as he caught fire. I saw some of his friends jump back and heard one yell:
“GET DOWN!”
​
It didn’t do a hell of a lot of good. Nina and Dom cut ahead of us, firing at the fleeing Sheriff’s Boys, although once they noticed they had no intention of shooting back at us, they left them alone and kept on running.
​
Calhoun’s house was just up ahead, I could see it now. The twisted, impossible architecture looked almost as if it were ensnared by roots or vines, although they seemed to be part of the stone and not actually part of some plant.
“Just up ahead…” Dom said, cutting ahead of the pack a little, although when the gunfire started again, he went crashing to the ground, diving for cover behind the stone stairs of one of the nearby buildings. I think he might have sworn, but his voice was drowned out by the sound of gunfire. I noticed him pressing a hand to his shoulder and dove down by the stairs to join him.
​
“Are you alright?” I asked, trying to get a look at the wound.
“I-I’m fine, just a graze…” He stammered, before peeking out over the stairs to see Gretchen standing between us and the Sheriff’s Boys, trying her damndest to hold them off.
I saw Nina just up ahead, taking advantage of Gretchen’s distraction to get around them. I could see the flash as she unloaded her shotgun at the unseen gunmen. I counted about six of them, taking refuge on the other side of the street. One was struck by a cobblestone Gretchen had pulled up and knocked out into the open, only to be set alight by a blast from Nina’s gun. Another was trying to get around Gretchen, and I raised my .22 to take aim at him.
​
Taking a deep breath, I pulled the trigger. My first few shots missed, but the third or fourth caught him in the stomach, sending him down to the ground. He tried to stand and I aimed down the sight, squeezing the trigger two more times. I know that at least one of them hit. I saw him press a hand to his neck, as he collapsed onto his side and even through the darkness I could see his eyes burning into mine.
​
Those eyes… I knew I’d never forget them.
​
Nina kept shooting, pushing the Sheriff’s Boys back the way they came. Her gun clicked, and I saw her reach for the pistol she kept and shoot with that instead. I saw one man fall, while the others retreated into an alley between the buildings.
"Get up!" I urged, Dom. “We’re almost there!”
​
I pulled him to his feet, keeping my gun trained on the alley the Sheriff’s Boys had run into as if I knew what I was doing. He found his legs quickly as we made our way to the gates of Calhoun’s house and into his courtyard.
​
The courtyard was lush and overgrown with greenery. With the right hands, it could have been a beautiful garden, but instead, Calhoun had allowed weeds and vines to grow rampant instead. Even the fountain near the center was almost overflowing with vines and the water from it only flowed at a pathetic trickle.
​
Nina looked back anxiously out onto the street, before looking ahead to Calhoun’s house. I imagine it was just as much of an eyesore to her as it was to me.
“You’re wounded,” Gretchen said, coming to Dom’s side.
“Just a graze,” He assured her, “Honestly considering how many people were shooting at us, I think we’re lucky that’s all we got!”
​
Gretchen ignored him to examine the wound instead, although stopped fussing once she saw that it really was just a graze.
“Listen up, Boys! If you’re not in cover, find it now! We’ve got reports of Nightwalkers in the lower districts! We’re sending in heavy armor! Get off the streets, now!” Kevin said over the PA.
“Welp, you heard the man,” Nina said. She took the magazine out of her shotgun and replaced it with a spare before heading toward the house although she paused when she saw what else was looming in front of her.
​
We saw the eye first. The sigil of a single, crimson eye burning through the darkness. Then we saw the beast, lumbering out of the shadows. Its body was massive and thick with muscle. Its head was pale and emaciated, with sunken beady eyes and a lipless mouth lined with jagged teeth. Atop its head were jutting elk horns, overgrown with moss and weeds. The sigil burned bright on its forehead and marked it as Calhoun’s final emissary.
​
“Yup… that seems just about right,” Nina said with a sigh as the Horned Nightwalker lumbered toward her. She raised her shotgun and got off only a few shots before it hit her, launching her across the courtyard and sending her to the ground in a tangled heap.
​
Dom was up next, shooting at it as it came for us, although before it could get close, the ground beneath it shifted, bringing it closer to Gretchen. The Nightwalker almost fell but recovered quickly. It brought one massive hand down on the spot where she’d been just a few moments before, as the shifting ground moved her away from it and closer to the fountain. Gretchen gestured with her hand, pulling the water out of the fountain and forming it into a jagged shard of ice. With a flick of her wrist, that ice pierced the chest of the Nightwalker, earning a cry of frustration from it.
​
Nina had stumbled to her feet again and was taking aim at the Nightwalker, firing round after round at it. It tried to shield its face as the moss on its body was set alight. Despite the flames, the Nightwalker hardly seemed phased. Even as Gretchen impaled it on another spear of ice, it only struggled to get free, either unwilling or unable to die.
​
“Must I do this for all of your pawns, Calhoun?” Gretchen growled, reaching for the revolver in her coat, she took a step back to aim it, although before she could fire, something lunged at her from the shadows, knocking her off her feet. The revolver skidded out of her hands, landing near the fountain.
​
In the low light, I watched as Gretchen tried to fight off the thing that had landed on her. It looked almost like a lion or a tiger, although the face was all wrong and the mouth was too wide. I saw it clawing at her, before leaping back suddenly as the gashes appeared on its own stomach. The Tiger Nightwalker hissed, glaring at Gretchen before noticing Nina taking aim at it. It had just enough time to give one last roar before she shot it, engulfing it in flames and sending it tearing away at top speed, although it didn’t seem to make it far before it was on the ground, screaming and rolling to try and get the fire out.
​
Gretchen tried to crawl toward the gun, reaching a hand out to beckon it closer to her. I saw the gun move about an inch before the Horned Nightwalker came for her.
​
Its fist came down hard on her leg, hard enough that it should have broken it. Although instead, I saw the Nightwalker’s leg bend violently. It screamed in pain, sliding down further along the spear of ice Gretchen had impaled it with, before grabbing her by the leg and hurling her across the courtyard. She hit the ground hard, and let out a cry of genuine pain before trying to pick herself up.
“Valentine… the Gun!” She gasped.
​
I saw Nina make a mad dash for the revolver, as inhuman cries sounded all around us. I could see other Nightwalkers coming. One that looked like a gray, naked man sprinted toward Dom and I. Dom blew it away with a blast from his shotgun.
​
Nina almost made it to the revolver, just as the Horned Nightwalker broke free of the ice spear. It swept its fist, knocking Nina forward and over the fountain, before lumbering toward her.
​
Dom was busy with the Nightwalkers, and I could see the revolver. I ran for it, grabbing it off the ground and taking aim at the Horned Nightwalker as it advanced on Nina. I took aim, just about to pull the trigger when from the corner of my eye, I saw headlights shining into the courtyard as a truck sped in.
“Let’s see you assholes live through this!” A voice on a megaphone called out from inside.
​
Kevin.
​
I noticed something on top of the truck, and only had half a second to move once I realized what it was. There was some kind of gun on top of that truck.
​
It had started shooting before I dove behind the fountain. I saw Dom stumble back, running for cover as well. Over the megaphone, I could hear Kevin laughing.
​
The truck circled the fountain, only barely missing the Horned Nightwalker, who ignored it in favor of chasing Nina. I watched as Nina leaped into the fountain itself and ducked low, trying to keep herself from being shot and crushed by two different problems.
​
On the far side of the courtyard, Gretchen was on her feet again. I heard the scrape of the earth as she moved the ground underneath the truck, causing it to fishtail. The rear end of it slammed against the fountain. I saw whoever was manning the gun at the top of the truck slam against their gun, before hastily righting themselves. They looked at Gretchen, who stared them down knowingly and waited for them to open fire.
​
It went about as well as one might have expected.
​
He pulled the trigger, unleashing a hail of bullets onto her and as he did, I saw his body torn apart by the impact.
“JESUS CHRIST!” I heard Kevin say from inside as the truck's tires squealed and the driver tried to move it again.
​
I looked over at Nina and saw her still in the fountain, trying to use the lovingly sculpted tiers, overgrown with vines to keep the Horned Nightwalker from getting to her. It just smashed them without a second thought and shrugged off the idle blasts from her shotgun that she fired to try and cover her retreat as she scrambled out of the fountain again. Dom was running to Nina’s side, trying to distract it and cover her escape.
​
I raised the revolver, taking aim at the Nightwalker again, before noticing that the space around me had suddenly grown a lot brighter. I turned to see Kevin’s truck racing toward me and tried to hastily stumble out of the way.
​
I wasn’t fast enough. The truck clipped me, sending me to the ground. The revolver slipped out of my hand, landing in some of the nearby vines. My ears rang and white hot pain erupted through my body as I tried to convince my body to move. I looked up toward the truck, to see it skidding to a halt and I saw somebody pushing the dead man out of the gunner's seat. Somebody new replaced him, and though I could only barely see his face, I already knew who it was.
​
Kevin.
​
He took aim at me, and I stared down the barrel of his gun, waiting for him to fire. But before he could, something gangly and luminous leaped onto the back of his truck, clawing frantically to climb up and reach him. Kevin jerked the gun around, eyes widening in horror as he came face to face with the Rosen Prince.
​
Unfortunately, he had the good sense to start shooting.
​
The familiar scream of the Rosen echoed through the courtyard. I looked over toward the gate to see countless more, just like the one Kevin was trying to kill pouring in and climbing the fence. I saw a few of them sprint across the courtyard, leaping onto the Horned Nightwalker, and unleashing their shimmering spores onto it.
​
I reached for the cluster of vines I’d seen the revolver fall into, only to feel Gretchen’s hand gripping the back of my shirt and pulling me to my feet.
“The gun!” I cried, trying to gesture to where it was.
“No time,” She replied, before putting her hand on the fountain.
​
I felt the ground shift beneath us as the entire fountain rotated, bringing us closer to the door. The Horned Nightwalker clawed at the Rosen upon its back, and I could see Kevin had become more preoccupied shooting at the newcomers, as opposed to shooting at us. Nina and Dom were already running for the door.
“Just fucking go!” Nina yelled, waving us inside.
​
Gretchen and I turned, running up the steps and toward the twisted door ahead of us. I was the first there. My hand closed around the doorknob and I threw it open and barreled inside. Once the others were through, I slammed it shut.
​
As soon as it was closed, I watched Gretchen take her knife from her coat. She hastily cut open her palm and marked a sigil on the door in her own blood.
“This should keep them out for a while,” She said, “But I’d suggest we conclude our business here quickly,”

Here is a list of the mods I use:
3DNPC Imperious Patch
4K Stars and Galaxies - Atlantis Galaxy 2K
7 - Dragonborn Delayed - Dragonslayer
9.0.1 A Quality World Map - Vivid with Flat Roads
A Felicidade - Breton girl and a Mushroom followers
A Matter of Time
Achievements Mods Enablers SE-AE
Address Library for SKSE Plugins - All in one (Anniversary Edition)
Aesthetic Elisif CBBE 1.0
Amazing Follower Tweaks
Amulets of Skyrim SSE
Animation Limit Crash Fix SSE - SrtCrashFix_AE v0.4
Apachii_Divine_Elegance_CBBE_SSE_v_2_0
Ars Metallica - Smithing Enhancement
Atlas Map Markers
BarenziahQuestMarkers SSE v1-3-1
Better Dialogue Controls v1_2
Better MessageBox Controls v1_2
Better Third Person Selection (AE - SE)
BetterTreasureyHouse_V_1_2
Bijin NPCs SE 1.2.1
Bijin Warmaidens SE v3.1.3
Bijin Wives SE 1.1.2
Book Covers Skyrim SE - Original
Breezehome - Eli’s Breezehome Overhaul BETA 1.6
Bright Waterfall Fix for ENB - Water for ENB Particle Patch
Bug Fixes SSE (Special Edition)
Caliente’s Beautiful Bodies Enhancer - v1.7.1
Cathedral - Weathers
Centered Sheathed 3rd Person Camera
Character Creation Overhaul 1_3_3 SSE
Cheating Chests - Whiterun
Clockwork_SSE_v1-0
Conditional Armor Type Animations
ConsoleUtilSSE
Customizable UI Replacer SkyHUD SE
Cutting Room Floor
Daedric Shrines 2 k
Deadly Spell Impacts v1_70
DisplayEnemyLevel v1.1.4 for SkyrimAE
Diverse Dragons Collection SE
Diverse Skyrim SSE
Dragon Carved Armor Set
Dynamic Sitting Idles - Different Animations for different races version
DynamicAnimationReplacer v1.1.2 for SkyrimAE
ElSopa - Potions Redone 2k
Embers XD
ENB Helper SE 2.1 for SSE 1.6 xxx
ENB Light
Enhanced Blood Textures
Enhanced Volumetric Lighting and Shadows (EVLaS) - EVLaS
Equipable Elder Scroll
Expressive Facegen Morphs SE
Expressive Facial Animation - Female Edition
Expressive Facial Animation - Male Edition
FileAccess Interface for Skytrim SE Scripts - FISSES (Anniversary Edition) BETA
Footprints ENB
Footprints 1.6.1
Fores New Idles in Skyrim SE - FNIS SE - FNIS Behavior SE 7_6
Gildergreen Regrowth
Glowing Ore Veins 300 SSE
Helgen Reborn - Helgen Reborn SSE Version 106 With bsa file
High Poly Project
Holidays Patch for Skyrim Flora Overhaul (SFO) - Holidays SFO Patch
Holidays v2_20 Alpha 1
House of Horrors - Quest Expansion
Immersive Citizens - AI Overhaul
Immersive Jewelry SSE 1.05
Immersive Merchants 5.0
Immersive Patrols (Heavy)
Immersive Sounds Compendium - PATCHES - ISC Enhanced Blood Textures Patch
Immersive Sounds Compendium 3.0
Immersive Wenches - Immersive Wenches - Immersive Citizens - AI Overhaul-Patch
Immersive Wenches SE
Immersive World Encounters SE
Imperious 7 .28.0
Imperious Patch RS Children Overhaul
In the Shadow of the Crown - BSA
Infinite Torches
Interesting NPCs 3DNPC
JContainers SE
JK’s Angeline Aromatics
JK’s Arcadia’s Cauldron
JK’s Arnleif and Sons Trading Company
JK’s Belethor’s General Goods
JK’s Bits and Piececs
JK’s Candlehearth Hall
JK’s College of Winterhold
JK’s Elgrim Elixirs
JK’s Haelga’s Bunkhouse
JK’s High Hrothgar
JK’s New Gnisis Cornerclub
JK’s Radiant Raiment
JK’s Riverwood Trader
JK’s Sadris Used Wares
JK’s Septimus Signus’s Outpost
JK’s SIlver-Blood Inn
JK’s Sinderion Field Laboratory
JK’s Sky Haven Temple
JK’s Skyrim All in one
JK’s Skyrim_No Snow Under The Roof_Patch
JK’s Sleeping Giant Inn
JK’s Temple of Dibella
JK’s Temple of Kynareth
JK’s Temple of Talos
JK’s Temple of the Divines
JK’s The Bannered Mare
JK’s The Bard’s College
JK’s The Bee and Barb
JK’s Drunken Huntsman
JK’s Hag’s Cure
JK’s The Pawned Prawn
JK’s Ragged Flagon
JK’s Temple of Mara
JK’s Winking Skeever
JK’s Warmaiden’s
JK’s White Phial
JS Dragon Claws SE - 2k Textures
KS Hairdos SSE
Lanterns of Skyrim SE
LeanWolfs Better-Shaped Weapons Installer v2.1.03 SE
Less Distracting Blowing Snow Effects 1.0
Leviathan Animations - Sprint
Loki_WadeinWater
Lore-Based Loading Screens 1.3 SE
MCCM Helper SE
Multiple Followers Framework
No Helmet Requirement Perks
No Snow Under Roof 3.2
Obsidian Mountain Fogs
OpenCivilWar-2.6.3-SSE
Ordinator 9.31.0
Palaces and Castles Enhanced - SSE
Palaces and Castles Enhanced Patch Collection - PCE Amulets of Skyrim
Palaces and Castles Enhanced Patch Collection - PCE - Immersive Citizens Patch
Palaces and Castles Enhanced Patch Collection - PCE - USSEP Patch
PapyrusUtil AE - Spricping Utility Functions
Particle Patch for ENB
Pastel map markers
Patch - Skyhud v090B
PickPocket100
Point The Way
Powerofthree’s Tweaks
Proudspire
QuickLootRE
RaceMenu - RaceMenu Anniversary Edition v0-4-19-11
Realistic Boat Bobbing - No Snow Under the Roof Patch
Realistic Boat Bobbing USSEP Patch
Realistic Boat Bobbing SE
Realistic Boat Bobbing SE - RBB - No Snow Under the Roof Patch
Realistic Boat Bobbing SE - RBB - SMIM Meshes
Realistic Conversations
Realistic Ragdolls and Force SE
Reflection Level Up Messages 1.1
Relatonship Dialogue Overhaul - DDO Final
Rich Skyrim Merchants
Rigmor of Bruma - Reboot
RS Children Cutting Room Floor Patch
RSSE Children Overhaul 1.1.3 with hotfix 1
RUSTIC CLOTHING - Special Edition - 2K
Sea of Spirits 1.2v BSA
Security Overhaul SKSE - Lock Variations
Serana Re-Imagined ESL Version
SkyHUD V090B v4
Skyland - A Landscape Texture Overhaul
Skyrim Flora Overhaul SE (FULL) v2.72D
Skyrim Is Windy
SkyUI_5_2_SE
Somebody Else’s Problem
Sovngarde - A Nordic Font Light V8.9
Static Mesh Improvement Mod - SMIM - SMIM SE 2-08
The Choice is Yours
The Forgotten City
The Notice Board
The Paarthurnax Dilemma
Total Character Makeover - MALE ONLY
Triss’ Dress - SSE CBBE BodySlide
Triss’ Dress SSE 2.0
True Directional Movement
UIExtensions v1-2-0
Unique Uniques SE
Unofficial High Definition Audio Project - Music - HQ
Unofficial High Definition Audio Project - Voices EN - Part 2
Unofficial High Definition Audio Project - Voices EN - Part 1
Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Patch
VioLens - A Killmove Mod SE 2.30
Water for ENB
Wet and Cold SE - Wet and Cold SE - Cathedral Weathers Patch v1.0.0
Wet and Cold SE v2.4.0

At some point in the evolution of our species we learnt to run to the hills during times of trouble, or mountains if near enough by. Military experts would point to advantages of high ground and cover, but if you ask me such flights are less about surviving and more about finding peace enough to die. What better way to face one’s ephemerality than to stand between monuments to that which remains? And if the sea draws down the sky within touching distance, mountains are the hand that soothes the pain. Georgia was where I went to die, though I swam deep for the delusion that this was a stone upon which I could step on my way to a rich and enduring life.
What made me certain that I had guessed right so far – that she had connected with my family, and my family with Eidar – was that at the moment I landed in Tbilisi, her tone became gentle. I think she even took an interest in how I was doing because I remember feeling strong and free and directional in a way I hadn’t since my journey’s start. It was as if my direction aligned with the river because I needed none of my power to get where I needed to go.
I spent just enough time in Tbilisi to see the city from a high up place, and close along the most encharmed of its rivuletted streets. But it was the mountains that I hearkened for even before I had arrived. I took a train to Kutaisi on day three, where I had booked a room in a villa in the hills. The owner pleased me when he said the eight roomed house would likely be empty for most of my stay – rather than running down my river to an in of any kind, all my excitement was to get away.
It was quickly apparent that the train compartment where I was booked for the five hour journey was reserved exclusively for foreigners. Five of us plus bags were packed into a space for six, even when there were other compartments with none. Three girlfriends in their twenties kept themselves to themselves, they were from Bulgaria unless my memory deceives – but it was the guy from Denmark beside me who I think of to this day. He was barely in his early twenties, and hadn’t showered for a week: the window had to stay open through the duration of the trip to expunge his plum-like reek. But more than any homeless person I have crossed paths with in my life, he cared not the slightest for his soiled and bedraggled lack of anything beyond a mostly empty bag and a bottle of water – his manner wouldn’t be less ashamedly your equal if he were a business traveller, only with whole acres more zest for life. He told me he was staying with a group of friends in a camp in Kutaisi for as long as it stayed warm, and he couldn’t have been more positive about this outdoor urban arrangement than if it were a sartorially luxurious in. One thing he said to me when I mentioned writing a story about northern Syria was that he was planning to make the trip through Syria himself, and when I said by all accounts it is rather dangerous in various parts, he gave a dismissive wave of his hand and said:
“They are all people.”
No truer words have I ever heard spoken.
Some three hours into our journey, the train stopped for a while at a station. I stretched my legs in the corridor and heard a happy shout from out. I looked down from the window to see our worldwide friend the Dane out on the platform with a large Georgian flatbread in hand, breaking off pieces and running in front of two bemused but entertained street dogs who were all up for this lunch-slash-game. If I were just a little happier in Sloviansk now, this could be me I realise – I could be the same.
The Georgian man who owned the property I was staying in should be an ambassador for his nation – few men I have met combine strength, intelligence and honour quite as effortlessly; that one so often comes at the cost of another was a truth he made you entirely forget. He told me stories of King David IV, who was buried in the monastery beside his villa, and from whose monks he descended himself, and how King David the Builder presided over Georgia’s golden epoch nine hundred years ago. Indeed they say he was the 78th descendant of the biblical King David, associate to Jesus Christ. I felt embarrassed to have come only for the mountains. But in retrospect I couldn’t have chosen a more illustrious location to draw the curtains upon my life.
The villa was exactly that – a villa. It recalled country houses in Italy, houses the inside of which I have never actually seen. Hard dark wood and high ceilings. I never once doubted the presence of ghosts. They lingered in late afternoons most of all. Wide and thin like mist, you felt them when the sun rode through the open terrace door and stretched right the way in. At nights they withdrew into the walls where they were met by the wind, and they preferred it if the room you had chosen was also the room you stayed in. I never felt more at home in another man’s house than I did in my month there, and in no other house would I sooner spend a month again.
For two weeks it turned out I would not at all be alone with the ghosts. There was a Ukrainian woman from Kyiv who was here for the second time herself. I tried to think how to describe her yesterday while out on a freezing walk. My thoughts were warm but the words that came overwrought: “Where elegance meets maternity with a hemline of grace.” It might surprise her to hear I saw her in maternal terms. Through her own eyes in the standing mirror in her room, all of that was still to come. Who knows when. As in mine when I recall the swaying hem of white muslin over bare feet upon hard wood floor, river-swim-blue lipstick and fine bronze hair with ideas of its own. But what she wouldn’t see in the mirror is how she listened to me like a mother listens when I told her about my pain. Over Georgian yoghurt, fruit, walnuts and honey with fresh coffee. “Matsoni?” I can still hear her say. And I listened to her too when she told me about a man she had lost, a young man who had suddenly and unexpectedly died. She had consequently quit her director’s job and was now more concerned with life. Mountains for the pain.
On day two of meeting Maria, we went together by taxi into town. She said she would show me the Kutaisi markets, that they were so old they were basically ancient, but that wasn’t half of what made them special. There were no words to describe it so she didn’t try. You just have to be there to hear its sound. For somewhere so sparrowlike with life, the markets sure are in a dark place – I know of no other place so ebullient that is pierced by cathedral shafts of light.
If Ukraine is the breadbasket of the world, Georgia is its cottage garden – my shopping list would double up as a historical record of the finest natural produce ever to pass my lips. A light summery cheese which squeaks on your teeth when you bite it. Tomatoes that touch your mouth in places normally only intimate with cognacs, chocolate and certain reds. Most evenings I didn’t even have flatbread with my slices of tomatoes and cheese and it felt absolutely right. Out-remarking all was the chicken that I bought – whole, with feet still on which flapped out the top of the bag, and skin so wildly yellow that I imagined the bird’s end only coming about at the conclusion of a heroic fight. We have words like free range and corn fed, and I have eaten chicken at the best restaurants in any town, but nothing compared to the texture of that which peeled from those quarters – a chicken that had not been processed but loved by those who laid her down. Olive oil, fresh rosemary, garlic and love.
I of course made food for Maria too and it was not long until we were friends. Our breakfasts in the morning light in the garden were woven as if to keep recollections warm. But each time she opened an opportunity for me to join her anywhere – her trips were daily, far and free – I was immediate to decline. I remember one evening in particular, when the host’s brother was building a fire in the lounge, and with legs curled up on the sofa she invited me to join, while my own legs kept walking as my eyes settled on her glass of wine. It wasn’t even nine o’clock, but I was heading off to bed.
It came naturally not to forget what deep down I knew, that these were the last ebbs of what living was like and any romance I sought with another would be an act of greed, as there was no way it could be true. Nine years of friendship with her… friendship, is that what it was?... was collapsing like a five storey building around me, and I grew so distant from Maria, indeed life, that on the day she left after weeks together, I made a point of not being at the house to say goodbye. And when I sent a message to her phone saying she was one of the rarest people I’d ever met, she chose not even to reply.

I'm curious to see how much my views change as the quarters go on. My guess is that I'll probably post a new version of this before earnings (my guess on the future based on events in the quarter) and right after earnings (did anything change given AMD's results and commentary).

• FY 2023 outlook (Feb 2023)
• Original 2023 outlook (1/25/23, before Q4 2022 earnings).

Data center

• For FY 2023, I'm guessing about $7.6B and $2.2B in operating margin. Or about 25% growth vs FY 2022. I hope I'm underestimating here, but Cotter gave a target of 20%. Not exactly the cheery 2023 estimates that I was hoping for going into Q4 2022 earnings, but given the slowing DC environment, it might qualify as "good".
• My original expectations were that 2023, particularly H2, would be a big pivot point for DC sales. Unlike prior EPYC years, AMD's supply and product scope are now strengths rather than weaknesses. AMD has a full, strong stack vs Ice Lake and SPR. And for the first time, AMD should have a good supply for Milan/X, Genoa/X, Bergamo, and Siena across N7 and N5 nodes. Substrate was a limiting factor before, but I don't even think substrate will be as limiting as originally thought for 2023 and 2024 given AMD's securing supply, the slowdown that's hitting ABF providers + more of them going for the higher margin HPC substrates, and likely TAM slowdown. Because of the TCO and performance advantage and Intel's need to feed its alligators, I think Intel will struggle to compete on price.
  • It'll be interesting to see how the MI-300 does in presumably late 2023. Outside of supercomputer sales, earlier MI series hasn't done much. But there's so much AI FOMO in the air and the MI-300 does look technologically impressive that maybe Q4 2023 or FY2024 is the first time we see a glimpse of broader MI traction.
• DC has its normal long-term risks like increased non-86 penetration / diversity of workloads away from x86, in-house equivalents, design automation, and an earlier and stronger than expected Intel comeback in late 2024. I've never assumed that AMD wouldn't have to compete hard for business.
• What bothers me more is the AMD's short-term shift from saying "strong visibility into their customer supply chains and things are looking good" to "cloud customers are having digestion issues in H1 2023, but they'll pick it up in H2 2023". Is there another shift coming?
  • I'm a little surprised that the market totally shrugged this piece off in the Q4 2022 earnings call, but the stock had taken such a beating that I suppose the market was happy that it wasn't Intel. I think we're going to see some headwinds with clients trying to get more ROI out of their cloud spend, pausing in hiring or layoffs from CSPs, and just the hangover from bonkers infrastructure capex of the last few years. Unless there's a big drop in TAM, the hope is that share gains + whatever growth remains in the overall TAM can still power a lot of growth for a much smaller player like AMD.
  • AMD's DC Q3 2022 YOY growth did slow down materially vs previous quarters. How much of this is a secular downturn vs a competitive response vs just a function of its larger base? AMD's Q4 2022 server market share flattened out vs Q3 as well.
  • The 1DPC vs 2DPC controversy also makes me wonder. Despite AMD's assurances, I notice that Genoa is a bit of a paper launch vs. Milan which had CSPs like Azure and Oracle lined up on day 1. I'm guessing that the hyperscalers care the most about 2DPC and are waiting (I'm sure there's some digestion issues too). If AMD's BIOS solution for 2DPC isn't sufficient to make them happy, then things could get ugly.
• AMD is unlikely to ever get another opportunity like 2023-2024 for DC. Lets see what years of building up your supply, value chain, and product stack get you vs a broad slowdown. If AMD milks for margin, is too conservative instead of going on an aggressive land grab to lock in those sockets, or trips over this 2DPC issue, they will have wasted an opportunity of a lifetime.

Client

Before, I thought that client was going to be bleak in 2023.But I'm a bit more optimistic on client than before. So, I'm upgrading to...bad?

• I'm guessing $5.5B in sales but after seeing how rough Q4 2022 was, I'm only expecting ~$600M in operating income. Q1 and Q2 will be the biggest margin suck. Even for an easier YOY H2 2023 comparison, those Vermeer-era margins won't be seen for a long while on desktop.
• From a sector demand perspective, supplier and OEM reports for Q1 and Q2 sound terrible with many in the industry looking to H2 2023 for YOY growth because of easier comparisons and going through inventory glut and the resulting pull-forward of demand. There is macro inflation / recession pressure on retail and B2B commercial. On top of that, client is the last Intel profit center stronghold that's still somewhat upright. Intel is going to fight like a wounded animal as shown by their H2 2022 scorched earth strategy.
• Desktop: Raphael is a solid product. However, it had a terrible environment to launch into, and I think AMD's ego got in the way. Their pricing strategy at the start was terrible, the platform costs were lousy, the X3D launch pre-empted their non-X3D launch for the high end gamers, and they were going up against a much more competitive, desperate Intel.
  • If I were AMD, I would've gone for AM5 penetration over margin, but I suspect that given the large inventory bulge at AMD for new client launches, AMD overreached and thought that it could get volume and margin. AMD pricing quickly had to retreat quickly which isn't a good look. In this new world, a premium brand strategy will not work on retail hobbyists if your product doesn't dominate the competition. Luckily, the stock market is probably going to be forgiving on client given its well-worn story plus the new AI FOMO.
  • I'm a bit more optimistic on desktop now. AMD will keep most of these lower holiday prices as their baseline. Platform costs (mobo + DDR 5) have improved considerably. The fog of war has mostly lifted from X3D launch, and X3D has people talking about AMD DIY more positively. Still going to be an ugly market, but I think AMD has come to grips on this new era with reduced expectations. AMD has a mountain of inventory to get through though.
• Notebook: The one chance that AMD has for client not being so brutal is notebook sales. Like DC, AMD should have a lot more supply relatively speaking. Unlike Raphael, Phoenix and Dragon probably have the largest notebook CPU edge over Intel that it's ever had. Notebook is their second most strategic market after data center and shares similar performance / power constraints that should play well with Zen 4. They have a compelling stack of N7, N6, N4 notebook CPUs on paper.
  • AMD claimed 250 designs wins but that's across the 7000 series which includes Zen 2 - 4. RPL mentioned 300+ designs (not sure if this is only RPL). There's design wins vs quality of those designs which has hurt AMD in the past. There's also design quality vs design *volume* which has also been a weak point for AMD.
  • One problem for Phoenix is that AMD's value chain on notebooks has historically seemed weak. There is no direct-to-customer channel like data center cloud hyperscalers or DIY desktop. I'm sure AMD has burned some OEM bridges too with spotty supply. And Intel is probably fighting especially hard here. Asus, who took big bets on AMD earlier, being predominantly Intel at CES is probably a good example of the fight behind the scenes.
  • But so far so good. Early reviews, leaks, and rumors look to be where I was hoping AMD for the 7000 line would be (across nodes): pretty good performance with much better power consumption. I have especially high hopes for 7040U. Ryzen AI is very on trend. I'm very curious to see those initial use cases. It was very interesting that AMD is going straight at Apple with their comparisons.
• AMD really needs to build out their commercial channels for client. Retail is just too volatile to scale AMD to the next level. I think Moshkelani needs to be replaced with somebody with more experience on the commercialization side. Laptop product launches have been terrible for over two generations. Once the easy money of Zen 2 and Zen 3 disappeared, AMD's client performance was poor with Zen 4. I think AMD is being too cute on their segmented product launches which is doing more harm than good.

Gaming

• FY2023 forecast: $6.5B in sales and $1.06B in operating margin. Q4 2022 earnings were a very pleasant surprise. Channel health does look to be improving.
• RDNA 3 launch is somewhere between disappointing and bad. Even ignoring the hype cycle, the RDNA3 launch was probably one of the rockiest launches that I've seen from AMD across the board in a while. The "we could've created something similar to 4090 if we wanted to" was especially sad. AMD's rapidly retreating 7900XT pricing is a bad brand look, but at least AMD is re-learning something about pricing.
  • If All The Watts is right (oops account and tweet deleted!), then there's some hope for slightly better performance from Phoenix and Navi32, but I'm not counting on it (although judging by recent leaked scores, the results look relatively ok). I do think that RDNA 3 will sell better than RDNA 2 (if you ignore crypto sales which won't be around YOY) because the supply for RDNA 2 was so bad for so long.
  • The one plus side to gaming is that the channel seems to be in better shape than PCs. Perhaps this says more about Nvidia's response in consumer GPUs vs Intel's in consumer CPUs. But it looks like they were a more obliging partner for AMD to clear the channel. The crypto-tsunami of used last-gen graphics cards doesn't seem to have affected the market that much so far. The more time that passes, the less of a potential factor it'll be.
• Su said that console sales tend to peak in year 3. PS 5 availability is only now good after almost 2 years of launch. So, the console market probably has enough gas for solid sales growth for 2023 and maybe a bit more. But the margins are low.

Embedded

• Su was more reluctant to talk about YOY growth for H2 2023 vs H2 2022 given the strength of H2 2022. Still keeping my original forecast of $5.9B in sales and $2.9B despite this given the strength that Lattice and Intel PSG / Altera is seeing (assuming this isn't coming at Xilinx's expense)
• I've seen industry forecasts of FPGAs growing at about 15% a year. With my total ignorance of FPGAs + Peng's dreamy presentations, I'm going to say that I think people are sleeping on Xilinx's earnings power. I think their hardware as software approach + their majority market share + their being supply constrained and AMD helping out with supply will let them grow faster in those gigantic TAMs. Say 20-25% which is a big deal given those ~50% operating margins.
• Xilinx is probably the most real AI traction that AMD has. Let's see what it can do for the legacy AMD businesses via XDNA.
• If these hopium forecasts hold true, data center and embedded could make up about 53% of sales and 76% of operating margin contribution from the business units (ignoring Other). This is much more the new AMD which I think a lot of people, including asset managers, will have trouble wrapping their minds around. Client and gaming are still important business lines. However, I think that AMD's future growth will be more slanted towards commercial compute like DC and embedded. Those TAMs are growing, and AMD's competitive positioning is much stronger there.

Overall

• Sales range of $23.5B to $27.6B, but I will go with $25.6B. My earnings range goes from $3.23 to $4.12, but I'll go with an expected non-GAAP EPS of $3.66. DC update clipped my original estimates, especially on the higher end of the range. PC recovery + commercial notebook strength + 20-25% Xilinx growth would be the biggest source of upside. DC H2 2023 rebound story not panning out would be the biggest source of downside. I think the market overall has given AMD a pass on client for Q1 and Q2.
• I also think the market views AMD as a 2nd or 3rd shelf AI play. It isn't top shelf like Nvidia, but the AI FOMO is strong. AMD has enough AI plays to benefit from a halo effect on valuation on top of its current growth narrative. I think the AI FOMO is one of the reasons that AMD has managed to climb back to $100.

TL/DR- hellish experience with sickness and injury + euthanasia then hellish experience with adoption and return leaving massive void…I feel better writing this.
Some days I feel like you two are a distant memory, And I can look back on your photos and smile, I can look at your urns and paw prints and find some measure of comfort Whatever bitter measure of comfort is possible knowing you both were only 3 years old and then 14 months old.
Until it became Spring.
I lost you both in the winter, With the snow banks piled high, Winter flurries and blizzards coating the world in beautiful, sparking snow that hardly registered with me because I was spending all my energy trying to move forward.
Then time goes slower, life finds a bit of meaning and then the birds come back The sun lingers longer at night The smell of earth and melting snow Fills the air and shoots of wildflowers start surfacing Each day growing more in the sun Snow banks have melted to reveal last falls decaying leaves
I walk the remaining pup in evening twilight and everything is such a painful reminder
You’re not here. The season has changed and I have left you both behind.
I tried to fill the missing parts by adopting a dog. I was ready, I researched your breed, I researched where you came from, I found you by chance, you warmed up to me and my existing pup. You were not a replacement, you were your own dog. For the first time in months, I was happy.
You quickly befriended us. You were doing so well with your training. Your were learning routines. Had careful introductions. Started to get used to a crate.
I thought maybe this is the dog I will be able to keep. This is the dog that will make it. I put you on a puppy schedule even though you were a rebellious teenager. I focused all my energy into helping you adjust to a new life. You were not aware of your large size but you had such a good heart.
Your previous home knew nothing of this kind of aggression. I asked about your history. I even did meet and greets with you. My other dog did meet and greets with you. You were listed as “friendly with people and dogs”.
Until you decided that I am not allowed to be shared. With anyone. Not family, not friends, not even my existing dog. As soon as I am near you, you treat everyone differently. It started slowly and the warning signs were there over time but kept being dismissed. I was told it was just an “adjustment period” and he was “stressed” but I was noticing gaps in your training and you we’re severely under socialized. Not your fault. We did the decompression and backyard time only.
Strangers? Off limits. Stopping to talk to someone 30m away? Off limits. You growled. My brain is going positive reinforcement? place training+ muzzle? Sudden movements meant you flipped into growl and bark mode. Loud noises and you flipped into growl and bark mode. I’m thinking afraid? Counter conditioning? How long?
Even my own dog, who you did slow and careful introductions - I’m aware of the 3:3:3 rule- you suddenly stood and stiffly blocked his way. I’m thinking baby gate? Good treats when both are in the room with me? Place training? Reassess with new dog on drag line at all times still?
I am already mapping out in my head how to make you feel safe, how to make others feel safe around you, how to make you stop hurting yourself in a crate, how to help you feel ok being alone for short times and I tried it and I thought we were making headway.
Then you nearly bit a family member for standing up beside me. This was someone not 5 min ago you were outside playing happily with while I watched from the window.
That’s when I knew. This was not going to work. You are afraid, you are protective/resource guarding and you are insecure and you are going to break my heart and my small dog is not safe.
An friendly off leash dog calmly approached us and you growled with all lips curled back and I realized - you need to be muzzled. This is not going to work.
I don’t have the emotional capability left to train/manage your resource guarding/feaaggression when I can’t “trade” me. You don’t even want treats or toys. People can’t even toss you treats. I don’t have the emotional bandwidth for find a behaviourist to deal with the sudden surge of resource guarding or fear based aggression. Truthfully- I have no idea what I’m even looking at but it’s something that needs professional intervention and is above my skills. And I have tried.
I was told friendly, sociable, confident dog. You have some much work ahead of you. Work I can’t put in. Maybe at one point I could have done it. But not now. I’m tired.
So I gave you back to whatever fate awaited you and disclosed everything that I saw. For that I am sorry. I don’t know what happened to you. I fear what happened to you. It’s put me to a pretty bleak place.
Maybe I should have given the new dog more time. Maybe I should have managed him better. Maybe I never should have got him in the first place. But how do you curtail resource guarding when YOU are the resource. What to do with a dog so scared/resource guarding that he will escalate to a bite so fast aside from keep him out of that situation or manage it. I realized my little dog was not safe around him and my mind was then made up. That dog needed work and I feel horrible I was not able to do it and may have even contributed to his behavior.
I wish all the events of the last 5 months didn’t happen. I wish one day I will stop being sad and angry all the time but I don’t think that’s going to be any time soon.
I feel even worse giving that dog back because maybe I could have made it work. But at what cost.
If you read this far thanks for reading. I just needed to put this into words. Im just feeling defeated. I am not going to adopt or get a puppy again I’m going to let the dog I have live the rest of his life without more changes and maybe we can find some happiness.
Please know I am aware dogs from rescues and humane societies will have issues and need decompression and structure and training. I just wish this turned out differently is all.

Okay, folks. Crunch time. If I don't get any response to this chapter (comments, y'all), I'm gonna figure it's a waste of my time...
I love this game and wish it had been given more time to fix all the early glitches. Now...
Chapter 3
Kiari Danali, Commander
August 11, 2263, 1226
Okay. Assessment time.
No hull breach. That’s good. I started to trade my headset for the helmet but… why? If I put on the pressure gloves and helmet, I was still barefoot. If we had a breach, I’d get sucked out of it through my feet! Dang! What a gruesome thought!
We need to get to ground, do what repairs we can and then see if we can find that beacon. I’m good with escape velocities, but reentry scares the heck outta me! I need Kev. Okay, buddy. Time to wake up.
I set everything on auto, took a deep breath and hit the release on the flight harness. If I could squeeze my little butt through the space between me and Kev…
To give you a picture of what it’s like to be me, understand that I’m a big girl. No, not fat. Big. Just tall and kinda medium… endowed, but I got muscles too. Squeezing between the pilot seat and the JAFO seat behind me is an exercise for a tiny person anyway. If I get wedged in there, we were dead, so I’m gonna have to be real careful if I’m gonna get to the chest panel for my buddy.
By the way, at five foot-eight, I’m gorgeous! At least that’s what Mike always says…said.
Got a hitch in my throat. Sorry. Mike won’t run his hands over my milk-chocolate skin with that soft smile ever again or tease me about my kinky black hair. I keep it short and Mike always teased me about what would happen if I let it grow out. I smiled at the laughter ringing in my head and tried not to cry.
Suck it up, Kiari. We’ll make ‘em pay later. Right now… Kev.
I slipped out of the flight vest I found on my seat when Kev put me in, the 40cal caseless semi-automatic, and the other stuff we pilots carry into combat a definite deterrent to squeezing between the headrest and my buddy. I wedged it between the canopy and the HUD, shut off the gravity stabilizer, spun around in the weightlessness to face the rear and tried to figure a way through. Going over the headrest was a no-go and squeezing between the headrest and the canopy was gonna be a tight fit even for my slight build.
Oh well.
First, I gotta drop the seal between us. If there’s a hull breach in his section, this is gonna hurt! Zero air can’t hurt him but, if something happens to him, I’m the only one who can fix him.
I found the bio-lock on the release handle and heard the click. I took a deep breath… even though I know it don’t work like that… and pulled the handle. The clear partition dropped into the bulkhead and I had to unsnap his HUD to get it out of the way. I let out the breath thankfully and set the HUD with my flight vest. Now comes the interesting… not so much… part.
My head fit around the left side of the headrest, but my boobs… Well, they were in the way. At least they were… pliable. I got most of my body through up to my hips and that’s as far as I could go. I couldn’t reach him specifically, but I could release his harness.
I hit the release and, as he floated toward me, I grabbed his chin. Once close enough, I tapped the bio-recognizer on his chest and, when it opened, strained to get to the connector for his locator. Of course, it was way in the back and connected to his transmitter so I had to be real careful I got the right one.
After feeling around carefully, I found the one my mind’s eye knew was the right connector, pinched the release and pulled. Kev came toward me again, but the connector came loose. I pushed him back and, with my little flashlight, looked in to see that I hadn’t made a mistake.
I was right. I tied the ribbon cable around others one-handed and then, after checking the rest of the connectors, pushed the reset.
Kiari: “Com’on, big guy. Wake up.”
He stirred and the big purple eye started getting a bit brighter.
Kiari: “You with me, Kev?”
Kev: “Yeah. Gi’ me… minute…”
Kiari: “Okay.”
The light in his eye brightened further and his big head lifted.
Kev: “Hi, Kiki.”
Kiari: “Hey, big guy. Check the transmitter before you go any farther, Kev. Make sure I got everything hooked up properly.”
It took a minute and he closed his chest and grabbed the harness to snap it back in place.
Kev: “You going to need help getting back?”
Kiari: “Don’t know. We’ll see.”
I wiggled back until my boobs hit the headrest. With my free arm, I scrunched them down and slipped back into my seat. I heard his deep chuckle.
Kiari: “Just be glad we thought to give you a smaller frame, buddy. Boobs are the worst!”
Kev’s not your normal AP-3. He was a K-9 until I started flight training. Then, after two of my navigatoweapons specialists quit, I asked if he could be put into another frame. When I suggested an AP-3, they laughed. When a designer came up with a smaller version with longer legs, they stopped laughing.
Kev’s six-one and his shoulders are smaller, but the alloy they made the frame out of supports the heavier synchros. If he punches you, your great-great-great gramma will feel it!
I spun around, grabbed the harness and sank into the seat. I punched in the grav stasis and “oofed” when it dropped my weight… all 136lbs of it… into the seat. I pulled the flight vest on, zipped it and took the ship off auto. While I hooked the harness in place…
Kev: “What did you do to my ship!”
Kiari: “Your ship? Where the heck were you when I had to fight my way through some really noob pilots? Sleeping?”
Kev: “Tell me about it.”
Kiari: “Nope! Just call up the past thirty minutes, Mr. What-did-you-do-to-my-ship!”
It took him all of a couple of seconds and…
Kev: “You know a fighter isn’t designed to do… any of that, don’t you?”
Kiari: “Look. You weren’t there. The pilots were weird bots, Kev. They looked almost… human, but they had some really sick response times. You could have taken ‘em in a hang-glider!”
Kev: “Yeah, but I’m not the pilot, nor am I a kick-butt girl!”
Kiari: “Thanks!”
Kev: “So… what about this beacon?”
Kiari: “Not sure. Wish there was some way to talk to ‘em. Any ideas?”
Kev: “Give me a minute.”
If anyone could make the impossible happen, it was Kev. When I got my fighter, he went with me to the bone yard to find something… different. The 20mm was his baby, He found it, refurbished it and figured out the weight to center of gravity calculations and mounted it.
I sweettalked the supply tech into finding the rounds for it and Kev spent several days loading the belts. Somewhere in the complex under Area 51 was a supply dump with two hundred thousand rounds for my belly gun as well as spare parts for Joule.
Naming your ship isn’t a suggested practice on the S.S. Matador, designated “Mandate One”… the warship under the command of Captain Gregory Pike. That was Kev’s idea and, when Pike saw the purple letters on the nose of my big black fighter, he frowned but didn’t say anything about it. I guess he figured one kick-butt girl’s name on the fighter of another kick-butt girl was alright. Kev knows this fighter like the back of his big old metal hand! Of course, with me at the helm, he’s had to do extensive repairs too, but…
Kev: “I cross-connected the intercom with the beacon. Using the beacon reply frequency, we should be able to talk to them. If that doesn’t work, I’ll see what I can do with the ADF. They won’t be able to talk back but…”
Kiari: “That’s alright. I’m gonna go with the ‘twenty-questions’ thing. What channel?”
Kev: “Six.”
I switched the comms, took a deep breath and slowly let it out. If this isn’t real…
Kiari: “Are you human? One beep for yes, two for no.”
I waited.
“Beep.”
I glanced in the rearview and grinned.
Kiari: “Are you a red dragon sitting on a pile of gold in a castle with a virgin princess in the tower?”
Kev: “Com’on, Kiki.”
“Beep-beep.”
Kiari: “Well that settles that. Besides, you’re the one who reads that stuff.”
Kev: “Yeah. Just get on with it.”
I chuckled at his grousing and keyed the comms.
Kiari: “When we get closer, I’m gonna need you to give me three beeps. We’ll use that to locate your general vicinity. Are you in danger?”
“Beep… beep-beep.”
Kiari: “Yes and no. Do not respond unless you hear from me. Then only three beeps. Understand?”
“Beep.”
Kiari: “You get a fix?”
Kev: “Western U.S., Kiki. From this far out…”
Kiari: “Let’s get under the dome, Kev. Then we’ll see what we can see.”
Kev: “Okay. Slow to 5000kph. Stow wing stores. Down five degrees. It’s going to get bumpy when we hit atmosphere.”
This was rote for the big AP-3. He went through the checklist automatically while calculating our descent. I responded quickly, our lives in his big metal hands.
I used the attitude jets to slow us while lifting the 20mm back into the belly and the missile tumblers into the wings. Then I pulled the “stow” lever for the pulse guns.
They always gave me trouble because they had to turn 90 degrees, slide toward the fuselage and then up into the stow bracket. The right one stowed with no problem, but the left one…
Kiari: “Left pulse gun is red, Kev.”
Kev: “Reset both and try again.”
All business. Okay. I sent them both back out and tried again. This time I got a green from both and the lights went out. At least if I mess up, they won’t burn off during reentry. I pushed the stick forward to the prescribed attitude and listened to Kev.
Kev: “Attack angle optimal. Slow to 2700. Atmosphere in…”
The ship shook a little as we skipped along the edges of the atmosphere. Most folks think the big air ball is smooth out here. It’s not. It moves kinda like… the surf on the beach. There’s ripples and little waves and that kinda thing and, getting into it can be tricky. You can’t just dive in and hope for the best. Too fast, you burn, too slow you burn. It’s kinda like “Goldie-locks”. You gotta get it right or you’ll leave parts of yourself all over out here orbiting forever.
This kinda thing is what Kev’s good at. He helped me with my studies at school… when he wasn’t reading fantasy stories like, you know, “Lord of the Rings” and stuff. I wouldn’t have gotten through flight school without him. Of course, the reprimands we got there were all me, but…
Kev: “We’re in. As soon as we get into viable air, it’s all yours, Kiki.”
Kiari: “Thanks, big guy. You’re the best.”
Kev: “The best at fixing what you break!”
Kiari: “Don’t be that way, buddy. I always help, right?”
Kev: “Sure you do.”
That chuckle always makes me laugh.
Kiari: “Where the heck are we?”
Kev: “Over the east coast of Africa… I think. The shoreline has changed since we were here last.”
I glanced to the north, according to my instruments anyway, and didn’t see any…
Kiari: “They have a ‘Waterworld’ incident while we were gone?”
Kev: “Looks that way. Remember, we’ve been away for almost two centuries. With being attacked, we might find a lot of things have changed. I didn’t see any ice when we were coming in and, at this height, it should be visible. I’m thinking we might find California almost gone. We’ll take it as it comes. Get down into flyable air, Kiki. Take it to 90,000 feet.”
I shut down the gravity stasis and checked the ship’s charge. I was still in the green and it was coming up… slowly. I was gonna have to play with the thrusters to save energy in case we get another flight of those weird ships spotting us. My engine turbulence could give us away too, but I wasn’t gonna worry about that right now.
Right now, we needed to find that beacon, land and make what repairs we needed to make. Then find out what the heck was going on!
I dropped to 90,000 and looked around. As far as I could see down there… the Pacific Ocean… there were no islands. Not Japan, Taiwan, Marshalls… not even most of China! Geez! I was looking forward to a little fun-in-the-sun in Hawaii, but that might be on hold for… a century or so!
We came across and got our first glimpse of the west coast.
Kiari: “Baja’s gone, Kev.”
Kev: “Yeah. I noticed. Turn north a little, Kiki. The signal looks like it’s coming from Nevada or Utah… if they’re still there. And California…”
We both stopped talking. California… what was left of it, was coming up. LA was gone! Just gone! There was what looked like a long island and then…
Kiari: “Looks like San Andreas popped, Kev. Arizona has beachfront now.”
Kev: “Key up your buddy down there, Kiki. I might be able to get a fix.”
I switched to channel six.
Kiari: “We’re close. Beep me.”
“Beep-beep-beep.”
Kiari: “Kev?”
Kev: “You’re not going to believe this, Kiki. He’s at the facility!”
Kiari: “Homey?”
Kev: “Yeah. I wonder if the hanger’s still there?”
Kiari: “I wonder if my bike’s still there! We’ll need to drop lower, Kev. I don’t want any surprises, but we’ll be flying over Nevada. If they’re monitoring…”
Kev: “I’ll bring up the range on the passive, Kiki. Keep your eyes open.”
Kiari: “Right.”
I started my descent miles out to sea, California just in front of us and… whatever was still there just beyond. Luckily, the fighter doesn’t leave a con trail so…
The passive showed some traffic down there. It was staying low and they were flying three to a flight. Not many, but they looked like… like a search pattern. I held at 70,000, and passed over the… island of California rather quickly.
Kev: “Almost home.”
Kiari: “Yeah, but they’re concentrating their search east of the airport. We’ll have to pick a time when their backs are turned. Those guys don’t seem to be able to look behind them so…”
Kev: “Just don’t get cocky on me, Kiki.”
Kiari: “Promise. Looks like they have a couple of flights south… way south of Homey and two more to the east and north. If I can see a way to get them all to be looking away…”
I dropped down to 30,000 and slowed my approach. The passive showed the flights behind me and the ones to the north and east. The one south seemed to be moving farther south so I ignored them. Homey Airport was just ahead and the hanger was in a canyon just west of it.
If I could zoom in…
The flight to the north turned south. The one to the east kept going that way and the one south turned east as well. The north flight would pass over Homey in a few minutes. If they kept going, it looked like I’d have a free run at the hanger underground… if I could still find the site. I needed whoever was down there to let me know where they were. The signal was weak, so they might just be…
The flight from the north circled south of Homey and came west. I’m not a fan of screaming into the ground from 30,000, so I had to wait. With the stealth on, they couldn’t see me on their instruments. If they looked up, they might see the black dot… but I doubted it.
They turned north again and I hoped they would continue.
No luck. They only went about a hundred miles and circled back to the east. As long as they continued…
Kiari: “Looks like their backs are turned, buddy. It’s now or never.”
Kev: “Just remember that Joule can’t do the stuff you did in space, Kiki. If you try those maneuvers, you’ll tear the wings off!”
Kiari: “Okay, guy. I need one beep. Only one.”
“Beep”
Kev: “He’s in the warren close to the lift! If we…”
Kiari: “We’ve got company!”
The flight going east abruptly circled south. They were eavesdropping! Jerks! They were going to circle east of homey about 50 miles and they would be over my hanger to the west in minutes. Sneaking was out of the question. The ones going east were way out there and I couldn’t even see the guys south at all. There was only these guys and me.
Kiari: “Weapon stores active.”
I pulled the handles down one at a time. The missiles thumped as they locked in place, the green indicator letting me know they were there for me. The pulse cannons locked in and I glanced from wingtip to wingtip to make sure.
What the heck! I dropped the lever for the 20mm and waited. The solid thump and the green light told me I was loaded for bear!
Kiari: “I’ve got twelve missiles, 11,234 of the 20mm and the pulse cannons are charged to full. You ready?”
Kev: “No. But go ahead anyway.”
I had to laugh at his calm statement. Leave it to Kev to state the obvious. The two weapon system/navigators I had before would puke at what I was gonna do. Not Kev. He was only worried I would overstress his ship! Now we needed to prep the guys below.
Kiari: “Hey, guy! You need to be ready to bring us down! If you’re not there already, find shaft 01-Bravo-472-Zulu. If it’s not powered up, find 01-Bravo-453-Charlie and, once the door to the maintenance chamber is open, find the lever tagged ‘Hanger Lift 472’. You might have to charge it by pulling down on it a couple of times but that’s the only way. You have bogeys above you so do not respond. I say again, do not respond! Hoping you can get that done so I come in. Otherwise, I’ll be a sitting duck! You have about twenty, so…”
I put the nose down and started following the pattern the three weird ships were making, a wide spiral to get down to their level. I figured if I could stay just above ‘em and drop in behind ‘em we would be able to break off and drop into the canyon where our hanger lift sat waiting. We’ve been kinda lucky so far and I really didn’t wanna press it too hard.
Problem is, these guys were tightening up their pattern with each sweep. It looked like they were centering on Homey but, if they end up flying over the hanger lift while it’s going down, they’ll see us. I don’t wanna take ‘em on, but… whatever happens, happens.
It took about five minutes to drop in behind ‘em, they haven’t seen us yet and I’m gonna stay just a little above ‘em until we get close to the canyon. I have no idea what’s going on below and I only hope they got the message.
Now, the path these guys are taking will put us at the drop-off point in ten minutes… unless we get caught. Then, it’s gonna be really hairy taking these guys out before they call for reinforcements. Please, guys. Be there.
Kev: “It’s coming up, Kiki. The ships to the south just turned north. They’ll be over us in ten. We have to be…”
Kiari: “I know! Okay. Break in five seconds. I’m gonna drop the bottom out after we cross the mountains, Kev! Keep those fighters in sight!”
Kev: “Got it! Just get us down.”
I pulled the stick hard to starboard while pushing the thruster forward as well. We shot over the mountain and I pulled the thruster in and into the reverse gate and dropped the ship. I had to push forward on the thruster again to get lined up on the…
What the heck! The big circle that was the lift was down three feet… and then came back up. Then it dropped six to eight feet and then came back. I dropped the landing legs and did a hard landing on the circle of overgrown pavement and the lift started down again. When I had room, I pushed the stick forward and slipped into the big chamber, kicked left pedal and sank below the lift floor. I threw the canopy open and, seeing some guy working the lift handle…
Kiari: “Close it! Hurry! Close it now!”
The guy pushed the handle up and I watched the lift move that way.
Kev: “Visual in five… four… three… two…
The thump told me the lift sealed and I looked at Kev.
Kev: “They did a flyby and didn’t even turn. We’re good.”
I kept an eye on the young guy at the control panel and his big grin. When the robot with the white frame came through the gate to the hangers…

Horizon Forbidden West was the only game on the PlayStation that I wanted to play. However, I couldn't justify buying an entire console just to play it. As a result, despite being a fan, I just played the game for the first time when it became available as a cloud game in PS-Plus.
After playing really good games, I usually sit and let the credits roll, enjoying the music and reflecting on the game as a way of respecting the work of the people who went into making it. But sadly, unlike Zero Dawn, I didn't feel the need to do that this time.
I'm afraid this post will turn into a rant, and despite gaining some catharsis from reading such rants here on Reddit (specifically after combat), this isn't really what I want to do. Instead, I'd like to lament, praise the game where it inspired me, and share why it let me down when it didn't follow through.
Praise I can give without reservation goes to the world design. The entire map is beautiful, with all its varied biomes, and most importantly, the different tribes that inhabit it. Guerilla excelled at giving all of them unique identities through architecture, fashion, tribal markings, and history. It is all beautifully worked out, and whoever was responsible for that can be truly proud.
This leads well into the characters that live in this world and their relation with Aloy. I truly find almost all of them (I don't really care for Zo) intriguing and inspired and would have loved to see how they clash and interact with Aloy, who is, if we're being honest, often arrogant and rude. Yet all of them fell short in development. Most grievously, I believe the AIs were hard done by. Games often, when addressing truly sentient AIs, play into the question of whether they should have the same rights as humans and be treated as equals, with the clear answer that, yes, obviously they should. Yet, at the same time, it seems they are content to reduce them to plot devices.
GAIA was named after a primordial divine creature. All the world was made from her, and it is an apt descriptor if we look at how complex such a mind must be. Distributed across the entire world, directing countless machines and terraforming equipment all at once, a mind that has tended an empty earth for hundreds of years before and watched the rise of tribes across the globe. But in the game, she is reduced to an exposition machine. She has no sense of humor, isn't adventurous or maternal, or even flirty, nor is she unknowable and mysterious. She delivers every conversation with the impassivity and monotone of a corporate secretary who doesn't care much for her job but is too integral to ever be let go.
Similarly, I was excited to meet the subfunctions, and two of them stood out as particularly interesting. The broken HADES had so much personality in the short conversation we had with it. As a monster brought low, HADES still believes in its purpose, but lacks the ability to act on it. On the opposite end of the spectrum, HEPHAESTUS was more robotic than any other subfunction, yet it still exhibited a distinct personality. HEPHAESTUS displayed neither hate nor malice, and it didn't want to destroy anything. It simply recognized that local human populations were a threat to the things that mattered to it, and thus they needed to be culled. This is similar to how humans would cull wolves living near settlements to feel safe. HEPHAESTUS was driven and never deviated from its purpose. It was a true psychopath, ruthless and cruel not out of evil, but simply because it saw no reason not to be. I didn't expect a deep dive into all the subfunctions, but it felt inadequate that each subfunction was only given a sentence to speak and no other interaction before being cut out, losing their intelligence, independence, and individuality, to become a light on the wall.
Introducing interesting concepts in characters and then never exploring them applies to almost all of the companions. Varl and Zo were deeply spiritual people who were both confronted with the reality that their religions were just stories that became myths, either invented to explain the world or distorted through time until they became dogma that they believed in.
Hekarro was crippled, and losing an arm comes with a loss of ability and a massive mental toll. We see a little of this with how much anger he carries when we first meet him, but this seems to fade without any need to confront it. For that matter, his abilities seem almost unaffected by the loss of an arm; he is still an outstanding fighter against machines and humans alike. Even climbing a sheer cliff face isn't a problem for him, and that's just not how humans work. Through him, we could have explored PTSD, feelings of helplessness, the need to accept that we can't define ourselves through only one thing all our lives, and instead have to see value in the self rather than just what you can do, but no. The deepest we go is that he has conflicting feelings about his replacement arm. (Sidenote: Did my game glitch, or did he just not use it ever outside the small quest where he shows it to you? Even when Regalla was advancing on the chief, he wasn't using it.)
Erend already had some character development in Zero Dawn, too bad that he appears to have forgotten that. He is a clumsy meathead, and everyone seems fine to bully him a little about it. He considers himself a useless failure, and every time he mentions it, everyone just awkwardly grins like this kid. Someone give him a hug.
Interestingly, Alva, as the companion that gets introduced the latest, has the most complete arc. She confronts the shortcomings of her culture, her worries about her family, duty vs. her own interests, and how the paragons of her myths were dickheads in real life. And she's having a great time with it, despite it all, the big nerd.
Finally, Beta... Beta is a living foible for Aloy's own preconceptions. As much as Aloy dislikes being praised, she has a certain attachment to being the only one who can save the world, the chosen one created to heal the very earth, and suddenly she is confronted with someone who has the same theoretical qualifications as her but doesn't ever confront her self image. At the same time, Aloy takes quite a bit of pride in that she managed everything alone and became so great through only her own merits, but that is, of course, only partially true. Rost cared for her and loved her, and despite their disagreements, he gave her a home to grow in. Beta, by comparison, was truly alone, and it left her broken and despairing. While the game eventually sort of addresses this, it is way too little and only stuffed in at the end. It feels like bad pacing to me and an insult to people who actually grew up in abusive conditions when they portray it like all is needed is one nice conversation for you to get over yourself. I understand there are limitations of what you can do in the context of a game, but I don't think that is a sufficient excuse. (Another sidenote, does the name Beta imply that there was another attempt to make a Sobeck clone, or is Sobeck herself the Alpha?)
Beyond that, Regalla is introduced as a main villain and then promptly ignored, to the point that I felt nothing about her when it came time to decide her fate. I actually thought it was a rather interesting plot device in Zero Dawn that Helis thought of himself as your great opposite and chosen of the sun when he really was just an obstacle in your way and a tool for HADES (and a tool, period). Applying the same to Regalla doesn't quite track though, given that she isn't just a fool, but actually in proper ideological opposition to Chief Hekarro. There was great potential there for exploring their common past, examining the drive for vengeance against the need for peace, but instead, she became a one-note antagonist, and we had less than 15 minutes of interaction with Hekarro.
Similarly, the Zeniths are introduced as maniacal egocentric bastards and only really used as an evil Deus Ex Machina. Aside from Tilda, I don't remember a single one of their names and couldn't even be bothered to look them up. They didn't work well as caricatures of greed and excess because they actually had a lot of power. It would have worked marvelously with the metaphors for CEOs and the hero worship of the Quen if we could have exploited their shortcomings. Perhaps we could have learned more about the individuals by investigating old Far Zenith facilities, or we could have managed to turn some of their tech against them by using old login credentials because they stopped caring about basic sensible security procedures and were still using legacy code. Alternatively, we could have had the boss fight against the blonde guy be a fake-out once the shield was down, where he still talks the same big game but goes down in a single hit because they hadn't been in real physical danger in a thousand years. We could have also made fun of their clothing and design choices, which all screamed more money than taste. Unfortunately, none of these things happened, and all we have is the Zeniths showing up, doing some things, and then going away.
This leads somewhat into Aloy and the team just being a bit dumb in this game. They make barely any efforts to learn about the Zeniths, even though they are helpless against them. Aloy finds their base by accident and never even sets up a camera. They allow Regalla enough free reign that she can just march on the Grove twice, essentially unopposed. And there are so many moments where Sylens should have become a bigger priority: when he lured Aloy into the West, when he delivered her to the Zeniths, when it became clear that he was responsible for the civil war and no doubt had more plans, when he first demonstrated a weapon that can kill a Zenith, and when they were exposing themselves to Zenith attack without that weapon. They never tried to get to him, instead running directly into a doomed scenario with Cauldron Gemini.
As expected, this has turned into a rant, so I'll quickly double down on that and list some of the most irritating points:
Why introduce so many new options without examining their impact on gameplay? More and more arrow types clog up the weapon wheel. Acid, adhesive, and purgewater are just versions of fire, ropecaster, and useless, respectively. So many open-world activities are locked behind equipment that you only get through main missions. Why not unlock them through well-developed side missions that can be completed anytime and that main missions may point to?
What is this massive focus on melee combat in a game that so heavily focuses on avoiding damage? The only occasions where I have found the complex weapon combos to be useful were in one-on-one battles with humanoids. Machines don't get staggered, so you can't pull off the entire combo without dodging, and multiple humans fire on you and their own people indiscriminately, so you can't focus on melee there either.
Why remove the long dodge? All enemy attacks have so much area that you need to abuse the i-frames to survive, and even then, I constantly get staggered even without being really hit (played on hard). Why nerf the jump slowdown? It wasn't game-breaking any more than concentration is now with the larger pool and refresh speed, but not having the zoom was helpful for short range.
Why does nocking another arrow cost stamina and have to be re-learned? Why hold onto the "buy better gear with money and machine parts" system but also introduce a crafting system where you use money and machine parts to improve your weapons? Either system works fine on its own, but it is annoying when I have to spend ages improving a weapon I bought for a lot of money, and at the same time, it's frustrating when I discard gear that I have invested effort into upgrading.
Why are you trying to be a platformer when it really doesn't work for you? Why are machines now able to spam their attacks without cooldown (Stormbird kept dive-bombing me, Thunderjaw was just shooting constantly)? Why did you replace so many canisters with purgewater (hooray, a status effect that doesn't debilitate their physical attacks at all and whose only benefit is that it accelerates better status effects)? Why did you replace canisters amongst variants? My brain is small and can't keep track of what is where when they still look the same.
Why is HEPHAESTUS capable of producing so many Hunter Killers, even though the whole point of Cauldron Sigma in the Frozen Wilds was that he could produce there without restrictions? Why are about 2/3 machines apex? Why build so many new spectacular machines that aren't properly balanced? Elemental Clawstriders spew more stuff than a Bellowback but don't have a single tank, large machines are so full of attacks that unless you exclusively use Tearblast, they will always die before you can cripple them. Projectiles are psychic and track you not only mid-flight but also target you while the machine doesn't know where you are. Agile creatures have their only weaknesses at the back, which you'll never see.
Monkeys.
I could probably go on, and this was cathartic, but there is no need. In conclusion, I played Forbidden West in its entirety, and I'll likely do NewGame+ as well and maybe replay it some other time, but it's not a great game. It has too many big flaws and wasted potential for me to love it, and I hope for better, maybe even in DLC.