The temptations cloud nine

So I'm finally doing the "Professional Agent" challange (even though I got the handcannon), and I spent so long doing NG+ on the lowest difficulty, that I forgot what the other guns are like 😂 I have 11 dlc upgrade tickets, (which sell for 80K each, incase somebody doesn't know yet) so I should be able to easily max upgrade a weapon or two. I'm just unsure if I wanna just upgrade the pump action Shotgun now, or save them for another guy, or if the Silver Nine and Punisher might actually be good weapons in pro.
I used them both for the Handgun run, but that was in Assisted, so idk how good they are on pro.
I'm not Aiming for any particular time, this is just a fun run, with the only restrictions being no primal knife, handcannon, or Sweeper (though I did sell them for cash)

To my little sis in heaven: Everyday I think about how we would’ve grown up together and the things we would’ve done. Everyone in my life has a sister, even our little brother. I never got the chance to know what it was like having sister. I spent a good chunk of my life searching for a best friend to feel like a sister to me. I know if you were still here we would argue, laugh, and cry but our bond would be indestructible. I’ve never been able to keep a friend because I’ve been betrayed over and over again while desperately searching and craving for that unbreakable sisterly bond. You would be sad to know that me and mom are not close and dad works almost every single day although I grown closer to him than her. Mom spends all day everyday in her room. We don’t talk about intimate things and cry together or laugh together. I’ve tried to go in her room to hang out with her and initiate that sentimental relationship but I don’t feel like I’m wanted there, and truthfully it’s a depressing place to be with crumbs all over the floor and trash piled up in the can. I’ve cleaned her bathroom and room but it still gets bad. On Dad’s rare days off he’ll manically clean every part of the house while downing 3 beers if not more. Our family broke the day you left and so grateful for our bundle of joy our baby bro, but he is not enough to glue this family back together. He’s starting to get the same treatment and feel the anxiety I feel but he doesn’t understand yet. Our family are not terrible people, they will bend over backwards for any random stranger and give the last hair on their back, but they are hurting. When we have good moments they are so good I feel like I’m on cloud 9, but when the moments are bad, they’re so bad we all wish we were with you.

As i look back at my IT career, i remember first starting out with a tone generator and punch blocks moving phone extensions and assisting folks on as400.. to spending way too many weekend rebuilding Windows server and Exchange 5.5 or SQL...to now working with cloud orchestration and security...
What a generation.. the last one to know what it was like before everyone had the internet..to dial-up AOL... to today. We can write letters, checks, and cursive.. We had ICQ, IRC (still use today), Napster.... what a ride..
What blows your mind from a sysadmin perspective.. over your career?

I'm looking for somebody who might have some experience using the Bosch divar network 5000. I've got a short window where I can get my hands on one for about $100. I've done some googling but really haven't found much, and I'm considering that as a red flag to maybe steer clear of the divar.
The Bosch divar network 5000 16 POE+ ports and 4 TB of NVR storage.
My use case is to install 4 to 6 POE IP cameras streaming to a self-hosted ( no cloud or non-VPN external streaming) storage. I would only need to store up to 2 days of video, and not at 4K resolution. I haven't purchased any cameras either, I'm planning on getting those next.
My network consists of two asus rt-ac86u's. If I don't get this Bosch divar, I was considering getting an 8 port POE switch and setting up a VLAN, using my true NAS as storage.
below is the only resource sheet I could find: https://resources-boschsecurity-cdn.azureedge.net/public/documents/DIVAR_network_5000_Data_sheet_enUS_24101310219.pdf
Any thoughts opinions or other comments are welcome.

[CA, US] My wife and I have a family plan with Google Fi that includes us, our son, and both of our parents. She is the main account holder and we are all under her family account. We just got the phone for our son and needed to set up the profile to activate it. Google Fi uses our Gmail accounts as our phone plan account. While she was setting up my son's profile on her phone, something happened (not sure if user error or technical glitch) and her Gmail account ended up being the one logged in while she was filling in the account info. It asked her for the age, so she put in my son's birthdate (he's nine) and it immediately locked her out because it was now a child's account. Our entire family was blocked out of our cell phone accounts and no longer had service because a child can't be the account holder for a family plan. She spent about 8 hours on the phone with customer service trying to resolve the issue that night and the next morning, but was unable to find a resolution. In order for the rest of the family to regain cell phone service we all switched to single line accounts so we were no longer under her family account. But my wife's account has remained locked, even though we were able to eventually get it changed back to an adult account. They say there is some issue with the billing on the account and it won't let her unlock the account until it is resolved. She has added multiple bank and credit cards, but that hasn't resolved anything. They are now telling her there is a "specialist team" working on resolving it, but she is unable to have any communication with them and nobody outside of this team is allowed to try and assist her. The only form of communication she is allowed with the team is via email and they have yet to respond to any email she has sent. It's been 7 days and she still has no cell phone service. We've tried to switch her to another provider but Google will not release her number so no providers can transfer the service. According to the FCC's website:
"Companies may charge you to port your number, but you can ask whether any fees can be waived or negotiated. Once you request service from a new company, your old company cannot refuse to port your number, even if you owe money for an outstanding balance or termination fee."
She has sent this to the email for the specialist team and still hasn't received a response. Are there any further legal steps we can take to try and get this resolved so she can have a functioning cell phone again? She is going to file an FCC complaint, but it seems like that could take weeks to get anywhere.

I've been thinking about this for a bit and I decided you know what I might as well have Alice and a couple of the other girls play Ascension and try to get to round 30. It was originally supposed to be Saya and Alice playing it but I decided to throw Saeko into the mix to spice things up. The first part will contain rounds 1-10.
Ascension as a map is easy! The reason behind it being easy is the fact that that the map has quite a few open areas where you could run around and gather the zombies into giant hordes and unleash everything onto them plus with some useful tactical grenades and overpowered wonder weapons, this can make for a fun experience.
It's three girls, two guns per girl, five perks (No Mule Kick) with one objective: Survive.
Alice, Saya and Saeko landed into the area with their Lunar Lander as they were trying to figure out where they were in this cosmodrone. Alice looked aroind as Saya tried to figure our what was happening.
"Hey who took the color away?" Saya asked while they were looking around.
"Help me." A voice called out. The three girls turned their heads to figure out who was speaking. "The mechanism must be repaired. Please, she's coming."
"Don't worry sir we'll try to help you." Alice called out to whoever said the mysterious voice that she would try everything to rescue it. "We only have three players and we need four. Who should be the fourth player?" Alice asked as they couldn't save this man with just three players.
"It doesn't matter Alice, let's try our best to have some fun." Saeko told Alice that having a full team of four wasn't going to really matter at this point but they should try their best to enjoy themselves.
"Well the time to have fun is now, I can hear them breaking in." Saya explaind to Saeko. It turned out Saya was right, the zombies were indeed breaking in. Alice went up to one of the windows and slashed a zombie open with her knife, the zombie went down Saeko and Saya did the same thing as they were slashing the zombies down with one blow. Eventually they finished slashing them as the next round began.
"We need to find the color to this map so I think there might be a big power switch somewhere." Saeko suggested that they should bring the color back as the black and white atmosphere was creeping them out.
"Which way should we go?" Saya asked if there were any ideas of which direction they should take. Alice walked over to where the M14 was and purchased it.
"Ahh it looks like it's you and me my friend." Alice told the M14 as she cocked the rifle.
"For now let's build up points and then we'll decide." Saeko told the group. The zombies began to come in again as the three girls drew their pistoles and began firing, with the starting pistols being weak it was easy to build up points. The three of them began firing away, trying to accumilate as many points as they could, Their pistol ammo quickly ran out as they had to resort to much more effective means. Saeko was knifing the zombies while Alice was picking them off with her M14. If a zombie got too close, she would knife it and therefore bring the zombie down. She reloaded as much as she could to make sure she had a full magazine in there.
"Gah pistol ammo is out. We need to go." Saya called out. She spotted a door right by the lander that costs 750 points. She went over and purchased it. The door opened as Saya went exploring around, trying to find where the power switch was. She went up the stairs and spotted one of the perk machines, a tall one that overlooked the area. She looked out of the rafters as Alice and Saeko were trying to fight the zombies off as best as they could. "They need help." Saya told herself. She went up the second set of stairs to another door that costs 1250 points. She touched it as she realized she was out of cash. Not enough there to open the door. She looked around as she desperately needed a gun. She spotted one right by where she was earlier. She went over and decided to purchase it for a thousand points. "It's not going to do much but it'll hold me over for a little while longer." Saya told herself as she purchased the PM63. She decided to head back down the stairs to help.
Saya entered the scene as Saeko was running out of ways to deal with the zombies and Alice was just racking up points with the M14. Saya began firing the PM63 trying to go for headshots. Eventually one of the zombies dropped a hammer as Saeko ran up and picked it up.
"Carpenter!" The voice called out. Almost like magic the barriers came back as this clowed the game down. At least everyone got a couple hudrred extra points. Finally out of the blue the structure in the center of the room began to spin the spinning continued to get faster and faster as the last few zombies were killed as their bodies were flung all over. The round ended as the next round began.
"Round 3 we need to turn the power on." Saeko reminded them that they needed to turn the power on.
"I have made a way there, let's take that." Saya told Saeko that they could go her way and get the power open.
"No don't! I'll explain later when the power is on and we get perks." Alice warned them to not open the door heading up the other stairwell. They nodded as they began to look around.
"What about that door heading out?" Saeko asked as she pointed to the one above the stairs. Saeko and Saya went over, up the stairs and to the door. Saeko had points but she had no decent weapon so she wanted to save up.
"This door?" Saya asked. They heard the moans of zombies that were starting to spawn as they were going to attack next.
"Yes!" Saeko shouted. She went over and purchased the 750 door and this lead them outside. She turned back to Alice who was ready to take the zombies on. "Are you sure you're going to be okay?" Saeko asked Alice.
"I'll be alright, go!" Alice shouted. Alice raised her M14 and began firing away at the zombies. She was desperate to buy Saeko and Saya time to switch the power on.
Saeko was trying her best to knife the zombies while Saya took potshots with the PM63, a round or two was needed as Saeko finished them off. Saya even went for headshots as it was the fastest way to get points. The two of them rounded the corner as Saeko went up and purchased the Mp5K from the wall.
"Something to hold me over for now until a better weapon is acquired." Saeko told herself as she began firing the sub machine gun at the zombies. She was helping Saya out as Saya purchased the next door. The two of them headed off as they followed the arrows to find the power switch. They found the door that was going to lead them to where Saya originally wanted to go. Saya raised her PM63 and fired at the zombies following them. She reloaded as they headed up the stairs. They were going to find the power switch today. Making their way up the stairs, they eventually got to the top of the stairs where another door was, It was 1250 points. Saeko bought it as this top door contained the Mystery Box. Saya went over to the Mystery Box while Saeko grabbed the power switch and flipped it on.
"Hey the color is back!" Saya shouted as she was happy with this revalation. Saeko nodded as she fired her Mp5K at the zombies. Saya was watching the Mystery Box flash the random guns it had as it was giving Saya the choice of illusion. Eventually the gun landed on the Galil as Saya takes it and traded her empty pistol away. "Well time to make them bow down before me without their kneecaps!" Saya called out. They watched as the rocket was being set up. After a few seconds they had set the rocket set up. "What next Saeko?" Saya asked. Saeko went over to the other door that costs 1250 points and purchased it. She had the most amount of points out of the group though she was starting to run out.
"We keep moving. We need to make sure Alice is still safe and hasn't gone down as of yet." Saeko told Saya that making sure they were able to keep Alice alive was the next priority.
The two of them headed down the stairs to see where they were going to go. Saya was shooting the zombies with the PM63 as the third round came to a close and the fourth round began. Saya was beginning to run out of PM63 ammo as she was going to use the rest of that up and hit the box again. Saya went over and purchase the 1250 door that lead up.
"Will Alice be safe?" Saya asked as she was keeping a look out for her friend.
"She hasn't gone down as of yet so she's doing okay but I don't know how well she is doing currently." Saeko told Saya as they past a green colored perk machine and the wallbuy for the M16. They eventually found one of the spots as Saeko spotted something strange and she went up to it. She purchased the Sickle for 3000 points.
"A farming tool to kill the zombies? I wonder how this would turn out?" Saeko asked while she twirled the Sickle around. One of the zombies approached Saeko and she quickly swiped it with the sickle, quickly taking it down. "Sickle does more damage than the knife?" Saeko asked, she was going to hang onto it. Saya went over and pushed the button.
Alice was busy fighting off the zombies but her M14 was becoming less effective, she had racked up a large number of points because of it but she was starting to get swarmed. She had been standing on the Lunar Lander when she felt a shaking and the gates went up.
"Woah woah woah!" Alice told herself as she was taken off balance. She was in for a ride. The Lunar Lander flew off to where it had been called. Alice looked around from her position as two thirds of the map had been opened. Eventually the Lunar Lander made touch down to the area where Saya and Saeko were.
"How are you Alice?" Saeko asked as she wanted to see how Alice was doing.
"Fine but I got a full magazine in the M14 and not much ammo left, I'm starting to run out." Alice told Saeko that she was running dry on ammo. Saeko swiped at the zombie with the Sickle while Alice fired away.
"Okay. Saya take this lander back. I'm going to take Alice to the box." Saeko gave Saya some objectives to take care of the Lander while she got Alice a better gun. "Come on Alice." Saeko told Alice. Alice nodded while she and Saeko went back to the Mystery Box. Saya activated the Lunar Lander which began to take her back to spawn.
Saeko and Alice went to the mystery box as they were going to have Alice replace one of her out of ammo guns. Since Alice and Saeko had made a lot of points, they were going to hit the box and try finding something better. They looked up to see one of the pieces of the rocket flash green.
"A rocket piece is green, what does that mean?" Alice asked as she didn't know what exactly this was going to mean.
"I don't know either. Maybe we should link up more landers." Saeko suggested. She got out the Mp5K and fired away to make more points. Alice went over as she was going to trade her empty pistol out for something to kill zombies. Alice went to the Mystery Box and decided to spend some of her points to find out what she was going to get. She looked in wonder as the guns were spinning around in her head trying to see what she was going to get. Eventually it landed on a gun and Alice took it.
"I still think this is my favorite shotgun." Alice told herself as she had gotten herself the Spas-12 from the box. She went up to a zombie and blasted its face in. The zombie went down instantly but for Alice it wasn't that much of a good pay off. "I need a point maker but I will hang onto this." Alice sighed. Saeko went over to the Mystery Box and tried to get something good from the box. Eventually Saeko got a bunch of wooden nesting dolls as her choice of weaponry.
"I don't know what these dolls will do to save a warrior like me? I think these will please the emperor." Saeko told herself as she had gotten herself the Matroyshka Dolls. Saeko was curious to see what these dolls were going to do but she was going to save them up for a large crowd of zombies thinking they had some kind of grenade in them.
Alice was dumping whatever ammo she had left in her M14 while Saeko went to rejoin her. Saya was busy doing the next Lunar Lander as she was determined to link all of them up. Saya nodded that they were fighting on. Alice used the last ammo she whipped out the Spas-12 and began firing it at the zombies. Saya spent more points on the Lunar Lander as it began to bring her back while Saeko attacked the Zombies with the Sickle.
"I'm going to open the last part of the map, try to find Saya and see what the next strategy is." Alice told Saeko. Saeko nodded before pulling out the Matroyshka doll and opening up. Out popped a doll into the crowd of zombies the doll exploded as those dolls underneath also detonated, wiping out the entire group in one go.
"Oh Cluster bombs." Saeko told herself. Round four has ended and Round five began. Saeko went off to find Saya.
Alice went to the left of spawn and made her way to the back end of the map. She finished reloading her Spas-12 and began to wonder how she was going to need points. She looked around to see if she was going to get another gun from the wall. She spotted something outlined in chalk. She walked up to the chalk and purchased the AK-74U to replace the ammoless M14. A couple of zombies approached her.
"Well I can't say that this is my favorite gun from the wall." Alice told herself as she cocked the AK-74U bolt. The zombies rounded the corner. Alice pointed the SMG at the zombies and fired into their heads, their heads popped off as Alice still had some points left over. Alice went to the door to the last lander and opened it. It was a huge area where rounding up the zombies was possible. She went to the Lunar Lander and called it over. The Lander arrived a couple moments later as Alice fired into the heads of a couple more zombies and did her best to get points. Eventually the Lander arrived as Alice got onto it, ready to take the trip back. She pressed the button as the gates went up and the Lander took off. "I'm going for a ride. WEEE!" Alice cheerfully called out. The Lander would eventually return her to Spawn as Saeko and Saya were busy trying to fight the zombies. When the Lander reached them. Alice pointed the AK-74U and finished off the crowd.
"Where were you Alice?" Saya asked. Saeko looked at the screen.
"Saya don't ask, look!" Saeko told Saya. "Alice activated the last Lander, the entire rocket is green and ready to take off."
"All right let's go get perks first." Saya told the group that getting at least one perk before heading off to activate the Rocket was important. She took off to the tunnel where she purchased the PM-63 and knew what perk they decided to get. They decided to go for the one that was located in the area by the PM-63 and stock up on perks. After getting what they needed. They prepared to head out as Alice and Saya killed the last couple of zombies, this triggered Round six to begin.
"So far so good, I'm going to look out ahead." Alice told Saeko and Saya, They nodded as Alice decided to take a look around but this round six was going to be their first challenge. "Uhh... why is the screen red?" Alice asked. Suddenly She heard something crash down. Alice quickly got out the Spas-12 thinking it was her way of killing the zombies. Then monkeys in spacesuits began to emerge from the pods and start heading straight for Alice. Alice felt like she was going to panic, she quickly fired the Spas-12 off as a warning, killing a monkey. Alice ran back to Saeko and Saya as if she didn't know what to do. Saeko spotted Alice coming fo them in a panic.
"Is there something wrong?" Saeko asked. Alice reloaded her Spas-12 as she wanted to have a full tube.
"Yes, monkeys are coming!" Alice told them. She turned around as the monkeys had made their appearance. Alice got herself ready as Saya had her PM-63 on standby which she had purchased more ammo for and Saeko had her sickle. Alice lined up her sight on a monkey and fired, killing it instantly. A monkey tried to attack Saeko but the latter jabbed it with the Sickle. Alice was blowing the monkeys up with the shotgun as Saya fired into a couple of them with her PM-63, Another monkey attempted to attack Saya but Alice turned and blasted the shotgun into the Monkey's face.
"Stay back!" Saya shouted before firing her PM-63 into another monkey. The monkeys continued to attack as Alice blasted the Spas-12 into more of the monkeys. It was her effective way of dispatching them as Saeko was using her sickle. Finally Saya shot the last monkey as an ammo box and a bottle had dropped. Alice reloaded her guns while Saeko went over and picked both of them up. they now had two perks as the second perk had been randomized for each of them.
"Max ammo!" The announcement had been made looks like they had. All of their guns had been magically refilled. Round seven had begun.
"Let's go turn that rocket on." Saya instructed the group. They began to make their way back to the rocket with Saeko leading the way as she slashed the zombies with the Sickle. Saya was supporting her by dumping out all of her PM-63 rounds into the zombies as possible. Alice was at the rear using the AK-74U to build up points. As they moved around to the rocket where they believed it was. They approached the power room where the Rocket was Located. Saya and Alice went to the mystery box while Saeko was slashing the zombies with her sickle. Saya had used all the ammo in her PM-63 and was ready to dump the gun entirely. She was the first to hit the box to see what she was going to get. When the jingle finished. Saya had become really excited to get the gun she was gifted.
"SAY HELLO TO MY BEAUTIFUL FRIEND! Oh wait... that's just me." Saya told herself excitedly as she had recieved the Thundergun, exchanging her PM-63. Saya went over as a large crowd of zombies as Saeko was being overran. With the click of the trigger, the zzombies were instantly killed. Saeko nodded while she was going to deal with the other side. Saya went up to the rocket and pressed the button. The rocket began to fly up into the sky as as someone had authorized its launch. Alice was had hit the box and was too busy watching the guns to really pay attention to what Saeko and Saya were doing which was watching the rocket fly into the air. Alice finally recieved what she needed from the box.
"Man this looks odd, might as well figure out what it does." Alice told herself as she had gotten the Gersh Device. Alice decided to head down to where the rocket was stationed and where it took off from. Saeko and Saya decided to follow as Alice killed the last three zombies. With their deaths, round eight had begun.
Alice had went down into the launch pad area where the rocket was as those doors had now been open. Alice went inside as if she had opened the final area of the map. There was a machine that was her reward that they had linked the Lunar Landers together. Alice quickly took out the Spas-12 as the zombies were breaking down the barricades.
"Well I don't want to be stuck loading into a game." Alice told herself as she placed the Spas-12 into the Pacck a Punch Machine. She had ground up enough points to be able to achieve a feat like this. Saya and Saeko had arrived as Alice was upgrading one of her guns.
"Alice what are you doing?!" Saya asked with concern. The zombies began to pour through the barricades while Pack a Punch Machine gave the gun back to Alice.
"Hey guys this is nice and shiny now!" Alice shouted as she held her Spaz-24 shotgun. She pointed it at a group of zombies, she fired it. It was a hybrid of an automatic rifle and a shotgun as it was blasting the zombies heads off. Best part of it was the fact that should reload it all in one go instead of reloading it individually. A large group of zombies made their way into the room as Saeko was curious about what this Pack a Punch machine could do. She got out her colt and placed it into the Pack a Punch Machine. Alice and Saya thought they weren't going to hold them off this time so Alice got out one of her Gersh Devices and activated it, she threw it at the feet of the zombies as they ran over it suddenly a purple sphere had been opened as the zombies were quickly being sucked into the Gersh Device. Alice being curious tried to figure out where this machine was going to take her. She ran over and dove into the Gersh Device.
"Alice no!" Saya shouted. It was too late Alice had disappeared as Saeko grabbed what seemed to be her starting pistol from the Pack a Punch Machine.
"Is it strange that the starting room pistol is turned into a dual wield grenade launcher?" Saeko asked as Saya was panicking. Saeko looked around while getting out her Mp5K and firing it at the zombies. "Has anyone seen Alice?" Saeko asked.
Alice eventually popped out as the Gersh Device was a black hole for the zombies but for Alice she must've survived this. Alice looked around as she spotted a perk machine and the AK-74U wall buy she had purchased earlier.
"I survived the portal trip I don't think I want to be doing that again." Alice told herself. Then round eight had ended and turned into round nine. The Zombies began to swarm around her as Alice got out the AK-74U and began firing it off as she needed the points. She was going to attempt to empty out the magazine if she was going to be able to change it for another gun. She reloaded as if she was firing it all off rapidly. Alice would eventurally dump out all the AK-74U ammo as she decided to get out the Spaz-24 and begin blasting her way through the crowd. The Spaz-24 was effective at its job maybe a little too effective. Alice was happily blasting away as whatever this pack a punch machine had done had made this shotgun beefy so strong that when Alice needed to reload, she had taken out everything around her. Alice went over to the Lunar Lander and tried to call it over. Eventually it came over and Alice got onto it. Then the Lander took off but Alice didn't push any buttons. The lander few up into the sky as she wasn't being taken back to spawn but rather to Lander site B where the Sickle was. When Alice landed. Saeko and Saya were waiting as Alice was relatively unharmed.
"Well what happened, we were so scared to have you not with us." Saya told Alice that she was more or less frightened to see where their friend went off to.
"I was teleported across the map when I went into that device. The zombies were sucked in which I was more than happy to find out." Alice replied about her experience. She went over and purchased the Sickle, Saya killed the last zombie as round nine ended and round ten began.
"Cool so we can all be teleported?" Saya asked. Saeko was in the mood to go to the mystery box to exchange the empty Mp5K she had. Alice definitely wanted to see the box again. Alice was also out of AK-74U ammo and she needed a good point maker to help balance her Spaz-24. She got out the shotgun and she began to blast her way through to the mystery box. The others were behind as Saeko was blowing up everything with his pistols from the rear. Saeko even got out onf of the Matroyshka dolls and tossed it at the horde, the cluster grenades exploded as the entire group was taken down. Alice and Saya were keeping their guard as Saeko decided to hit the box. The guns were flashing all over before Saeko was given a gun.
"I don't know if a medieval weapon would be useful for someone like me?" Saeko asked as she took the crossbow. She aimed at the zombies anf fired before reloading, moments later the crossbow bolt detonated and took out some of the zombies. "Explosive huh?" Saeko asked. Alice went to the box to trade out the empty AK-74U she had. She hits the box while the others were trying to take out the zombies. For Saeko she watched as it landed on something she wanted.
"This box loves me!" Alice told herself as she recieved a Spectre from the box. She decided to join the fray and began to spray the Spectre into the zombie crowd as they were trying their best to get points and to clear out the crowd. Eventurally Alice threw down a Gersh device and it sucked the zombies in. "Come on." Alice called out. She Saeko and Saya raced into the Gersh Device and were swallowed up along with the zombies.
Eventurally the three of them would land in the spawn room where they were once again fine.
"Wow I never knew something like this could be exciting, it's like going through a teleporter." Saya began. They got up to dust themselves off. the three of them didn't realize was the fact that they had killed the last zombie and the round was over. Round eleven was about to begin.
"We survived the first ten rounds, now what?" Saya asked. The rest of the game was up to their choices.
Going to leave this off as this took a while to type as it was just them setting up and getting the Pack a Punch door to open as well as dealing with the mechanics of Ascension. Next two parts wouldn't be as long as I will be skipping rounds as it would be just them killing zombies and monkeys. It will get repetivive if I go through round for round but I will be describing major actions like getting guns and upgrading them.
Also do not get the PM63, it's a waste of points as you constantly need ammo for it. Also there is a door on Ascension that you should not open its the 1250 door where the PM63 is and the reason the door should remain closed is when the monkeys spawn in they will take all the routes to steal your perks by keeping that door closed you're only giving the monkeys one route to steal your perks and you can defend two perks instead of one.
Rounds 11-20 will be the next part.

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So back in 2016, I managed to score tickets for a Dead & Co show at Irvine Meadows - my first ever Grateful Dead experience of any sort. On a whim, I invited two buddies along, both of whom had never even heard a single Dead song.
I decided to spice up the experience a bit, and gave them both acid - one was a first-timer, the other had dabbled before. The show was an insane kaleidoscope of music, colors, and good vibes, for the most part. Yet, a dark cloud hung over one friend, who was stressing about a potential herpes scare, and it was messing with his whole vibe.
We sparked up a joint towards the end of the 2nd set, and he decided to wander off to clear his mind. My other friend and I, feeling somewhat guilty about enjoying ourselves while he was out there worrying, decided to go find him. We caught up, decided to head out, and that's when the night took a strange turn.
My acid-newbie friend, teary-eyed, turned to me and thanked me for sharing the experience with him. But then, the floodgates opened. His gratitude turned into sobbing, which then transformed into this manic display of emotions ranging from joy, sadness, and anger to an out-of-character flamboyance. He started randomly charging at passersby, which, understandably, led to some tense confrontations.
We had a hell of a time trying to keep him under control - he was more than a match for both of us. The venue staff tried to help, suggesting we keep him contained in a grassy area where he seemed to be somewhat calm. We, however, wanted to get him in an Uber and back to the hotel ASAP. As we made our way to the Uber pickup point, he had another violent outburst, culminating in him slapping my herpes-scared friend.
This drew the attention of a cop, who promptly handcuffed him. The sight of cuffs surprisingly made him calm down - perhaps an unexpected side effect of his previous prison stint?
Meanwhile, my other friend and I managed to get an Uber back to the hotel. We were still reeling from the wild night, and my friend's sour mood due to his potential herpes situation didn't help matters. After some futile attempts at calling the cops, I tried calling our 'bad trip' friend's cell. To my surprise, a nurse answered and let us know he was at the ER.
So there we were, still tripping, walking into an emergency room, causing a ruckus, and munching on snacks from a 7-11. They eventually released him to us, having sedated him with some benzos.
Despite the wild ride, our friend somehow thought this was all an elaborate prank we had set up. As if the night wasn't crazy enough, he decided to call his ultra-conservative, anti-drug girlfriend at 4 AM - despite my frantic attempts to stop him. She, worrying about his "dehydration", decided to drive all the way from LA to Irvine.
It was a wild, crazy, unforgettable night, to say the least. Definitely an experience I wouldn't trade for anything, but one I'd hesitate to repeat. So yeah, that's the story of my first Dead & Co show and one hell of a trip.
P.S Don't smoke weed on acid if you're not a daily smoker. Shit WILL go sideways.

Going on 3 weeks of not smoking. It’s been pretty good so far and I’m already feeling the positive effects people talk about like better focus and not feeling like a total zombie.
I started smoking in college, but really picked up the daily habit when I moved to California. I love the west coast and it’s primarily where I found and solidified my love for Mary Jane. The accessibility and quality of weed there was just so top notch. I had since moved back to New York, and although it’s becoming more legal here, it’s still a bit of work to get it and the quality is also … so so, which made it easier to quit. My job is sending me to California for work and I’m worried about giving into the temptation. Hanging with friends who smoke, being around all the dispensaries. I’m afraid of blowing up my progress.
A bit of a vent but I’ll hopefully stay strong. God speed. 🫡

Need an app that :
1)work offline first (exit Notion)
2)sync between devices and backups to the Cloud
3)cross platform (exit Apple notes ) , android, macOS, iOS, windows
4) not on subscription

I’ve been posting videos regularly, using trending audio, hashtags and concepts, making them creative, the whole nine and still, 90% of them only get views in the 200s. Is this some sort of algorithm thing? I see videos of literally a girl copying a tik tok dance nothing special or a cat walking across the street or a random person ranting with millions of views. Those videos have poor editing and half the time no general plot so I really don’t understand? Is it pure luck?
Tell me what I’m doing wrong please lol
Username- mich3llem0

I’ve been waiting to talk about this. I’ve been looking for others with similar experiences, or… I dunno. Maybe I hoped I was insane. Months have passed, and I still don’t have the slightest idea what to believe. But no matter what is true and what isn’t, the memory of what happened to me is as true as can be.
And every time I put my hand to a door, I tremble. ​
I was looking for a house in the surrounding area. I know, being a homeowner at 27 seems like a dream. I know I’ve been fortunate. Even so, I wanted something remote, spacious, and comparably cheap.
I’d been looking for something nearby, but everything even close to a larger city quickly ran out of my price range. It wasn’t until I started looking at the rural outskirts that I started to see something realistic.
I’d been to four open house showings in the past week when I came across an ad that looked too good to be true. Another open house, but this one was just perfect. Apparently, they were looking to make a quick sale after a previous deal had fallen through.
​
I made my way to a small nearby town called Tomskog. There was a little billboard with a blue sunflower greeting me, and I took a hard right down a street named “Sunplenty Road”. There were only five houses there, and the one I came to look at was at the far end. Even from a distance, I could tell I wasn’t the only visitor.
I parked on the street outside and took in the sights. There was an “Open House” sign outside, again with the sunflower logo. There was a separate garage, and the house itself was smaller than expected. Homely, but small.
I was greeted by a cheerful man. He had thick glasses, a receding hairline, and the kind of “fun uncle” smile that told me he could get away with anything.
“Come on in,” he said. “You’re gonna love it.” ​
There was me, the realtor, and three other people. A middle-aged couple, and a younger woman. She had this messy black hair that kept poking her in the eye. Even at a glance I could tell the young woman was distraught. She wasn’t even looking around the house, she seemed more interested in the people wandering about.
The house had a simple and open layout. The bottom floor had a bathroom, a separate study room, an adjoining kitchen, and a lounge area. There were stairs leading to a sort of catwalk on the second floor, making the main room wide open. The second floor had another bathroom, a bedroom, and a guest room.
It had this sort of sullen 70’s vibe with grey and white flower-patterned wallpaper. There were little scuffs and tears pretty much everywhere, but the house itself seemed… fine. ​
The realtor, Anders, showed me all the details of the kitchen. He assured me that most of the appliances were to be replaced before the next homeowner moved in, and proudly displayed the new garbage disposal. It was a nice enough setup, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the young woman standing outside the study. I got the feeling that she was standing guard.
As the middle-aged couple walked downstairs, they asked her they could have a look.
“No,” she answered, with a shrug. “You can’t.”
“Don’t mind her,” Anders the realtor smiled. “Of course you can.”
“No,” she insisted. “They can’t.”
Anders walked up to her and leaned in. His demeanor shifted. They argued back and forth, and I could hear her repeat, over and over;
“This is not what we agreed to.” ​
The middle-aged couple and I just looked at one another. While the realtor and the young woman argued, we introduced ourselves. I smiled and gave them my name. They were named Helen and Sebastian, or ‘Seb’ for short. Typical midwestern salt-of-the-earth kind of people. They were suffering from an empty nest and seemed to want a place to start over. They made no secret about being interested in the place, although Helen wasn’t sure about having no direct access to the garage. Seb, on the other hand, wasn’t sure about the soil. He wanted a proper garden, and the soil seemed ill-fit to sustain greenery.
“Still,” Helen smiled. “Best place we’ve seen so far.”
“Sure is,” added Seb, giving Helen a little shake. ​
Anders kept arguing with the young woman. I could overhear her name as Whitney, and she was not willing to cooperate. Finally, Anders just pushed past her, putting his keys in the lock.
“Right this way, we’ll just take a quick peek.”
“We’re not done in there,” she said. “You can’t just-“
“It was supposed to be packed up, Whitney. I can’t help that you’re late.”
“That’s not… please. Give me an hour.”
“You’ve had plenty of hours.”
He clicked the door open and pushed it in. The three of us gave Whitney an apologetic look as we stepped inside.
​
The study was a mess. Old clothes strewn across various furniture, loose papers and books haphazardly thrown across a musky desk. An entire wall of bookshelves full of textbooks, ranging from discrete mathematics to philosophical physics. I stood there for a few seconds, taking it all in. Whitney pushed past us, grabbing an empty box from the floor.
“Don’t touch anything,” she sighed. “Just… look at it, and leave.”
Anders leaned over to us, lowering his voice.
“You have to excuse her,” he whispered. “There were some… complications, with the former owner.”
“Oh, she’s… the, uh, the daughter?” Seb asked.
Anders nodded.
While Anders told us about the east-facing windows and the top-of-the-line air conditioning system, I couldn’t help but to keep my eyes on Whitney. She was rummaging through the desk, dropping mementos, pictures, and notebooks into one of her many cardboard boxes. I could tell she was sleep deprived. She kept yawning.
Helen seemed eager to just leave Whitney to her grieving, while Seb kept to the practical details. He checked the hardwood floor, the insulation on the windows, the wall linings for pests. At one point, he almost knocked over a coffee table, and Whitney came running. She caught a vase that was about to topple off the table.
“Don’t… don’t touch anything!” she cried out. “Just… if you have to be here, stay… stay still!”
“I’m, uh… sorry,” Seb said. “I was just-“
“Just go over there!”
She waved her hands around, shaking the vase. There was a little rattle coming from it.
She shook it again, and I could see the color fade from her cheeks. Carefully, she tipped the vase, and something dark plopped into her hand.
A large bronze key.
Whitney pulled her hand back, letting the bronze key clatter to the floor. She covered her mouth, forgetting how to exhale. We just looked at her having what seemed, to us, like a mental breakdown.
“Nobody move,” she gasped. “Nobody… do anything.”
We all just stood there. Helen and Seb barely breathed, and I was suddenly hyper-aware of how still my feet were. Anders wasn’t impressed. If anything, he was fed up with this. He rolled his eyes, and picked up the key.
“Whitney, I’m sorry, you’re gonna have to wait outside.”
“Please, put… put that down.”
“You can put it with your things and take it outside.”
“Just… don’t move, you don’t know what you’re-“
Anders opened the door, stepped out of the study, and headed straight for the front door. Whitney dropped everything and ran after him. The rest of us followed suit.
“Wait!” she called out. “Please wait!”
As soon as Anders put his hand on the front door, Whitney stopped dead in her tracks.
“Anders, please, I’m sorry,” she said. “Just step away. Give me the key. I’ll leave, I promise. I swear.”
“That’s enough of that.”
“No!”
He opened the door and took a step forward. The bronze key passed the threshold.
We’d all stepped into the main lounge by now, and I heard the door to the study slam shut. There was a sort of pressure shift, making the wind move through the main lounge. Every door in the house slid shut with a click. All except the front door, which was wide open.
But there was nothing there.
Not nothing as in no one standing there. No, nothing as in “a nothing”. Just a blank, black space.
A viscous fluid where sunlight ought to be.
Endless, abyssal, ocean.
I stared at it, mesmerized. The contrast of the bright sun coming in from the windows, bouncing off the ripples of this deep ocean doorway.
And there, in the dark, humanoids. Tall, elongated silhouettes.
Anders stepped back, but it was as if parts of him refused to move. His arms were locked in place, seemingly by an invisible force. And as he stepped back, something started pulling him in.
His limbs grew long and twisted. His knees bending and snapping at impossible angles. His scalp pulled backwards, the loose skin of his face revealing the bottom white of his eyes.
“He… help!”
It was all he managed to say, as he was pulled into the dark. Limbs were quietly ripped from his sockets, as his human frame was bent, twisted, torn, and mangled. Black water mixing with marrow as dark shapes turned Anders into what resembled an underwater cloud of flesh and cloth.
Whitney threw herself forward, slamming the door shut, leaving the bronze key on the floor.
Screams erupted, and I didn’t even notice they were mine. It was this primal force being pulled out of me, this need to scream. Like a baby desperate for her mother. Helen backed into a corner and sunk to the floor, with Seb trying his best to comfort her. Whitney just sat there looking at the bronze key; her face breaking out in cold sweats.
I felt something turn in my stomach and headed for the bathroom. Whitney ran after me, but she couldn’t make it in time. I burst through the bathroom door and collapsed on the floor, hyperventilating. Whitney stayed outside, looking at me in shock.
“It’s… you’re… you’re fine,” she said. “You’re okay.”
I wasn’t. But compared to Anders, panicking on the bathroom floor seemed like a mercy.
Whitney stayed with me as I calmed down. Seb and Helen joined us. After a few minutes of silence, Whitney excused herself. She came back with pile of notebooks. She sat down across the hall from me, making sure not to enter the bathroom.
“My dad, he… found something,” she said. “I wasn’t sure exactly what.”
“We should… we should leave,” said Helen. “We should leave right now.”
“We can climb out a window,” said Seb. “If the, uh… the door is…”
“Just… please,” sighed Whitney. “Just stay. We’ll figure it out.”
“I-I mean no offense,” said Helen. “But what… what on earth was that?”
Whitney turned the notebook to a specific page and read aloud.
“I’ve been marooned in this house for thirty days. I never know where the Door is. Sometimes I can hear water, sometimes not. I tried the windows, but it nearly burst my eardrums from the pressure as water came rushing in. I can’t leave. I can’t move. They wait behind the Door. They wait for me to open.”
Whitney scratched her head. Helen looked back and forth, as if waiting for something to make sense. Seb just shook his head.
“What… what does that even mean?” asked Helen. “What happened?”
“It has to do with the doors,” Whitney explained. “They wait behind the Door.”
“There’s nothing there,” said Seb. “There’s light coming through the windows.”
“It’s… it’s not that easy. It’s when you open it.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
Whitney stood up and handed Helen three notebooks.
“We can argue the details of dad’s quantum entanglement experiment later, but that’s not gonna help us.”
“So… let’s just go then,” said Seb. “Let’s leave.”
“You wanna take your chances on the front door? That it won’t come back? Go ahead.”
Seb took a few tentative steps up to the front door. Helen wanted to protest, but she just started looking back and forth. Whitney crossed her arms and turned away.
“I can’t hear anything,” said Seb. “Are you sure it’s there?”
“It’s somewhere,” said Whitney. “I don’t… I don’t know the rules. It has to do with the doors.”
I got up off the bathroom floor and looked at them. Seb took his hand off the front door and stepped back. Whitney turned her attention to me.
“You put yourself at risk,” said Whitney. “That could’ve killed you.”
“The bathroom?”
“The door to the bathroom. Any or all of these doors, it… it could be connected. Here, let me-“
Whitney walked up to Helen and took one of the notebooks back. She turned to one of the latter pages.
“The framework of passageway. Concept of thought. Paired in alignment, the darkness standing shy from the mirrored back of Empyrean. Realm unwilled and unbound, misshapen by collective subconscious. We cannot pass, our world-forgotten blocks dissipated. Like a bridge cannot be built of water, and a house cannot be built of wind. But the great craftsman blames not their tools; and eternal gold can be found in humble bronze.”
“Bronze,” I said. “Like the key.”
“Look, my dad, he… we weren’t on speaking terms. I’ve looked at all this for days, and all I can tell is that he was off his rocker. He died in that room.”
Whitney pointed to the study. Helen hugged Seb tight, holding back a sob.
“He couldn’t leave. He was convinced that the… the door would eat him.”
Helen sat down by the kitchen table. Thankfully, there was no door in-between the kitchen and the main lounge. Seb walked straight up to Whitney, grabbed her by the collar of her blouse, and slammed her up against the wall; his calm demeanor cracking at the seams.
“We shouldn’t be here,” he said. “This is your fault!”
“I-I didn’t know! It was all just ramblings! I didn’t have time to clear it all out, how… how could I have known?!”
“You recognized the key,” said Helen. “You chased after him. You asked him to wait.”
“That’s the only part that keeps coming back!” Whitney yelled. “Check the notebooks! The key, it’s… it’s everywhere! It’s everything!”
“So what do we do?” Seb asked. “Do we use it or destroy it?”
Whitney looked at the pile of notebooks she’d managed to gather from the study. It was only a handful of everything we’d seen in there, but it might be enough to get some semblance of an answer.
The house had six doors. The front door, the bathroom door, the study room door. On the top floor, there was another bathroom door, a door to the guest bedroom, and the main bedroom door. The bathroom door on the bottom floor was already open and considered safe. I could step in and out without a problem.
Whitney explained as best as she could.
Her father had grown increasingly paranoid since divorcing Whitney’s mother. He’d locked himself in his house, committing fully to his studies. He’d always been a bit agoraphobic, and having a reason not to leave the house was a bit of a blessing in disguise. But over time, that blessing turned into a curse. An early entry read;
“For years, I’ve longed for the presence of mind to devote myself. And now that I can, I find myself wanting. I can’t be certain. There is a Door, a passage. It binds itself seemingly spontaneously. There is a risk involved, and it is a risk I cannot take.”
Seb tried to call for help, but water started pouring out of his phone. Whitney found a page about “semi-passages” or “shortcuts”. Things that could be used as portals to another person or place. They weren’t as conceptually clean as a door, and thus wouldn’t invite “Them”, but the connection would go through that dark place. The place that, somehow, her father had stumbled upon.
I looked at the key for a long time. I didn’t dare to touch it. It was unassuming, in a way. It was old and had this sort of blocky texture; like it was made of little squares. While Helen and Seb rifled through notebooks, Whitney looked up and talked to me.
“He just wanted a way to go wherever he wanted, without having to traverse the space in-between. To just go from one door to another. All he needed was a key.”
“But why now? Why is… how are we trapped?” I asked. “We got in here just fine.”
“The realtor,” sighed Whitney. “He tried to leave with the key. I think that triggered it.”
“So how do we un-trigger it?”
Whitney shrugged and pointed to the notebooks.
We had endless discussions. We compared notes, drew out theories. Helen thought we could force the bronze key out a window, but Whitney theorized that it’d just leave us locked inside. I suggested we listened at each door, just to eliminate which ones were safe and which weren’t. We tried, but there was seemingly no way to tell. Sometimes I could hear rushing water on the other side. Scratches on the wood. Other times, nothing. Even going back to the same door, it’d sound differently each time.
We considered opening several doors at once. We spread ourselves out. I was at the upstairs bedroom door, right next to Seb by the guest room door. Whitney was downstairs by the study door, and Helen insisted on the front door. We all put our hands on the handles. I wasn’t sure if I could hear something on the other side or not; my heart was pounding too loudly.
There were six doors. Five were closed, one open. Someone was probably going to die.
“There is only ever one Door. He only speaks of it as a singular. It can change over time,” said Whitney. “This is our best shot.”
“We can’t know for sure,” said Seb. “And why do we even want to open them all? There’s nothing in the bedrooms, right?”
“We’re excluding,” I said. “Like we did with the downstairs bathroom.”
“We should close it,” said Helen. “Shouldn’t that improve our chances of… of our other doors being okay?”
“I have no idea,” sighed Whitney. “Are we doing this?”
Seb backed away from his door, taking the hand off the handle.
“It ain’t right,” he said. “None of it. It ain’t right.”
Everything erupted into an argument. Seb couldn’t bring himself to risk his life for anything less than an exit, and Helen couldn’t stop crying at the thought of that dark abyss. I couldn’t blame her. To this day, I can’t stop imagining it. Whitney, trying to act as a voice of reason, read aloud from one of the notebooks.
“The concept of the passageway, the Door, changes at the flick of a thought. An alien thought, like an invisible, uncontrollable shadow of the psyche. It refuses to be controlled. My exit could be my end; or as likely, a wooden frame. Much like we cannot control the smoke of a campfire, we cannot foresee the turning of the passageway.”
We all looked at one another. Helen collapsed by the front door, crying. Whitney was close to a mental breakdown. I felt this enormous burden settle in my stomach, like I was missing something.
“Let’s take the door off the hinges”, said Seb. “We’ll turn it into a… an arch. Then it ain’t a door anymore. You think that’ll work?”
“In theory, maybe,” said Whitney. “But how do we do that without opening it?”
“We’ll… we’ll take the whole frame off,” Seb said. “There’s a crowbar under the sink. Saw it when I checked the garbage disposal.”
Helen bent down next to the sink, put her hand on the kitchen cabinet handle. I gasped.
Was that considered a door? Could it kill her? Would it?
I imagined that dark, cold abyss. That enormous force pulling me in, turning my very form into this unrecognizable mass. Where no screams can be heard. All I’d have to show for such unimaginable anguish would be a burst of bubbles; then nothing.
“No!” I cried out. “Stop!”
But it was too late.
Nothing happened. Helen opened it, pulled out the crowbar, and that was that. But for a brief moment, I realized how Whitney’s father must’ve felt. That uncertainty, not knowing for sure if that one flick of the wrist would be damnation; or nothing.
Helen handed the crowbar to Seb, while Whitney gave me a pat on the shoulder. I couldn’t stop crying. My whole body was shaking from the sudden rush of adrenaline. Meanwhile, Seb walked up to the front door and started tapping the wood.
The theory was this; if there was no door, nothing could come through. There was no point in doing a test run, because if it didn’t work, someone would lose their life either way. It was better to have an honest chance of getting out.
Whitney gathered towels. She had this idea that, maybe, water might start leaking if the door was turned into a semi-passage, like a window. If so, we might have to find a way to quickly stop the flow.
By the time we got the towels, Seb started working on the door frame. As that first crack rang out, I heard a click.
The front door slid open.
Without a moment’s thought, Seb pushed it close. It had barely opened an inch.
We all held our breaths. We were fine. Nothing was happening.
“It’s… it’s clear!” Helen called out. “There’s nothing there! I saw it, it… it was nothing!”
“It can change!” Whitney yelled back. “We can’t take that risk again!”
“Like hell we can’t.”
Seb put his hand on the front door, but Whitney tackled him. The crowbar fell to the floor as Helen rushed forward to help.
“Listen!” Whitney yelled. “Just listen!”
A rumble, like a great whale passing in the distance. It was right there; on the other side of the front door.
Without a word, they all stood up and backed away. The door shook from the passing force. Something was definitely there.
“Then… then the rest should be fine,” said Seb. “We can get to the study.”
Whitney nodded, and the two of them burst into a sprint. Helen wasn’t convinced, but didn’t know what to say. Whitney dropped her crowbar, and as she bent to pick it up, Seb opened the door to the study.
Darkness.
“…no.”
Panic exploded. Helen grabbed his arms, trying to pull him out. Whitney crawled backwards, closing her eyes and covering her ears. I couldn’t watch. All I heard was Helen, screaming his name, over and over. There was a gargle. A scream turning into an inhuman screech, like a burning pig.
“Sebastian!” Helen kept repeating. “Sebastian! Sebastian!”
There was a click, and then nothing but crying. I looked up to see Helen collapsed against the study door. It had slid shut from the pressure on the other side.
“I’m… I’m coming, Sebby,” she cried. “I’m… I’m-“
She opened the door again.
And there was the study, just as we’d left it.
Helen collapsed on the floor, curling up into a fetal position. She kept making this child-like yowling, scratching the surface of the hardwood floor, as if trying to dig Seb back into reality. But there was nothing left. Not even water droplets on the floor.
Then there were her arms. She’d held on until the door had slammed shut. Her sleeves were torn, and her arms bloody. Not much, but there were these round little suction marks. They were already bruising, with spots of blood poking through the skin.
I sat by Helen as Whitney started rifling through the study. There were more notebooks, more theories, more diaries. Notes about experiments, clever tricks, and attempts. So far, every idea to understand the rules were in vain. We couldn’t make sure. No matter what, we could never be truly sure.
Two open doors. Four closed.
I don’t know how many hours passed. I managed to get Helen to the couch, but she was inconsolable. She could barely comprehend words anymore. She didn’t blink, and she could barely breathe. There were no coherent thoughts in her mind, just… darkness. This awful, soul-sinking darkness.
Whitney propped up the open doors with books and towels, to make sure they wouldn’t accidentally close. All the while, she kept trying to convince herself.
“We keep opening them one by one,” she said. “If we can get it to manifest in one single place, and keep that door open, we should be able to leave by another.”
The sun had started to set outside. For all intents and purposes, this still just looked like a house. The windows were clear, showing the greenery outside. Maybe it was all a lie. Maybe none of it was really happening.
But looking down at Helen, and her unblinking eyes, I knew it was the realest thing I’d ever experienced.
“We… there’s three of us,” I said. “Four doors. We can’t make it.”
“No, that’s perfect,” nodded Whitney. “That’s… we open all but the front door. It manifests. Then we can get out through the one safe remaining door.”
“Unless we all die. There’s nothing that says it can only be in one place.”
“It is implied,” said Whitney. “If you got a better plan, just tell me. But unless you want to starve to death, we gotta-“
“Starve?” I interrupted. “Is that what…”
I looked back at the study, where Whitney said her father had died. No words were necessary. She took a deep breath and nodded.
“He couldn’t bring himself to try,” she said. “So we have to ask ourselves what we want. A long but certain death, or a violent risk at life?”
The fridge, the freezer, and all the cupboards had been cleared out. Whitney found some raisins for us to share while we pondered what to do. Helen couldn’t eat. She stared blankly ahead, waiting for her mind to come wandering back.
It was dark outside. Whitney rolled the bronze key between her fingers.
“I wonder how he did it,” she sighed. “He never made any sense to me.”
“Maybe it doesn’t make sense,” I shrugged. “At least not to us.”
“Then what made him so special?”
“Well, he did have a lot of books,” I said, reaching into a pile we’d gathered from the study. “Just look at some of these.”
“Astrology of Abraham, Channels of Esoteric Geometry…”
“I like this one,” I said, holding up a little red book. “Diary of Emmett Rask.”
“Right. But it doesn’t beat the…”
Whitney pulled out another book from the pile, turning it over.
“… the thirteen faiths of the blameless mother.”
I shook my head, looking over at Helen. A handful of raisins slipped between her fingers. She didn’t even bother closing her hand.
Looking back at Whitney, I sighed.
“You’re right,” I said. “We have to try.”
So we did.
We lined ourselves up on the top floor. Helen on the far right, near the bathroom. I was on the far left, by the guest room. Whitney was in the middle, by the bedroom. Helen didn’t understand. She just mimicked us.
“We’re gonna open on three,” said Whitney. “And no matter what we see, just run. Run downstairs, and just… go. Get out.”
I nodded. Helen didn’t.
“One.”
I tightened my grip. I saw Helen follow my lead, giving me an exhausted look. She could barely keep her eyes open.
“Two.”
I started doubting which way to turn the doorknob. I’d turned a million doorknobs throughout my life, but that was the first time I’d really thought about which way to turn it. I imagined myself hearing water. Bubbles. Distant rumbles. I tried telling myself that it was all imagined. Fake. Tricks of the mind.
But in my heart of hearts, I knew it wasn’t.
“Three.”
We opened our doors.
All I saw was a well-made bed. A bag of toiletries; probably Whitney’s. I left the door open and turned around.
Helen was smiling as the darkness welcomed her.
“Come on!” Whitney screamed. “Leave her!”
The door to the bedroom was open. Clear. But I was standing just ten feet away from an endless abyss. Helen looked at it, as if searching for something. She touched the surface with an outstretched hand.
“Seb, honey,” she cried. “Sebby, please.”
A pulse shot through her. I could see the hair on her arm stand up. Her veins turning black.
“Oh, Sebby…”
In an instant, her flesh unraveled as it flayed itself from the inside out. Her scream stifled as something pulled her in, leaving splotches of blood behind from the outline of her feet. A pained moan escaped her; only to be turned to harmless bubbles in the pressurized void.
Whitney grabbed me by the neck and pulled me downstairs. We ran to the front door. We looked back a final time, just to make sure it was still manifested upstairs.
It was still there. We’d sacrificed Helen, but we’d make it out.
Whitney pulled the front door open – and stopped.
Darkness.
We’d been wrong.
Whitney turned to run as an impossibly long arm grabbed the flesh of her back; straight through her clothes. It pulled her back.
I crawled away, not being able to close my eyes.
“Help me!” she cried out. “For God’s sake fucking help me!”
I shook my head, not knowing what to do. I’ll never forget those desperate eyes. The betrayal. The pleading. She fought every inch of the way. She dug her nails into the hardwood floor. She kicked. She pulled. She screamed. But for every second she stayed, the more painful it was.
With a final snap, the fingers dug into her spine; folding her like a lawn chair.
A lifeless body, dragged across the floor. Unceremoniously pulled into the dark with a quiet squelch.
And the door, slightly damaged by Seb and his crowbar, slid shut.
I was all alone.
The door to the guest bedroom and the main bedroom remained open. There was the bathroom and study downstairs. Just two closed doors left; the bathroom and the front door. Both closed. Both… wrong.
There was no right answer.
I must’ve stayed there for days. I found some trail mix in Whitney’s bag. I had water. I could shower. I had a change of clothes. I scoured the notebooks over and over and over, trying to find the slightest hint on what to do. There had to be some way of knowing for sure. There had to be.
It wasn’t until I came across a final note that I realized it was over. It read;
“By will alone, we cannot make ourselves right. Right is right, independently of our actions and intentions. We cannot control that which never was, and we cannot be part of that which will never be. There could be no more perils for me to face, and yet, I cannot bring myself to leave. There is no certainty in the unknown, and I choose not to live by chance alone.”
I cried myself to sleep at night. I banged on the walls. I even tried opening a window, only to have my left eardrum blown out from the pressure drop. Got a nasty nosebleed as well.
I tried reading. I tried making up little worlds in my head. I imagined myself safe and sound.
But it was useless. In those final hours of desperate loneliness, I knew I couldn’t fool myself any longer.
I was going to die.
I found myself with my hand on the front door. I learned every crease of the wood. The temperature of the metal handle. I listened to it. Studied it. At times, it was quiet. At other times, it wasn’t. Sometimes I imagined it quiet, other times, I imagined voices coming from the other side.
Maybe I wasn’t imagining it.
Finally, I grasped the bronze key. Starving, exhausted, and mentally broken – I opened the front door.
Sunshine.
And there, on the fresh-cut lawn, was another realtor.
Just as confused as I was.
So, turns out I was only in there for about 16 hours total. And to this day, no one seems to remember neither Anders, Seb, Helen, or Whitney. According to every document I can find, the owner of the house had no children. The cars parked outside were unregistered. On paper, it seemed like the entire world had forgotten that these people were ever part of this plane of existence.
I don’t think anyone’s lying here. There was a sincere disbelief and confusion to every piece of my story. To onlookers, I seemed like a squatter that’d gone insane.
I’ve tried to find anything about this. They won’t let me go back to read the notes. The investment firm who owns the real estate company swept it all under a rug and tore the place down. I suspect they were the ones who made the bronze key mysteriously disappear from the evidence room.
I’ve tried to find copies of the books I found in there. Some of them have been seen in passing on strange message boards, and one just keeps making my computer turn off whenever I try to google it. Who the hell is Emmett Rask anyway?
If anyone knew these people, or have heard about this phenomenon, please… I need to know I’m sane. I need to know this isn’t all a dream. I need to know I won’t wake up with my hand on that front door, having imagined living a life back outside.
This has to be real. I am real. There is nothing on the other side of the door.
Go ahead, listen. There’s nothing there.
It can’t be.
Can it?

Zhuo Yifan was a Magic Emperor or could be called a Demon Emperor because he had an ancient Emperor’s book called the Book of the Nine Secrets, he was targeted by all the experts and he was even betrayed and killed by his student. Then his soul enters and comes back to life in a family servant boy named Zhuo Fan. Because some demonic magic is holding him back, he must unite the child’s memories an ... Read Magic Emperor - Chapter 402 - MangaPuma. Read more at https://mangapuma.com/magic-emperochapter-402

I have an older system that still works well but I can't get the cameras in the US anymore. As such I want to upgrade my whole system. I want something relatively easy to install for indoor and outdoor use. I would prefer continuous recording to cloud storage, and something I can remotely tap into from an ap. I'd also like to be able to easily add additional cameras as the need arises. Any suggestions? I was looking at blink but they don't offer continous recording. Budget isn't really a major issue, I'm just looking for a good long term system.
Edit also 2 way audio is a must, more important than ease of use.

I was thinking about using AWS but some people noted that it does not support everything. I use a ui version called Waifux2 that has many good ai upscale methods such as Real-ESRGAN which I use the most, Waifu2x, SRMD-Vulkan, Anime4k etc.
What cloud service will allow me to rent a gpu and offload the work into it instead of my own hardware? I thought at first that all services just allow you to run everything that require computing power but seems its not so simple.

Kubernetes
My Kubernetes cluster is running under Google Cloud. I have deployment which running with port 443 and LoadBalancer expose it to the internet.
I created it in this way:
kubectl expose deployment my-app --target-port=443 --port=443 --type=LoadBalancer After running this command, the loadbalancer is pointing to my-app deployment. Now I created my-app2 and I want to change the loadbalancer to point the new deployment (my-app2).
Note: Delete and re-create the deployment is releasing the external IP address and I want to avoid it.
How to patch the existing service to point another deployment without loosing the external IP?
Answer link : https://codehunter.cc/a/kubernetes/kubernetes-kubectl-update-service-selector

Biggie said on friend of mine that he was listening to Wu, and Meth was even on the album and supposed to be on the second LP As well.
Nas was supposed to be on Gimme the loot
So why all this king of NY drama did Ghost and Rae diss BIG for cloud? And Nas just being loyal to Wu for sipporting him.
What do ya'll think?

I just finished the show and I am obsessed!!! I initially gave it a miss because I had read a few negative reviews and I wasn’t a fan of Cynthia Nixon but Ada is just so darn caring and loveable, she’s become one of my favourites - along with Pumpkin. I think I just didn’t like Cynthia’s character in Sex and the City and it clouded my judgement somewhat (sorry Cynthia!). I’m from the UK and the reviews I read here referenced Downton Abbey which I get, the same creator and producer, and as a big DA fan I could see some of the similarities. However I found after the first few episodes I totally forgot about them and was immersed in this world of New York. I don’t know anything about this part of history so it’s been really fun reading up on things. I’ve added so many books to my Amazon wish list and last Christmas I got ‘Women of Means’ by Marlene Wagman-Geller, must have been fate! I know the future of the show lies in the reviews in America and I was wondering how well received it has been over there? I read some are worried about Series 3 due to the writers strike - I hope that’s not the case. Sorry for the giddiness, I haven’t found a show that I’ve loved in so long and I don’t have anyone else to talk about it with apart from my mother (she’s also a big fan).