**>**Pro-tip: Yov can't

Not every Federation "trade partner" is the antichrist. However, no matter how "kind", modernization has its victims...

Of course, sometimes obsolete isn't necessarily a bad thing. In fact, sometimes it's vitally important...

The rest of the series can be found here

***

Hgedr gently brushed a thin blue substance on what appeared to be a small pinion rack and sighed happily through his four nostril slits.

He was getting close to completing the lock, his favorite part of the process.

Once the bluing had dried, he set it into place in a mechanism held in a delicate vise on his bench.

He firmly passed the rack back and forth, allowing it to mesh with its pinion.

He chuffed with satisfaction. It finally ran smoothly and it felt near satisfactory.

He removed it again, and with the vestigial prehensile feelers on the side of his head that once allowed his kind to feel their way through the murky lakes and pools that were once their habitat, he pulled down one of several lenses over his fore-eyes.

He peered carefully at the rack as he reached for a small carefully shaped piece of stone. Letting the stone do the work, he passed the stone through some of the teeth, gently stroking them.

He hummed a deep rumble as he did so, his tail swishing happily.

He loved this part.

As the shadows lengthened, he finally set down the stone and reapplied the bluing.

The door opened and Vkah, his wife of forty years, walked in wearing the quilted robe he had commissioned for her as an anniversary present five years ago.

He raised his upper lip in a smile.

“Quitting time was three hours ago,” she said firmly. “It’s stew, so it isn’t cold, but it still wants for eating and I still want for company.”

She ambled up and looked at the device in the vice.

“Looks like you are making fine progress,” she smiled, laying her tail on his. “That certainly some fine brass as well.”

“Good brass is getting harder to find each year,” Hgedr said as he hauled himself out of his work-sling. “For all that that Federation has and all that they create,” he snort-chuckled, “you would think they could produce decent brass. I don’t know what I will do when old Cjd finally retires. You know his sons actually abandoned the business? They have been running that smelting foundry for over three hundred years!”

“You may have mentioned it once or twice,” Vkah snorted, “Come on, old man. You can tell me all about it,

Roughly Ten Minutes Prior

"Well that was egregiously terrifying," Rob said, as he ran down the streets of Broadwater City. "I don't think I should be allowed to have ideas anymore."

<If I had a body, and pants, I would've shit them.> Diplomacy's core pulsed with fear. <When she looked at us...>

"Yeah." A shudder ran up and down Rob's spine. "Yeeeeah. Well, we distracted Queenie long enough for the Blight to injure her, and we've gone thirty seconds without being barbecued, so I'm counting this as an absolute win."

They left it at that. Neither of them wanted to focus on the image of those blazing, hate-filled eyes staring into their souls. It had already burnt itself into their memories; no need to give the impending nightmares more fuel.

The streets of Broadwater were vacant as Rob sprinted towards the designated teleportation circle. Hopefully that was a sign that everyone was at the rendezvous point and ready to be evacuated. If the Dragon Queen's injuries weren't as bad as they seemed when Rob caught his last glimpse of her, then not only would she be coming for them after she'd finished char-broiling the Blight, but it meant that she was so freakishly powerful that fighting her was impossible. The Deserters and Fiends would need to teleport to safety right away, and any stragglers left behind would just have to deal with the raw hand they'd been dealt.

Rob was fully aware that he was dangerously close to becoming one of those stragglers. How long was left until the circle was ready, exactly? Five minutes? Three? He didn't have a watch, and keeping track of time had never been his strong suit. Usually he'd remove a member of his Party in order to send a long-distance message, but this whole plan was spur of the moment, so he hadn't gotten the chance to set up any callsigns in advance. The good news was that Queenie didn't seem willing or able to follow him, though, so he should be okay even if he arrived at the evacuation spot a little late.

...They wouldn't just...leave, right? Like, if the Dragon Queen was divebombing them out of the sky, that was different. No hard feelings if they needed to bail under those circumstances. But if he was just a teeeeensy bit late to the meetup time, and no impending danger was forthcoming, then he should be fine, right? The Fiends would totally delay...escaping to their beloved homeland...for the sake of a...Human.

Oh goodie, Step of the Wind is back up. He activated it in a heartbeat an

3 Days Later

Sylpeiros nodded towards the Reviton civilians as he passed by them on the streets, a resolute expression on his face. He gave several more resolute nods to his direct subordinates as he entered the Reviton Defense Force's main base of operations. He kept nodding resolutely all the way until he reached his personal quarters, whereupon he collapsed into his chair – like a puppet with its strings cut – and closed his eyes.

Tiring, he thought. So tiring. Every day I feel more like a show horse brought out and trotted among the public for their amusement.

The sensation was unfamiliar and unwanted. Putting on a strong front for the public didn't used to weigh on him to this degree. Even the transitory excitement of finally leveling from 74 to 75 had faded all too quickly. Then again, he'd never needed to bear the brunt of their expectations for such a long period of time. Months of isolation under a siege of hellish abominations was fraying on everyone's nerves, his included.

Their only saving grace was that, of late, the abominations' attacks had weakened. The first turning point came about when Sylpeiros expunged the nearby Dungeon; his scholars' theory that the Dungeon was connected to the Blight in some fashion ended up being correct. Afterwards, the frequency with which those twisted creatures materialized out of the ambient mana surrounding Reviton lessened. The second turning point was far more recent, occurring just three days ago. For no discernible reason, every Blight-sired abomination simultaneously froze in the middle of combat, expressions of shocked confusion plastered onto their faces. They stood perfectly still as they were butchered, and since then, even fewer were forming than before.

Sylpeiros hadn't the faintest idea of why, but he wasn't going to spurn a much-needed reprieve. Mages and scholars would figure out the cause – his purpose was to slay enemies and nod resolutely.

And to engage in unwanted conversation. Sylpeiros allowed himself fifteen minutes of rest before dragging himself over to the Message Crystal tucked away in the corner of his room. Nothing would come of this correspondence, of that he was certain, but it was his duty as Seneschal to try regardless. With a pained grimace, he activated the Message Crystal, used it to contact the adjoining Crystal in Dragonkin territory, and waited.

Forty fucking minutes later, someone finally answered. "Hello?" A voice said, sounding haggard. "Who is this?"

Previous / First

Writer's note: As anyone who's ever played D&D can tell you, long distance trips often go by quicker than combat encounters. For the sake of avoiding OVERWRITING i've decided to hold to that....somwhat. But trouble always rises when your PC isn't actually paying attention. Poor James.

Anyways, enjoy the beginning of arc 2 of the WITJG? series.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For the fourth time in only a little over a month, James woke up somewhere he wasn't supposed to.

The first thing that he noticed upon waking was that he couldn't see. It took a second to figure out that he had a sack over his head. The second, was that he was in pain. His whole body felt like it had been used as a punching bag, and his shoulders felt like he'd done hundreds of pull-ups in a row. And the third and final thing worth noting, was that his hands and feet were tied, with his hands behind his back.

How had he gotten here? His head was throbbing. He was fairly certain that someone had hit it with something, though he couldn't remember what. The last thing he remembered was setting up camp on night four of their journey north. Kela had stiffened suddenly, fur raised running down her back as she'd stared into the woods nearby. He'd been about to ask her what was going on. Then he'd woken up here.

What had happened? He tried to remember how he'd gotten here.

----------------------------------------------------------

The first four days of the trip had been amazing. It had felt like the cross country trips his family had always wanted to go on, but had never had the time or money to actually make happen.

Mornings had been spent training his swordsmanship with Kela, Amina, and Gixelle. They taught him the basics and had him running drills with his sword and shield. It reminded him of combatives and it felt good to be doing training again, even if it was exhausting. Usually it would end with a sparring match with any of the three of them, testing whatever they'd taught him that day.

After breakfast they'd break down camp and begin riding. James and Gixelle would usually hang back for an hour or so before taking off. During that time James would practice different commands with Steve. Steve continued to prove how smart he was, usually only requ

15: VALDOR

• Valdor, the lone Custodian on the battlefield as Kandawire's force is being picked apart by the rookie Dark Angels, concludes that it will soon be another victory, but "the air tasted of ashes upon his lips," as he knows this event heralds the end of the Imperium's ability to maintain the façade of enlightened humanist rule.
• The Thunder Warriors still fight in their customary style, "valorous, as aggressive as anyone could have asked for."
  • "They must have known, at some level, what Valdor knew – that this would be the end for them, just one of a few lingering, grubby last stands before their short epoch was snuffed out. Still, they fought with vigour, determined to exit the stage as they had entered it – the slavering hounds of Unity, unrestrained, their jaws flecked with both spittle and blood."
• Valdor, "in his peerless, impeccable style," fights his way towards Ushotan, observing the Astartes around him make short work of the opposing force.
  • "They were raw, these first ones – still bleeding from the last of their implants, their muscles chafing against the initial marks of power armour. Their minds were bruised and infantile, ravaged by imperfect psycho-conditioning, and their weapons had only recently been machine-spirit-locked to the counterpart systems in their tactical helms. There was so much that was rushed about them, so many points of potential failure, and yet they were going to win this, because, acting together, they were already terrifying."
  • "The tanks that Ushotan had so painstakingly dragged up here were struggling, caught by the punishing altitude and the ability of these new troops to take them on unaided. Even as Valdor swung round to face the next foe, he glimpsed one of the Angels rip the turret from a Serpent troop carrier and fling frag-charges through the gaping hole. By the time combat was joined again, that machine was just another blackening ruin and its slayer was already racing towards his next target."

>‘What are these things, then, Constantin?’ Ushotan called out, hacking one of them down and striding across his lightning-arced corpse.*** ‘They fight like they’re constipated. Just like you.’
>
>Valdor knew what he meant.
>
>...
>
>‘They are the future,’ Valdor replied grimly,* taking out a lurching Thunder Warrior with a one-two slice of the Apollonian Spear, *leaving a wreckage of organs and metal plate in

^((From the record of HuangBo, as translated by) ^u/chintokkong; ^(https://sites.google.com/view/chintokkong/books/edomt)^)

&nbsp;

師謂休曰。諸佛與一切眾生。唯是一心。更無別法。此心無始已來。不曾生不曾滅。不青不黃。無形無相。不屬有無。不計新舊。非長非短。非大非小。超過一切限量名言縱跡對待。當體便是。動念即乖。猶如虛空無有邊際不可測度。唯此一心即是佛。佛與眾生更無別異。

The Teacher [Huangbo] told [Pei] Xiu:

> The Buddhas and all sentient beings are only of one-mind; there is no other dharma. This mind, since beginningless time, has never been born and never been annihilated. It is not green and not yellow, has no form and no characteristic, doesn't belong to existence or non-existence. It cannot be considered new or old, is neither long nor short, is neither big nor small.

> Transcending all limited measurements, names, traces, comparisons - the present basis is it; activating thought is deviation. Just like the empty sky that is without boundary, it cannot be estimated or inferred. Only this one-mind is the Buddha. There is no difference at all for Buddhas or for sentient beings.

&nbsp;

但是眾生著相外求。求之轉失。使佛覓佛。將心捉心。窮劫盡形終不能得。不知息念忘慮佛自現前。此心即是佛。佛即是眾生。為眾生時此心不減。為諸佛時此心不添。乃至六度萬行河沙功德。本自具足不假修添。遇緣即施。緣息即寂。若不決定信此是佛。而欲著相修行以求功用。皆是妄想。與道相乖。此心即是佛。更無別佛。亦無別心。

> Yet sentient beings, attached to characteristics, seek outwardly [for this mind]. Seeking [it] turns into missing [it]. Employing Buddha to find Buddha, using mind to apprehend mind, even till the exhaustion of this kalpa, even till the end of this lifeform, still, there can be no attainment. For [the seeker] does not know that, in resting thought and forgetting concern, Buddha manifests by itself.

> This mind is the Buddha. Buddha is the sentient beings. As sentient beings, this mind does not decrease. As Buddhas, this mind does not increase. Through to the six paramitas, the ten-thousand practices, the countless merit as many as sand in the river, this mind is already sufficient and complete in itself without relying on any cultivation or addition. Upon meeting conditions, it bestows. When conditions cease, it is quiescent.

> If [a person] has no determined faith that this is Buddha, desiring instead to practice in attachment to characteristics just to obtain apparent effectiveness, all these are delusive thinking that deviate from the way.

> This very mind is Buddha.

> There is no other Buddha and no other mind.

&nbsp;

此心明淨。猶如虛空無一點相貌。舉心動念即乖法體。即為著相。無始已來無著相佛。

> This mind is luminous and pure, like empty sky

I don't want to step on anybody's toes here, but the amount of non-dad jokes here in this subreddit really annoys me. First of all, dad jokes CAN be NSFW, it clearly says so in the sub rules. Secondly, it doesn't automatically make it a dad joke if it's from a conversation between you and your child. Most importantly, the jokes that your CHILDREN tell YOU are not dad jokes. The point of a dad joke is that it's so cheesy only a dad who's trying to be funny would make such a joke. That's it. They are stupid plays on words, lame puns and so on. There has to be a clever pun or wordplay for it to be considered a dad joke.

Again, to all the fellow dads, I apologise if I'm sounding too harsh. But I just needed to get it off my chest.

Halloween. When the Masks Come Off

I was only attempting to enjoy a pleasant meal when the gunmen came charging into the shopping center at which I chose to spend the afternoon. It wasn't the busiest of establishments, which was why it had become my favored location for gathering the necessities I could find there. Much more bustling places were not to my particular liking, but I could often track down much of what I needed in this place, though I was certain it was only a matter of time until it would close its doors for good.

Perhaps it was not the best location for such an emporium. Maybe the convenience of online shopping will eventually eliminate the need for such places all together, but I still had a fondness for them. Over the course of the last year, almost a third of the shops this building housed moved on, but there was still a decent variety that remained, and I do enjoy the experience of the food court. An assembly of multiple restaurants and cafes, all in one convenient area. I could pick and choose entrees from each, had I the desire to, and I do enjoy diversity in my chosen meals.

When the group of heavily armed and armored individuals came flooding in, firing their weapons at the ceiling to instill as much fear as they could, the meager crowd whose company I shared instantly panicked and screamed out in terror. Some attempted to flee and, though the apparently well trained individuals did not fire on them, they did thrust the butts of their guns against heads and guts as some made their efforts to escape this madness. My only concern was in enjoying my delicious food, so I remained at my table while our heavily armed hosts rounded up those who made efforts to leave.

Over the course of maybe twenty minutes, more members of the militant throng came strolling into the area with groups of huddled and terrified citizens of the city. It would seem they had been guarding the exits while their associates spread the initial wave of panic inducing fear. Still, they had not hurt anyone, outside of some heavy bruising and the occasional broken nose, but nothing fatal. This fact alone made me feel quite hopeful about the outcome of this situation. Perhaps I would not have to get involved after all. That could have very well been wishful thinking, but I wanted nothing more than a normal and carefree lif

The six who sat in the bar knew more of each other's reputations than their actual faces, save for one shared crime; such creatures exist wherever crime flourishes and decency becomes a liability. A standing concern between them, however, lay in the shadow of a bottle of mid-range intoxicant, untouched by all six and monitored in an easy-going fashion.

After all, for such creatures, poisoning one another, whilst strictly not a crime as they understood the idea, would be considered poor behavior. Thus, they continued to wait and wait, staring at each other, quietly admiring and drawing conclusions on each other's wardrobe, firepower, armor and accoutrement, analyzing endlessly.

It was the arrival of the seventh which began their conversation in earnest.

Of the seven, five were, in a manner of speaking, mammalian, and the other two closer to insects, were such lineages capable of producing bipedal low-lives with poor dispositions and penchants for violence well outside of even apex predatory behavior.

The tallest of the seven spoke first.

"We know he's finally coming for us and we know we can either throw two of our own to him, or he'll take all seven of our heads with him."

The other six could only grumble, mostly to themselves, yet agreed: that was, in short, the issue they had to contend with, one way or another.

"I don't see why," one of the younger members of the group said, "We should obey this.. thing. We have assassins. Hells, some of us are assassins. We can end this issue with, what, two or three well-aimed shots? A graviton missile to their hull before they ever reach the station?" They smirked, shaking their tentacled head, sighing derisively. "Vulnerable at range, weak in hand-to-hand, and in the end, as doomed to die as any of them in a stand-up fight. You are all too easily spooked by the myths."

The eldest said nothing, only monitored, and carefully placed a pair of heavy-duty war-pistols on the table, the barrels aimed at no one in particular, simply everyone at once, and then gave them a lazy push, spinning them on their respective axis.

One of the broader, stronger members of the group, her culture descended from proud, angry sea-life with fangs, teeth-riddled skin as a shark has, and a flat, angular face, raised absent eyebrows at the youngest and chuckled darkly. "Ah," she said, "But this one is no myth. My kinmate saw it, on that day of days. This one, he did what they do, before they become butchers of all who've

Antarctica wasn’t the place I’d imagined I’d end up in my life, but it paid decent and the food was free, though we never had any fresh fruits or vegetables. Booze at the station store was cheap enough if you could get past the fact that all the beer was expired and flat. The people were just as weird and introverted as you were.

We all had to be crazy to leave our lives behind for most of the year to live in an inhospitable wasteland. What had Rick Moranis yelled in Spaceballs? Oh, right. “I’m surrounded by assholes!” Yeah, that summed it up nicely.

I was just a nameless grunt down here, working the summers at remote research sites throughout the continent. Being a kind-of cook, kind-of carpenter, kind-of plumber, whatever, always lent me just enough usefulness to get my sorry ass dragged along on missions to establish and open field camps managed by our country’s main station. I was a drifting nobody, in a sea of endless nothing. Poetic or pathetic? Who cared? There weren’t enough souls down here to ask, and I wasn’t paid enough to answer.

In my past life, I had had it pretty good. An old lady, a job at a factory, some buddies to shoot pool with after work. I had traded it all in for a one-way-ticket to the bottom of the planet after my divorce and my two-week notice. My name had long ago expired and had died with that previous version of me. People now knew me as Beau Nugget, the big fat guy who had a penchant for drinking bottles of Grand Marnier and who was terrible at darts. I was easy to like and even easier to forget.

I was sitting in my insulated workman’s bibs in the Galley, sipping on lukewarm coffee roughly the colour of a polluted river in St. Louis, when my boss spotted me from across the room. He came up to me—big guy, big beard, big scowl. I could never tell if he was hungover or just perpetually pissed at the world. His dark eyes that peered out from under bushy brows were clear and sober, so I had to assume something was wrong. His eyes were never sober by 10 AM.

“Hey, Jerry,” I said easily—I’d already had four cups of joe, so I was feeling human and social enough for a greeting. That’s what it took these days to build up enthusiasm for the day to come.

“Meeting in the office, fifteen minutes—bring your overnight gear and sleep kit,” he barked back as a greeting.

Jerry wasted no time and took no shit from anyone, not even a blessed comb to try to tame his facial hair. It worked to his advantage though—after all, you’d be a fo

The nurse asked the rabbit, “what is your blood type?”

“I am probably a type O” said the rabbit.

Note to new readers: Book 1, comprising Chapters 1 through 38, have been taken down and moved to Kindle Unlimited. If you're interested in reading the story from the beginning, you can find it here.

For the sake of HFY's Rule 7, here's a 350+ word description of Book 1 in pastebin form so this post doesn't get too cluttered.

--

Chapter 82

Zamira’s eyes fluttered open.

The first thing she became aware of was an aching in her head. Not one so bad that it was debilitating; rather, it was a dull sort of pain that was both consistent and persistent. With great care, she touched her fingers to her forehead, rubbing gently to ease the soreness. As the last dregs of sleep faded, and her vision cleared, she next became aware of her friends surrounding her bedside in a ring of apprehension. One by one, they noticed that she was awake, and their faces lit up like miniature suns.

“Hello, everyone.” she muttered, her voice soft as to not provoke the soreness monsters living in her head. “My apologies, but there seems to be a blind spot in my memories. What happened? Why do you all look so concerned? I remember Rob teaching me Fiendish, and then...”

She blinked. “Ah.” Scrolling through her text log painted a grim portrait. Zamira’s skin prickled with goosebumps when she saw the point at which her HP had dropped below 50, barely stabilizing afterwards via the ministrations of the Deserters’ Healers. Antecedent to those Healing spells were a litany of HP Potions keeping her alive, so many that Rob must have emptied nearly his entire stock in Storage.

And above every message, at the text log’s zenith, was a practical joke.

Name: Auto-Translate (Fiendish Speech)
Prerequisite: 30 Mind, listen to at least several hundred hours of conversation in Fiendish, and spend a moderate amount of time trying to understand it.
Description: Automatically translates any Fiendish speech you hear into Common. Was traversing a thorny road worth the prize at the end? Many would call you a fool, but as they say, the line between genius and idiocy is determined by success.

I see, Zamira thought, in a dry tone. So this is what it feels like to be a victim of the system’s subtle mockery. I can’t say I particularly care for it.

She had just finished perusing the last of the messages when Keira dashed forward and hugged her.

For a moment, everything was wonderful and warm. Then t

[FIRST][PREVIOUS][NEXT]

Chapter 111 [Mark]

Mark looked at the Dark Elf as she grit her teeth; her eyes burned with loathing, but he ignored it, focusing instead on the door. His hand reached out to knock twice, and the bonded Dark Elf spoke. “Open up.”

“Done already?”

The fellow guard chuckled as she pulled the door open. “My turn yet?”

“Sure.”

The maiden stepped inside, a wide grin on her lips as she focused on the lump that lay under the bedsheets. “Wait, did you tucker him o-…?”

Mark stepped out of the room, Noah hot on his heels. Both of them saw the sword and keys waiting for their owner. Meanwhile, the armed guard heard them, spinning around with a frown, clearly confused by what was going on. Her lips parted as she attempted to speak, likely to trigger the spell that might paralyze them.

The attempt was thwarted when her companion tackled her from behind, knocking her to the floor. “I’m sorry,” the half-naked Dark Elf muttered, her eyes burning red-hot coals on the two escapees.

Before the guard could disentangle herself from her companion, Mark had closed the door, and Noah locked it, snapping the key to make sure it couldn’t be pulled out easily.

A heavy thud followed, and human and mouse glanced at the heavy door, waiting.

Mark sighed.

“Alarm’s going to be raised,” Noah pointed out, grabbing the sword and swinging it. The thing was almost half her height.

“We start running.” The human nodded, looking at the petite woman with some wariness. “Think we can trust the bitch’s directions on how to get out?”

“I’ve been here before.” She nodded, moving ahead and taking point. Her tail was stiff, her ears perked, and the maiden’s hand had a slight shake to it as she held the blade at the ready. “I doubt she’d want you around, probably going to be very happy once her bond snaps.” Stopping dead on her tracks, she took a good long sniff, tilting her head down to one of the corridors. “Blood.”

“Then not that way.”

They turned in the opposite direction, their rush down the wooden corridor coming to an abrupt end when Noah froze on her tracks. Her eyes widened, spinning on her heels and reaching out to grab Mark’s hand, yanking him exactly in the opposite direction they’d been running. “

Namesake: The Hex Girls from Scooby-Doo

User: Andrea Bristle

Autonomous stand

Stats:

Power: C

Precision: E

Speed: C

Range: A

Durability: A

Potential: B

Appearance:

Hex Girl is a black, teal and red cloaked female humanoid partially obscured by a haze, as if it were a mirage one can't pin down. It possesses jackal-like ears, a long ponytail, fangs, mechanical batlike feet, and very long fingers that seem similar to spider legs. The top half of its face is obscured by a mask of the user's while its ability is active.

Ability:

Hex Girl is completely autonomous, and acts without (and despite) input from the user. It cannot be willingly retracted, and does not obey its user's orders. If attacked by its user, the targeted part of Hex Girl will fall apart into dried leaves, reforming almost instantly.

Hex Girl will involve itself in active crimes in an attempt to frame its user. The crime must be a felony in progress within an area the user could reasonably reach. It activates as soon as the criminal act begins, actively assisting the perpetrators; the user is immediately aware of the stand's involvement, the crime scene, and acts committed. Hex Girl's involvement in the crime is only remembered by the true culprits, who are the capable of seeing it alongside the user. Additionally, they perceive HG to be the user in appearance. Hex Girl shares fingerprints and vocal patterns with the user, and will ensure it touches objects and speaks to accomplices. After the crime is completed, Hex Girl will randomly attack its user, though this only amounts to chasing or surprising them. It can be easily outrun or outsmarted.

The actions and abilities of Hex Girl culminate in forcing its user to solve the crimes it located before police, ensuring she is not arrested. After the user solves a given crime, Hex Girl's mask will crack and fall away, revealing the face(s) of the true culprit. It cracks into pieces and desummons, while its actions are then forgotten by the accomplices and the user's fingerprints are painfully reshaped.

User information/backstory:

No...

Nononono this can't be happening.

Andrea watched through the cracked windshield as the body she desperately hoped was a deer crumpled to the ground. Finally obtaining the presence of mind to turn the headlight on, she stumbled out and around the smashed hood to see her victim. The man was mangled, and definitely dead. The sight was too much, an

Mentos

(I will see myself out)

Hey there Mommies and Strangers, or I suppose just strangers at this point…

If you’ve followed me up until this point, well you know what’s happened and I suppose you can figure out that if I’m posting this, I’m okay. But I need to share what I saw in the Midnight Grove. If for no other reason than to finish what I started and perhaps to help anyone else who finds themself in a situation like mine.

Pryce said that she didn’t want others to feel alone. I understand where she’s coming from. I don’t want others to feel that way either. So, I’ll share my experience and I’ll hope that nobody ever needs it. But if they do… Well. Here it is and I truly, truly hope it helps you.

After our run in with the ghoul, things went quiet for a little bit longer. Pryce would check the trail every so often, but we didn’t speak much. Better to keep quiet and avoid attracting attention. Once or twice during the next hour or so, she’d pause and take cover. But whatever she’d heard either didn’t get close to us, or I didn’t notice it getting closer.

At one point, we stopped just to snack on some supplies she’d brought in her backpack. Granola bars and bottled water.

“This place feels dead.” She said as we ate, crouched behind a small rocky outcrop. “I dunno what I expected. But it just feels… Well. You know what I mean, right?”

I nodded.

“Yeah… It’s just… It’s wrong here, somehow. I don’t know how else to explain it other than… Wrong…”

I looked up at what was either a dark sky or the black leaves of the trees towering above us. It was impossible to tell for certain.

“How much further do you think we need to go?”

“Hard to say.” Pryce said, “But I get the feeling we’re getting close.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Because something has been following us for the past hour.”

I looked over at her, my heart skipping a beat in my chest.

“What?”

“I’ve been seeing glimpses of it out of the corner of my eye. It’s keeping to the trees. Not letting me get a good look at it. It’s not a ghoul, I know that much. It’s something else.”

Something else… My stomach turned slightly. I wasn’t so sure I wanted to see what else was out there.

“What do you think it wants?”

“To study us, most likely. Ghouls might stalk you for a bit. But they’ll only do it until they get a window to attack and even then, they like to come down out of the trees. The only reason for something to follow us this long

WE'RE BACK BABY! Ran afoul of Rule 7 (now Rule 6, apparently) issues when taking down the Book 2 chapters, but everything should be gucci now. I'll be posting one update a day until HFY is caught up. This chapter is split into two updates because it was 8500 words.

--

Diplomacy had been right. Goroth, after trudging off with his coterie of humbled Fiends, requested an additional day to make a decision regarding Rob’s offer. The Deserters were a bit alarmed by his lackadaisical attitude until the Fiends reassured them that the barrier surrounding Broadwater City would last indefinitely – or until the Blight figured out a way to bust through, but hey, hadn’t happened so far. If the Fiends were that confident in their defensive measures, bought and paid with a hundred lives, then the Deserters had no choice to play along until they learned more about how the spell worked. The barrier failing would kill the Fiends just as easily as the Deserters, so the former’s confidence probably wasn’t misplaced.

With nothing else to do except wait for the Fiends’ decision, the Deserters buckled down and got to work. Food was scavenged, Potions were brewed, and Firebombs were crafted. Without Elder Duran, breaking into the magic seal to Broadwater’s underground farms was impossible, but thankfully enough leftover preserved rations were found throughout the city to last everyone a good while longer. The Deserters may have still been trapped in a ghost town with Fiends inside and a Blight outside, but no one would starve within the month, so they had that going for them.

Meanwhile, Rob searched the rest of the city for a Locus of Power, and after a thorough exploration came up empty-handed. The discovery – and lack thereof – threw a major wrench into his plans, but unfortunately, it wasn’t something he could actually do anything to change. If the Locus wasn’t there, then it wasn’t there, and he wasn’t going to find another one around for miles. Otherwise, the Blight would’ve already absorbed it, and a second patch of Deadlands sky would be darkening the horizon. As a result, Rob found himself at a loss for what to do – which was perfect, because that meant he knew exactly what to do.

“We’re taking the day off.”

Orn’tol didn’t hesitate before replying. “We can’t,” he said, steadfast.

Rob tried to cross his arms and sighed internally after remembering he was still down a limb. An arm-cross where one was normal and one was floppy didn’t look anywhere near as seri

The doctor says it terminal.

Darmok hefted himself onto the ledge made of broken kitchen appliances. After all these years he still struggled to breathe in this planet's atmosphere. The cracked glass of an oven door reflected the four golden orbs of his eyes. Blue veins encroached upon black pupils and were in turn framed within rings of sagging skin. He was no longer the youth banished here long ago but an old fart not far from the grave.

A geyser of hydrogen sulfide erupted from the valley below and shook the mountain above. Darmok's digitigrade legs scrambled to get their master under the protection of a metal overhang before the avalanche struck. Plastic bobbles, clothing, handheld electronics, and other lightweight articles bombarded the shelter. They were compelled downward by the full two gees of the planet's gravity. The bombardment ceased and he started out. But back under the shelter he fled when a single seater spaceship came rolling end-over-end down the mountainside. It hit the overhang with a deafening crunch and continued toward the valley floor.

Darmok was surprised that the metal took no damage. He ran his three fingered hands across its surface: aluminum sheets over a diamond core. It was a piece of military grade spaceship plating. There had been quite a lot of plating dumped lately and not all of it human in origin. Another species must have become entangled with the human's Galactic Commonwealth. He hoped they proved a worthy foe while remembering how little hope had helped his own people.

Many paths now stretched to the summit. Experience had taught him that firm ground was better than a fast route. The most direct paths were made of loose terrain in danger of becoming the next avalanche. He identified two that were bolstered by steel pipes that had interlocked as they settled. Yet these paths wound around the mountain as much as they climbed it. He was going to be late anyway, so safety came first.

But which path should he choose, left or right? Maybe a human ritual could aid his decision.

He pawed at the grime until he found what he was looking for: a Commonwealth coin. He turned it over in his hands. 100 Shill, a larger denomination than most he'd uncovered, yet just as worthless to him in his banishment. Now, how did the ritual go again? Oh yeah. Assign each side a decision then toss the coin into the air. Whichever side lands face up results in that decision being made. One. Two. Three. The portrait of a Commonwealth Prime Minister smiled up at him. Rig

The ground’s poison in the Endcreek cemetery. None of the bodies stayed long in the ground, not for days; the soil was like a wound with a splinter, shifting alive to reject the corpses. Mac thought it was because of the fact they put the cemetery on the east side of town, on the poor side of the river; nothing grows here except what comes out of the graves. I don’t have much of an opinion on that. I grew up on the opposite side of the river and gave it up to live among what my parents always called the filth. It was love that did it to me. I’d met a girl and thought she was the world. As it turns out, she took the money I stole from my family—I’d taken it so we could start a new life together—she took the money and left me here. I don’t know where she’s gone; the hurt carries on and now I try to bury bodies. My family, an affluent group that owns the fish packing plant on the west side of the river, never came after me even after I’d stolen the money. I don’t talk to them much, but I see them sometimes. The open road has called to me, and I think I’d like that. Maybe I’d go find that girl and ask her why. Get some closure on the matter. Or maybe I’d be a vagrant and forget that I was ever a member of the Berkshires.

“Quit your loafing,” hollered Mac upon his approach from the parking lot by the church. I was sitting under a tree on the hill overlooking the cemetery out back of the church—I could see most of the town’s east side and a few of the bridges heading out towards the epicenter of commerce on the west coast of Old River—the hill was a place I liked to read, but it was getting hard looking out at all those bodies in the field. Arms and legs and faces looked like sprouts among the rotting loam. “We’ve got a procession in the morning. I’m sure you’ve heard about what happened to that poor Weathers girl.”

“The ground’s fucked. You know that.” I tried motioning out to the exposed bodies. We hadn’t buried anyone new since they’d started rising. “How do you reckon they do that anyway?”

“How they do what?” Mac was an older gentleman, gray in the hair and pot-bellied so he took the hill to me with wide angled steps and was out of breath by the time he reached me.

“I mean, they were buried with coffins, but we’ve got naked bodies coming out of the ground.”

“I don’t know.” Mac leaned against the tree and swept long hair from his old, leathered face. “Damnedest thing I’ve ever seen. We get paid to bury bodies, but they don’t seem to want to be there anym

Alot of great jokes get posted here! However just because you have a joke, doesn't mean it's a dad joke.

THIS IS NOT ABOUT NSFW, THIS IS ABOUT LONG JOKES, BLONDE JOKES, SEXUAL JOKES, KNOCK KNOCK JOKES, POLITICAL JOKES, ETC BEING POSTED IN A DAD JOKE SUB

Try telling these sexual jokes that get posted here, to your kid and see how your spouse likes it.. if that goes well, Try telling one of your friends kid about your sex life being like Coca cola, first it was normal, than light and now zero , and see if the parents are OK with you telling their kid the "dad joke"

I'm not even referencing the NSFW, I'm saying Dad jokes are corny, and sometimes painful, not sexual

So check out r/jokes for all types of jokes

r/unclejokes for dirty jokes

r/3amjokes for real weird and alot of OC

r/cleandadjokes If your really sick of seeing not dad jokes in r/dadjokes

Punchline !

Edit: this is not a post about NSFW , This is about jokes, knock knock jokes, blonde jokes, political jokes etc being posted in a dad joke sub

Edit 2: don't touch the thermostat

>Never pray to the gods that answer after dark.

So I decided to give my Tatyana a little spin after I've read "The invisible life of Addie LaRue" by V.E. Schwab.

The young woman "Addie" makes a deal with a god that answers after dark, that phrase alone was something I've read and thought "Yes, I need that for my Curse of Strahd game"

I guess its easy to adopt in CoS and might have a nice payoff and makes Tatyana less of an Macguffin. Her pact may be broken with help of the ring. What ring you may ask? Read my edited excerpt ;)

To explain better, heres a passage of the story that I edditit for my purposes:

Scene: Tatyana flees from Strahd and is on the edge of the balcony where she stumbeled and fell...

>The sound, when it comes, is a low rumble, deep and distant as thunder.
>
>Laughter, Tatyana thinks, opening her eyes and noticing, finally, how the
>
>light has faded.
>
>She looks up, but sees nothing. “Hello?”
>
>The laughter draws itself into a voice, somewhere behind her.
>
>“You need not kneel,” it says. “Let us see you on your feet.”
>
>She scrambles up, and turns, but she is met only by darkness, surrounded
>
>by it, a moonless night after the summer sun has fled. And Tatyana knows,
>
>then, that she has made a mistake. That this is one of the gods she was
>
>warned against.
>
>“Tatyana ? Tatyana ?” calls his voices from the castle, as faint and faraway
>
>as the wind.
>
>She squints into the shadows that suddenly surrounded her, but there is no shape, no
>
>god to be found—only that voice, close as a breath against her cheek.
>
>“Tatyana , Tatyana ,” it says, mocking, “… he is calling for you.”
>
>She turns again, finding nothing but deep shadow. “Show yourself,” she
>
>orders, her own voice sharp and brittle as a stick.
>
>Something brushes her shoulder, grazes her wrist, drapes itself around
>
>her like a lover. Tatyana swallows. “What are you?”
>
>The shadow’s touch withdraws. “What am I?” it asks, an edge of humor
>
>in that velvet tone. “That depends on what you believe.”
>
>The voice splits, doubles, rattling through the shadows and snaking over the
>
>stones, folding over on itself until it is everywhere.
>
>“So tell me—tell me—tell me,” it echoes. “Am I the devil—the devil—
>
>or the

How the hell am I suppose to know when it’s raining in Sweden?

Mathematical puns makes me number

Ants don’t even have the concept fathers, let alone a good dad joke. Keep r/ants out of my r/dadjokes.

But no, seriously. I understand rule 7 is great to have intelligent discussion, but sometimes it feels like 1 in 10 posts here is someone getting upset about the jokes on this sub. Let the mods deal with it, they regulate the sub.

I (20F) and my boyfriend (20M) live about 40 minutes away. However, it takes me 1 hour and 20 minutes to get to his house through public transport. My boyfriend is fairly new to the area and he doesn't have a car and neither do I. He doesn't know how to catch public transport although I have taught him and gave him a Myki card with money on it so he doesn't have to spend extra money. Since we've started dating, it's always been me who has made the effort to go to his place. I don't mind as long as we spend quality time together.

It might be important to mention that I am autistic. Therefore, I get overwhelmed when I am outdoors because I am sensitive to loud sounds such as dogs barking, electrical machinery, fast motorbikes, etc. And there is quite a lot of loud noise around his suburb. It is important to note that the suburb he lives in is quite dangerous as there is a lot of robbery and illegal substances. His sister was robbed two weeks prior on the street. Because of this, I've been slightly more wary of the area he lives in.

We spent the day together and the day was darkening. I asked him twice if he wanted to walk me to the train station as there was a large construction site near the train station and if I had him with me, I would feel safer (and because there was a lesser chance of me getting robbed or WORSE.) He flat out said no and said he would walk me to the corner of his street. I said nothing and we left it at that. Later on, he kept bringing up his exes although we already had multiple discussions about how I hated it when he talked about them. After seeing how upset and quiet i was he was like "okay I'm walking you." I could tell he didn't want to and only did it so I would not be mad at him.

When I was on the train on my way back home, he texted me. He was mad at me and said I forced him to walk with me and he had anxiety while walking. I didn't force him as I asked him twice and I dropped the conversation quickly. Maybe I shouldn't have asked him. AITA?

They were cooked in Greece.

I'm surprised it hasn't decade.

He lost May

Said if she ever hosts a gender reveal party, when it comes time to pop the balloon she'll spray everyone with water.

Gender is fluid.

Two muffins are in an oven, one muffin looks at the other and says "is it just me, or is it hot in here?"

Then the other muffin says "AHH, TALKING MUFFIN!!!"

Don't you know a good pun is its own reword?

Do your worst!

We told her she can lean on us for support. Although, we are going to have to change her driver's license, her height is going down by a foot. I don't want to go too far out on a limb here but it better not be a hack job.

Now that I listen to albums, I hardly ever leave the house.