#except revenant red skull

[harrowharks-iliac-crest]

The Nine Houses

Worldbuilding/Lore

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The Nine Houses refer to planets, named, presumably, in order of colonisation. I'm befuddled as to which one is which planet, if we're going on the assumption that this is the solar system. This is what I've extrapolated from reading:

First is Earth.

Second is most likely Mars - gathered from the fighting energy of its house, proximity to Earth and viability for terraforming, and also this:

"[...]Each Beast is different. I have fought numerous now, and each Beast is quite unlike any other … Number Two spewed quicksilver and remade itself into hundred-foot spikes. Number Six kept sucking us into enormous sphincters and spraying us with worms. I cannot even remember what it looked like. I remember Number Four … it was a humanoid creature with a beautiful face who held me under the water, and it spoke in a lovely voice but it only repeated, die, die—and I recall Number One as a great and incoherent machine … when I saw it I thought it had a great tail, and a thousand broken pillars on its back, but Cassiopeia saw it as a mechanical monster with swords for wings, and great horns of myelin, tessellated over with graves.” It was the Saint of Duty who said, restlessly: “Number Eight was a giant head.” “Finned like a fish,” said Augustine, lost in reverie. “Its ribs were bloody bandages, and its teeth protruded through its own skull, tangled about its face like a nest. It was red, and it had a single eye of green that moved all about the body …"

Metal-related appearance, from the planet notoriously rusty.

Actually, this passage describing the Resurrection Beasts - revenants of the planets - was the thing that got me into trying to assign planets to Houses based on, mostly, vibes.

Forth could be Venus, based on this passage alone. I could easily be wrong.

Sixth is Mercury I reckon. In the epilogue of HtN the setting is described as very hot - close to Dominicus. I reread it now and I don't think it's ever mentioned to be set on the Sixth, in fact parts of it actively contradict that assumption, but somehow I seem to have gotten that into my head anyway? But even so, Sixth is described as the one closest to Dominicus - notably this passage:

The Emperor dropped to his haunches and eased the white robe off Mercy’s dead shoulders. He shrugged his naked body into it—coyly pulling it closed—and he stretched his jaw in his mouth, and wriggled the tip of his newly grown nose. “Right,” he said, and closed his eyes briefly. Then he said, “The sun has stabilized. Hope the Sixth House didn’t get cooked in the flare.”

This to me pretty much confirmed the Sixth as Mercury.

Eighth, in the above passage about the Resurrection Beasts, is described in ways that immediately make me picture Jupiter. Red, a single eye of green moving all over the body? Ribs were bloody bandages? A "giant head" - Jupiter, in Roman mythology was the king of the gods? Am I way off the mark here?

And Ninth is Pluto, furthest from the sun, cold and desolate. And solid. (How are they pulling off living on gas giants?)

This leaves the Third, Fifth, Seventh houses to be matched with Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. At a loss, still, for how gas giants are supposed to be colonised. The general infrastructure of the pre- and post-resurrection world/Empire has me asking questions like, where do they get the materials to build starships and feed their officers? Metal and plastic seem abundant. In terms of food we've mostly seen snow leeks, Canaan House and the Mithraeum, all of which are probably exceptional to what a regular House person eats. There is some talk of John's expansion and colonising efforts, so do they just go to random planets - are there aliens in this universe? (Is Alecto one?) So the Empire is expanding, mining colonised planets for ore and oil to turn into plastic - though that would indicate a lot of life on a lot of these planets, so I'm gonna guess that whatever happens to those planets isn't kind to the native flora, fauna and people.

Of course, there's always the option that this isn't meant to be the planets at all, and even if it was, it might be a lot more metaphorical. Or just actually a completely different world to ours, not the solar system at all. (Though there's many explicit and implicit pop culture references which would indicate the First to truly be Earth, so we're sticking with this theory.)

Are they actually on the planets - we haven't seen any planets other than First, and Ninth, arguably big exceptions; the Epilogue seems to be set on a moon of some kind, after a more thorough reread. The Actual Planets are dead, or rather resurrected, with their revenants on the hunt. Could be that the Houses do stand for the planets, and some people might be living on (or near) the actual planets, but a lot of people are actually living away from the solar system entirely - born into "Houses" far from the sun, into the Emperor's war machine. It's hard to tell.

Either way, I'm not gonna assign any more planets now until I know more.

>> Next: The Resurrection

#does this count as liveblog? i'll tag it as if it does for now #tlt liveblog #tlt theories #the locked tomb #tlt #no nona the ninth spoilers please #the locked tomb liveblog #tlt spoilers #gideon the ninth #harrow the ninth

[toughtink]

just finished my NtN reread so you know what that means—more TLT lists!! spoilers ahead for Nona the Ninth.

Resurrection Beasts in The Locked Tomb Series

Mercymorn saw it as “a great and incoherent machine” which she thought had a great tail and a thousand broken pillars on its back. Cassiopeia saw it as “a mechanical monster with swords for wings, and great horns of myelin, tessellated over with graves.” (htn 338) Status: Dead?

Fell soon after resurrection (htn p43), spewed quicksilver and remade itself into hundred foot spikes (htn 338). Status: Dead?

? Status: Alive?

Was a humanoid creature with a beautiful face who held Mercymorn under the water (of the River) and spoke in a lovely voice repeating, “die, die” (htn 338). Status: Dead?

? Status: Alive?

Drawn into ultramassive black hole by cyrus “[it] better be dead, because cyrus won’t be coming back.” (htn p43), kept sucking the lyctors into enormous sphincters and spraying them with worms, Mercy can’t even remember what it looked like (htn 338). Status: Dead

This is the one chasing them in HtN. would make a sort of sick sense if it is Venus with Cytherea killed last book. bug themed? (the heralds are anyway.) this is also the one that Cassiopeia died baiting the physical form of into the river (htn 333). “Blue like Loveday’s eyes!” G1deon dies fighting it. Pyrrha says it “got away” at the end of HtN before Augustine drops the entire Mithraeum into the River. In NtN, Number Seven is dubbed Varun the Eater and chats with Nona a bit via Judith Deuteros. Status: Alive

Cost a man’s immortal soul “I still see that day in my dreams” (htn p43) probably Ulysses? (htn 333 + he’s the only male lyctor left.) Definitely Ulysses (htn 335). He wrestled the RB through the stoma. It’s described as “a giant head” by G1deon and by Augustine as “finned like a fish” with ribs as bloody bandages and teeth protruding through its skull, “tangled about its face like a nest,” red with a single green eye that moved all around its body (htn 338). Status: Dead

Alecto probably? unclear if she’s being included in Jod’s count, but it would explain his initial discrepancy. Status: Alive

additional notes:

jod says 3 left, originally 9, killed 5. harrow notices his math doesn’t line up but doesn’t say anything. missing RB is probably alecto.

cass lasted 7 min in the river before being torn apart by ghosts, trying to bait RB. RB emerged from river 20 min later unscathed. (htn p97)

augustine says of number 7 (or RBs in general), “it is a revenant…a revenant of a specific hell.” the emperor follows, “once defeated, it can be forced down into the abyss, and from there it will not return.” august adds, “we hope. oh, lord, do we ever hope.” (htn 175)

The most permanent solution to ending RBs has been to force their soul through the River and into the stoma. The physical form cannot be bombed due to the density of heralds that surround it and it’s propensity to drive any lyctor nearby insane. (htn 337)

As seen in NtN, necromancers (that is a necromancer soul in a necromancer body) are driven mad and cannot perform necromancy while under the influence of said madness which also affects their overall physical health, being potentially lethal even without the RB being fully substantiated from the River. The disease seems to spread/be influenced by light, and can be controlled or the effects lessened by blinding necromancers.

The RBs don’t match the house order perse, nor the planet order necessarily. They’re numbered in discovery order (except potentially Alecto).

as always, feel free to add on or let me know if i messed something up! these were my personal notes taken on a reread with page citations base on the american paperback version for htn and the hardcover for ntn.

#the locked tomb #tlt #nona the ninth #ntn #harrow the ninth #htn #gideon the ninth #gtn #resurrection beasts #tinks tlt notes

[pensiveday]

Subject: The Quilt Art: Law @ace-ugo Writing: Law @ace-ugo

[ID:  A page titled ‘The Quilt’ with two illustrations of the character from Hello from the Hallowoods.  The Quilt is a mummy-like figure wrapped in strips of cloth and leather, which trail dramatically around it.  It has a skull-like face with no nose and a gaping jaw with only a few teeth.  It has hollow eye sockets except for a green light in one and a red light in the other.  A strip of fabric is wrapped around its forehead, and swirls around its shoulders.  The first illustration is a full-body shot of The Quilt, who reaches one hand outstretched towards the viewer.  Its feet dangle beneath it, as if it is floating.  The second illustration is a close-up of the creature holding a hand of cards.  Its left hand is raised with another card held between two fingers.  Above this drawing is a sticky note that states: “Warning: Talented card player.”

The second page is written in blocky, all-caps handwriting, titled ‘The Quilt,’ followed by the below text:

Dangerous?  Uncertain

Sentient?  Full sentience– can be reasoned with.

Encounter location:  The Resting Place hotel.

Description:  I have to admit that the Quilt is an alarming creature.  It appears to have been human at one point or another based on what remains of its figure, but I can’t be sure about that.  Things are strange around here.  It also has a very interesting way of communicating that I can’t make heads or tails of, so this entry is a difficult one.  The others at the Resting Place have full conversations with it, though, so it can certainly communicate, and it does understand when it’s spoken to.  The communication breakdown must be on my end.  The Countess is at least polite enough to translate when asked.  Appearance-wise, it’s pretty grisly.  It’s skeletal and wrapped in bandages and leather from head to toe.  The leather might be remnants of skin it had in life.  I think it could be a revenant considering it has the green glow in one of its eyes.  It’s got red in there too, so maybe not.  The jaw is unhinged on its face, and it can’t seem to close it.  It basically always looks like it’s screaming.  On the upside, it doesn’t seem malicious.  I’ve been to The Resting Place a number of times, and have never had an issue with it.  it seems plenty content to play cards with the rest of the patrons.

Abilities:  None known currently.

Connections:  They seem to frequent the Resting Place Hotel.  I have seen them in the presence of Barb, the Countess, and the Diamond Rider.  /end ID]

#pensive day 2022 zine #hello from the hallowoods #hfth #The Quilt HFTH #hfth podcast #we're back!

[carnivorarium]

✖.    —  [  @laplacemail​ / 𝐢𝐧𝐛𝐨𝐱 𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐬 ]

“We shall not give audience to an ill-mannered beast.”

     *〔 🔪。〕———  Anyone who lived in Alkenstar and did not know of Aliah Margolus and his untimely death either lived under a rock or had a skull made of stone. A very select few with an air of permanent mystique (and, in Annabel’s mind, an annoying penchant for melodrama) would murmur in hushed tones ranging from abhorred to awed that the late ex-Scion Lord still walks. Whether they meant as an undignified zombie or as an unholy revenant, they didn’t know. Of course they didn’t know. Who in their right mind would? Anybody sticking their nose into wretched business such as that, be it rumors or otherwise, would not only have it cut off and fed to them, but would likely end up with much the same fate as Aliah Margolus– sans resurrection, if you believe in that tidbit. 

    Well, Annabel certainly did not live under a rock, and she mostly didn’t have a skull made of stone. Though she has not known of his legacy for quite as long as others have, seeing as this is not her homeland, she is still familiar enough for it to feel as familiar as any other tale she’d grown up with. During the peak of his career, she had dreamt of eventually becoming one of his students. And how she had loathed it. Annabel Clarice Eldred, daughter of renowned alchemists and archivists, gifted in all practical skills and talents imaginable, fair young maiden with more power in her doe-eyed glances than a seasoned wizard’s most potent spell, did not dream of anyone but herself. To dream of anyone but herself meant to acknowledge there were others simply born better than her. And why should she believe that? Why should anyone? But the fact of the matter was she dreamt of it. And then that fact of the matter meant that dream must become reality. Because the unspoken law of little miss Annabel Clarice Eldred’s world was that if she aspired to it, it must come within her grasp, and she must take it. 

    If that did not happen, it would prove what she feared most, and what the world need not know: that she was a magicless, meek damsel in need of rescue from the cruel jaws of life. 

    Then, who could fault her this monumental failure of never becoming a student of that renowned wizard? The man had gone and gotten himself disgraced before he had a chance to know she even existed– and then died, too! For shame, for shame! And now these rumors of him lurking about in the shadows have to trail in her wake like ghosts after their murderer, sighing and whispering ceaselessly. It’s irksome, really. Except–

    Except she woke in the dead of night, a cold sweat drenching freckle-kissed skin, the coppery taste of someone else’s blood staining the front of her teeth and slipping down the back of her throat in a rich oily drip and known. And the taste like blood had sat low in her stomach, ethereally warm, filling up the constant hunger that gnawed and gnawed and gnawed day in and day out. Nothing had ever filled it, not even for a moment as fleeting as that one. 

    The three months since then are a blur the color of mist and vague bruised red. The omnipresent hunger stands behind her as a shadow would, peering over her shoulder at everything she does. Its saliva drips onto everything she holds, everything she touches. Its presence darkens her doll eyes when she catches glimpses of herself in the mirrors of inn rooms or along the crystalline edges of a river. It wraps her up at night, tender as a mother with her darling baby, vicious as a wolf tearing into the tendons of a rabbit caught in its wild jaws. Ever vivacious with possibility and voracious to the point of nigh-madness, the witch-to-be had toiled tirelessly. Endless reading, transcribing, navigating, bargaining, and a few rather unbecoming encounters (a proper young lady should never have to rip through the jugular of a man twice her age with nothing but her blunt teeth because he gets too invested in her journey, but bygones are bygones, and the blood had looked rather fetching smeared across her lips), all for this: a single callous sneer. 

    It’s impossible for her to hide her surprise. Cupid lips part into a little ‘o’, and cerulean eyes seem to glow from the whitehot sting of harsh rejection. Beneath a daintily embroidered traveler’s shawl, her thin hands clench into fists, nails creating angry crescent moons against her palms. A beast, was she? Nothing but a brute, a savage creature incapable of thought or rationale? Laughter bubbles up in her chest, burns her throat, presses against the back of her teeth. He does not know ill-mannered. She has not shown him ill mannered. If she’s a beast, what is he? Fodder for her to eat because isn’t this what it all comes down to–

    And it rings out, an embarrassed little giggle that sounds as sweet as a silverbell. “What a fine way to talk to a lady! I apologize— you’ve just shocked me is all,” she explains herself, tucking a few fiery strands of red behind her ear. “And I suppose I’ve unforgivably been presumptuous.” 

    The gravity of the situation pulls, tugs, nearly forces her to her knees. He ought to be dead. He talks of himself in plurals. There is something else there. It’s a sense she cannot shake, something she cannot prove and something she wishes to ignore. It’s the hunger that tells her. The hunger wants it. Strangely, though, she finds there is less to want in the real Aliah Margolus than there was in the deluded fantasy of him. Her smile falls. The shadow kept primly and properly tucked into the furthest corner of herself sweeps out across her brow. Seraphic features become a canvas for an indescribable emptiness: the kind that does not sit but actively pulls more and more into it, until only the void of her dead eyes remain. If she’s aware of such a drastic change in features, she does not show it. 

    “...And what…” she queries slowly, voice equally as dark as the lightless, lifeless doll-eyes that dare to gaze directly into that of the resurrected, “would change that, Lord Margolus?”

#laplacemail #ic | annabel #fantasy | annabel #🔪–;; messages┊( ANNABEL ) #╳–;; a whispered omen┊( ANSWERED ) #╳–;; of magic and monsters ┊( FANTASY VERSE ) #* thank you for all your patience!!! #* finally... nasty people being nasty to each other... after working tirelessly in the lab #* just for clarification!! #* anna doesn't know anything about aliah's resurrection or details of his death or anything! #* the hunger that keeps being mentioned is as much an actual hunger #* (her budding cannibalism + her prey/predatory complex) #* as much as a slow eldritch manifestation of her magic (which is why she can't really use magic atm) #* aliah would probably be able to sense it/vaguely see it bc of his own little guy SNFSF but i'll leave that up to u! #* she just wants someone to teach her magic bc obviously nobody else is good enough #* c'mon she won't bite pwease mwister mawgowus

[typhoidmeri]

Fox's X-Men Movieverse Quicksilver pulls a Barry Allen and runs so fast he phases out of the XMverse and into the MCU. He can take Pietro's place, meet his new sister, good new life! Or accidentally cause a multiverse collapse. Either way.

I don’t speak DC.

And though I love Pietro more than Peter I do think they are the same and Pietro has the same powers at Peter and I will ignore Feige’s kill order on Pietro.

The more I think about endgame and the multiverse, I think that time is the world tree and they inhabit only one branch despite thinking they are the center of everything. The trunk of the world tree of time is far weirder and the one in which there are mutants as well as xmen and all the goddamned weirdness of the comics*.

I am all for Steve messing up in taking the stones back, getting in a fist fight with Ring Waithe Red Skull, stealing Nat and then getting his dumb ass lost in the true multiverse.

Red Skull:

Steve Rogers:

Which means Steve and Nat have some very messed up adventures. They mean well but Steve can’t stop being Steve for more than five minutes.

70s Peggy totally caught his dumb ass sneaking around the base and he tried not to tell her everything but failed miserably. Peggy laughed and sympathised with Nat. Nat shrugged ready to roll with whatever her idiot best friend wants to do.

*Quantum Leap intro plays in the background*

Which all leads to Steve running into a version of Pietro in a collapsing universe.

Steve: Can we keep him?

Natasha: Steve, no.

Pietro: ???

Steve: Too late.

Pietro: What the—

Steve messes with Nat’s device and seconds later Nat and Pietro land on the platform. Pietro is still screaming. Scott drops another taco.

The twins having a screaming match both accusing the other of being dead. Every other avenger backs away quietly.

Nat tells everyone Steve is alive and she’s going to find a way to track him and murder the idiot with a peanut butter sandwich.

*spencer’s nazi wankfest not included

#also the 5 years rolled back #because that’s a stupid plot hole #and i reject it #everyone is happy #except revenant red skull #and nobody cares about that fucker #avengers endgame

[thesouthernpansy]

inter malleum et incudem

(on ao3)

It's a far uglier business than Daniil had intended, in the end. The courier is just some faceless townsman, no one of any significance or import, but he fights like a wet cat for Lilich's orders. Keeping the matter in hand becomes viscerally literal all too quickly, and any relief he may feel in the adrenaline-drunk aftermath is tempered by the tacky pull of the other man's cooling blood painting him to the elbows. He collapses, breathing uneven, into the nearest chair, fists clenched against the urge to clutch his pounding head.

Which is, of course, when Burakh shoulders his way in. Like some storybook monster, swigging the dregs of one of his foul potions, oily white veined with something clotted and dark. The empty bottle he flings aside to shatter, unseen, in a shadowed corner. Daniil flinches, then freezes.

Slowly, like he's struggling to concentrate, Burakh notices the crumpled remains of the courier. Rheumy, red-rimmed eyes rise to meet Daniil's, and a cloud passes from his features as understanding dawns in its place.

“You.” His voice is a dark wreck.

Daniil shoots to his feet, upsetting the chair in his haste and nearly tripping himself in the process. His hand finds the gun, still hot, the weight of one more bullet in its chamber. Whether the revolver aimed at his sternum actually gives Burakh any pause is unclear, but there is another reaction, readily discernible in the short, harsh breaths that raise and level his broad chest, the white-knuckled fists at his sides: fury. It makes him even larger than he is, somehow, filling the doorway, hunched shoulders and taut, expectant power and fever-bright eyes like guttering coals in the gloom of the Shelter.

A dim memory lays itself over the moment, some smudgy child trying to describe an old steppe creation story about an ancient bull, boss something or other, a massive and terrible creature of myth, and something about fire, about darkness, about blood.

With a raw, guttural roar, Burakh charges. The gun goes off, but Daniil's hands are shaking, and the shot hits wide.

Conscious awareness returns to him in pieces. Ringing silence and the burning smell of gunpowder. Heat and pressure. The clean, punched-through feeling of his lungs agitating airlessly. Then the pain sets in, blunt and throbbing where the base of his skull has connected with the wall. Burakh pins him in place, one hand vice-like around the wrist of his gun hand, the other pressing a forearm under his chin, against his trachea. This close the smell of him is stunning, stale breath and sweat, old blood and cloying smoke, but then again Daniil stopped smelling himself days ago.

“Where are the papers?” His voice is deceptively calm, thin ice crusting a raging river. The tone leaves no room for defiance, but even if he were inclined to be cooperative Daniil can barely breathe, let alone answer. Mindless instinct thrashes his body against its restraint, sour adrenaline against the diminishing returns of each shallow breath. Burakh wrenches Daniil's captured wrist, carpels grinding, and the gun drops from nerveless fingers.

“Where are the papers?” That same flat tone, the same stone-sharpened violence rising from it like steam.

Motes of light begin to prick at the edge of Daniil's vision. Braced on the tips of his toes, gasping exhalations shifting to short, mocking laughs at the fatuous absurdity of the situation—the exsanguinated husk of his once-noble mission clinging to him like a revenant, bearing sympathetic witness to his imminent, graceless death at the hands of a man who'd once admonished him for not playing veterinarian to the local urchins and their poisoned pets.

And yet, speaking of hands, Burakh has apparently overlooked the fact that Daniil still has one free. Boorish myopia. Presumably he discovers this very quickly when that free hand claws across his face, aimless except for the intent to hurt.

As if from some distance, a sound of groggy, startled pain dislodges itself from Burakh, and the pressure against Daniil's throat eases. Rather than anything clever or composed he simply slumps bonelessly sideways, higher functions arrested by the amount of concentration currently occupied by remembering how to breathe. His head throbs with deep bleary pain, limbs heavy like they'd been returned to him after a season in storage, a slow trickle of returning sensation.

Burakh grasps after him; buttons clatter away as his hand catches Daniil's waistcoat and tears through. Before Daniil's thoughts can recollect Burakh is hauling him up again, his cravat bright and terribly red in the other man’s fist.

A flash of panic, the fight-or-flight response seizing his limbs; Daniil lurches forward and slams his head into Burakh's with all the force he can muster. Wet, snapping pain as he feels his own nose break and begin to bleed. The impact shakes something loose from its mooring—the hazy budding fear rattles from its bed at the back of his mind and falls away, but, more literally, under Burakh's briefly tenuous grip on his cravat the brooch unpins and falls askew. Daniil snatches it free and stabs it into the meat of Burakh's forearm.

Time slows. They stare at it together, the bead of bright blood welling on the pin like a gem. Burakh's eyes have a discomfiting unfocused intensity, jaw bloodlessly taut, and Daniil doesn't register the ensuing motion until it ends with the distressingly familiar sensation of his face colliding with the wall.

Burakh presses behind him, looming hot and huge and undeniable. Daniil cranes to see him over his shoulder. Inter malleum et incudem. His blood leaves a smear on the wallpaper.

“Where are the papers?” Shadow paints the Haruspex in dun inhumanity, no creature of bone and clay, but blood and bronze, Perillos' bull in vicious reverse. Brutal, immovable solidity, ablaze within.

The irony of it returns to Daniil, then, and the laughter with it, punched up dry and brittle through his sternum.

“See the ashes over there, on the floor?” He's well aware of how he must look, hollow eyes and red-stained teeth, a warped mirror of the decadent, unkempt hedonism of his university days. Still, there's a clarity in it, and in him, for the first time in this Town a mad, freeing clarity at the absurdity, the meteoric descent into hopelessness, stuck in shit and covered in blood and Burakh hasn't gotten it yet.

“Barely managed to do it before you arrived. Smart of me to burn them rather than eat them, I think. You're a surgeon—you would have dug it all out of my gut.”

“I would have.” Without hesitation, fingers curled against Daniil's belly, under the ruined shirt, as if to emphasize that he'd know where to cut.

“Any excuse to get inside me, eh, Ripper?”

“Mind your tongue, oynon, or I'll mind it for you.”

Daniil has known plenty of men for whom aggression and affection lay as close as wick to flame—Andrey Stamatin comes immediately to mind—but despite his abundance of both, Burakh has never seemed the sort to let them overlap. And yet while Daniil has shown him only the former, in shifting his hips back just so he finds undeniable evidence of the latter. The chill that goes through him might be fear, or disgust. Plain honesty would call it neither.

“How very savage.”

“I'm not the one who killed a man for some papers.”

“At least I didn't get off on it.” Swallowing against the hitched quality of his voice. “And they weren't just any papers, don't act like you don't know that.”

Burakh makes a sound at the back of his throat, not quite a laugh.

“Which is it, then, am I a mindless beast or do I understand your meaning?”

“Whichever you seem to decide from moment to moment. Do you condemn me?”

Burakh's hand is steady pressure at the hollow of Daniil’s chest, the dip between the halves of his ribs, radiating heat.

“Does it matter? We've known each other for a week. You've got blood on your hands. So do I.”

“But not the most important blood, not the blood of the Polyhedron, not yet.”

Daniil pushes back experimentally, against Burakh, the full firm length of him. Somehow, the moment of relative civility between them feels no stranger than the physical proximity, or perhaps it’s the strangeness itself that allows the intimacies to exist exclusively juxtaposed, weirdness balanced to correct itself.

“Why is the tower so important to you?”

A surge of something distant but familiar bleeds out into his current clean, fevered madness—the true, precise Daniil breaking surface into stormy skies. How can he adequately explain it, that he was brought here to bear witness to the Polyhedron, not to see it die?

“I'll tell you. I will—the way I'd tell a close, intimate friend. Have I ever told you about my Thanatica?”

“No.” Burakh sounds skeptical.

“Listen, then.” His breath is thick in his throat, sluggish pulls of oxygen that threaten to dizzy him. “I had a lab, in the Capital. We studied—it's a long story, we don't have time. And anyway you'd have to be me, and live there two weeks with my head on your shoulders to notice and realize all that I have.”

Burakh grunts, obviously irritated. “Make it a shorter story, then.”

A hiss of frustration through his teeth, something desperate and fierce trapped behind them. “Destroying the Tower would delay our triumph over death indefinitely. I've done the research, Burakh. I know it.”

The stillness that follows feels like a clenched fist, a thousand opportunities for violence held within alongside another thousand more for—what? Understanding? Accord? Connection?

Then, with a terrible gentleness, “The town must live, Bachelor. If I have to sacrifice the Tower to save it, will you hate me?”

An unfamiliar agitation swells in Daniil’s chest. He snorts dismissively, the sound clotted and ugly in his mangled nasal passages.

“I already hate you.”

It snaps their strange tension like a frayed thread; with a growl, Burakh yanks Daniil’s hips in and back, teeth finding the pale exposed skin of his shoulder. Arousal sucks Daniil under like riptide. He pulls in a ragged breath, and Burakh rushes in to fill the empty space, solid and immovable as some twilit stone steppe plinth, but curving broad and hot and breathing, percussive huffs of air higher and higher up Daniil’s neck as he bares it in invitation. Fever heat writhes beneath his skin, pooling molten along the shared plane of his back to Burakh’s chest, of Burakh’s thighs pinning his in. He melts into it, heat spreading, his temple butted back against Burakh’s jaw, Burakh’s touch like a brand, the whorls of his fingers seared indelibly into Daniil’s skin.

Burakh ruts mindlessly against him, excruciatingly slow. The broad hot hand at his stomach, pulled flush, the wet, insistent throb between his legs. The sound that churns up from his throat is not the sound Daniil intends to make, far too open, too needy. He’s too rough, then, too impatient, smacking Burakh’s hand aside to fumble apart the fastenings of his belt, his trousers. Seizing Burakh’s wrist, he shoves the offending hand down against his need, the thick fingers instantly curling with a pressure that sends trembling pleasure coiling through him.

Burakh makes a wretched sound deep in his chest that reverberates in Daniil’s spine like a plucked string. He manages no more in response than a series of high, breathy moans, sagging bonelessly against Burakh as the other man’s deft, languid ministrations leech the strength from his limbs. The free hand traces up over Daniil’s sternum, trailing fire, climbing until it reaches to palm the open column of his throat.

Daniil burns like a lit fuse. Burakh urges his hips forward with his own, panting damply, and the new angle meets the twist of Burakh’s wrist in a way that has Daniil clutching at his arm, biting off a moan against the back of his own gloved hand. Heat builds, keen unspooling pleasure, and through the tightening sounds of his own whimpers Daniil becomes aware of Burakh, nuzzled into the nape of his neck, laughing at him.

“You complacent f—hngh—fuck you, what’s so funny?”

The pad of a calloused thumb grazes his lip. Daniil turns to snap at it. Finds, instead, his jaw levered open, that thumb wedged under the arch of his zygomatic bone, rough index finger pinning his tongue flat in place.

“I warned you about that tongue of yours, oynon.”

Daniil bridles and thrashes against the intrusion—ignonimous, unsanitary. He succeeds mainly in drooling down his own chin, superior bulk and brute strength more than match for his stinging pride. Burakh laughs again, the sound deepening as Daniil slides his tongue forward on a thwarted gasp, and, well. There’s some satisfaction in that, at least.

The clock calls a muted chime in the hall, a world away, seeping through the Shelter like heat-haze. Then: the choked silence that follows, a cobwebbed shroud, cradled thick against the shared shell of their bodies. Brittle, uneasy stillness, the shared moment between caught breaths.

Sweat pooling in the hollow of Daniil’s clavicles, the humiliating, wetly obscene sounds his body makes at Burakh’s behest. Like a glass on the edge of spilling, and if not for the obstruction his tongue bitten half to hell. Boneless, branching tension, tendrils of building climax coiling up through him, and Burakh’s arms, certain, rooted, a feeling not so much restrained as altogether far too close to held.

The gentleness chafes. Daniil scoffs and snatches at him, throws his own weight heedlessly forward. Some snarling part of him wonders if he could bait Burakh into splitting his lip.

Burakh’s touch instead abruptly withdraws. Daniil realizes almost too late that held also meant held up; he scrambles to catch himself against the wall, bruising ulnar impact. Behind him, Burakh fumbles with the buckles of his unwieldy smock, and as he leans in again Daniil feels the unmistakable shape of the other man’s thick erection at the bare cleft of his ass.

That inchoate thrill again, the concurrent conflicting urges to reel in and shove away. Burakh presses forward; the blunt tip of him prods at Daniil’s entrance, seeking permission, and Daniil grits his teeth against the needy, mewling sound that threatens against his tongue.

“Do it,” he hisses raggedly. “do it, do it.”

One broad hand plants itself between Daniil’s shoulderblades, the other rubbing small, soothing circles against his hip as Burakh fucks into him, easy and slow, as though Daniil were some besotted steppe girl he needs to be careful with. Daniil hisses again, bucks back furiously. Takes Burakh to the base in a single sharp snap of hips. His legs threaten to give out from beneath him altogether at the strain, the sudden, stretched-out pain.

Burakh lets out a gruff, bitten-back sound, longing and low. Daniil braces and waits for what must, surely, follow, that coiled strength put back into brutal motion, but Burakh simply clings, curves along Daniil to mouth aimlessly at whatever he can reach of his jaw, his neck. Heat, molding to fit. The seeping, settling agony as pleasure builds anew.

A moan works itself free from the loosening knot in Daniil’s throat. That seems to spur Burakh on; his hips press somehow, impossibly, further forward, but by now any pain has resolved itself into the deep, satisfying ache of fullness. When he wraps an arm around Daniil’s chest to pull him back tight against his own, Daniil goes willingly.

There’s no real pace to it, at first, Burakh moving in harsh, shallow ruts, barely pulling out, as if loathe to surrender a single point of direct contact. And it does seem to Daniil that there’s no place they do not touch, as though some part of Burakh has suffused itself into his very skin, the ridges of his soft palate, the lining of his lungs. Potent and heady as his damnable twyre haze, and if he were any less distracted Daniil would laugh at the sentimentality of the observation.

Burakh shifts them both forward, weight levered against the wall. Daniil sucks in a breath through his teeth. Grit bites into his bruised cheek as Burakh thrusts against him, inexorable and intoxicating and leaving a sloppy line of bruising, open-mouthed kisses along the curve of Daniil’s shoulder. Picking up speed, a smooth, ruthless rhythm that throbs inside him like a heartbeat—his, perhaps, or Burakh’s or both, echoed and apportioned like shared ventricles of the selfsame organ.

How many times has he been accused of heartlessness by now? Like the long train of a coat, dragged behind him gathering mud for years, and there have been moments, here and there, here especially with a burning throat and his nails worn down to the quicks, where he has wondered, has feared.

Burakh, though, with his clever killer’s hands—Burakh could show him.

With a grunt, Burakh pulls out, spending himself against Daniil’s thighs. Before Daniil can react the rough heat of his hand reasserts itself between Daniil’s legs, drawing up long, loose liquid sounds from his gut, anchoring him even as his knees tremble traitorously beneath him. Climax hooks him through with the suddenness of a blow, lifting keen and tight and tense before it hollows him mercilessly clean. Flayed open, overexposed, Burakh’s fingers slot against his ribs and there’s a flash in him of some understanding, the glimpse of deep water illuminated by lightning, too huge and too sudden to hold. His head drops back against Burakh’s shoulder, hips stuttering wildly as he pulls him through the shuddering remnant.

Daniil’s skin prickles in the clammy air of the Shelter. Burakh withdraws with neither word nor warning, leaving him to clutch weakly at the balustrade for support. He feels, not unreasonably, like a poorly-strung marionette, limbs unresponsive and face a stiff, numb approximation of an emotion he can’t quite name. Burakh tugs his smock back into place, smooths it down, and Daniil feels his mouth twist in irritation. He’s still groping muzzily for the edges of himself and he’d—what, assumed? Expected? Hoped? Not that it might be mutual, perhaps, but that it would at the very least be permitted, but he can’t take a breath that Burakh doesn’t grant himself, and he’d just as soon have given himself up to those soldiers as let Burakh see any weakness in him now.

Stiffly, Daniil tugs off his cravat and cleans his legs with swift, discreet movements, wraps it around the dented brooch and stuffs both unceremoniously into his pocket. A problem for another time, he thinks, or one that will cease soon enough to matter at all.

“Bachelor.”

Hearing the word in Burakh’s voice is strange enough to catch his attention like a guiding touch under his chin. The Haruspex stands a pace away, face turned, but eyes sharp on Daniil through the stark shadow that halves him. His mouth works soundlessly, fingers fisting into the canvas of his trousers. Struggling with some sudden sober sadness that Daniil feels like a lump in his throat.

“You would notice,” he asks slowly. “If I were…not myself, wouldn’t you?”

Daniil scoffs. “Of course not, we’ve only known each other for a week, remember? I barely know you.”

Burakh shakes his head, looking for a moment like he might reach out, crosses his arms tightly at his chest instead.

“No, no, I mean—if someone came to you using my name, someone else who said they were me, would you be able to tell the difference?”

What is he playing at?

“I know it was you who just fucked me against the wall,” snaps Daniil, sneering.

Burakh has the gall to seem disappointed by the response. Then he nods, some final decision reached, and the air leaves him all at once in one great, uneasy sigh. Daniil watches the line of his throat as he swallows, his handsome turning profile, and the question rises in him unbidden: Would you know me?

He doesn’t ask it, of course, but it sits heavy in him, thick on his tongue like ash.

“Burakh—”

“The Town will live, oynon,” says Burakh tersely. “Try to survive long enough to see it.”

He turns; the door of the Shelter cracks open and slams shut, and Daniil is left again to the silence, the chill, the growing dark, the corpses at his back.

#pathologic #pathologic 2 #artemy burakh #daniil dankovsky #burakhovsky #my fic

[apexjericho]

Day 16: Growth

*Ruins Part: 2.5*

Mirage & Shadow!Mirage

Elliott wasn't sure how he ended up back in Skulltown, one moment he was with Revenant the next he was here. He looked around chewing at his lip, "Hello? Is anyone there?" The breeze kicked up causing Elliott to shiver, fuck, why was it so cold here. 

"Hey there good-lookin." 

Elliott jumped turning around at the speed of light to see... himself? This shouldn't be a big surprise he made decoys of himself all the time but they'd never talk back to him. "Damn, you really do look exactly like me he even gave you my old suit... this is pretty trippy huh." Shadow Mirage grinned, the moonlight reflecting off of his black suit, "Except you lack any real confidence to play the part." 

"I-... huh," Elliott tilted his head fascinated by... himself. "Truth is I used to be just like you," Mirage patted Elliott's cheek, "You know what everyone used to think of us don't you, I'm sure they still think of you the same way at home huh." Shadow Mirage's decoys surrounded Elliott, their usual bright blue hue now a deep red as they smirked at him, "They took us as a joke right? They had no idea what we were dealing with and yet they still called us idiots... jokes... cowards." Each of those words rang in Elliott's ear as he pulled at his glove, he was right for the most part, but that was before they became friends...I-I guess? 

"So when Revenant came he saw my potential and made me realize... yeah friendship is great... but the real power was in fear," Elliott flinched when Mirage rested his hand on his shoulder from behind, "All the big legends were feared Elliott... not loved, so I gave up that silly idea and joined Revenant's side when he began taking over the games." Elliott watched as the smirks on his face turn from charming to sinister.

Mirage paced in front of him, "It started with Crypto..." a hologram of Mirage beating in Tae Joon's skull displayed in between them, "Then Octavio... Anita... Ajay... Alexander." All of their deaths were played in front of him, Elliott shook watching himself kill all of his friends. "I took my time with Renee of course, she wanted to stop me, but she was only angry I would become more powerful than her." Mirage gritted balling his hand into a fist. Elliott yelped and covered his eyes as Mirage slit Renee's throat with her own Kunai. 

Mirage chuckled moving Elliott's hands from his eyes, "Don't worry this one's my favorite..." Mirage moved aside letting the hologram play. Mirage was on top of Bloth their hunting knife in hand, "Elliott, please! This is not you, you don't want this," they pleaded. "I love you, Elliott, please... we could run away... leave right now and leave this in the past. Just you and me..." Mirage's harden expression faltered staring down at Bloth, he wrapped his arms around their neck pulling them close. "Your right Hound..."

"We can leave this in the past..." Mirage drove the blade into their back.

Elliott watched as Bloodhound bled out in his arms, heart racing, he had murdered everyone all of their blood was on his hands. The hologram faded away as Mirage lifted Elliott's head to look at him, "I then got all the fame and power we've ever wanted Elliott, it's what we want right? It's what we deserve..." Elliott shook his head shoving Mirage away, "No! I don't want this! I don't know how it was here but where I'm from those were my friends." Mirage rolled his eyes, "You're friends with people who target you first in a fight because they think your weak Elliott! What does that tell you! You're friends with people who are ok with sacrificing you to escape!" 

"That's not-!" "It is and you know it?!" Mirage cut him off, "Your "friends" hold you back Elliott once you realize that you'll have the world in your hands." Mirage stabbed Hound's knife into Elliott's chest sighing, "You should love yourself more Elliott."

 Elliott sprung up in bed coughing and gasping for air. His chest ached as he struggled to breathe, tears streamed down his face as he looked around the moon-lit room. Elliott blanched as an arm tightened around his waist until he remembered where he was. Revenant laid next to him powered down, Elliott thought of trying to wake him but feared the consequences of doing so. So, he took a deep breath and laid back down staring out the balcony doors, tears soaking into the pillow. He wanted nothing more than to go home.

#apex legends #31 days of apex #apex mirage #mirage #elliott witt #revenant #revirage #but only at the end #shadow mirage is a power hungry monster #and i love it

[badacts]

eyes on me (pt.1)

this is a fic about Gotham’s revenant problem. set post-under the red hood but pre-death of the family

Tim’s language is information. The collection and the translation and the piecing together of the millions of fragments that make their way into his net each day. Tim’s not Oracle, but he’s no slouch - he can make the internet work for him, on top of the people he talks to and the whispers he catches from the air above alleyways at night. And then, once he has the data, he puts it together. He’s a detective.

He finds things he isn’t strictly looking for all the time. But it’s rare that one of those things makes the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.

- boy, 15, found -

His comm hisses to life in his ear. “Red Robin. I have your position outside of your planned patrol route.”

Tim had been expecting Babs, not Batman, but he doesn’t reply. After all, it wasn’t a question. 

He wipes some rain from his forehead and keeps moving, flashlight aimed low. He’s out of costume - too conspicuous - but still, the last thing he needs is to attract attention. On the downside, his civvies are a long way from waterproof. By the time he gets home, he’ll be soaked to the skin.

“Are you working?” Bruce asks into the silence.

“Yes,” Tim says, which is mostly true. With them, the line between business and personal has always been exceptionally thin. 

Daniel de Silva...Mary Wolyncewicz...David Peter Andrews...Rachael and Lewis Therault…

Beloved, beloved, beloved. Rest in peace. And Tim’s personal favourite, devoted. 

He smells it before he sees it - under the scent of the rain, there’s dark earth, turning mud. He slows down, careful where he steps. 

The headstone lurches out of the dark, white as bone in the torchlight. Marc Rand, beloved son, apparently taken too soon. The dates confirm it - fifteen is very young to die.

It’s the ground before the headstone that Tim is interested in, though. The sod is folded backwards, dirt scattered in heavy clods on top of the grass. In the middle of it is a yawning hole, roughly made and already slumping back in on itself. 

In the bottom, Tim can see shattered wood and scarlet satin and no trace of a body.

That’s not much of a surprise to him. After all, that body was just checked into a hospital ten blocks away, complete with a pulse.

Tim hadn’t been looking. Instead, he’d heard that the Memorial Hospital had a sudden power outage that plunged the entire facility into darkness and silence for just under two minutes, when the electricity returned just as suddenly. The back-up generators had never come on. Three emergency surgeries had been interrupted and the intensive care ward had come back to life in a cacophony of alarms, but no one has died.

When Tim checked the revived CCTV cameras to find out whether the outage was intentional, he’d found one lone bed in the hallway of the emergency department, apparently abandoned in favour of people who could still be saved as ventilators sputtered out and vital monitoring equipment went dark.

The bed contained one John Doe, found with severe injuries and pronounced dead on the scene, according to the hastily-entered details in the records. Except, as Tim watched, the dead Doe sat up. And then the lights came back on.

Facial recognition had led him here, to a gravesite and a boy who’d died six months back, and a body that had either been forcibly dragged from the casket or climbed free under its own power. A body, or a boy, who’d apparently been walking into the middle of the street when a car hit him, killing him instantly. A body that had been transported to the hospital, forgotten on the way to the morgue, until it - he? - sat up and gave a passing nurse the fright of her life by asking for his mother.

Either Gotham EMTs are getting worse at telling a dead kid from a live one, or this is something in defiance of medical explanation. 

And this is Gotham. Anything can happen here. But something like this? Tim, with all of his experience with the crazy and the strange, can admit that the sight of a boy with half of his skull crumpled inwards, still wearing a mud-covered suit but sitting up under his own power, is fucking creepy.

So Tim’s here in the rain next to an empty grave, knowing there’s another empty grave a few rows over, and wondering if those two things are related.

Behind him, there’s a whisper of sound.

There’s a time and a place for a carefully maintained air of civilian reaction. A graveyard where the occupants seem to have trouble staying dead isn’t it. Tim spins, loosing the knife from its sheath on his forearm with a twist that drops the hilt into his palm, his flashlight going flying and flickering out as it hits the ground.

With it dead, the only source of light is the streetlight refraction from the clouds overhead. All Tim can see is a big, black shape behind him, and he strikes out and -

- stops.

It’s only many hours of blindfolded training in the cave that has him pausing in trying to push his knife through half an inch of woven kevlar into Batman’s throat underneath. That, and the span of Bruce’s hand, unmovable around Tim’s forearm.

For a moment, they’re both frozen. Then Bruce says, “A knife?”

Tim huffs a little, shaking the grip off his wrist and sliding the weapon back out of sight. “Sneaking up on me in a graveyard in the middle of the night?”

“It’s a fine piece,” Bruce notes, because he has a one-track mind and the advantage of the nightvision in his mask to actually see.

“I have expensive tastes,” Tim says automatically, which is actually only true in regards to clothes and cars. The knife, hilt detailed in delicate gold and green enamel and blade showing the ripples of quality steel, was a gift. It has the mark of the League of Shadows etched into the underside of the crosstree. “Why are you here?”

Bruce is silent, presumably because the answer is obviously I was concerned about you. He moves away briefly, and then returns to put something muddy into Tim’s hand that resolves into the flashlight after a moment of confusion. 

Tim flicks it back on, and as he does so the beam of light falls over the disturbed grave. Bruce, almost imperceptibly, stiffens.

“What is this?” he growls.

“I’m not sure yet,” Tim says, “But I’m going to find out.”

#eyes on me #my fic #batman #dc #batfam #part 1 #tim drake #bruce wayne #now don't lose faith (just keep your eyes on me)

[charlievermin]

MAP32: Wrong Turn

A lot of wrong with this map, for sure. I meant to make it feel like a bad dream, and I'm glad to see it largely worked.

As per the intermission text, you somehow manage to retreat all the way to MAP14 - even the music matches up. Everyone's still dead, and everything seems just like you left it, except the lower part of the room seems awfully dark. If you dare to plunge into the darkness, it'll turn out to be an awfully deep plunge - right into a death trap, with a looping corridor that only exists to give you false hope.

Taking the only other path, you're met with a very unusual encounter - a whole crowd of enemies facing away from you, in darkness so you can't quite tell how many are there. This part is particularly fun on UV from pistol start, as you have nowhere near enough resources to tackle all that, and you're forced to take the safe option and take the highlighted door on the right... then close it behind you before you make any noise.

I've put a whole bunch of touches to make this section feel off and surreal. There's a couple of spotlights in the dark corridor, but the light actually just comes from a plain patch of wall that has no reason to emit light. The first SPCDOOR that isn't barricaded with skulls spills out its DOORTRAK all over the wall on the other side. Further behind it, there are bars with pitch black void on the other side, and the door that seems like it would get you behind the bars doesn't do that, instead dropping you off at MAP12 in a way that feels like it defies physics. By the way, I'm pretty sure this is also the only locked door in the megawad that doesn't have any locked door markings on it.

Your quest for the red key is the most thoroughly physics-defying part of the map. First, you have to enter a room with fake walls that are only visible from one side, tricking you into thinking you're walking through a winding corridor until you notice there's a wall to the left of you no matter where you stand. At this point, the door you came in through has vanished, and to get out, you need to start walking in the direction opposite to where the architecture is herding you, right through opaque walls. That's when a couple of wall patches will light up for a moment - one of them letting you out, and the other allowing you to continue towards the red key.

This leads to a really maddening section. You walk through a dark section of a corridor, and enter a room with a couple of lopsided floor lamps. This reveals the truth about the area - all of the walls are visually shifted sideways! All of the geometry, by the same amount, in the same direction. It's gonna take you a while to wrap your brain around it, and so I kept the opposition relatively nonthreatening - or at least, what would be nonthreatening in normal circumstances. Also, most of the goodies in this area are placed in the corners of rooms - physical corners mind you, not visual corners, meaning that you'll have to walk past the visible geometry to get to them! In general, I've placed the enemies and things in that section in a way that would make sense in a regular level. For example, there's a couple of shotgunners waiting to ambush you from either side of the first doorway, but the corridor is visually shifted so one of them is just sitting there in plain sight. I'm proud of how I managed to even make the doors conform to the gimmick. Tagless DR doors, mind you! In the final version, you even have to press use in their "physical" position instead of their "visual" one.

Anyway, opening the red door leads you to the next part - getting teleported all over the place. Attempting to reenter MAP12 briefly throws you into MAP26, which lets you pick up a cell pack before getting yanked back to MAP10 as you attempt to approach a door. This area lets you linger for a bit longer, and mercifully gives you a whole bunch of ammo to take on a relatively small but nasty bunch - a couple of archviles, hiding behind multiple revenants, demons and cacos in a tight space. Good luck killing them first now! You might just want to try killing them faster than they can resurrect, instead. This area also contains one of the two secrets - a warped version of MAP10's secret, which you can access the exact same way you could on MAP10, except the lift-lowering switch is now just a tiny stripe of silver metal, and the lift itself is hidden behind a fake wall, so you either have to be extra observant, or have good memory. At least the contents of the secrets are also different this time - two soulspheres and a megaarmor. I figured you deserve something good for making it through such a level.

It's not over yet, though - you continue to backtrack through former MAP10 until you hit a dead end, and one of the formerly decorative doors turns out to be openable. You enter a room that isn't familiar at all but will be soon... and then you take the lift and end up back on MAP01. Or MAP10? Same thing. If you're fast enough, you may even catch a glimpse of your old friend, but the blue door quickly closes, and you set out to pick up the blue key, which somehow perched itself up on the central structure again. The corpses of your hell-swallowed friend's victims are still there, but it seems the place got repopulated in the meantime. There's another couple of archviles hiding behind meatshields. You have to press the stair-raising switch, cause apparently that got reverted as well.

You do so, and then you're about to press the lift switch... but then you plunge into darkness, as the floor you expected the tunnel to have simply isn't there. I think what really makes that part is that you get to walk through an identical tunnel a moment before that, and that one has the floor firmly in place. What follows is more mockery - you look around after your fall, and spot the blue key in the distance! So you approach and - what? It was just a health bonus, you idiot! I wish I could have used a silent teleport for that one. And now you're in MAP14, again. You continue on, through the most extensive stretch of unexpected teleportations yet - you get tossed into MAP22, then MAP26 again, MAP23, MAP18, and finally right back into MAP15. A couple of demons ate the chaingunner corpses while you were away, and if you try to backtrack again, it's just another barricade of corpses behind the door. And so you continue on... taking the regular exit from MAP15. The final version of the map has an extra special something right before the exit room.

#3iac #doom modding #3iac post mortem #3IAC post-mortem

[rustedethereal]

@natecross

She'd of called it thunder if it weren't for the sound of tires burning rubber against the ground, the screams of someone or something roaring towards the hotel. It was loud enough to startle her from a restless sleep within a comfy chair in her room. The Cajun jumped to her feet in a matter of seconds, grabbing her gun and blade from the table beside her, the gun holstered at her back, the knife safely in her hand. She could just make out the raid coming their way in the form of trucks. Not monsters, or rather, not the supernatural kind.

Human.

Max crosses the room to the door, tearing down the hallway light on her feet, already falling into the fight and defend mindset she'd been taught. They wouldn't hear her coming, wouldn't see her until it was too late. Kaz had liked her for many a reason, but the way she could hide in plain sight was perhaps his favourite. A good little scout, he'd called her. 

A clever little thief. 

What she hadn't expected, however, was the explosion like bang that shook the entire building. She leans against a wall, her heart in her mouth. Someone was screaming, loud and audible over the yelling. She'd know it anywhere. It's the thing that had drawn her to the group in the first place.

Max pushes herself back into action, racing down the hallway without hesitation. Fear trickled down her spine. She had to find Milah. Bryce. Nate. She had to find all of them. Milah could be alone right now, surrounded by the filth that had dared to challenge them. She could be hurt. She wasn't there to protect her, again. Her faith in Bryce had been gone for so long now, she couldn't put her heart in the idea he'd be fine. He needed her there. Brothers in arms, that's what she'd called them. Naomi, sweet little Naomi. She had Daniel, she was sure of it, but how could she trust him after all these years? Every time she'd seen him, he looked dead inside. Like he didn't care about anything any more. Why would he care for a little girl? Naomi screams again and Max pushes herself to run faster. 

She was quick, but she needed to be quicker.

So many people to protect, so many that needed her. She'd given Nate her word she would help. That she'd help him take care of the group. He was in the building somewhere already fighting, she knew that. Of course he would be. He was a soldier. You could take the soldier out of the war but not the soldier from the man.

Max hears gunfire to her right and she bolts towards it, if only to check who was fighting, to see if they needed aid. She skids around the corner and her stomach curdles with fear. It's her heart there, already knee deep in the fray. Bodies surrounded his feet, but more kept coming. Wherever these bastards were coming from, it looked like they were never ending. 

But Max turns on heel anyway, ready to run off in another direction. He'd be fine. He hadn't needed her the day they met, when a swarm of revenants attack her and the group of strangers she'd got caught up in. He'd stood there like a God, shooting the beasts where they stood. One bullet to the head perfectly placed and it was over. He could take care of himself. She had to believe he'd be fine... Except, she can't bring herself to move any more than a few steps. A glance over her shoulder and her skin pales further. Too many, she thinks, there's too many. 

Then, she sees it. The crimson upon Nate's skin, the red that was his own. A fine wound upon her heart. 

And that? Was enough. 

Kaz used to call her a phantom. Something from a ghost story. A vengeful spirit made of nothing but wrath. She'd hated it at first, despised it. She wasn't that cold, she'd tell herself, she wasn't that ugly inside. She liked a good fight and nothing more. 

Oh, how wrong she'd been.

The attackers surround Nate and she watches as one raises a bat, ready to bring it down upon Nate's skull. Perhaps the bastard thought he was fast, that this was easy, that he could take the gunslinger down before anyone else. 

But Max would always, always be faster. 

She was behind him in seconds, silent and deadly, her knife finding his throat. She doesn't waste time in slicing it open, her free hand tugging the back of his shirt to force him to the ground. A second draws a baton, sparks dancing at the edges as it burst with power. Not for long, for she appears behind him, too. Her knife rams into his side beneath his arm, finds his heart in an instant. She knew all the right places. Kaz had made sure to teach her that. He drops, just as his friend had. 

If mercy had a place, it wasn't with Max, and the good faith doesn't show as Max kills two more of her prey. She finally lays eyes on Nate, a few seconds to breathe, her chest rising and falling. Her eyes are cold, filled with something feral. Her top lip raises in a snarl as she speaks, her accent thick and furious. 

                                                     "Where dey comin' from?"

#event: human monsters #nate #IM SORRY ITS SO LONG #lemme know if u need me to change things ♥

[charolettecoving-blog]

Runescape - The Sensational Online Game

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If an individual using the abyss, start in Edgeville with weight-reducing equipment, a rune pickaxe, plus charged amulet of glory wielded. Have pure essence in your inventory. Run north alongside River Lum until you reach the Zamorak mage. Watch out for Revenants and skeletons along approach! You may be attacked and possibly teleblocked a new revenant, so a ring of life or Forinthry brace support. Choose the "Teleport" option on a Zamorak monk, and be teleported towards Abyss. Upon entering the abyss, are generally skulled and prayer is drained to zero. Immediately find a rock or any other obstacle to try to get past, and keep trying and soon you succeed. Now, enter kind rift. There, craft your nature runes, and teleport back to Edgeville using the amulet of glory.

[charlievermin]

MAP06: Emergence

There it is, the rising castle! Not a first in Doom's history for sure, but spectacular all the same. Of course, the real moving part is not the castle with its complicated interior, but the flat expanse of terrain around it. The rocky cliffs are all paper-thin midtextures to make them easier to move, though I went the extra mile and added some invisible fully solid walls behind them. Also the castle doesn't actually start fully submerged, and the player starts between the outdoor rocks to obscure that.

Here's a few other random facts about this level I find noteworthy:

Besides obtaining the BFG, going around the back of the castle also lets you access two side rooms, which have some supplies but primarily exist to let you eliminate some enemies prematurely. One gives you invisibility to deal with an army of zombies, and another lets you easily dispatch a bunch of revenants who'd otherwise sandwich you between themselves and the other monster closet upon pressing the northeastern switch.

I think the blue armor secret is the most interesting of the bunch: it requires pressing on a completely unremarkable wall, but you can glimpse it if you run over to the right side of the castle before it rises too high.

I made a few efforts to make the upper and lower floor of the castle consistent: there's a giant pile of skulls in the corner of the tower, and the megaarmor is on the other side of that pile. The teleport between floors and the big pipe you jump into are also in consistent locations. The only deviation from that is the southeastern switch room, containing a few illogical windows... but it's hell, so I have an excuse for anything!

The southeastern switch room is also kind of a reprise of the entrance hallway... with an arachnotron in the front and shotgunners behind columns, except this time, the shotgunners stay in place to ambush you.

For a long time, there was an exit in that dark room with the Icon of Sin. But the next level is floating up high in the red void again, so it felt inconsistent to have the exit down there in a giant cave after plummeting down a long pipe. So instead I just had you collect a key (that forces you to look at the Icon of Sin) and get back up on the rooftop. Now, 3IAC tends to use the traditional abstract exit switches... but there's still elements of logical progression. 

#3iac #doom modding #3iac post mortem #3IAC post-mortem