Early upload cuz work. Sorry for the cliff
First Prev Next Royal Road
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Pan looked between Joseph and Tel as the grey-furred female maintained her hold on him, The Human stilling his lungs with expectations for the worst in mind, Tel’s taste still lingering. The baited breath by most of the two couches stagnated the air as even Violet paused her scratching to pay attention.
“Our promise?” She asked him with a tip of her ear, though her tone remained inquisitive rather than scornful.
“Fulfilled.” Tel answered in his stead, her voice carrying a taunting cadence as she glanced between the two. “Or i would assume, based on the scent on both of you.”
Joseph’s cheeks flushed in time with Pan’s, him forgetting again just how sharp their noses were. “No hiding that one, huh?”
Tel released him a smug look on her face as she seemingly enjoyed the wide eyes watching the exchange. “From some? Perhaps. Me?” She leaned forward to nip as his ear, her claw lightly falling down from his chest. “I know the scent of my male to its finest.”
He swallowed back his unwanted reaction, his reason retained due to the company and Pan’s paw resting in his hand. Harrow raised her own, speaking when Joseph cautiously raised a brow in her direction.
“So... Did you bed Tel or Pan first?”
He blinked, inhaling to respond but finding words impossible to form due to the brazen and unexpected question. Jax chuckled as he smirked at his mate. “As i have said, I have won our bet.”
Harrow kicked back at him, though her shorter legs meant that she almost fell off the couch to achieve the retaliation. “You haven’t won until we know for sure.”
“There is little doubt.”
“You don’t know yet!”
Joseph shut is eyes forcefully, the interaction sapping his resolve for the moment. “What was the bet?”
“Jax bet that you would bed Tel first. I said that you would wait for Pan.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose, happy for the distraction, though wishing it departed more from the subject. “And you’re betting on my sex life... why?”
The two looked at each other before shrugging in sync. “We’ve been betting on most of what you do. Seems weird to stop at who warms your bed when.”
Joseph went to rest his head in his hands, the attempt stopped by Pan holding one and Tel supporting her weight on his free shoulder. He looked at the two and took a breath before addressing his mate.
“I..”
Pan smiled at him with a squeeze of his hand, stopping him from speaking further as the reassuring action took the wind out of his sails. The guilt wrenched at him regardless, worry about what she might have to say digging deep. Saying that he was going to just turn around on his affection for Tel would be a lie, but he couldn’t help but expect some sort of fallout from this. Instead of chastising him or the like, Pan looked to Tel with a calm expression. “Do you care for him truly?”
Tel flashed annoyance until Sahari answered, the female having grown annoyed with the display. “She is a Blade. A Sheath is one chosen with their life on the line. She would face an army alone to assure his safety and likely leave only a graveyard in her wake should he request it.”
Jax snapped his head to look at her. “She is an assassin?”
“I am amazed at how long you remained ignorant to her nature, yet recognize the moniker.” Sahari replied with a sigh.
“Wait, how do you know that?” Harrow asked, excitement building in her voice.
Sahari waved it off. “I spent much of my time as a mercenary. One should not be surprised by those whom they end up working with. I knew she was of such line, though the specifics were new to me as well when i was exposed.”
“Tel!” The orange-furred ball of energy yelled suddenly. “Teach me assassin things!”
Joseph succeeded in resting his head in a palm as Tel stood up to raise a brow at her. “You wish to travel the path?”
“Don’t.” The Grand Hunter interjected tiredly. It was first thing in the morning and this had already made him more than willing to go back to bed. “Trill’s girls being here is enough ‘cloak and dagger’ for one settlement.”
“There are multiple assassins?” Jax asked in disbelief.
“You get used to it.” The Human commented dryly.
“Why?”
He cycled a breath. “Well, let’s just say that the trip was... a lot.” Jax grimaced at his answer, but his funk was broken when his mate narrowly missed his leg with her foot, prompting him to refocus on their little game.
Sahari, finding humour in the first event of note, decided to provide the initial context. “Joseph was discovered by a vassal pack of Grand Hunter Trill while bathing in a river.”
“Like i needed more people to see me in the buff.”
“I guess Tel had fun with that.” Harrow added with a wink, raising her brows when Tel gave her a dismissive frown. “Oh, no? Just the other pack?”
Sahari cleared her throat, an understanding gaze was given by the inquisitive Lilhun when she noticed the ex-Grand Huntress avert her eyes for a moment. “After we affirmed that they were not hostile and cleared any suspected misintentions, we were escorted to High Hunter Loptr’s settlement for the moon.”
“Where our dear Human scared at least one male to wetting his fur.” Tel added with a trilling lilt, her regard of him gaining a seductive edge. Joseph scowled, though if it was over the events of that night or the ones after, he wasn’t sure. His bond gave his fingers a squeeze in support regardless, easing the density of his brooding.
“What did he do?” Harrow asked, her rapt attention obvious.
Sahari smirked. “He held his crossbow to the male for not accepting Tel’s rebuff. He was quite enraged.”
Pan’s thumb pad rubbed over his hand as she listened to the story, her expression attentive with a slight smile now that he had passed the initial annoyance of remembering that night. Joseph eased and returned the affectionate gesture.
The black-furred female’s face fell to one of scorn, a glare directed at Tel. “It seems as if she forced her mark upon him without explanation after the events.”
The mention of a forced mark caused Nalah to instantly bare her fangs at the offending Lilhun, venom in spades coating her words. “You forced a mark?”
Tel took a seat on Joseph’s lap, surprising him as he adjusted Pan’s paw in his hand out of the way to accommodate it without thinking. “Were it not for the mark, he would be a corpse rather than mine.”
“Explain yourself. Now.”
Tel sighed, leaning back on her improvised seat and forcing Joseph to shift to allow it, his free arm absently resting around her side to her stomach to support her weight. He was too busy cautiously watching the interaction for if, or rather when, he would need to step in. “Trill does not much care for that which is not documented and signed. A new creature that claims power may be a novel discovery, but it is a disruption to that which he has constructed.” Tel rested an arm around his shoulders, a somewhat protective note to the action. “Disruptions are dealt with those like myself. He would have been cold before the moon, if not simply when he held a dagger to Trill’s throat.”
Even Pan seemed surprised by the announcement that he had threatened not only a touchy male, but also a Grand Hunter. She looked at him with worry until the brewing irritation in his expression, and likely through the bond as well, informed her of his absolute lack of regret regarding the matter.
Either way, Nalah seemed stunned by the assertion, glancing at him and Sahari to confirm, though Sahari seemed as irritated by the situation as he did. “You tested the life of a Grand Hunter?”
Joseph scoffed. “I made my point to a piece-of-shit father.”
Harrow was the one confused this time. “Who’s den-father?”
The Human, noticing only now that he was effectively cuddling the bored-looking assassin, used the opportunity to gesture to her with the hand on her stomach. “Hers. Direct parentage. ‘Blood-father’, if i remember correctly.”
The answer befuddled Harrow, her looking around the room for confirmation and only receiving a nod from Sahari to agree. Perplexed, and accepting that no one is going to address the matter of Trill being Tel’s dad not being brought up before now, she turned her attention back to Tel. “You’re okay with that?”
Tel rested her cheek on his head, either testing to see how much contact she could get away with before he complained or trying to see where Pan would take issue. Whichever one it was, neither of the two put up any objections, Pan instead leaning into him as well once he noticed how comfortable he found it to be. “Were it not for his involvement, i would not have returned, instead held to be bred for more in my image while being rested upon a pedestal in a gilded cage.”
Nalah eased back into her seat, Sahari putting an arm around her and patting her shoulder in comfort. Joseph raised a brow at how intensely she reacted to the subject, but he wasn’t really sure where ‘marking’ sat in their morals. He figured it was pretty important, but it was temporary and was closer to just making someone wear a wedding band more than anything, as far as he understood. He held two fingers up while not releasing Tel to interject.
“What’s the deal with ‘forcing’ a mark anyway? I’m getting that it’s bad, but i don’t have context.”
Nalah bared her teeth, the building tirade silenced by Sahari pulling her in and rubbing her shoulder soothingly. Satisfied that her blond-furred pack-member was pacified for now, Sahari answered.
“To force a mark is to say that it was imparted upon the unwilling.”
His eyes widened as he made the connection. “OH. Oh. Okay, I’m following now. Jesus Christ.” His face scrunched in disgust. “Holy shit. Okay.”
He noticed the slightly worried expression on Tel’s face, himself quickly adding to his response. “To be clear, it wasn’t ‘forced’ forced.” He averted his eyes away from Pan as embarrassment and more than a touch of shame crossed his face. “It was... It was a bit of a night.”
Pan gave him a sympathetic look, some concern present. Tel felt the need to address it. “He refused to part with your promise, worry not. Even in the height of his heat, his thoughts focused on you.”
Joseph couldn’t help but notice the mix of longing and annoyance in her voice. He allowed himself to gently squeeze her, the action instantly improving her mood, if her tail was anything to go by. Pan shook her head. “I am merely glad that his world is one where such does not exist.”
He pursed his lips, unsure how to counter that without ruining everything. Unfortunately for him, Pan caught the hesitation through their bond.
“Oh, Joseph...” Pan wrapped her other arm around his, encapsulating it carefully. “I suppose there are those of lesser qualities in every people.”
He wanted to disagree, but he quickly failed to think of an example. “Anyway. What does the mark do? Besides say that you’re involved with someone, because I’m getting the vibe that there is more to it.”
Tel subtly twitched as Jax offered the answer. “It discourages others from courting you.”
“Like a wedding ring or something, yeah. Harrow told me that a while ago.”
The mentioned female raised a claw. “Yes and no. I said it was close enough for the purposes of understanding. It detracts from others ability to perceive you as a possible mate.” She gestured loosely to Pan. “It’s why defectives have such a hard time finding one. It’s hard to want to bed someone who your body instinctively doesn’t find attractive.”
Pan tightened her hold on him, though the satisfied expression suggested that she was quite pleased with having him be hers rather than using him to distract from her previous struggles. Harrow smiled at the affectionate display.
“For example: Jax would be much less likely to cause interest because of my mark, and me because of his.”
“So how do you end up with multiple ‘den-parents’”
“Not all attraction is physical, Joseph.” Sahari chastised him playfully, amused with his lack of knowledge. “The effect is negated once they are marked by yourself as well.”
He opened his mouth to counter that, but it failed after the briefest of consideration. “Okay, fair.”
“It is also why bonds are a boon in such arrangements.” Jax added casually, him and Harrow having resumed their attempts to kick at each other.
Pan tilted her head at an indirect mention, Joseph blinking away his confusion. “And that would be because?”
The two bickering mates paused, sharing a look before both giving him a flat expression. “They are influenced by their bonded one.”
“So? What does that...” The Human stalled, glancing at his own bond with a raised brow. Pan noticed his expression and smiled in return, her grip on his hand gently increasing.
“I know the depths of your affections.”
Deciding that the half-answer was the best he was going to get, he shook his head to dispel his curiosity, disrupting Tel from enjoying her perch in the process and drawing a displeased glance before she reclaimed it.
“That... Well that brings up something I’ve been meaning to address.” He tried not to look at her as he attempted to figure out how he was going to broach the question. Tel seemingly got impatient with his tip-toeing and spoke for him.
“I wish him mine, if that wasn’t obvious. This one seems to be reticent in regards to his reciprocated desire.” She punctuated the announcement by patting his shoulder, though the touch was slightly more forceful than he would attribute to ‘affectionate’.
Pan blinked, a tilted head accentuated by a further displaced ear. “Yes, i am aware.”
Joseph faltered, expecting... Well, he wasn’t sure what, but something more than that. He tentatively pressed further, anxiety rearing as unease settled. “No comment?”
She paused to consider, eventually meeting his eyes with a fairly blank expression. “I have known you wished for her for quite some time, though i can tell this is beyond mere infatuations. I have no qualms with such as long as all feel the same.”
He felt Tel physically relax, as if some tension had been held since her vow with him in the forest. There likely was. She had been much closer after the fact, but it was always subdued, as if she was worried she would be rejected and he would discard her at Pan’s wishes. He didn’t want to actively think about the scenario. He would much rather not have to make choices like that.
“I’m surprised you would expect her to say anything else.” Harrow commented passively. “It’s not exactly weird.”
“Especially involving a bond.” Jax added, successfully landing a light tap with his foot to his mate, the latter protesting as she tried to remain seated while stretching out to return it.
“The issue is with her.” Sahari waved a loose paw to Tel as she remained oblivious to her continued cuddling with Nalah. That, or she didn’t want to mention it aloud. Nalah certainly seemed content with the arrangement.
Pan followed the pointed appendage, giving Tel a questioning look as she fixed her grip on his arm. “Am i insufficient?”
Tel looked at her, the expression somewhere between a scowl and regret before she closed her eyes to sigh, her tail joining Pan’s in an effort to constrict his torso. “There is but a single Blade to a Sheath. Were he in possession of a mark besides my own, i would not pursue him, assuming i did not remove the other first. You being unable to do such is...” She paused to think of how to explain her reasoning, a wayward glance was given to Sahari as she finished her thought much more quietly. “I am willing to overlook the discrepancy for him.”
Pan’s eyes gained a touch of fulfillment to mirror his own when he internalized how big of a concession it seemed to be for her to accommodate his desires. He absently played with the fur on Tel’s stomach, the attention earning him a slight squeeze from her tail.
“Then i am content.” Pan declared softly, snuggling back into his shoulder, the matter settled in her mind.
He furrowed his brow, unsure of whatever the hell just transpired between the two, but took a breath to depart from the topic. Well, until Harrow prodded his side.
“So, who first?” She reasserted, fending Jax off as she continued poking his side.
“I’m not answering that.”
She ignored him, addressing the two females who had turned him into a cushion at one point or another. “Come on, i have a lot riding on this.”
Tel smirked, the amusement from annoying the pack outweighing the slightly displeased expression she had on since she arrived back at the settlement. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”
Harrow threw her arms high in victory, Jax bemusedly exhaling as he surrendered their physical confrontation. “I win!”
“What makes you say that?”
An orange claw was pointed at the disappointed cook. “If it was you, you would have spent forever teasing details.”
Joseph couldn’t help but tip his head in concession. That sounded like what she would do.
Tel huffed, annoyance returning in her expression as Pan seemed somewhat sympathetic. “And what has our ‘serial-catastrophic-failure-causing’ Technology Head earned?”
Harrow paused, a slight blush overcoming her enthusiasm. “You knew about that, huh?” She tapped her claws until she was ready to announce her winnings. “Jax owes me ten moons of back rubs.”
Pan and the Human burst slightly, the laughter proving to be infectious as the rest joined in, much to Harrow’s embarrassment. Tel chuckled, but she looked to be enjoying the mild chaos she had caused for the moment rather than the actual subject. The orange-furred female waited until they calmed down enough to continue.
“So, what about the other things? We have carts full of stuff and new people.”
“Ah.” Joseph vocally got himself back on topic. “Right. The carts are metals, clay for the forge, and alcohol. The new members are two servants that Loptr was fine with us having and four of Trill’s girls that are here to observe Tel.” He glanced at the Lilhun in question making use of him as a seat. “I think. It’s a weird arrangement right now.”
Tel gave him a bored roll of her eyes, her lack of desire to input conveyed concisely. He accepted it for what it was, not overly concerned since the girls seemed to listen to both of them anyway.
“Past that...” Joseph hummed in thought. “We have craftsmen moving in with the first trade caravan, though when they arrive is pretty fluid due to them needing to arrange things from various settlements. Servants and animals will be included, so we should start on a barn of sorts sooner rather than later.”
“Animals?” Pan questioned from her snuggling, though she seemed more than happy to just stay there instead of turning to address him.
“We’ll see what they send specifically, but even if it’s not overly promising, we could just treat it as a fresh meat delivery and make do.”
Sahari mused for a moment before entering her opinion on the matter. “I suppose Ferra would be of use.”
Joseph nodded. “Atrox’s mate, or one of, anyway. Yeah. That’s who i was thinking, too.”
Nalah sighed, making no attempt to separate from the arm around her shoulder. “So we shall build the Hall, a barn, and perhaps additional barracks.”
He squinted an eye a bit as he considered. “Yeah, give or take. Will that be too much?”
She waved him off lazily, tossing a piece of meat into her mouth. “I shouldn’t be, though it will delay the desire for a bath house.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Bath house?”
“They lack a bathing facility like we have.”
He lifted his hand off of Tel’s stomach to point at the planner, a slight embarrassment occurring as he noticed how comfortable it was to rest his fingers amongst her fur. “Do it. The barn can wait. Make it a decent size.”
“What else?” Harrow asked, likely requesting more gossip or interesting tales as Nalah stared off into the distance passively, probably thinking about where they should put a public bath.
“Nothing much to mention.” He admitted, deciding to omit the whole thing with Tel and his talks with Sahari.
“My turn?”
Joseph raised a brow.
“Come on!” She hopped from her seat, pausing when she noticed that removing him from his chair would involve detaching two females. He patted Tel on her stomach to request freedom, a momentary thought within her broken as she defaulted to teasing him with her claws before acquiescing to his wishes. Pan put up much less fight, instead assertively pulling him in for a kiss and a quick nuzzle, the combo leaving him dazed for a second before Harrow used the opportunity to drag him to his feet.
“I have something to get your advice on and something to show you. Which do you want to start with?”
The Grand Hunter shook off the surprise at his mate’s uncharacteristic forwardness, thinking about his answer before shrugging. “Whichever is cooler?”
Harrow patted his chest with the back of her paw before marching off towards the facilities wing. “Good choice!”
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Sahari remained behind with Tel as all else filtered out of the hub to start their respective duties, the Blade idly laying on the couch while chewing some of the cooked food she had brought out for Joseph that had been left behind once the male was carried off by the excitable Head of Technology.
The ex-Grand Huntress approached, blocking the sunlight from on high that fell on Tel’s closed eyes, eliciting one to open lazily in inspection the person interfering with her lounging, a long exhale preceding her disingenuous query.
“Need something, Sahari?”
She maintained the repressed smug expression, feigning ignorance to the obvious. “Feeling at ease now?”
Tel closed her eye again to disregard the notion. “Why would i be uneasy? I am back at our den, bathed, and i may rest from my tasks for a while.”
A light chuckle escaped Sahari. “You were accepted by his bond. I would think that had been on your mind these past moons. That much is quite plain to see, given that you made no attempts to join his rest.”
The female paused in the process of depositing the last portion of meat into her mouth, giving Sahari a frown before continuing. “They required the moon alone, and i care not for the opinions of others than my Sheath.”
“And he would have been forced to choose her over you should she dissent in regards to your addition.”
Tel fell silent for a moment, eyes wandering the ceiling before she sat herself up. “Then i suppose we are most fortuitous that such shall not come to pass, no?”
Sahari ignored the dismissive tone. “What are your plans for her?”
“What might you mean?”
She crossed her arms. “You have complaints, surely. What do you intend to do about them?”
The Blade stared at her. “Complaints? Such as how easy it is to catch her unawares? Her lack of weaponry maintained on her person? How little effort it took to engage with her mate, despite her proximity?”
Sahari nodded, suspecting that Tel’s mind would go there. “Do you plan to address them?”
The cook sighed. “Time will tell, but it is clear she carries his carelessness.”
“She carries much of him within her by now.”
Tel got to her feet, a look of resignation on her face. “Yes, that much is obvious.”
“Perhaps you should be thankful.”
Sahari received a raised brow. She returned a knowing nod.
“She would not be as willing if not for his influence. She has gained that which she would never. Were it not for his temperament, one could not blame her for wishing to monopolize. Instead, she seeks his happiness as her own. If it includes yourself, so be it.”
“Telling me to ignore her faults?”
Sahari shook her head. “I am merely advising you to embrace her as an extension of your influence rather than an obstacle to account for. She wishes for his safety as much as you, though she only holds the tools to repel that which is obvious.”
Tel tilted an ear, a slight smirk playing at the corner of her mouth. “You suggest i make a Blade of a defect?”
The black-furred female grinned, turning on her pads to head outside, a paw waved over her shoulder. “You are expected to raise the next, no? This may be a chance to test your proficiency, even if it may be the only you attempt.”
“It is a bloodied path, Sahari. I highly doubt my male would approve.”
“Then craft a clean edge. Form one from nothing. You are the heiress, no? Prove yourself worthy of your presumed station and allow your Sheath to perform without worries.” Sahari called out through the exit, allowing it to close behind her when Tel’s expression became contemplative.
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“You doing okay?” Harrow asked once they were in the gym. She dug through the various prototypes she had been working on to find the things she wanted Joseph’s input on.
The Human rubbed his neck. “Yeah, why?”
She paused her search to glance at him with a deadpanned expression. “You looked like you would have evaporated if you could.”
He pursed his lips. “Yeah, kind of. I don’t know. The whole ‘polyamory’ thing seems like a minefield to me.”
A nasal sigh was given as she returned, taking out the first piece and laying it to the side as she resumed her search. “Yet you come back and have no problems with Tel fawning all over you while you’re next to your bond.”
“That...” The male faltered, a defeated tone taking place. “I didn’t really think about it in the moment, it just felt like the natural thing to happen.”
“Isn’t that your answer?” She offered idly, placing another piece to the side.
“To what?”
“How she fits in to your relationship.”
“How so?” Joseph replied, confusion evident.
Harrow laid the second-to-last piece down and sorted through the box from the beginning. “Pan feels about... well, everything the way you do. If Tel feels natural to have around, then Pan won’t feel anything is wrong.”
The Grand Hunter groaned, the hollow tone suggesting he had cupped his face into his paws. “It just feels like jealousy and shit should be an issue.”
Harrow fetched the last piece, laying it with the rest and plopping herself onto the ground to observe the frustrated male. “I can’t speak for Tel, but i think she was more worried about it than you were.”
“She’s a ball of confidence. I can’t really picture her being worried about anything other than being told to not to fuck around.”
She waved him off. “You’ve had all this time to make sure everyone knew how much you care for Pan. It’s stressful to think that you would be compared to that if it came down to one or the other, especially a bond.”
Joseph raised a brow as Harrow put on the first piece of experimental armour on her arm. “I wouldn’t compare them like that. They’re different people.”
She fixed her gaze on him as she moved on to the second piece. “Pan knows you to your core by now. She has claimed a position of a den-mother of your adopted kit. Now, she has affirmed her placement as your mate.” The orange-furred female shook her head at his momentary flush. “Mix that with your societal standards, and she wouldn’t be able to worry but think that she might be seen as lesser and thrown aside if Pan took issue.”
Annoyance filtered into his voice. “Both are irreplaceable. Period. I’m not excited about it, but I’d rather do my best to make sure they’re happy. Even if it meant trying to convince her as best i can. I’m not ignoring what Tel has done for me and what she has ended up meaning to me.”
“Is my male proclaiming his affections out loud again?” Tel prodded playfully after having silently entered behind the male and wrapping her arms around his waist, her chin resting on his shoulder. Joseph jumped slightly at the unexpected presence, his face stricken by embarrassment after being caught in the act of vehemently defending his new-found relationship with the female.
Harrow smirked as she moved on to the last piece. “He seems to be rather taken with you Tel. Makes me wonder what happened that moon he defended your honour.”
The Grand Hunter furrowed his brow as he glanced back and forth between them with a warning eye. “Not talking about it.”
Tel ignored him, her tail lazily swaying behind her. “I fear not for his bond. It seems that she cares more for this one’s feelings than her own.”
“Not like there’s much of a difference.” Harrow commented, standing now that all four pieces were on. She adjusted the fitment as Tel hummed in agreement.
“I have no idea what’s going on.” Joseph lamented openly, the cook leaning on him more in response.
“You,” The Head started, pleased with the preliminary checks of her equipment. “are going to help me solve a few issues with these, and she,” A claw was waved at the mildly interested female. “is going to be happy with me.”
Tel adjusted her grip under his arms, wrapping one paw over the wrist of the other as she applied more weight and idly observed as Harrow started explaining whatever it was she had on her arms. Joseph cycled a breath as his plight remained ignored.
The orange-furred female wore two large bracers, their outward arm coverage a fair bit wider than what would be typical. The second section of each was a large piece that slotted over the more form-fitting attachment to her arm.
Curiosity seemed to have prevailed over his premature exhaustion. “Are those supposed to be a shield when you put them together?”
Harrow winked, a mischievous smirk suggesting that he was only half right. “They also do this!”
The female engaged a pair of spring-loaded protrusions placed on the inside of the outcroppings, two broad daggers extending forth in an instant with a visible recoil.
Both the Human and the female raised their brows, Harrow proudly explaining her invention. “I took inspiration from those Katars you told me about and the spring system you used for Tel’s roped daggers. Add in the need for a shield that wouldn’t hinder our claw-to-claw training...”
“And you end up with hidden blades inside of a wearable shield.” Joseph mused, an impressed tone clear. Tel viewed the items with interest from his shoulder.
“Why might these make me happy?”
Harrow pointed the worn knife, its edge blunted until the details were sorted. “Because you can add this to your armament as a backup, and because i figured that your little declaration back there meant you would rather Joe stay armed and protected.”
The assassin hummed in understanding, though didn’t comment further as she continued analyzing them.
“So what do you need my help with? It seems like you got all the important parts down for a prototype.” Joseph furrowed his brow in confusion, looking over her work from a distance to find an issue.
Harrow took a breath, wincing at the need for overview. “Well, this is it.”
“What’s it.”
She held the extended blades outward. “This. They don’t go back without taking them apart.”
The Grand Hunter’s expression fell neutrally. “Ah. Yeah, that would be an issue. I’d need to see it disassembled to weigh in.”
Harrow’s ears fell as she heard that he wouldn’t be able to know what to do about the problem at a moment’s notice, but quickly regained her enthusiasm as she removed the prototypes. “We can do that whenever. Next, i found out something neat about the den while i was doing the wiring!”
“Oh?”
She nodded, her tail threatening to fly off with how active it was being. “Whatever species occupied this place before us must have been a massive mix of high and sub-harmonic vocalizations.” She paused when the male gave her a blank look. “They spoke in an an extremely wide frequency range. Or at least utilized such.”
Joseph blinked, a light tilt of his head showing that he was a little confused at the apparent non-sequitur. “And that has to do with wiring because...”
“Because,” Harrow tossed the braces back into the box. “I discovered a defunct circuit used to power a building-wide public address system!” She threw her arms wide as her main discovery was finally being announced to someone who would appreciate it. “I rigged it to the terminal! We can play music to the whole den and outside, if we want! I checked and there are tiny acoustic projectors everywhere, though they look to be far more capable than the size suggests.”
Tel perked up at the mention of widely accessible entertainment while Joseph looked to the side in thought, his face carrying a contemplative shade. “That’s cool and all, but do we want to inundate everyone with music all the time? I have a lot of variety there, I’m pretty sure someone would be drove nuts by the end of the week.”
“I need your help there, too.” The Head added in counter, approaching the pair with a bounce to her step. “I can’t read your language, but there should be a setting to split the zones and allow playlists by room.”
“Why would there be a setting like that?”
Harrow shrugged. “We’ll see what we can do, if not. Worst comes to worst, we can just open it up during celebrations.”
The Human paused, conceding the point after a moment. “That doesn’t sound like a terrible idea. I’m down.”
She separated the two, shoving Joseph out the door in her rush to get started on the idea. Tel allowed it to happen, a mild interest passing her eyes all the while until she tapped Harrow on the shoulder.
“Could i have a set of that prototype created for Pan once it is complete?”
Harrow waved Joseph to continue once he noticed he was the only one still going to the terminal, raising a brow at the female. “Odd for you to ask.”
The prospective mate shook her head. “It would benefit him to have more at his disposal. None have taken to his philosophy of using one’s fists like she has. This would merely allow her to expand her repertoire while still adhering.”
Harrow hummed, a skeptical eye scanning the female’s face for a hint at her true motive, a sigh escaping once she decided that Tel wasn’t going to clarify further. “I’ll get Mama to measure her once Joe straightens out the retraction mechanism.” A second glance was afforded. “You sure you’re okay with Joe threatening your blood-father and having a preexisting mate?”
Tel maintained a placid expression, boredom hinted by her quick break of eye contact. “I have stated my opinion on such. Why do you ask?”
“Because he’s my friend and part of my den.”
Tel returned her gaze. “Would it worry you so if i took issue?”
Harrow failed to answer immediately, a breath being required before she quietly responded. “I just don’t want anything to ruin it.”
The Blade chuckled. “I may find myself desiring to hold him to my own, but i must accept that she is as much a part of him as he is her. As for his threats to Trill?” Tel’s voice grew wanting as she slipped a teasing smirk towards the curious Human waiting at the end of the hall. “That is far from a problem for me.”
Joseph leaned against the wall, his arms crossed as he patiently waited for the two to finish their sidebar, Harrow noticing his idle expression now that Tel had been accepted was a stark contrast to before. She smiled with closed eyes, happy that the dynamics of the pack didn’t seem to be shifting in a bad direction.
“Okay.” She breathed out, changing gears mentally. “As long as everyone’s okay.”
She turned to face Tel, noticing that she had gone on ahead without waiting for a response to harass the Grand Hunter, the latter struggling not to laugh as the female poked at him.
At least it seemed that she could keep this den.
She hurried to catch up, wondering what music Joseph would be using to test her ideas.
​
Next
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A/N: Today’s shout-out is to you guys in the comments! Always brightens my day to see everyone tossing in their thoughts on whats happening. Also loving the upvotes you toss to each other whenever someone says something you agree with, really shows me which comments i should be looking closer at. Take a moment to pat yourselves and fellow regulars on the back. You deserve it.

This is about to be quite long so I apologise in advance, but I wanted to add as much detail as I could.
My partner (26M), my daughter (1 this Friday) and I (25F) recently moved overseas to live with his parents. The plan was to live here until the beginning of next year, and then move back to my country- a decision we both made. I want to move back so I can get qualifications and actually figure out what I want to do with my life. Where we are living now, there are literally no options for me as his parents are my sponsors to live here and they need me to work in their shop (cafe during the day, fish and chips restaurant at night).
A few nights ago we were having a couple of drinks and my partner decided to ask his parents to live in one of their family homes. This home hasn't been lived in for years, it's overgrown and has absolutely no furniture or appliances or anything. This would mean we need to save up for a lot of expensive necessities (fridge, freezer, bed etc) that would probably at least take half a year as I don't make much at his family's shop. He would be fishing probably everyday and he would make decent money. In saying that, if he's asking to live in their family home, he plans on staying here much longer than we had decided, which was the first big blow.
Last night we were once again having a couple of drinks, and his mum said she was on her last one. She had maybe had about 3 vodka and coke at that point but she said she wants to get her health in order so she can see her grandbabies grow up and get married. That was when my partner laughed and said "you won't even get to see your son get married," in reference to himself. This was the second big blow because we have been together for 6 years, and always talked about getting married. He even went as far as to ask my brother (just got married last year) about engagement rings.
The last big blow probably isn't as dramatic as I feel it is, but with everything adding up I feel so hurt that he isn't talking to me. Our daughter will be 1 on Friday, and I have been planning her birthday for months. I have tried to get him in on the planning but he always complains he's too tired, he can't think right now etc. So I made the plans, told him about them, and got him to confirm. I've been telling him about all the different foods I will make to go with the BBQ that he is supposed to cook. That is literally the only thing he has to do for the birthday, I will do everything else. I asked him tonight what meat he plans on putting on the BBQ and he just told me "oh, we're not going to do a BBQ, I'm just going to do fish and chips." I asked him why he didn't tell me, and he said he and his parents were just discussing it this morning when I was angry at him. This just made me even angrier, as I am her mother, I'm the one who has been doing all the hard work in raising my daughter this year, and he made decisions with his parents about her birthday, when they literally have only been in her life for two seconds.
I have no idea what to do or say about this, if I even do say something. This has been an ongoing problem in our relationship - he will make decisions and I end up looking stupid because I have absolutely no idea what's going on. When his family plans events they go straight to him which I understand, but he doesn't pass the message on to me and it makes me feel like an idiot for having no clue about anything.

Our worldlost 15m tall cyborg meets a halfling with a ring.
[Previous] Part 015 [Next]
<==--------===-=-===--------==>
/- - Flight of the War Witch - -\
\ =>>>>><0> 016 <0><<<<<= /
\ - - - - Lived in a Hole - - - - - -/
The others gathered at Valkyria's side as she was examining the body they had recovered from the Jellied Tesseract. A body that was apparently not as deceased as they had assumed from being inside the slime monster without air or other means for who knew how long. "No way this is a fellow dungeon delver. I think this is your thing that all the traps were meant to prevent escaping, Roscida." she stated. "As improbable as that is. I am getting very faint vital signs. I am going to deploy emergency resuscitation. That is unless one of you has a better idea?" she asked.
Clade glanced at the small figure laid out and gasped. "You are right. That is no child! That is a Deep One!"
"Whoah? We scored a Halfling? Cool!" declared the War Witch as she ran some diagnostics on the patient. "huh? Amphibious. Biology though is not too different from your own. So anything safe for a dragon should be safe for them." she informed the others. "Heartbeat is weak though. As cliche as this might sound. I am going to try administering some adrenaline and running an electric current through to try and jump start vitals."
Roscida shook her head. "I used up most of my reserve of vraja healing myself. Most I can do now is assist a little with what I have left."
Valkyria nodded and then pulled a scaled up hypo from her emergency medical fabricator and then ran fast calculations for the proper dosage. "This is about the best I can do with what I have. I'd need a Rescue Regalia with all the medical fabricators for anything more than advanced first aid. Here goes..." Checking vitals again she rested her cybernetic hands on either of where the heart was according to her scans. Then she ran a charge between. The body arched on the floor and then sank back. "Heart is still weak." and ran a charge through again. This time the chest began to rise and fall slowly. "Vitals are starting to climb. No idea what is normal for one of them." she declared and all breathed a sigh of relief.
Roscida used up the last of her reserves to speed up recovery of the small amphibian. "I'm out of juice now. The rest is up to them." The Ki-rin knelled at the Deep One's side and rubbed the arms and legs to get the blood flowing.
A few minutes later the large eyes fluttered open and for a moment panic was in those emerald orbs. Then relaxing as they saw that those gathered were not their captor. "Finally! Thank thee for saving this one. But thou must beware! For this tis the abode of a most horrible woman!" The voice was male with a cute little croaking chirping lilt to it.
Roscida smiled as the amphibian spoke similar to her mentor when she was being theatrical, or really angry. "ah. Her. Yeah. We sort of dealt with her already. Permanently. Well mostly she did. But we helped!" said while pointing at the armored dragoness while helping the Deep One sit up. "Never seen a Salamandra before. When you feel up to it we'd love to hear how you ended up down here."
The Deep One nodded and waved a webbed hand. He was bright red with yellow from chin down the front then under to a stub of a tail. "aye m'lady. I am certes feeling my vitality returning after so long trapped within yon quivering horror."
"About that. Just how did you end up inside that thing? Trying to escape?" asked the white and gold cyborg. "Oh and introductions." Which each gave in turn.
The Deep One finally took note of Valkyria's strange nature and sat up straighter. "Thou art some manner of artificial life art thou not?"
"Close. I am part alive and part machine."
"Certes? A cybernetic organism? I did not think the land folk had advanced so far in so short a time?" he asked her curiously.
The term he used came across clear to Valkyria and her black eyelids narrowed. "I am not from... these parts."
"Verily? I am not familiar with much more than the coastal provinces." he admitted. "I wouldst be most interested in hearing of a land where thou tall folk hast made such advancements." He stood up and formally introduced himself. "I am Argen'tea Lingua Gur'gite of the Subsea City of R'lyah - Metall'um Opus District - SeaWalker Technician Third Class. Thanks unto thee once again for rescuing me."
Clade bowed to the Deep One half her height and pointed down the other hallway. "We were about to investigate the other path when we inadvertently attracted the Jelly trap. Do you know what lies down there?"
"Aye m'lady. Yon way lies a most primitive laboratory of the creature that dwelt here. And where I twas held."
"Let me guess. She wanted to dissect you too to learn about your voice?" asked Valkyria while absently rubbing her long plated neck.
The newt-like being nodded. "Aye, tis a sad truth of it indeed. But she twas also after the secret of water-voicing. Our ability to speak while submerged. Which is most assuredly not in our throats. But she could not guess the way of it and thusly devised a most vile means unto which she might torment the words from me."
The War Witch tap-tapped the bridge of her nose. "Did not think to look higher did she?"
Argen'tea's large eyes tried to bug out of his skull at that. He sputtered and croaked much to the cyborg's amusement. "h-h-how? How canst thou know of that which we hast never divulged unto the surface folk?" Said while waving his warms around cutely in consternation.
"Well that is where -my- sonar is?" she stated in totally feigned innocence.
Now the small red amphibian's eyes were near to launching themselves from his skull. "T-T-THEE hast as WATER-VOICE?" Looking as if he were about to explode. "Water-voicing machinery is too bulky! A speaker doth be the size of me!" Waving his hands around as if she had just told him that things without wings can fly.
The War Witch smirked. "That is a story for another day. So crazy in a blue dress tossed you into the Jellied Tesseract to loosen your tongue." she prompted.
He was looking at the mechanical dragoness now the way the Techs back on earth looked at her. But then after a deep breath he did resume his tale. "Aye. She placed two rings upon me to ensure death twould not claim me any time soon. "A Ring of Death's Door to preventeth me slipping too deep by healing me just enough. And a Ring of Fasting so I twould not starve to death. She pulled me out now and then to see if I was ready to talk. But I knew if I did she would vivisect me forthwith thereafter. Then she did leave upon business and did thereafter never return. I endured, but after days upon days of torment by the acids I slipped into a death trance and could only hope to outlast. To offer prayer for succor. And here thou art!"
Clade nodded grimly. "What a monster! Well small consolation. But she is indeed ended in a most permanent and satisfying way. Which is why we are here. To claim this place and turn it from a house of horror into a dwelling of joy by repurposing her own hoard."
"Then the fact that she is brought low is balm enough to me." he chirped wistfully. "I twould most assuredly have liked to see that moment!"
Makrys patted his shoulder. "Valkyria here recorded it all so when we are quit of this place perhaps she can show you."
The white and gold visitor nodded to the Gorgon. "Sure."
The Deep One's shoulders sank a little "ahh. A written report tis not quite the same."
Makrys grinned. "Oh no no! This is so much better. You get to see it all!"
"Oh? Thou didst commit the events unto a viewing orb?"
Roscida grinned too. "No. Like seeing apparitions play. But so real!"
This got the tech staring at the smugly grinning cyborg. "Do not tell me thou hast a Holo-Caster hidden in that frame as well?"
The War Witch resisted the urge to laugh. This was great! She was confounding a being from a more advanced civilization. One who thought her to be some mere mundane construction.
"Nah. Nothing so... Primitive." she teased, snickering as the 'Halfling' looked like he was fit to explode.
<==--------===-=-===--------==>

I’ve begun settling my roots in The Pandemonium Complex. If this will be my final stop then I should make it feel more at home. My memories of the outside world are fading now that I’ve found a few friendly distractions. Jim & Jon the humanoid ape couple, The Host that seems to still be untalkative, but led by my seven legged friend whom I’ve nicknamed Siete. Gunter, an Akras Fae who likes crashing on my new couch from time to time. And Mila, the size changing Omukade who doesn't want room with us and is trying to get back in her's.
Gunter’s room was simple and just needed to be opened from inside the complex to summon a new door. With the help of Mila we gave it a metal frame so it couldn’t be turned into another tree again; but I think he's still a bit traumatized from his entrapment since his excuses to stay with me are shaky at best. Mila’s was not as simple. The only one who could unseal her room was to kill the tenant who sealed it shut in the first place. She knows the culprit and has been on the hunt throughout the complex to find him. Níðhöggr, a northern wingless earth dragon who rules the dirt and the worms. The complex seems to know that a battle is about to ensue.
Certain parts of The Pandemonium Complex shifts and warps sometimes and the lobby changes almost every day. The theme, size and extra amenities changes range from big to small daily. Today the lobby was the size of the roman colosseum I visited once as a kid during a school field trip. There was no way to enter below besides the two large tunnels that presided below. Gunter ran to get me from my room when he saw this. With haste we ran past the mix of new doors that fill the hall. Doors with different colors, frames and styles. One made of stained glass, thick metal, medieval with chains, ice walls and made of colored mist are just some we passed. We arrived and saw spirits, monsters, creatures and mortals to list a few watch over the edges at the spectacle. Gunter said last time this happened it was between an Avatar of Storms vs. A Nova Celestial, who humans called Archangel Michael. This was the first time I’ve ever seen Winthorp not at the concierge desk as he stood dead center of the arena.
The rules state, #1. A tenant must never kill or fatally harm another tenant willingly; BUT rule #3. Rule 1. is void when in another’s room, but only to the room’s tenant. It seems a tenant is without a room and I decided to graciously move her in with another. The squables of the room’s tenants are their business and their business alone. I’ve also decided to do some renovations and temporarily moved said room here in the lobby before you. With that said, I shall return to my duties at my desk; Winthrop announces with a big grin to the onlookers and then disappears. Our feet shake with the pounds of something massive below us. A familiar drum roll can be heard in opposite unison. Gunter jumps with glee and eats his cornucopia full of strange fruits like it was popcorn, while tossing one away occasionally. A massive face can be seen from the tunnel in our view.
Out from the shadows emerges a giant female noh mask with the body of a centipede that could eclipse a mountain. From right below us came a long lizard like titan covered in soil and worms. The dragon’s rotten skin was missing chunks and infested with an uncountable amount of worms. Its rotten flesh filled the stands with its stench and made me cover my nose before I could puke. Gunter inhaled hard and sighed like he found his favorite scented candle. The behemoths didn’t hesitate once in sight and began their brawl. Like watching a snake fighting an eel, once one wrapped around the other they slipped through and tried vice versa. Mila split her noh mask’s mouth in two and opened her mandibles to bite the dragon, but he was already ahead of her.
They both bit the other’s long bodies and ripped chunks from each other. One bite would kill almost anything with their deadly venoms, but they’re both immune to all venom; Gunter explains. This was a perfect match. Mila has the advantage of size, but Níðhöggr is more agile and faster. Mila threw Níðhöggr into the wall and almost instantly went to spear him with her telson, but he leaped off and onto her long body. Gnawing his way up her exoskeleton. Mila lunged to bite her enemy in two, but Níðhöggr yelled an ancient language then suddenly a barrage of gray metallic threads that resembled spider webs spewed out of his mouth and covered Mila. Níðhöggr is no standard dragon like the western and could cast spells of his own with his ancient tongue.
Her face and top torso got tangled and stuck to the wall. She struggled hard and tried expanding her size to break free, but only damaged her exoskeleton even more. Mila tried using her telson again, but Níðhöggr webbed that and her bottom half down to the ground. She wiggled in her restraints for a bit, but stopped moving and seemingly accepted her fate. Níðhöggr crawled up her long body towards her head. We screamed for her to move, fight, do something but she just laid there like an exhausted moth in a spiderweb. We watched as Níðhöggr opened his maw wider than what we thought possible and engulfed our friend's face. His body shook from the tension of him biting down hard. The noh mask that we once feared but started to love cracked with the exoskeleton that was connected.
In a flash his jaws broke through and decapitated our beloved Mila. Tears began running down my face and I slammed my fist on the railing and hung my head in defeat at losing one of my newest friends. I clenched my jaws hard in anger. Gunter shook my arm hard to get my attention and pointed at our friend's corpse. Look, he whispered in a serious tone. Her insectoid body was hollow and began turning into stone. Níðhöggr was in the center of the arena celebrating his victory. He spoke another ancient language and spewed fireworks upwards to give the spectators a final show. A lump formed in his throat and stopped his triumphant gloating. The mass was slowly getting bigger. Níðhöggr's eyes were big and wide, he knew something was wrong.
The mass moved into his torso and kept getting bigger. Gunter shakes my arm in excitement at what we were seeing. Níðhöggr's body began pulling itself apart at the sudden growth spurt. Pops and stretching sounds filled the colosseum while soil and worms evacuating their master. Black ooze leaked from his orifices and wounds. When the mighty earth dragon grew at least twice its size it exploded everywhere. Chunks of the Níðhöggr flew everywhere and debris of death reached the bottom floor of the stands. Our Mila was center stage with a bright red fleshy exoskeleton and a new noh mask. Her once feminine mask that resembled a female woman's face is now more of a demon's. It still was tan like human skin, but now had two big horns and tusks with bigger eyes that look like they can see into your soul.
The crowd went more wild than the previous false victory and Gunter matched the energy of all the onlookers combined. Mila shrunk back down to the size of a fully grown python and laid motionless on the arena floor. Gunter grabbed a black and white spotted pyramid shaped fruit he was keeped on the railing from earlier and jumped over the edge and down into the colosseum. We were at least 600 ft. up and yet he was falling with such ease and grace to our wounded friend while holding his cornucopia down as to not lose it. I was watching my descending when suddenly I felt a tapping on my back. I turned around to see a small old woman who wore what looked like a black wedding dress with a mourning veil. She pulled my collar and forced me to listen closely.
A door with no lock can only be open with the key.
Bound with binds of metal seals intertwined.
For the boundless wish to be freed.
Fate will be your friend and foe but destiny will know sorrow.
The House of Klaus is on the move.
For what lies in the depths of The Complex is about to be unleashed.
She whispers inches from my face and releases me. I watch as the woman carrying this ominous message turns into black smoke and soaks into the complex's carpet, disappearing as fast as she appeared. I know better than to ignore any message in this place and repeated what she said in my head to not forget. I heard a heavy thump behind me towards the arena and see that Gunter has returned with Mila wrapped around him as she eats the fruit that he saved for her out of his hand. He stares at me and his grin fades away, he knows something is wrong and asks me what happened. I told him about the woman and her message. Mila stopped eating and both stared at me hard. I now know how Gunter felt just a moment ago when he looked at me and I ask if they know what any of that means.
Gunter gets close and looks deep into my eyes. The House of Klaus, is that exactly what she said? Are you absolutely sure? Gunter asks with a tone I’ve never heard from him before. Mila and her new face are just as locked on as Gunter’s. Yes, I answered them. And the woman, did she say who she was. I told them no, but explained her appearance as best as possible. Gunter grabbed my hand and started walking fast down the complex's hallway to an unknown destination. I asked what was going on and Gunter explained. Klaus was the first tenant of The Pandemonium Complex and was Winthorp’s right hand man. He’s never met him, but heard stories about him and what he can do. He thought he was a myth and just the boogeyman of this complex.
Klaus was a tenant that’s not bound by the 5 rules of Winthorp and was the enforcer of the complex. Tenants that manipulated the rules so much and made Winthorp look like a fool were hunted down by Klaus. His abilities are unknown, but he was the only tenant that could potentially kill Winthorp. The House of Klaus are the tenants that dedicated their lives to bring him back. Their reasons differ depending on which member you ask, but most thought Klaus brought more order to the complex than Winthorp ever could. It’s said that Winthorp feared Klaus and killed him, but we know Winthorp himself can’t break rule #1. No one ever took them seriously. It would be like a cult dedicated to bringing back Santa and he’s been returned to his planet. I asked Gunter where we were going and he says the concierge desk.
I pulled my hand away and told him to wait. I asked if he didn’t believe Klaus was real then why are you so scared. Because the woman who told you isn’t a member of The House of Klaus, she’s Baba Yaga and has been missing for over a millennia. Gunter answers. I asked if most of the members are unknown then how does he know she isn’t. Sadness covered Gunter’s face at this question. She wouldn’t, he answers under his breath. I ask Mila what she thinks and she says in a tired voice, Just in case Gunter’s right, what harm would it be to tell Winthorp? I told them to hold on and to just give me a minute to think. If Klaus can kill Winthorp, then why don’t we just let him and get out of this place? Mila and Gunter's looks were louder than words. If Klaus is real and comes back, who's to say that he won’t clean house when he takes over and why wouldn’t he just rule the complex with an iron fist!? Gunter replies with the tone of, that should’ve been common knowledge.
If there’s any chance of us getting out of here, it’s this. I’m tired of being trapped and used as a plaything for something that cares so little about us. Hell, Mila almost died today just to have a room to live in and was made into a show to entertain us, I retorted. He has a point, Mila chimes in. Gunter looked at Mila with an expression of sorry, but said he definitely doesn’t think this is a good idea. This is bigger than us and we should ask the others, plus Mila needs to rest. Let’s go to bed and we’ll meet in my room tomorrow with Jim, Jon and The Host to ask them what they think. Gunter agrees and carries Mila to the elevator to find her room. On my way to my room I saw a black spider crawling along the wall and told it what’s going on and to please tell Siete to meet us tomorrow. It stopped, listened and when I was done it rushed away to carry my message.
Gunter of course was the first to arrive wearing an apron. I said, nice apron and he thanked me while my sarcasm went over his head. He went over to my new coffee table, started pulling out fruits and cut them up for snacks. A few hours passed and the next to arrive was Siete. She had a new host of what looked like a tall aquatic fish man that was all dried out. It had dark gray fins where ears normally preside and 3 more on the center of its head. Both eyes were hollowed out and its jaw hung open with another new tongue tucked inside. It limped in and dropped onto the single desk chair I had. Gunter had several giant melons in the corner with holes poked in for her many children. Siete emerged from The Host’s mouth and the body fell limp as her children left to go eat. Jim and Jon arrive with Mila being carried wrapped around Jim like Gunter did yesterday. She looked better and her fleshy red body looked darker and harder than before. Jim and Jon could barely stand in my room and hunched over to my couch.
Gunter took Mila from Jim and let them enjoy the selection of fruit he cut up on the coffee table. The couch sunk in due to their weight, but we all pretended not to notice out of respect. Gunter fed Mila out of hand like before so she could save her energy to heal. Once everyone got settled the meeting began. I told the other 3 what happened yesterday exactly and caught Jim and Jon never heard of Klaus so Gunter filled them in on what he knows. We let the information sink in and began our debate. Gunter argued that the complex as is isn’t so bad and even though we were technically prisoners, we were treated with some form of respect and we have no idea what Klaus's plans will be. It’s better to deal with the devil we know than the one we don’t. I retorted that this could be our only hope of escape and even though our needs are met, we are prisoners and nothing more. Life here has everything, but our freedom and this may be our only hope of seeing the outside world again.
Jim’s hand rested on Jon’s and you could tell that this conversation made Jon extremely uncomfortable. Jon was the first to chime in and asked if Winthorp is god in this place then how do we know he’s not listening and that he doesn’t already know our plans. Gunter explained that Winthorp isn't omnipresent by choice and the complex itself can only listen if spoken to directly and out loud to respect our privacy. It’s things like this that show he tries making this place as homely as he possibly can. Jim and Jon look at each other to have a conversation with expressions that only long time lovers could have. You could tell that Jim was on my side and Jon was the reluctant one. Jon spoke first again and told us that they met in this place. If it weren’t for the complex they would’ve never met all those years ago. Jim’s race lives deep in the forest of the Amazon, but was the most advanced member of his race and therefore always felt left out. Jon was the last of his kind and was hunted like the rest in the mountains of Russia.
Jim wipes a tear from Jon’s face and caresses him lovingly to calm him down. If we lose this place then how will we find each other again? Jon asks with sorrow. Jim tells him he will never stop looking for him if they get separated and will get through anything that gets in their way. Jon presses his face into Jim’s chest while Jon holds him tight. I can’t be alone again, I can’t lose you; Jon wails into Jim’s chest. I decided to give them a moment and asked Siente what she thinks. Gunter was standing next to The Host while holding Mila. Mila and Siete exchanged high pitched noises and rolling clicks since she’s unable to speak from The Host without her thousands of children controlling it. Mila translates for us and tells us Siete is against it and that she knows Klaus is real.
When a spider is born into The Host they share experiences and memories with their hive mind so that even if only one survives The Host will always return. She has knowledge of the complex that predates all of us combined. Klaus is real and may not be as powerful as a god, but has the abilities to kill anything that has a consciousness. A god killing monster that was barely stopped by Winthorp, The Complex and his selected tenants. The Host stayed out of it last time, but lost many friends in the complex war. We were the first friends she’s had in a very long time and doesn’t want to lose us too. I asked Mila what she thinks. Mila agreed and told us she loves us and that she’s never had the privilege of having friends or a kin before. Mila looked at Siete when mentioning kin and Siete relaxed slightly at the comforting words. However, Mila was forced to battle to the death just to have a resting place and can not let that slide. Winthorp needs to die, she answers.
I take the floor, Then we put it to a vote. All in favor of letting the sleeping dog lie? Gunter and Jon raise their hands slightly while Siete raises her tiny spider leg. All in favor of taking down a god? Jim and I raise ours while Mila raises her insectoid leg weakly. We were tied and had to break it. Jim holds Jon’s hands and tells him, We can’t stay here forever. What if one day Winthorp decides to throw one of us into the ring or even worse? Tells us we have to kill each other. He can’t live everyday guessing what a mad god is feeling. Home is wherever Jon is and he will always find his home. Jim presses his forehead into Jon’s lightly. Trust me, Jim whispers. Jon relaxes into Jim’s forehead to show his trust. Promise? Jon asks softly. Promise. Jim replies just as softly back. Jon shakes his head up and down slightly and kisses his lover to seal the promise. Okay, Jon says out loud with a sniffle. I’m in.
The decision has been made. Gunter, Mila, The Host, Siete, Jim, Jon and I are going to find the first tenant. The god killer and hopefully our way out of here, Klaus. The complex and tenants begin to stir. They don’t know why, but everything in the complex feels a shift. Something is happening and even Winthorp feels something is amiss. Little did we know that someone was just outside my door and was listening to us the entire time. Our simple decision sent a pulse down into the depth of the complex and a smile forms in the darkness. It’s time to kill Winthorp and leave The Pandemonium Complex.

I’ve begun settling my roots in The Pandemonium Complex. If this will be my final stop then I should make it feel more at home. My memories of the outside world are fading now that I’ve found a few friendly distractions. Jim & Jon the humanoid ape couple, The Host that seems to still be untalkative, but led by my seven legged friend whom I’ve nicknamed Siete. Gunter, an Akras Fae who likes crashing on my new couch from time to time. And Mila, the size changing Omukade who doesn't want room with us and is trying to get back in her's.
Gunter’s room was simple and just needed to be opened from inside the complex to summon a new door. With the help of Mila we gave it a metal frame so it couldn’t be turned into another tree again; but I think he's still a bit traumatized from his entrapment since his excuses to stay with me are shaky at best. Mila’s was not as simple. The only one who could unseal her room was to kill the tenant who sealed it shut in the first place. She knows the culprit and has been on the hunt throughout the complex to find him. Níðhöggr, a northern wingless earth dragon who rules the dirt and the worms. The complex seems to know that a battle is about to ensue.
Certain parts of The Pandemonium Complex shifts and warps sometimes and the lobby changes almost every day. The theme, size and extra amenities changes range from big to small daily. Today the lobby was the size of the roman colosseum I visited once as a kid during a school field trip. There was no way to enter below besides the two large tunnels that presided below. Gunter ran to get me from my room when he saw this. With haste we ran past the mix of new doors that fill the hall. Doors with different colors, frames and styles. One made of stained glass, thick metal, medieval with chains, ice walls and made of colored mist are just some we passed. We arrived and saw spirits, monsters, creatures and mortals to list a few watch over the edges at the spectacle. Gunter said last time this happened it was between an Avatar of Storms vs. A Nova Celestial, who humans called Archangel Michael. This was the first time I’ve ever seen Winthorp not at the concierge desk as he stood dead center of the arena.
The rules state, #1. A tenant must never kill or fatally harm another tenant willingly; BUT rule #3. Rule 1. is void when in another’s room, but only to the room’s tenant. It seems a tenant is without a room and I decided to graciously move her in with another. The squables of the room’s tenants are their business and their business alone. I’ve also decided to do some renovations and temporarily moved said room here in the lobby before you. With that said, I shall return to my duties at my desk; Winthrop announces with a big grin to the onlookers and then disappears. Our feet shake with the pounds of something massive below us. A familiar drum roll can be heard in opposite unison. Gunter jumps with glee and eats his cornucopia full of strange fruits like it was popcorn, while tossing one away occasionally. A massive face can be seen from the tunnel in our view.
Out from the shadows emerges a giant female noh mask with the body of a centipede that could eclipse a mountain. From right below us came a long lizard like titan covered in soil and worms. The dragon’s rotten skin was missing chunks and infested with an uncountable amount of worms. Its rotten flesh filled the stands with its stench and made me cover my nose before I could puke. Gunter inhaled hard and sighed like he found his favorite scented candle. The behemoths didn’t hesitate once in sight and began their brawl. Like watching a snake fighting an eel, once one wrapped around the other they slipped through and tried vice versa. Mila split her noh mask’s mouth in two and opened her mandibles to bite the dragon, but he was already ahead of her.
They both bit the other’s long bodies and ripped chunks from each other. One bite would kill almost anything with their deadly venoms, but they’re both immune to all venom; Gunter explains. This was a perfect match. Mila has the advantage of size, but Níðhöggr is more agile and faster. Mila threw Níðhöggr into the wall and almost instantly went to spear him with her telson, but he leaped off and onto her long body. Gnawing his way up her exoskeleton. Mila lunged to bite her enemy in two, but Níðhöggr yelled an ancient language then suddenly a barrage of gray metallic threads that resembled spider webs spewed out of his mouth and covered Mila. Níðhöggr is no standard dragon like the western and could cast spells of his own with his ancient tongue.
Her face and top torso got tangled and stuck to the wall. She struggled hard and tried expanding her size to break free, but only damaged her exoskeleton even more. Mila tried using her telson again, but Níðhöggr webbed that and her bottom half down to the ground. She wiggled in her restraints for a bit, but stopped moving and seemingly accepted her fate. Níðhöggr crawled up her long body towards her head. We screamed for her to move, fight, do something but she just laid there like an exhausted moth in a spiderweb. We watched as Níðhöggr opened his maw wider than what we thought possible and engulfed our friend's face. His body shook from the tension of him biting down hard. The noh mask that we once feared but started to love cracked with the exoskeleton that was connected.
In a flash his jaws broke through and decapitated our beloved Mila. Tears began running down my face and I slammed my fist on the railing and hung my head in defeat at losing one of my newest friends. I clenched my jaws hard in anger. Gunter shook my arm hard to get my attention and pointed at our friend's corpse. Look, he whispered in a serious tone. Her insectoid body was hollow and began turning into stone. Níðhöggr was in the center of the arena celebrating his victory. He spoke another ancient language and spewed fireworks upwards to give the spectators a final show. A lump formed in his throat and stopped his triumphant gloating. The mass was slowly getting bigger. Níðhöggr's eyes were big and wide, he knew something was wrong.
The mass moved into his torso and kept getting bigger. Gunter shakes my arm in excitement at what we were seeing. Níðhöggr's body began pulling itself apart at the sudden growth spurt. Pops and stretching sounds filled the colosseum while soil and worms evacuating their master. Black ooze leaked from his orifices and wounds. When the mighty earth dragon grew at least twice its size it exploded everywhere. Chunks of the Níðhöggr flew everywhere and debris of death reached the bottom floor of the stands. Our Mila was center stage with a bright red fleshy exoskeleton and a new noh mask. Her once feminine mask that resembled a female woman's face is now more of a demon's. It still was tan like human skin, but now had two big horns and tusks with bigger eyes that look like they can see into your soul.
The crowd went more wild than the previous false victory and Gunter matched the energy of all the onlookers combined. Mila shrunk back down to the size of a fully grown python and laid motionless on the arena floor. Gunter grabbed a black and white spotted pyramid shaped fruit he was keeped on the railing from earlier and jumped over the edge and down into the colosseum. We were at least 600 ft. up and yet he was falling with such ease and grace to our wounded friend while holding his cornucopia down as to not lose it. I was watching my descending when suddenly I felt a tapping on my back. I turned around to see a small old woman who wore what looked like a black wedding dress with a mourning veil. She pulled my collar and forced me to listen closely.
A door with no lock can only be open with the key.
Bound with binds of metal seals intertwined.
For the boundless wish to be freed.
Fate will be your friend and foe but destiny will know sorrow.
The House of Klaus is on the move.
For what lies in the depths of The Complex is about to be unleashed.
She whispers inches from my face and releases me. I watch as the woman carrying this ominous message turns into black smoke and soaks into the complex's carpet, disappearing as fast as she appeared. I know better than to ignore any message in this place and repeated what she said in my head to not forget. I heard a heavy thump behind me towards the arena and see that Gunter has returned with Mila wrapped around him as she eats the fruit that he saved for her out of his hand. He stares at me and his grin fades away, he knows something is wrong and asks me what happened. I told him about the woman and her message. Mila stopped eating and both stared at me hard. I now know how Gunter felt just a moment ago when he looked at me and I ask if they know what any of that means.
Gunter gets close and looks deep into my eyes. The House of Klaus, is that exactly what she said? Are you absolutely sure? Gunter asks with a tone I’ve never heard from him before. Mila and her new face are just as locked on as Gunter’s. Yes, I answered them. And the woman, did she say who she was. I told them no, but explained her appearance as best as possible. Gunter grabbed my hand and started walking fast down the complex's hallway to an unknown destination. I asked what was going on and Gunter explained. Klaus was the first tenant of The Pandemonium Complex and was Winthorp’s right hand man. He’s never met him, but heard stories about him and what he can do. He thought he was a myth and just the boogeyman of this complex.
Klaus was a tenant that’s not bound by the 5 rules of Winthorp and was the enforcer of the complex. Tenants that manipulated the rules so much and made Winthorp look like a fool were hunted down by Klaus. His abilities are unknown, but he was the only tenant that could potentially kill Winthorp. The House of Klaus are the tenants that dedicated their lives to bring him back. Their reasons differ depending on which member you ask, but most thought Klaus brought more order to the complex than Winthorp ever could. It’s said that Winthorp feared Klaus and killed him, but we know Winthorp himself can’t break rule #1. No one ever took them seriously. It would be like a cult dedicated to bringing back Santa and he’s been returned to his planet. I asked Gunter where we were going and he says the concierge desk.
I pulled my hand away and told him to wait. I asked if he didn’t believe Klaus was real then why are you so scared. Because the woman who told you isn’t a member of The House of Klaus, she’s Baba Yaga and has been missing for over a millennia. Gunter answers. I asked if most of the members are unknown then how does he know she isn’t. Sadness covered Gunter’s face at this question. She wouldn’t, he answers under his breath. I ask Mila what she thinks and she says in a tired voice, Just in case Gunter’s right, what harm would it be to tell Winthorp? I told them to hold on and to just give me a minute to think. If Klaus can kill Winthorp, then why don’t we just let him and get out of this place? Mila and Gunter's looks were louder than words. If Klaus is real and comes back, who's to say that he won’t clean house when he takes over and why wouldn’t he just rule the complex with an iron fist!? Gunter replies with the tone of, that should’ve been common knowledge.
If there’s any chance of us getting out of here, it’s this. I’m tired of being trapped and used as a plaything for something that cares so little about us. Hell, Mila almost died today just to have a room to live in and was made into a show to entertain us, I retorted. He has a point, Mila chimes in. Gunter looked at Mila with an expression of sorry, but said he definitely doesn’t think this is a good idea. This is bigger than us and we should ask the others, plus Mila needs to rest. Let’s go to bed and we’ll meet in my room tomorrow with Jim, Jon and The Host to ask them what they think. Gunter agrees and carries Mila to the elevator to find her room. On my way to my room I saw a black spider crawling along the wall and told it what’s going on and to please tell Siete to meet us tomorrow. It stopped, listened and when I was done it rushed away to carry my message.
Gunter of course was the first to arrive wearing an apron. I said, nice apron and he thanked me while my sarcasm went over his head. He went over to my new coffee table, started pulling out fruits and cut them up for snacks. A few hours passed and the next to arrive was Siete. She had a new host of what looked like a tall aquatic fish man that was all dried out. It had dark gray fins where ears normally preside and 3 more on the center of its head. Both eyes were hollowed out and its jaw hung open with another new tongue tucked inside. It limped in and dropped onto the single desk chair I had. Gunter had several giant melons in the corner with holes poked in for her many children. Siete emerged from The Host’s mouth and the body fell limp as her children left to go eat. Jim and Jon arrive with Mila being carried wrapped around Jim like Gunter did yesterday. She looked better and her fleshy red body looked darker and harder than before. Jim and Jon could barely stand in my room and hunched over to my couch.
Gunter took Mila from Jim and let them enjoy the selection of fruit he cut up on the coffee table. The couch sunk in due to their weight, but we all pretended not to notice out of respect. Gunter fed Mila out of hand like before so she could save her energy to heal. Once everyone got settled the meeting began. I told the other 3 what happened yesterday exactly and caught Jim and Jon never heard of Klaus so Gunter filled them in on what he knows. We let the information sink in and began our debate. Gunter argued that the complex as is isn’t so bad and even though we were technically prisoners, we were treated with some form of respect and we have no idea what Klaus's plans will be. It’s better to deal with the devil we know than the one we don’t. I retorted that this could be our only hope of escape and even though our needs are met, we are prisoners and nothing more. Life here has everything, but our freedom and this may be our only hope of seeing the outside world again.
Jim’s hand rested on Jon’s and you could tell that this conversation made Jon extremely uncomfortable. Jon was the first to chime in and asked if Winthorp is god in this place then how do we know he’s not listening and that he doesn’t already know our plans. Gunter explained that Winthorp isn't omnipresent by choice and the complex itself can only listen if spoken to directly and out loud to respect our privacy. It’s things like this that show he tries making this place as homely as he possibly can. Jim and Jon look at each other to have a conversation with expressions that only long time lovers could have. You could tell that Jim was on my side and Jon was the reluctant one. Jon spoke first again and told us that they met in this place. If it weren’t for the complex they would’ve never met all those years ago. Jim’s race lives deep in the forest of the Amazon, but was the most advanced member of his race and therefore always felt left out. Jon was the last of his kind and was hunted like the rest in the mountains of Russia.
Jim wipes a tear from Jon’s face and caresses him lovingly to calm him down. If we lose this place then how will we find each other again? Jon asks with sorrow. Jim tells him he will never stop looking for him if they get separated and will get through anything that gets in their way. Jon presses his face into Jim’s chest while Jon holds him tight. I can’t be alone again, I can’t lose you; Jon wails into Jim’s chest. I decided to give them a moment and asked Siente what she thinks. Gunter was standing next to The Host while holding Mila. Mila and Siete exchanged high pitched noises and rolling clicks since she’s unable to speak from The Host without her thousands of children controlling it. Mila translates for us and tells us Siete is against it and that she knows Klaus is real.
When a spider is born into The Host they share experiences and memories with their hive mind so that even if only one survives The Host will always return. She has knowledge of the complex that predates all of us combined. Klaus is real and may not be as powerful as a god, but has the abilities to kill anything that has a consciousness. A god killing monster that was barely stopped by Winthorp, The Complex and his selected tenants. The Host stayed out of it last time, but lost many friends in the complex war. We were the first friends she’s had in a very long time and doesn’t want to lose us too. I asked Mila what she thinks. Mila agreed and told us she loves us and that she’s never had the privilege of having friends or a kin before. Mila looked at Siete when mentioning kin and Siete relaxed slightly at the comforting words. However, Mila was forced to battle to the death just to have a resting place and can not let that slide. Winthorp needs to die, she answers.
I take the floor, Then we put it to a vote. All in favor of letting the sleeping dog lie? Gunter and Jon raise their hands slightly while Siete raises her tiny spider leg. All in favor of taking down a god? Jim and I raise ours while Mila raises her insectoid leg weakly. We were tied and had to break it. Jim holds Jon’s hands and tells him, We can’t stay here forever. What if one day Winthorp decides to throw one of us into the ring or even worse? Tells us we have to kill each other. He can’t live everyday guessing what a mad god is feeling. Home is wherever Jon is and he will always find his home. Jim presses his forehead into Jon’s lightly. Trust me, Jim whispers. Jon relaxes into Jim’s forehead to show his trust. Promise? Jon asks softly. Promise. Jim replies just as softly back. Jon shakes his head up and down slightly and kisses his lover to seal the promise. Okay, Jon says out loud with a sniffle. I’m in.
The decision has been made. Gunter, Mila, The Host, Siete, Jim, Jon and I are going to find the first tenant. The god killer and hopefully our way out of here, Klaus. The complex and tenants begin to stir. They don’t know why, but everything in the complex feels a shift. Something is happening and even Winthorp feels something is amiss. Little did we know that someone was just outside my door and was listening to us the entire time. Our simple decision sent a pulse down into the depth of the complex and a smile forms in the darkness. It’s time to kill Winthorp and leave The Pandemonium Complex.

I’ve begun settling my roots in The Pandemonium Complex. If this will be my final stop then I should make it feel more at home. My memories of the outside world are fading now that I’ve found a few friendly distractions. Jim & Jon the humanoid ape couple, The Host that seems to still be untalkative, but led by my seven legged friend whom I’ve nicknamed Siete. Gunter, an Akras Fae who likes crashing on my new couch from time to time. And Mila, the size changing Omukade who doesn't want room with us and is trying to get back in her's.
Gunter’s room was simple and just needed to be opened from inside the complex to summon a new door. With the help of Mila we gave it a metal frame so it couldn’t be turned into another tree again; but I think he's still a bit traumatized from his entrapment since his excuses to stay with me are shaky at best. Mila’s was not as simple. The only one who could unseal her room was to kill the tenant who sealed it shut in the first place. She knows the culprit and has been on the hunt throughout the complex to find him. Níðhöggr, a northern wingless earth dragon who rules the dirt and the worms. The complex seems to know that a battle is about to ensue.
Certain parts of The Pandemonium Complex shifts and warps sometimes and the lobby changes almost every day. The theme, size and extra amenities changes range from big to small daily. Today the lobby was the size of the roman colosseum I visited once as a kid during a school field trip. There was no way to enter below besides the two large tunnels that presided below. Gunter ran to get me from my room when he saw this. With haste we ran past the mix of new doors that fill the hall. Doors with different colors, frames and styles. One made of stained glass, thick metal, medieval with chains, ice walls and made of colored mist are just some we passed. We arrived and saw spirits, monsters, creatures and mortals to list a few watch over the edges at the spectacle. Gunter said last time this happened it was between an Avatar of Storms vs. A Nova Celestial, who humans called Archangel Michael. This was the first time I’ve ever seen Winthorp not at the concierge desk as he stood dead center of the arena.
The rules state, #1. A tenant must never kill or fatally harm another tenant willingly; BUT rule #3. Rule 1. is void when in another’s room, but only to the room’s tenant. It seems a tenant is without a room and I decided to graciously move her in with another. The squables of the room’s tenants are their business and their business alone. I’ve also decided to do some renovations and temporarily moved said room here in the lobby before you. With that said, I shall return to my duties at my desk; Winthrop announces with a big grin to the onlookers and then disappears. Our feet shake with the pounds of something massive below us. A familiar drum roll can be heard in opposite unison. Gunter jumps with glee and eats his cornucopia full of strange fruits like it was popcorn, while tossing one away occasionally. A massive face can be seen from the tunnel in our view.
Out from the shadows emerges a giant female noh mask with the body of a centipede that could eclipse a mountain. From right below us came a long lizard like titan covered in soil and worms. The dragon’s rotten skin was missing chunks and infested with an uncountable amount of worms. Its rotten flesh filled the stands with its stench and made me cover my nose before I could puke. Gunter inhaled hard and sighed like he found his favorite scented candle. The behemoths didn’t hesitate once in sight and began their brawl. Like watching a snake fighting an eel, once one wrapped around the other they slipped through and tried vice versa. Mila split her noh mask’s mouth in two and opened her mandibles to bite the dragon, but he was already ahead of her.
They both bit the other’s long bodies and ripped chunks from each other. One bite would kill almost anything with their deadly venoms, but they’re both immune to all venom; Gunter explains. This was a perfect match. Mila has the advantage of size, but Níðhöggr is more agile and faster. Mila threw Níðhöggr into the wall and almost instantly went to spear him with her telson, but he leaped off and onto her long body. Gnawing his way up her exoskeleton. Mila lunged to bite her enemy in two, but Níðhöggr yelled an ancient language then suddenly a barrage of gray metallic threads that resembled spider webs spewed out of his mouth and covered Mila. Níðhöggr is no standard dragon like the western and could cast spells of his own with his ancient tongue.
Her face and top torso got tangled and stuck to the wall. She struggled hard and tried expanding her size to break free, but only damaged her exoskeleton even more. Mila tried using her telson again, but Níðhöggr webbed that and her bottom half down to the ground. She wiggled in her restraints for a bit, but stopped moving and seemingly accepted her fate. Níðhöggr crawled up her long body towards her head. We screamed for her to move, fight, do something but she just laid there like an exhausted moth in a spiderweb. We watched as Níðhöggr opened his maw wider than what we thought possible and engulfed our friend's face. His body shook from the tension of him biting down hard. The noh mask that we once feared but started to love cracked with the exoskeleton that was connected.
In a flash his jaws broke through and decapitated our beloved Mila. Tears began running down my face and I slammed my fist on the railing and hung my head in defeat at losing one of my newest friends. I clenched my jaws hard in anger. Gunter shook my arm hard to get my attention and pointed at our friend's corpse. Look, he whispered in a serious tone. Her insectoid body was hollow and began turning into stone. Níðhöggr was in the center of the arena celebrating his victory. He spoke another ancient language and spewed fireworks upwards to give the spectators a final show. A lump formed in his throat and stopped his triumphant gloating. The mass was slowly getting bigger. Níðhöggr's eyes were big and wide, he knew something was wrong.
The mass moved into his torso and kept getting bigger. Gunter shakes my arm in excitement at what we were seeing. Níðhöggr's body began pulling itself apart at the sudden growth spurt. Pops and stretching sounds filled the colosseum while soil and worms evacuating their master. Black ooze leaked from his orifices and wounds. When the mighty earth dragon grew at least twice its size it exploded everywhere. Chunks of the Níðhöggr flew everywhere and debris of death reached the bottom floor of the stands. Our Mila was center stage with a bright red fleshy exoskeleton and a new noh mask. Her once feminine mask that resembled a female woman's face is now more of a demon's. It still was tan like human skin, but now had two big horns and tusks with bigger eyes that look like they can see into your soul.
The crowd went more wild than the previous false victory and Gunter matched the energy of all the onlookers combined. Mila shrunk back down to the size of a fully grown python and laid motionless on the arena floor. Gunter grabbed a black and white spotted pyramid shaped fruit he was keeped on the railing from earlier and jumped over the edge and down into the colosseum. We were at least 600 ft. up and yet he was falling with such ease and grace to our wounded friend while holding his cornucopia down as to not lose it. I was watching my descending when suddenly I felt a tapping on my back. I turned around to see a small old woman who wore what looked like a black wedding dress with a mourning veil. She pulled my collar and forced me to listen closely.
A door with no lock can only be open with the key.
Bound with binds of metal seals intertwined.
For the boundless wish to be freed.
Fate will be your friend and foe but destiny will know sorrow.
The House of Klaus is on the move.
For what lies in the depths of The Complex is about to be unleashed.
She whispers inches from my face and releases me. I watch as the woman carrying this ominous message turns into black smoke and soaks into the complex's carpet, disappearing as fast as she appeared. I know better than to ignore any message in this place and repeated what she said in my head to not forget. I heard a heavy thump behind me towards the arena and see that Gunter has returned with Mila wrapped around him as she eats the fruit that he saved for her out of his hand. He stares at me and his grin fades away, he knows something is wrong and asks me what happened. I told him about the woman and her message. Mila stopped eating and both stared at me hard. I now know how Gunter felt just a moment ago when he looked at me and I ask if they know what any of that means.
Gunter gets close and looks deep into my eyes. The House of Klaus, is that exactly what she said? Are you absolutely sure? Gunter asks with a tone I’ve never heard from him before. Mila and her new face are just as locked on as Gunter’s. Yes, I answered them. And the woman, did she say who she was. I told them no, but explained her appearance as best as possible. Gunter grabbed my hand and started walking fast down the complex's hallway to an unknown destination. I asked what was going on and Gunter explained. Klaus was the first tenant of The Pandemonium Complex and was Winthorp’s right hand man. He’s never met him, but heard stories about him and what he can do. He thought he was a myth and just the boogeyman of this complex.
Klaus was a tenant that’s not bound by the 5 rules of Winthorp and was the enforcer of the complex. Tenants that manipulated the rules so much and made Winthorp look like a fool were hunted down by Klaus. His abilities are unknown, but he was the only tenant that could potentially kill Winthorp. The House of Klaus are the tenants that dedicated their lives to bring him back. Their reasons differ depending on which member you ask, but most thought Klaus brought more order to the complex than Winthorp ever could. It’s said that Winthorp feared Klaus and killed him, but we know Winthorp himself can’t break rule #1. No one ever took them seriously. It would be like a cult dedicated to bringing back Santa and he’s been returned to his planet. I asked Gunter where we were going and he says the concierge desk.
I pulled my hand away and told him to wait. I asked if he didn’t believe Klaus was real then why are you so scared. Because the woman who told you isn’t a member of The House of Klaus, she’s Baba Yaga and has been missing for over a millennia. Gunter answers. I asked if most of the members are unknown then how does he know she isn’t. Sadness covered Gunter’s face at this question. She wouldn’t, he answers under his breath. I ask Mila what she thinks and she says in a tired voice, Just in case Gunter’s right, what harm would it be to tell Winthorp? I told them to hold on and to just give me a minute to think. If Klaus can kill Winthorp, then why don’t we just let him and get out of this place? Mila and Gunter's looks were louder than words. If Klaus is real and comes back, who's to say that he won’t clean house when he takes over and why wouldn’t he just rule the complex with an iron fist!? Gunter replies with the tone of, that should’ve been common knowledge.
If there’s any chance of us getting out of here, it’s this. I’m tired of being trapped and used as a plaything for something that cares so little about us. Hell, Mila almost died today just to have a room to live in and was made into a show to entertain us, I retorted. He has a point, Mila chimes in. Gunter looked at Mila with an expression of sorry, but said he definitely doesn’t think this is a good idea. This is bigger than us and we should ask the others, plus Mila needs to rest. Let’s go to bed and we’ll meet in my room tomorrow with Jim, Jon and The Host to ask them what they think. Gunter agrees and carries Mila to the elevator to find her room. On my way to my room I saw a black spider crawling along the wall and told it what’s going on and to please tell Siete to meet us tomorrow. It stopped, listened and when I was done it rushed away to carry my message.
Gunter of course was the first to arrive wearing an apron. I said, nice apron and he thanked me while my sarcasm went over his head. He went over to my new coffee table, started pulling out fruits and cut them up for snacks. A few hours passed and the next to arrive was Siete. She had a new host of what looked like a tall aquatic fish man that was all dried out. It had dark gray fins where ears normally preside and 3 more on the center of its head. Both eyes were hollowed out and its jaw hung open with another new tongue tucked inside. It limped in and dropped onto the single desk chair I had. Gunter had several giant melons in the corner with holes poked in for her many children. Siete emerged from The Host’s mouth and the body fell limp as her children left to go eat. Jim and Jon arrive with Mila being carried wrapped around Jim like Gunter did yesterday. She looked better and her fleshy red body looked darker and harder than before. Jim and Jon could barely stand in my room and hunched over to my couch.
Gunter took Mila from Jim and let them enjoy the selection of fruit he cut up on the coffee table. The couch sunk in due to their weight, but we all pretended not to notice out of respect. Gunter fed Mila out of hand like before so she could save her energy to heal. Once everyone got settled the meeting began. I told the other 3 what happened yesterday exactly and caught Jim and Jon never heard of Klaus so Gunter filled them in on what he knows. We let the information sink in and began our debate. Gunter argued that the complex as is isn’t so bad and even though we were technically prisoners, we were treated with some form of respect and we have no idea what Klaus's plans will be. It’s better to deal with the devil we know than the one we don’t. I retorted that this could be our only hope of escape and even though our needs are met, we are prisoners and nothing more. Life here has everything, but our freedom and this may be our only hope of seeing the outside world again.
Jim’s hand rested on Jon’s and you could tell that this conversation made Jon extremely uncomfortable. Jon was the first to chime in and asked if Winthorp is god in this place then how do we know he’s not listening and that he doesn’t already know our plans. Gunter explained that Winthorp isn't omnipresent by choice and the complex itself can only listen if spoken to directly and out loud to respect our privacy. It’s things like this that show he tries making this place as homely as he possibly can. Jim and Jon look at each other to have a conversation with expressions that only long time lovers could have. You could tell that Jim was on my side and Jon was the reluctant one. Jon spoke first again and told us that they met in this place. If it weren’t for the complex they would’ve never met all those years ago. Jim’s race lives deep in the forest of the Amazon, but was the most advanced member of his race and therefore always felt left out. Jon was the last of his kind and was hunted like the rest in the mountains of Russia.
Jim wipes a tear from Jon’s face and caresses him lovingly to calm him down. If we lose this place then how will we find each other again? Jon asks with sorrow. Jim tells him he will never stop looking for him if they get separated and will get through anything that gets in their way. Jon presses his face into Jim’s chest while Jon holds him tight. I can’t be alone again, I can’t lose you; Jon wails into Jim’s chest. I decided to give them a moment and asked Siente what she thinks. Gunter was standing next to The Host while holding Mila. Mila and Siete exchanged high pitched noises and rolling clicks since she’s unable to speak from The Host without her thousands of children controlling it. Mila translates for us and tells us Siete is against it and that she knows Klaus is real.
When a spider is born into The Host they share experiences and memories with their hive mind so that even if only one survives The Host will always return. She has knowledge of the complex that predates all of us combined. Klaus is real and may not be as powerful as a god, but has the abilities to kill anything that has a consciousness. A god killing monster that was barely stopped by Winthorp, The Complex and his selected tenants. The Host stayed out of it last time, but lost many friends in the complex war. We were the first friends she’s had in a very long time and doesn’t want to lose us too. I asked Mila what she thinks. Mila agreed and told us she loves us and that she’s never had the privilege of having friends or a kin before. Mila looked at Siete when mentioning kin and Siete relaxed slightly at the comforting words. However, Mila was forced to battle to the death just to have a resting place and can not let that slide. Winthorp needs to die, she answers.
I take the floor, Then we put it to a vote. All in favor of letting the sleeping dog lie? Gunter and Jon raise their hands slightly while Siete raises her tiny spider leg. All in favor of taking down a god? Jim and I raise ours while Mila raises her insectoid leg weakly. We were tied and had to break it. Jim holds Jon’s hands and tells him, We can’t stay here forever. What if one day Winthorp decides to throw one of us into the ring or even worse? Tells us we have to kill each other. He can’t live everyday guessing what a mad god is feeling. Home is wherever Jon is and he will always find his home. Jim presses his forehead into Jon’s lightly. Trust me, Jim whispers. Jon relaxes into Jim’s forehead to show his trust. Promise? Jon asks softly. Promise. Jim replies just as softly back. Jon shakes his head up and down slightly and kisses his lover to seal the promise. Okay, Jon says out loud with a sniffle. I’m in.
The decision has been made. Gunter, Mila, The Host, Siete, Jim, Jon and I are going to find the first tenant. The god killer and hopefully our way out of here, Klaus. The complex and tenants begin to stir. They don’t know why, but everything in the complex feels a shift. Something is happening and even Winthorp feels something is amiss. Little did we know that someone was just outside my door and was listening to us the entire time. Our simple decision sent a pulse down into the depth of the complex and a smile forms in the darkness. It’s time to kill Winthorp and leave The Pandemonium Complex.

In front of an audience of famous politicians, celebrities, actors and singers, a man with a black executioner’s hood led a ragtag group of people in chains. All of the prisoners were dirty, wearing rags. I saw women who had cried so much that the only clean part left on their bodies were the streaks beneath their eyes, men with panicked eyes who frantically pulled at their metal chains and, watching it all with glee, the cheering, grinning faces of the rich and powerful.
“Hail Lucifer!” the man in his black executioner’s hood yelled in a deep baritone. The audience responded with rapture, some of them standing, their eyes shining, as they cried, “Hail Lucifer!” The voices of so many combined into one powerful echoing boom.
The sounds were muffled slightly during an out-of-body experience, as if I were hearing them through water. The colors and shapes also seemed to shimmer and vibrate more, giving the clear, crisp lines of everyday reality a much more fuzzy look. Even though I was only there by astral projection, I still shrunk back into the corner as much as I could, trying to hide from the madness and evil all around me. Little did I realize, I had seen nothing yet.
I thought about retreating to my body, parked in a nearby RV, and trying to call the police, the FBI, Homeland Security, anyone- then I saw the police chief and various Senators and Representatives in the audience, and gave up any hope of that idea. If I called a dispatcher, they would probably send in a hitman to kill me and make it look like a suicide, as I heard rumors they had done so many times before.
So I stayed as the ritual began, and it was the worst decision of my life. The chain-gang of prisoners were led to an inverted pentagram laying flat against a wall of stone and flickering torches. Within the pentagram, I saw shining obsidian forming the background, diamonds and opals embedded into the white gold that formed the star and circle. As they were led forward, some of the prisoners fought back, trying to pull their arms free, but they would ultimately receive a shock from a cattle prod for their efforts.
“What is wrong with you people?” the first woman in the line of prisoners cried, her eyes frantically searching the crowd for a single sane person to help her. She found nothing but coldness and insanity reflected there. The audience was deathly quiet, reminding me of old pictures I had seen of medical students surrounding a dissection. They had a kind of clinical detachment that was disturbing in its own right. Some of their eyes shone with excitement and rapture as the woman was strapped into the leather cuffs of the pentagram, forcing her legs and arms into a V shape, like the Vitruvian Man in DaVinci’s art.
The head executioner turned to the audience, bowing his head as if he were a simple entertainer.
“The ritual will begin,” he said brusquely. There was murmuring and the shuffling of random objects as the crowd stood, each pulling out a black book out with silver words embossed on the front. Floating slightly above the ground, I moved as close as possible to a beautiful woman in her early thirties in the back corner of the audience. I recognized her as a famous movie actress, countless diamonds and rubies shining on her body in an ostentatious display of wealth. The book read, “Codex Moloch.” The audience opened the books to the first page and read out in Latin as one, the screams of the woman imprisoned within the pentagram being the only sound that broke the monotony.
Returning from the back of the stage, the executioner poured gasoline over the imprisoned woman’s head. She moved her head from side to side rapidly, straining, tears pouring down her face as she pleaded and cried.
When the chanting reached a crescendo, he pulled a torch from the nearby stone wall and threw it at her feet with an almost indifferent, nonchalant motion. She went up instantly, the flash of light too bright to stare at, her screaming intensifying into something that didn’t even sound human. The smell of burning meat filled the auditorium, like pork scraps roasted to a black crisp over an open fire.
The audience responded by chanting louder and faster as her face began to melt off, small beads of fat dripping off her nose, her eyes liquefying under the intense heat. She was rapidly losing energy now, her voice turning into groans and moans that sounded like, “Uuugghhelp… uggh… gu…” I wanted to fly away, but the horror of it all kept me chained there.
Her skin turned black and split as her screams became quieter and she fell forward, straining against the chains and, thankfully, losing consciousness after what seemed like an eternity. The prisoners in the chains were shocked into silence, then they all began wailing and screaming at once. But it wasn’t for long.
Out of the charred wreckage of her body, I saw a dark shape beginning to appear. The chains snapped open with a soft clinking sound, and the blackness rose into a shape eight feet tall. It had the same charred, blackened skin as the human sacrifice, but underneath I saw bulging muscles and enormous strength as it moved forward. Its powerful legs had feet like an elephant, its hands lengthening into bone-white claws, but its face was the most disconcerting part of all. Its eyes were alive, flickering like the embers of a dying fire. Its mouth had the purest-white teeth, each one looking like a pointed dagger within its black gums.
The audience kept chanting, but it seemed to die down rapidly as the creature walked forward, and soon stopped altogether as it scanned them with its fiery eyes.
Then, it looked right at me, trying to make myself as small as possible in the back corner of the massive auditorium, and it started smiling wider. I knew, in that moment, that it had seen me.
The demonic entity turned to the chained prisoners and began ripping into them with its claws, biting their necks and sucking their blood. The first man had his heart ripped out, the creature popping the still-beating organ into its mouth and sending spurts of blood dribbling down its chin as it chewed. The rest of the prisoners tried to get away, but with them all being chained together and trying to move in different directions, they only ended up getting tangled and falling over.
I saw a few of the audience members getting up as if to run away, to get out of the auditorium, but the others in the audience shook their heads at them, saying something I couldn’t hear. No one ended up leaving, which ultimately made the death toll worse.
I didn’t stay the entire time, but I saw, once the prisoners were all dead and eaten, the beast turned to look at the audience once more.
“Hail Lucifer,” it said in a rusty, echoing croak, before jumping from the stage into the middle of the crowd, crushing a few people to death underfoot instantaneously. Without hesitation, it sent its arms out, pulling off people’s heads and drinking their blood, eating their hearts, cracking their ribs open like pistachios- and that was when I fled.
The last thing I saw on my way out was a stampede as all the famous actors, politicians and celebrities tried to leave, but how many actually survived, I will never know. I had seen enough.
Floating through the walls, out into the clear desert air, I returned to my body, parked a couple miles away in an abandoned campground in my little RV. As soon as I awoke, I ran to the bathroom, vomiting up my dinner, the dripping fat of that burning woman’s nose and the sound the hearts had made when the creature bit into them repeating in my mind like an endless loop.
***
After I had told all this to my friend Chris, he simply shook his head in wonder.
“Wow,” he said to me. “And you’re sure this wasn’t a dream?” I held up the newspaper, stating that a famous political talking head on a news channel had been found dead of an unexpected heart attack.
“I saw this guy get ripped apart,” I told Chris. “He was in the audience. He was one of the devil-worshippers.” Leaning back in his chair, Christ pretended to stroke an imaginary beard, giving me a long sideways glance. Then he jumped up.
“Well, we have to get this up on the blog,” he said. He was the technical guy for my blog, and the one who recommended I do it in the first place. We were old childhood friends, and when I told him I could astral project, he jokingly said I should use it to go into the White House or other restricted areas and put down what I saw on an internet blog. I had done so, and the blog had exploded. Hundreds of thousands of people now read it on a weekly basis.
Chris had a lot of experience with computers, so he had used encryption and VPNs to make it harder to track us- “in case this weird-ass shit is all real,” he had told me, cracking a sly smile.
I finished my beer as Chris got packed, grabbing a few things for the journey back to my house on the other side of town. Within a few minutes, we were headed out the door. As soon as I stepped foot on the driveway, I knew something was wrong.
Both of our cars had our tires slashed. There was no public transportation in our little desert town- hell, there was barely even a downtown here, mostly consisting of a gas station, a 24-hour diner and a police station. Without a car, there was simply no way to get the ten miles over to my house.
Chris was breathing fast, his face covered in a sheen of sweat as he looked at me.
“You don’t have any psycho ex-girlfriends, do you?” he asked hopefully, and then a shot rang out. Jumping up, I began to run back into Chris’ house.
“Come on!” I yelled at him. He had a blank, shell-shocked look in his eyes. Backtracking, I grabbed his arm, yanking him hard. It was just in time. Another bullet rocked past where he had just been standing, smashing his front window and sending tiny shards of glass all over the front lawn.
We were back inside within seconds. I slammed the door, turning the deadbolt before spinning back around to look at Chris. He was covered in sweat, his pupils dilated, his breathing far too fast. I thought he might pass out if he didn’t stop hyperventilating.
“It’s OK,” I said, walking up to him slowly. “We’re going to find a way out of here.”
“My gun,” Chris said suddenly. “We need it. It’s downstairs in the basement.” He spun on his heels, pushing open the basement door and barrelling down the stairs. I followed close behind. As soon as I reached the last step, I heard a tremendous bang come from the front door, followed by slow, steady footsteps as someone walked in the house.
Chris was opening the gun case, his hands still shaking. I quickly walked over, putting my finger in front of my lips in the universal sign of “Don’t say a goddamned word” while I grabbed the 30 odd 6 from the case. He looked as if he would protest for a moment, then he snapped his mouth shut again. As quietly as I could, I unloaded the magazine, saw it was full of bullets, then clicked it back into place.
It was just in time. At that moment, a huge foot kicked the basement door in. With a sound like the cracking of thunder, the door fractured into pieces. Then I heard the rapid descent of steps.
The man who had been shooting at us was just an old farmer with a straw hat, denim coveralls and a rifle. I shot him in the center of the chest as he sprinted, causing him to fall down the last six or seven steps, sending droplets of blood flying in all directions as he turned. I saw it like it was in slow motion. He fell heavily, still holding onto his rifle. My ears were ringing from the tremendous cacophony of shooting a rifle in such a confined space. I ran up, putting my foot on the farmer’s rifle and pointing the gun directly into his face.
“Why are you shooting at me?” I screamed at him. He shook his head.
“Not… you…” he said, blood bubbling from his lips as he spoke. “The other one… kidnapped my daughter…” He pointed to Chris, his movements getting weaker.
I started to turn around, but a hammer came down on the back of my head just then. Looking up, I saw Chris standing there- but now he had a black executioner’s hood on his head. The same one I had seen on the stage where the devil-worshippers gathered.
“You should have minded your own fucking business,” Chris said to me, raising the hammer again to bring it down on my face. Without thinking, I took the rifle, pointing it up at his head and pulling the trigger. The hood flew off his head as the left side of his face exploded, and he fell back.
Gurgling blood, he stared at me with his one remaining eye, a kind of intense hatred and evil there that I had never seen before.
“Lucifer saw you…” he said to me. “Your days are numbered, scum. Hail Lucifer!” That was the last thing my friend said before the awareness faded from his eye and his choked gurgling stopped.
As I crawled towards the old farmer, blood streamed down my scalp from the hammer wound. I pulled out my phone and called for help- vowing never to astral project into forbidden places again.

It seems like there are a whole lot of people on this sub that are pretty new to the game so here are some helpful tips to get you started!

1. Beach farms are not for beginners. I know they're pretty and they have lots of cools quirks but not being able to use sprinklers during your first few runs of the game will make it VERY HARD. I believe it's mostly meant for people who aren't focusing on farming.
2. Not all farm types are equal. If this is your first time playing, I'd recommend the basic farm, with the forest farm being the better general option but maybe not as easy to learn the game in. River and Mountain farms are not super worth it, and are better for more experienced players, whereas wilderness may be overwhelming for a first-time player. Four-Corners is also good, but better for multiplayer.
3. Make chests and keep them organized. Trust me, it'll make your life so much easier. I like having a "construction" chest, a "farming" chest, a "miscellaneous" chest and a "tool and decoration" chest at the start. You can also place chests anywhere in the world, so I'd recommend having one at the entrance of the mines, in places where you do a lot of fishing and in Clint's shop. Do make sure you place them out of the way so NPCs don't walk through them, though.
4. Upgrade your tools. Seriously. The better your tools, the easier collecting resources will be. You'll need to get your pickaxe all the way to iridium, your axe to at least gold, and your hoe and watering can to at least iron. Upgrading your pickaxe is the key to clearing the mines, and upgrading your hoe and watering can is best done when farming is done for the season, before farming starts in the new season or during winter.
5. Save up seasonal crops/forage for the community center. If you choose to go the community center route, know that there are certain bundles that can only be completed with items specific to different seasons-- not just crops but fish and forage as well.
6. Automation is key. Try to make things as automatic as possible to free up time and energy for things that must be done manually. Sprinklers are live-saving (though I'd only recommend using high-quality sprinklers and better.) Later on there are also machines to help you with your animals-- an auto-collector from marnie and an auto-petter from the skull-caverns or Joja (if you chose the joja route).
7. You can find iridium in magma geodes. Iridium, being the most powerful metal in the game, will be very important later on. You can find iridium ore in the skull-caverns or the ginger island volcano (two areas unlocked after a while) but for both you need an iridium pick to actually get any work done. Thankfully, you can get pieces of iridium ore by cracking the red geodes found at the lowest level of the mines.
8. Bombs are the best mining tools. If you're planning in gathering lots of resources or clearing a large section of mining levels, bombs are your best friends. Just make sure to collect ore/gems by hand if you have an ability that doubles them (via mining skill) and try not to stand in the blast radius.
9. Cheese is the best food and you'll want a lot of it. A lot of foods in the game will give you useful buffs on top of healing you, but pay attention-- these buffs don't stack! What you want to do is have a smaller amount of foods that give you the buff you need and a large amount of food that has no additional effect. That food? Cheese. Specifically gold-star cheese made with "large milk" in the cheese press. It'll heal you for a large amount of energy/hp without canceling your buffs.
10. Passing out at 2 am is not that bad. Sure, you'll lose some money and energy, but ultimately it's not such a harsh punishment. On the other hand, being knocked out by monsters in the mines will cost you a lot of the precious items you have in your inventory, so be very careful not to hit 0 hp.
11. Check your tv. Checking the weather each morning will help you figure out your schedule, since you don't need to water your crops when it rains. Living Off the Land will give you great tips, Queen of Sauce will teach you recipes you can use once you upgrade your house and the fortune teller will help you figure out if it's a good day to fish or mine.
12. The Traveling Merchant is your BEST FRIEND if you're trying to complete the community center. Every Friday and Sunday, at the top left corner of the forest, there will be a lady in a cart pulled by a purple hippo. She will offer a random assortment of items that may include rare, hard to get or out-of-season items that you need. She also sells "rare seeds" which you can plant at the beginning of fall for a nice payout at the end of the season. Do note that not all her deals are good, and that if there's something you're hoping to get from her, you'll need to set aside some money for it.
13. Don't stress-- plan out your day. It's good to start every day with a plan: Will you farm? Fish? Forage? Mine? A bit of everything? Keep in mind what your current goals are (like if you're saving up money or resources to get something), the shopkeepers' schedules, and other factors like the luck or the weather. If you find yourself overwhelmed by the clock, remember that time doesn't move while you're looking at a chest or at your inventory (if you're in singleaplayer) so take a breather every now and again.

I hope you find this useful, and if there are any other questions you might have, comment them and I'll try to answer <3

I hadn't thought about Jared for five, six years, until yesterday. The only memento I have of our entire relationship is a polaroid photo of the two of us, buried in a box in my closet, somewhere.
As I put my socks away, my mind flashed to Jared, who always stuffed his socks between the bed and the nightstand. One of those cute, weird little memories you have of someone you were in a relationship with. Moments later, my phone buzzed from the nearby dresser. It was an email from Jared.
Wow, that's serendipitous, I thought, before scanning the subject line:
The Ghost Experiments. [HELP!]
Spooky! Or at least, it would be, if I didn't get loads of emails with variations on the word 'ghost' in the subject line. Let me give you some background before I dive in to the content of the email:

Background

Jared and I met back in college in our school's tiny Forensic Investigation program. He wanted to join the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which is like Canada's FBI), and I wanted to join a Forensic Image Analysis lab. I was passionate about two things: Photography, and True Crime. Forensic Imaging seemed like the perfect fit. When we met, I was in my early 20s, Jared in his late 20s. He had been volunteering as a firefighter and EMT for a few years before going back to school. He thought a Bachelor's degree would look better on his RCMP application. It took me a while to realize he had any interest in me: the quiet woman that kept to herself. Jared always said my sense of humour is what he first noticed, though I never tried to be funny. My friends suggest that my bluntness can be charming. Perhaps that was it.
To make a long story short, Jared asked me out for coffee one day after class, and we ended up dating for about a year. We were both quite logical people, and suited each other well. We both enjoyed our own spaces too much to ever live together, but we were happy for a while. Things ended when Jared had to report for RCMP training in Regina, Saskatchewan, whereas I remained in BC to finish up my studies. Jared wasn't sure where he would get posted after graduation, so it was reasonable to end things. In retrospect, Jared was the kindest, most level-headed man I've ever dated. Though I haven't exactly been pining for him all these years since. Relationships come and go, and I started my career shortly afterwards. Six months after college I got a job as a Forensic Imaging Technician in a small private lab. I toiled away as a technician for years before getting promoted to Image Analyst. Analysts are the ones that perform things like image authentication, and photogrammetry. They also get all the best software, and coolest toys.
Aside from seeing the absolute horrors of mankind on a regular basis, I enjoyed my job. The work was fulfilling, my hours weren't too bad, and my coworkers ranged from tolerable to excellent. In my findings that is above average for a workplace. One month after my promotion to Analyst, I woke up to an email telling me that I got laid off and no longer had a job. I felt gutted. YEARS of hard work down the drain. I'm still bitter about it, if I'm being honest. Even worse still, there were no comparable jobs anywhere in my area. I hated the idea of leaving the Vancouver area, expensive as it may be, so I got a full-time gig as a server in a restaurant. I found a smaller apartment with my new coworker Sara, and things were starting to look up. Despite that, depression was kicking my ass, and I was sad I wasn't doing lab work anymore. After wallowing in sadness, I did what any over-educated, broke millennial would do: I started a YouTube channel.
I made videos on forensic imaging techniques, and spotting common photography tricks. I'm proud of my videos, but nothing exactly paid my rent or broke the algorithm. That is until one October, Sara encouraged me to do something spooky for Halloween. I've always enjoyed ghost stories, but I'm an absolute skeptic, which I wanted to make very clear. I released a video debunking "paranormal" or "ghost" footage. Taking five different videos of "paranormal activity", I broke down their rational explanations. There were a lot of strings pulling doors, or drawers. Plenty of poor quality cameras make 'ghosts' for various reasons. Certain cameras have low shutter speeds, or poor quality codecs that cause all manner of aberrations. Spotting computer generated imagery (CGI) can be tricky, but there are plenty of tells if you know where to look. Sometimes, 'ghosts' were actually dust near the camera lens, and so on. Frankly, this was my least-technical, lowest effort video on the entire channel... so of course this was the video that blew up and got loads of views. Getting ad revenue and sponsorships was exciting, so I decided to make a few similar videos. I could have kept making those videos, but ghosts weren't something I was passionate about. I went back to making my regular content in November, and the well dried up quick. The whole ordeal left me feeling depressed once again. I had no lines on another lab job, my channel was dying, and I was going through the motions in my day-to-day life. Until the email.
(I've removed some identifying information, but otherwise will preserve as much content as possible.)

The Email

To: Marnie [REDACTED] From: Jared [REDACTED]
Subject line: The Ghost Experiments [HELP!]
Hey Marnie,
It's Jared, from our days at [College name], I hope you're keeping well. I heard what happened to your lab last year, sorry to hear about that.
The reason I'm writing is we've had some unusual things happening in our home. I've set up cameras and audio recorders to try to figure it what's going on, but I'm working such long hours these days. I don't have as much time to look into this as I would like.
I've attached an explanation video, and all the raw files in a Google Drive for you to review at your earliest convenience. If you're interested, we would pay you $2000 to come over to our place in [town] on Vancouver Island for a few days. You can run whatever experiments you see fit, and use the content for your channel as long as you don't show our faces. We have a guest room and plenty of space for you to work in. Our second baby is on the way, and I'm willing to do anything to reduce our stress.
We're really scared.
If I don't hear from you in the next two weeks, I'll assume you're not interested and I won't bother you again.
Warmly, Cpl. Jared [REDACTED]
P.S Apologies for the dramatic subject line, I thought it might get your attention.
---------------------------------
I have to admit my initial thoughts focused on the wrong things: Wife? Second baby on the way?! Clearly I hadn't creeped him enough on social media over the last few years... Bad thoughts, Marnie. Put those away! I definitely didn't know what to make of the fact that they were scared. Was he pranking me? I had to admit the proposal was interesting, though. $2000 in Vancouver was... well, one month's rent. But getting one month of rent for a few days of work and some fodder for another video was tempting.
I opened up the attached Google Drive. I was surprised to see over 70 gigabytes of content in the drive. In the main folder was a video labeled "EDITED_EXPLANATION.mp4", followed by folders labeled "RAW FOOTAGE", "AUDIO RECORDINGS", "HOUSE", "RECORDS" and "FINDINGS". If this was a prank, it was an elaborate one. To determine if any of this was even worth my time, I clicked on the explanation video first.

The Video

I let out a small gasp when I saw Jared's face. He was talking at the camera from the middle of a kitchen island in a modern, fancy looking house. The years had been kind to Jared, his shoulders were more broad than I remembered, and his stubble had grown in. His facial hair used to be a lot more patchy, he kept it clean-shaven back in college. The video buffered for a second, and then started playing.
"Hey Marnie." Jared was smiling, but he sounds tired, "I'm recording this because there's some unusual stuff going on in my house. Jenny's really freaked out, and I... I don't know. If you had asked me 2 months ago if I thought ghosts were real, I would have said 'No'. No way. But now I'm so sleep deprived I'm not even sure anyway. I saw your ghost debunking videos and I'm hoping you can be a voice of reason here. I need help to figure out what exactly this is."
Jared cleared his throat. "Okay, I'll start from the beginning. We moved into this place here in [town] two months ago, super nice home, brand new development. The very first night, we woke up to a loud banging noise at exactly 3:24am. I shot out of bed, grabbed my sidearm, and cleared each room. Nobody was inside or outside our property, and there was no sign of an intruder. No forced entry or anything like that. I grabbed Simon -- that's my son, Simon, he's 11 months old now, so 9 months old at the time -- from the nursery and came back to bed. We weren't sure what it was, but we went back to bed after I was certain there was no immediate threat to my family."
"Then it happened again the next night. The exact same time, 3:24am. Bang bang bang!" Jared made a knocking gesture in the air, "Simon was co-sleeping with us that night. I cleared the house again, I checked the yard, I walked around the property. Nothing. Now it was a pattern, and after two shitty sleeps in a row, I decided to leave my phone recording all night. I'll play the clip now."
The screen cut to black, only the date and the timestamp was visible. 3:24am, like before, followed by a startling loud noise. BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG. BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG. Two sets of five knocks. I jumped in my chair at the volume of the noise, cursing under my breath. You can hear baby Simon start to cry and the commotion of his parents getting startled awake. The video cuts back to Jared in the kitchen.
"I'll spare you more of this, but if you check the audio recordings you can find 19 individual recordings. All loud bangs, two sets of five knocks at exactly 3:24 in the morning. There would be more, but, we got kind of... numb to it after a while, and, well, you'll see."
At this point I started wondering, why me? I'm an imaging specialist, not an audio expert. Much to my annoyance, video-Jared seemed to read my thoughts:
"Now I know you're more of a video expert, but if you do have any contacts in forensic audio feel free to send those along." You presumptuous bastard... I do have a friend like that. "I haven't told anyone at work about what's going on... Not sure how I'd even begin explaining this. After 3 days of these noises, I picked up a bunch of home security cameras that do night vision, and audio. I put them all over the house: Interior and exterior. Aside from the bathroom, the only room I didn't put a camera in was Jen's studio. She's a professional seamstress and didn't like the idea of a camera staring at her while she worked. She caved and you'll notice in the recordings that footage from her studio pops up around day 24. to catch anyone creeping around, I had large motion sensor lights installed outside. Oh, and I put some small motion sensors in the hallways."
The camera cuts to the kitchen, the master bedroom, nursery, two hallways, guest bedroom, garage, front yard, and back yard.. One thing was clear to me: This house was nice. Like, 'how on earth does a Corporal and a seamstress afford this' level nice. Does Jen come from money? Jared certainly doesn't, it would take me years to save up for a place like this with my old analyst salary.
"After installing the cameras, I managed to capture something the very first night." The video cuts to several exterior night shots, the motion lights are off, all is still. 'Day 3' displays on the screen, and the timestamp is visible in the corner. In the hallway closest to the bedroom, the clock now reads 3:23am. The motion light turns on, illuminating the hall, but no one is in frame. The hallway is silent. As the clock changes to 3:24am, the sensor light switches off. A pause, then two sets of five knocks. My ears ring at the sheer volume of the knocks. On the footage, Jared springs out of bed and comes out into the hallway in a t-shirt and boxers, his gun drawn. The hallway motion light turns on as Jared yells for anyone to make themselves known. The video follows him as he searches through the various rooms of the house. Jen stays in the bedroom, clutching their baby to her chest. The video cuts back to Jared narrating in the kitchen.
"As you can see, right before the knocking sounds, something set off our motion sensors in the hallway. I scanned every scrap of surveillance footage from that day, and I can tell you, no one's entered our house. All the footage is there on the drive if you want to review it for yourself. Now I know what you're thinking: It could be a faulty motion sensor. I thought the same, so I replaced [brand X] motion sensor light with [brand Y] the very next day to be sure."
The video cuts to Day 4, 3:23am. The new [brand Y] motion light is in view. Jared sits awake in an uncomfortable looking wooden chair in the hallway, phone and gun in hand. The light in the hallway is off as another set of loud pounding noises go off as the time changes to 3:24am. The noise sounds further away now, distant. Jared springs out of the chair and whirls around with his gun, trying to discern the source of the sound. The camera angle switches to Hallway 2, closer to the guest bedroom. At 3:23am, the new motion light turns on, and the guest door starts shaking with the knocks at 3:24am.
"So here's the thing..." Kitchen-Narrator Jared continues, "the knocking noise comes from a different spot every night. The noise happens at a consistent enough time that this could a hoax with a wireless speaker. But the fact it moves from room to room without anyone getting caught on camera is perplexing. You can confirm this with the attached raw surveillance footage. My phone's audio recordings have similar results if you check those out in the google drive. Some nights the knocking's loud, other times we can barely hear it. We're actually starting to sleep through it, now..." His voice was weary, almost resigned to this fact. In that moment I felt bad for Jared, though I wasn't sure how I could help.
"I wish I could say we were only dealing with loud noises in the middle of the night, but here's where you come in. On Day 14, I captured this." We cut away from Jared and are now watching Jen playing with baby Simon in the kitchen, the timestamp reads 10:35am. It's the middle of the day, light is pouring in from the beautiful framed windows. The house looks serene like this, much less spooky than the previous few nights worth of footage.
Behind Jen, the utensil drawer slides open on its own. I've seen plenty of shots like this in fake paranormal videos. I leaned in, hoping to spot an obvious sign of a hoax. Usually they put one string on the drawer, and one string on a utensil, then pull on it hard. This rips the object across the room and makes a little jump scare. What happened instead took me by surprise.
A silver spoon gently floats out of the drawer, twirling upwards into the air. It rotates, spinning in a few different directions - not impossible to fake with strings, but quite difficult. This could be CG, but it seems real at first glance. The levitating spoon spins higher into the air, and baby Simon starts grabbing towards it. You can hear him giggle on the tape, he's excited by the flying spoon. Jen turns her head over her shoulder to see what Simon's looking at. Exactly the moment she does that, the spoon drops back down into the drawer with a loud CRASH. Jen startles at the noise, and gets up to look at the utensil drawer. She seems confused. We're then brought back to Jared in the kitchen.
"If you check the footage, you'll see I had left for work hours before, and Jen was with Simon all morning." For a moment, video cuts to Jared walking out the door in full police gear at 4:45am. "The spoon's on the raw footage too, in case you think we did that with computers or whatever."
I found myself annoyed at how well Jared was predicting my reactions. Was this an elaborate prank? Why would a family man want to get one over on his ex from college? It's not like we had a falling out, in fact, he ended things with me! It didn't make any sense. Before my thoughts could catch up to my feelings, the video carried on:
"Loud noises and floating silverware are one thing, but this next clip is the real reason I--we wanted your expertise." Interesting Freudian slip there, Jared. The video takes us to night vision footage of the nursery, with "Day 35" and the timestamp of 2:13am. Little Simon stirs from his sleep, and wakes up in his crib. He makes a few cooing noises as he gets up and tries to prop himself up on the sides of his crib. His lets out a little giggle, looking in the direction of the closet.
Then, rising up from the ground, a shadowy figure emerges from the floor. The shape gets taller, and taller, until it looms over Simon's crib. It's in the rough shape of a man, has no distinguishable features, and is semi-transparent. My immediate reaction is this has to be CG, but the effect looks…good. The shadowy figure’s hand reaches out towards Simon, and holds its arm in position. Simon laughs and makes grasping motions towards the figure's "hand". The figure remains motionless for a moment, and Simon bobs up and down with excitement.
The other arm reaches out towards Simon. Both hands are now inching closer to the baby, who seems thrilled with his dark visitor. Long black figures grasp Simon’s sides, like how any parent would pick up their baby. The figure starts to slowly lift little Simon off the ground, his toes no longer touching the crib. Suddenly, Simon winces and lets out a sharp cry of pain. I recoil at the noise.
The figure stops lifting Simon, and holds him motionless, arms stretched in front. If the being had a face, I’d say it was staring at him.
Simon starts squirming in the figure’s hands. I fight the urge to look away from the screen…
Then the door opens.
Light bursts in from the hallway. The instant that happens, the shadowy figure drops into the floor, disappearing completely. Simon drops almost a foot down into the crib, stumbling. Jen rushes over to the crib and inspects Simon. She picks him up, and takes him out of the room.
Skeptic though I may be, it's hard to describe how unsettling that moment was. I found myself peering over my shoulder to make sure no one was behind me. Nothing but my empty apartment, still, had to check. The video comes back to Jared in the kitchen one last time.
“There’s something you should see.” Jared’s face looks strained, intense.
Two pictures appear on screen. Both photos are of baby Simon, his pyjama shirt pulled up. He’s bruised across his chest, sides and back. Dark bruises, in the shape of hand prints with long, slender fingers.
"I don't even have words." Same, Jared. Same. "Simon’s staying over at Jen’s sister’s place for now. We rushed him to the hospital right after this. Doctor says he’ll be fine, I’m hoping he doesn’t call CPS on us.”
Jared stares off into space, and there’s a pregnant pause. I catch myself impatiently moving my mouse to skip over the moment of silence, but it’s not needed. Jared speaks again.
“If you want to analyze this footage, and give me a rational explanation for this, PLEASE do… Please. If you go through the drive, you can see I've tried to track down every explanation I can think of. I even bought an EMF meter (No idea how this thing works, to be honest). I downloaded the original plans for the house, every permit relating to this property, the history of the land, everything! It's all there in the drive. There's nowhere in our house someone could be hiding. I've checked the attic, the crawlspace, and the ventilation system. I even checked to make sure our house wasn't on sacred [local Indigenous tribe] land. I confirmed no recorded murders have ever happened here, and we're the first people to ever live here. I've tried to summarize everything into the 'FINDINGS' folder but honestly... I don't have any concrete findings, at all. "
"You might laugh at this, but... We're really scared, Marn. Scared for Simon. Jen wants to cleanse our house with white sage and crystals, and I'm ready to call a priest. We've sunk all our savings into this house, and the market sucks right now. We won't be able to move for a few years, at least. You know me, I'm a rational person, but this has shaken me to my core. We'll pay you for your time, and get you any equipment you need." Jared pauses, searching for anything else to say. "I guess that's it. Thanks, Marn. Please get back to me once you get this. Please."
The video ends. I stare at the screen, reeling. I'm not sure how long I sat there for, exactly. All I know is I jumped out of my skin when my roommate Sara opened our front door. After she finished laughing at my expense, I told Sara about Jared and showed the video. When she got to the clip of the shadowy figure playing with baby Simon, she gasped and covered her mouth. we remained silent by the video's end.
"Are you going to help him?" Sara asked.
"Maybe." I said. That's the best answer I had.
"Do you think this is a hoax?"
"Maybe! No. I don't know. I'm going to look over the drive first."
Sara agreed that was a good idea, and left me to it.

The Drive

The drive contained everything Jared said it did, and more. There was 2 months worth of unedited security footage taking up the bulk of storage. I scrubbed through as much of it as I could, paying special attention to the days leading up to the Spoon Incident, and the Shadow Man. At no point did I see anyone rigging up wires or sophisticated lighting rigs, and both events were on the raw footage exactly as Jared presented them. I even found other moments of lights turning on, and objects moving around the house on their own! I watched those moments over and over, looking for any signs of digital or physical trickery. I didn't have all my sophisticated tools I would have back at the lab, but as far as I could tell: There was none. No evidence of file tampering, the files came directly from the security cameras. The lighting was also very consistent in both clips, not a pixel was out of place. Aside from the spoon not obeying the laws of physics, it all looked perfect. I decided to send the clips to my friends at the Forensic Imaging lab for further analysis. But my current educated guess is: If this is fake, it wasn't done with computer effects. Even the Shadow Man. Maybe.
I also reviewed the house documents, and the history of the place. This wasn't my area of expertise, but with some Google-Fu I was able to determine the documents were legitimate. Jared even made a map of cell tower coverage in his area, in an attempt to track electromagnetic interference. His home had cell coverage, but not an unusual amount of towers nor traffic. I also reviewed most of the audio files recorded from his phone. The knocks were audible in all of them. I bundled up those files, and sent them to my friend who specializes in Forensic Audio Analysis. If nothing else, he should be able to give me a rough idea of what could be making the sound. Hopefully he'll get back to me sooner or later.

Aftermath

It's the next day, and I'm sitting in my kitchen running on barely any sleep. Sara's already left for work. I've typed up an email telling Jared I'll take the job, but I'm having a hard time bringing myself to hit send. I've even bought myself a ferry ticket to take me to Vancouver island tomorrow. To shake myself out of my funk, I decided to take a shower.
A hot shower was exactly what I needed. It felt like all the fear and uncertainty washed right off me, and went down the drain. I decided I would take the job, and confidently marched out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel to hit send on the email. Then I stopped in my tracks.
Resting on my laptop's keyboard was a polaroid photograph. The photograph that had gotten buried in a box somewhere. The photograph that wasn't there when I left to take a shower.
The photograph of Jared and I from college.

Spoilers for Final Fantasy II below.
I’ve always loved Final Fantasy, but as a kid of the late 90s, I was first introduced to the series through Final Fantasy VII – like many of you, I imagine – and Tactics in the early-to-mid 2000s by my step-dad. I was fairly familiar with videogame RPGs, having played Chrono Trigger and Secret of Mana before, and I had always enjoyed playing D&D with my friends, but that was all I knew, pretty much.
Since then, growing up, I’ve branched into other RPG franchises and for Final Fantasy I’ve played every subsequent numbered entry (making a conscious effort to avoid FFXI and, more recently, FFXIV – MMOs can just ruin my life; I get too involved) and even went back to play FFI, FFIV and FFVI but, surprise surprise, I never did get around to playing FFII, FFIII or FFV (also X-2 and the two sequels to XIII, but that’s a story for another time).
Earlier this month I decided to do something I’ve been delaying for a while: play every numbered entry again, including going for II, III and V for the first time. So, a couple of hours ago I finished Final Fantasy II for the first time. I played the Famicom version, using an emulator and the Chaos Rush translation. It took me a whopping 27:45:00 (quite a jump from the 19:29:00 it took me to beat FFI). And I have thoughts!
This game is constantly put at the bottom of your ol’ regular FF rankings and tier-lists and pretty commonly that position comes with commentary like “Final Fantasy doesn’t have bad games, and it’s not like FFII is inherently bad, but…” and then it proceeds to list so many reasons why this game should be considered an affront against God.
So let’s get those reasons out of the way first. The things that got on my nerves playing through Final Fantasy II were 3: 1. the; 2. inventory; 3. system.
I mean, cheap, I know. But really. Yeah, the leveling system is strange, the random encounter rate is a tad too high. The airship doesn’t have its own theme (now that’s a crime right there, especially since that knee-slapper of a song that FFI’s airship has)... Yeah, yeah. But hear me out:
I didn’t find the game grindy (I had to do it once, to level up my Esuna, but that’s more my fault than the game’s, I feel) and I found the leveling system pretty organic. The hiccup there was choosing my character’s roles at the beginning, but once that was out of the way, leveling was fine.
But the inventory system. Honestly. Who had to be bounced like a basketball on their head as a baby to come up with that unholy sacrilegious sin of a system? Look. If you want every character to share a group inventory that holds consumables, key items, weapons and armor, that’s fine. But if you’re gonna do that, why in the everliving shitfuck would you get rid of stacking items and not allow for old key items to be discarded? That just makes consumables absolutely useless. Was stacking 99 potions in FFI too much of a game-breaking trick for Square? Did they assume I was a potionholic just chugging them at the Temple of Fiends and decided to stage an intervention and flush my stash? What. The. Fuck.
It came to a point where I was glad to see the cute little wyvern burn with Ricard! Once I found out that he could take it with him and free me a slot I just punted that little dude into his hands and did NOT look back.
But, on the other hand, I kinda had a blast with this game! One of the things that gave me that last push I needed to finally start this “endeavor” was watching Dan’s series on Final Fantasy animation (New Frame Plus on YouTube; here is the video on FFII). I’m a sucker for animation and I just needed to see for myself how much they improved after the first game when it came to leveraging the Famicom’s limitations and using them for storytelling, and they did a FANTASTIC job. And only a year after the first game! It’s great seeing how so many staples of the franchise were born in this game, but it was the quaint little story and how the game tells it that kept me interested (that and using Fire 7 on everything. I just love the little sprite).
All in all, FFII was pretty great. It has that something that I absolutely adore from this series: the willingness to try new stuff every time, and I think they actually succeeded, even if they hadn’t quite found their footing yet. Final Fantasy II is Final Fantasy starting to bud before it can bloom with the later games, and I’m here for it.
P.S.: Leon is a bitch.
If you’re at all interested, I recorded the final fight with the Emperor and cutscene here. It’s funny because Firion dies and then there’s two Marias, but one of them is still addressed as Firion. My party was:

• Firion (main fighter ATK 171, DEF 77):
  • Masamune
  • Golden Shield
  • Twist Headband
  • Diamond Gloves
  • Black Garb
• Maria (black wizard ATK 81, DEF 63)
  • Wizard’s Staff
  • Ribbon
  • Protect Ring
  • Black Robe
• Guy (white wizard/monk ATK 80, DEF 55)
  • Ribbon
  • Thief’s Gloves
  • White Robe
• Leon (secondary fighter ATK 115, DEF 70)
  • Aegis Shield
  • Excalibur
  • Gold Hairpin
  • Power Armlet
  • Black Garb

I feel so stupid I thought someone was my friend talked to them on here for months. Shared my life on and off and then there’s only for them to tell me today that they think my life is so over the top that it must be made up and fake for sympathy and I should just get mental health.
That no one could have the bad luck I do. What a long time to freaking kick someone in the face is how it feels. I had not been that honest in a long time or talked to anyone about anything other then oh look at my car kind of thing mostly. It feels like a literal kick being told I made things up for sympathy WTF.
This is just a rant but outch. Take months to do this. I’m not trusting again there are no friends past the age of 19 just none. You are going to have nothing but long term trolls waiting to kick you in the f* gut when you are down and call you a lying person. The world is not a nice place and it sucks if someone is nice they are probably just waiting to stab you in the back in the long run and hurt you. But then again Im real so what am I just odd I suppose. I give the heck up.
Some people just have good lives and don’t f belive yours is so full of shite that there is not always rules people get the heck away with things while they get a candy you get an empty wrapper and the freaking bill. I’m done with it.
I trust my freaking cat and you know what sometimes even she bites at-least I know it’s coming not like this freaking heck. I can’t even block them!
After many months they say this to me out of the blue that everything we talked about was made up. What a freaking monster people are asses to literally over months save up conversions to do this to a person this is sick.
I hope they become nicer and it hurts them to do this to people. May God have mercy on them because right now I’m just hoping this is not leading to worse trolling. I should never had the audacity to believe anyone would be friendly to me on a in-depth conversation level without turning on me. It’s a stupid move on my part as this is what always happens there is no friendship in the world left if I ever tell the truth about my life it has to be all fake rainbows and sunshine and kitty’s. Everything is happy all freaking day long and we are all striving for the flipping gold ring of happiness. The truth is never to show up.
Never again will I trust another person.

If I’m being honest the Denver “Nuggets” just never had a ring to me. Imagine working your entire life to make it to the NBA, finally making it, it’s your big moment, and you can exclaim “I made it! I’m a nugget!!”
Doesn’t sound right
Or “man I’m a huge Nuggets fan”
Though the name does have a cool backstory with Denver having a history with the Gold rush and finding golden nuggets, most people nowadays would think of the food.
I’ve always felt like being a “Hawk” or a “Bull” was more intimidating than being a “nugget”

Hello people, I hope you are well, this is going to be my first video game Reddit post which is impressive (considering that I'm always on the political subreddit haha) and it occurred to me to think about Mario Party, after having played it a lot and thought a lot.
It is one of my favorite Mario sagas and video games in general, always revolutionizing the term as franchises such as Mario Kart do, but unfortunately it declined a lot throughout its games and was highly overexploited.
RULES:
I will not include the following games:
- Mario Party-e (Game Boy Advance e-Reader peripheral, 2003)
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- Mario Party Island Tour (Nintendo 3DS, 2013)
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- Mario Party Star Rush (Nintendo 3DS, 2016)
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- Mario Party The Top 100 (Nintendo 3DS, 2017)
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- Mario Party Superstars (Nintendo Switch, 2021)
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The reasons are because they are games that I didn't play, The Top 100 and Superstars are more a remake or even remaster, and one is more of a board game with just a few minigames with a peripheral that I doubt very much that those who had a GBA would have had it.
The very rare and exclusive Japan-exclusive Mario Party arcade games made by Capcom and Banpresto will also not be included and no unofficial games will be included.
I will put positive and negative points and with a note at the end based on my personal opinion and I will use some other criticisms that I will leave in the description if you want to find out more
And in case I need to say it, from the worst to the best
Now that it's all said, let's get started and enjoy:
First I will start with the bad, horrible or what would only be mediocre.
13 - Mario Party Advance
Of all the Mario Party, this is possibly considered one of the most disappointing, boring and bad
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Bad points:
1- The game changed completely, going from being a party game to grab coins and have the most stars with mini-games. To a bad and generic single player RPG game replaced with minigames to solve missions
2 - The main mode and the important thing of the game, Shroom City and next to the missions, makes the game very repetitive
3 - The multiplayer game is quite poor, something curious considering that it is a game OF THE PARTY GENRE
Speaking of the previous point, although it has fifty (50) mini-games, forty-two (42) of them ARE ONE-PLAYED, which means that there are only eight (8) multiplayer mini-games.
4 - Some missions consist of trial and error like the search for Klepto and the search for Dolphin.
5 - There are also repetitive and easy missions such as characters like Goomba, Mole Monty or a penguin who needs help with GAMBLING ADDICTION (WTF?, on top of that the game has an E rating)
Ironically those minigames tend to be very easy.
6 - The music and sound are recycled soundtracks from Mario Party 3 and 4 but with low quality, and their soundtracks are among the worst in the franchise
7 - There's no minigame practice and no image or video of minigame gameplay during the instruction screens (the latter is something that's been used since the first Mario Party game), which means new minigames will be harder to figure out understand for an average player, and by the time the player understands the basics of the minigame, it is likely that they have already failed the minigame at least once. Technically, you could use practice as a power-up in Mini-Game Attack, but you can't practice a minigame otherwise.
8 - Some minigames are very difficult to complete in Shroom City due to lack of time or very high objective scores, for example Sled Slide and Sort Stack. In most cases, there is little to no room for error, and usually making a mistake once in a minigame is all it takes to lose the entire minigame.
9 - After getting all the Gadgets and minigames in Shroom City, there is little replay factor. For the most part, you have to complete the Challenge Land modes to try and earn enough coins to get the remaining items in the shop, which includes a Power Star device that costs 100,000 coins (good luck trying to win fifteen mini-games in Mini-Game Attacks or all eight dueling minigames in Duel Attack to get the required 100000 coins, because minigames only get much harder over time and messing it up once will force you to start over).
10 - If you manage to complete most if not all of the mini-games successfully and complete all tasks quickly, it will only take you a few hours (6-18) to complete Shroom City, and it's also easy to complete Shroom City in a single run (minus some quests that are character specific, like a quest from Mr. I that requires playing as Peach and one from Dorrie that requires playing as Yoshi).
11 - No voice acting at all. Even the announcer at the beginning of the minigames that says "Start" or "Finish" has been replaced with a Lakitu. While it would be excusable if it was one of the first Game Boy Advance games, this game was one of the last GBA games to be released and previous Mario games such as Super Mario Advance and Mario Golf Advance had voice acting. Even the previous "portable" Mario Party game, Mario Party-e had voice acting.
12 - Only four playable characters, being Mario, Luigi, Peach and Yoshi. Even in Mario Party 1 and 2 you can choose up to 6 different characters.
Good points
1 - It was the first Mario Party game on a laptop, so thanks for the try
2 - The graphics are pretty decent (or even good) for a late GBA game
3 - The music, although it is recycled, can be a memory for Mario Party 3 players mainly.
4 - Some other minigames are entertaining, like the two-player minigame that parodies curling or some platform.
5 - Some of the Gadgets are quite nice to play, and there are actually more Gadgets (61) than there are minigames. Some Gaddgets are also multiplayer on a single console, which means that it is possible to play all Gaddgets properly without the need for another Game Boy Advance.
6 - The game also comes (in its box) with a paper bonus board, which can be played by cutting out the parts from the game manual and using the game to roll the dice and play the gadgets and mini-games.
Final Calification: 4.52/10
12 - Mario Party 9
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Possibly one of the most controversial and controversial games in the series (although hey...not as much as The Last Of Us Part II either) Due to its large number of changes
Bad Points:
1- First and foremost, this game introduced the car mechanic, which was a very bad idea to begin with and made many fans of the series upset. This was primarily due to previous Mario Party games receiving weaker reviews from critics for the repetitive concept, so Nd Cube attempted to rework the series in hope of gaining better reception from critics without any consent or care to fans.
The joke of Mario Party was a board game, with large and creative maps in which a lot of things could happen to you, even if you were lucky or last (Or roll ten (10)) The board can handle you so that I didn't win, basically it was UNPREDICTABLE, but in this game they changed the freedom of being able to move to a horrible car and with smaller maps to compensate for it.
In fact, the game pretty much removes the luck factor from the previous games, to the point where only winning the minigames (with the exception of one or the other lucky minigames)
2 - Items are the worst in the franchise, they changed items like orbs or even candy from the previous game and replaced them with DICE, literally one of the "Best Items in the Game" It's just a 10 sided die, something that SINCE THE FIRST, MARIO PARTY AND ANY OTHER BOTH DESKTOP AND PORTABLE WAS SOMETHING YOU ALWAYS HAD.
3 - The music isn't bad, but it's not as memorable as the Gamecube, and it's not even on the heels of the Nintendo 64.
4 - Bob-omb Factory and Magma Mine are infamous for having crippling methods of losing many Mini-Stars. In Bob-omb Factory, you get a Bob-omb on your car that explodes after moving ten spaces. In Magma Mine, lava will eventually rise and rolling too low can result in getting caught in it. Both the Bob-omb and the lava make you lose half of your Mini-Stars, and it is extremely crippling to the point where having a Bob-omb explode on you or being burnt by the lava is instant loss of the game.
5 - The 2-vs.-2, battle and duel mini-games are gone.
Speaking of battle mini-games, there's a battle space and you can still battle for Mini-Stars, but you just play the same old free-for-all mini-games instead of unique 4-player mini-games.
6 - The battles with Whomp and King Bob-omb in the Bob-omb Factory are annoying since they are mostly luck based.
7 - The story mode is literally three (3) player games (although at least it's better than Mario Party 8)
Good Points:
1 - The graphics increased the quality better, unlike those of 8 that were recycled from 4 (or 5 and 6) But with better shading quality, mainly for being the last official Mario game for the Wii
2 -Bowser Jr's minigames are quite good in themselves and can remind you of the minigames of the Mario Party 2 item minigames in which Koopa Kid appeared
3 - It has 7 boards, which, although they are linear, can have their fun moments.
4 - The cars themselves are pretty well designed for the dashboards (at least)
5 -It is the first game in the series where everyone earns coins depending on their position without counting the coin minigames and the 4 player team minigames from Mario Party 1 where you could also lose coins, which is a good thing that later installments would use.
5 - AT LEAST he tried to renew himself and be different, although he did quite badly.
Final Calification: 4,89/10
Now I'll start with the mediocre to average
11 - Mario Party 8
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Bad Points
1 - The story is rather bland and simple, being a candy contest
2 - Although this point will be ambiguous, on the one hand it is very good that they take advantage of the control mechanics for the minigames, exploiting their capabilities like WarioWare, it also makes a large part of the minigames boring because they will be somewhat repetitive.
3 - The boards without counting Koopa's hotel board (the most original board in the game) and Bowser's final board (with its unique elements such as Bowser Candy reminiscent of the Bowser Mushroom from Mario Party 2, 3 and 4) are very linear. or designed for the CPU to literally bowl you more.
4 - The graphics feel recycled from Mario Party 4 with better shading.
5 - The game has fewer minigames compared to previous installments, having only 73, Mario Party 5 had seventy-five (75) minigames and Parties 6 to 7 had more than eighty (80) minigames.
Add to that that of the 75 mini-games, 27 ARE DUELING
6 - Test for the Best, can be VERY FRUSTATING if you want to pass all the minigames perfectly, as a curious fact time will change if it is the PAL version of the game so as not to make it so complicated
Good Points:
1 - The carnival theme of this game works very well with a series like Mario Party.
2 - The Candy mechanic is fun to use, some can transform you into things like a ball and a vampire
3 - 14 playable characters. You can play as a Blooper and a Hammer Bro Now and you can even play as your Mii in certain Minigames.
4 - The extras in this game are very well done, the minigames and you can even buy taunts while waving the remote.
5 - There are some fun extra minigames such as Moped Mayhem and Canyon Crusaders.
The game even had a somewhat mixed reception, giving it a 5.2/10 on IGN and a 6.5/10 on Gamespot which are very low ratings for a Mario game, New Super Mario Bros 2 was rated better and that's what a lot of people thought complain that it was too easy
Final Calification: 5.65/10
10 - Mario Party 10
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Bad Points:
1 - Compared to the previous game, it feels like a more watered down version of Mario Party 9, but stripping it of all the stuff that made it at least somewhat salvageable, as almost every feature in 9 became more sterile. thanks to the devs who made the game easier and less fun than before and the reason 9 was bad was because it was easier for newer players and changed certain things about the formula which while not bad innovate but it did it in a bad way, which was less in this one since it is much more simplified and repetitive than 9, which considering that this was going to be the second NDCube title for home console should have given the small studio time to improve the Mario Party 9 stuff, but sadly they didn't.
2 - Speaking of which, It has the same flaws as Mario Party 9, such as the not well executed car mechanic, generic boards, and the music sometimes being forgettable.
3 - To play traditional Mario Party (in the form of Amiibo Mode), you need Amiibos. (At least is only a mod, and isn´t the garabe of Animal Crosiing: Amibo Festivial)
4 - The Amiibo mode itself is just a bare bones version of the traditional Mario Party, and the board itself is just a square.
5 - There isn't a Story Mode nor any Rival or Adventure that serves as the main campaign for the game unlike in the Hudson Soft games (expect 1 and 2) and Mario Party 9, as your only limited to either the Mario Party, Bowser Party or the Amiibo Party modes instead which don't have a lot of content in them and can feel a bit stale at times.
6 - While Bowser Party isn't a bad mode, Bowser is extremely overpowered:
Bowser can use multiple dice blocks, which makes easy to get to Team Mario. However, even if a player is eliminated (meaning that the maximum Team Mario can go with the dice blocks is 18), he always has 4 (meaning that the maximum is 24).
Some of the Bowser Party minigames takes away more hearts than they should, especially Bowser's Clawful Climb.
As if Bowser wasn't already overpowered, if he rolls low enough, he gets to roll again, which is unfair, as there aren't any spaces for Team Mario to reroll.
Only 3 of the 5 boards are playable in Bowser Party, which is rather questionable since the other 2 boards available could've at least fit well with Bowser Party since all they needed to do was tweak them a bit and that's it, which they sadly didn't do unfortunately, making the Bowser Party mode a wasted opportunity in general.
7 - The game doesn't support Pro Controller. Without the GamePad, you're forced to use a Wii Remote instead.
8 - The game does not have an online mode, which is already UNACCEPTABLE considering that it is an Eighth generation game from 2015, and he was able to take advantage of the fact that at that time Nintendo still did not charge for online
Good Points
1 - Amazing and beautiful graphics.
2 - Improved character roster, which pleased many fans of the series. Rosalina and Spike make their Mario Party debuts as playable characters, Donkey Kong makes his return since Mario Party 4, while Toadette makes her return since Mario Party 8.
3 - The mini-games are fun and most of them are already unlocked at the start.
4 - Bowser Party is an interesting mode and fun mode, even if it could've been better (if it was more balanced).
5 - It brought back 2 vs 2 minigames.
6 - The amiibo party mode is an interesting idea and was an attempt at bringing back the traditional Mario Party gameplay, and there's a minigame at the end of each round.
Final calification 5.75/10
9 - Super Mario Party
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Bad Points:
1 - Although this Mario Party made many improvements compared to its somewhat badly received predecessors. He also made several setbacks
2 - Character dice still go from 1 to 6, and for the worse now they each have their OWN STATS, which can make it very unfair.
3 - The allies in the game aren't bad, but they don't offer as much material as they did in Mario Party 3's duel mode, they just give you some extra dice that can help you beyond that from time to time.
4 - There are only 4 BOARDS, while in the previous games there were at least 6
Speaking of which, a lot of his boards are very short and easy without a lot of events to make it unique.
5 - Some items like the classic dueling glove or the double star card only appear in certain scenarios.
6 - Although they added online mode, it is only something unacceptable for minigames knowing that it was already an obligation to put it in party mode.
Good Points:
1 - The game has very good graphics and very shiny character designs
2 - The minigames are very well done, and it is one of the few games on the Switch to use and exploit the control functions well.
3 - A huge number of characters, having a total of 20, with 16 starters and 4 to unlock and even some of the previous Mario Party returns
4 - The elements although they are not that good, they return to their classic mode instead of simple dice and some are very useful to use
5 - This Mario Party is the first since Mario Party DS to go back to the classic formula with new stuff, so at least an attempt was made to do so.
6 - In an update, they FINALLY added the party mode online
Speaking of this last point, the coins also make a comeback and even with the addition of Mario Party 9 in which depending on your position you will get more or less coins instead of always only 10
Final calification: 6.15/10
Now let's go for the good games
8 - Mario Party DS
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Good Points:
1 - Pretty decent graphics for a DS game
2 - Very good minigames, which make good use of the capabilities of the consoles
Speaking of which, a good number of minigames surpassing Mario Party 8 by one (74 minigames)
3 - Good story and the context in how the minimizer shrinks all the characters
4 - The Toadette board and the Bowser Pinball are very good
5 - You can play multiplayer without cable and only with a copy of the game like in New Super Mario Bros, something that few DS games have
6 - The boss battles are entertaining, mainly against Kamek and the final boss.
7 - The game has a better single player experience unlike the bad Mario Party Advance game.
8 - Many of the older puzzle minigames such as Bob-Omb Breakers (from Mario Party 4) and Piece Out (from Mario Party 5) return in this game, which can be a throwback to fans of Mario Party 3 through 7.
9 - Lots of replay value, especially collected items
10 - It is probably (at least from the ones I played and from my point of view) the best portable Mario Party
11 - Good way to say goodbye to the saga being the last game released by Hudson Soft before it dissolved and merged with Konami.
Bad Points:
1 - The story mode is somewhat short and easy, mainly because there are only 10 turns, when in the past it was at least 20 for the best duration
2 - The first battle against Petey Piranha is known to be the most difficult (in my childhood, I had a hard time beating him) And the others like the Hammer Bro and Dry Bones are extremely easy, except the one with Bowser
3 -Items and items are pretty bad in this game
Hexes (known as hexes) are just a cheap replacement for the Mario Party 6 and 7 orbs, which while it's nice that they're free to use, aren't as much fun as the old ones.
The main problem is the items, which although they have returned to the form of an element since Mario Party 4, have several problems
First of all there are useless items like Warp Dice Block that just teleports you to a random place
There are also super advantageous items like the star pipe (which is a replacement for the magic lamp from Mario Party 2, 3 and 4 or the flutteWigger orb from Mario Party 5, 6 and 7) which is a very cool item though , the problem is that it is too cheap costing only 15 coins, while the items in other games cost between 20 to 30 coins.
Worst of all is that you can now buy ALL THE ITEMS UP TO THREE SPACES IN YOUR INVENTORY BY PASSING ONLY ONCE IN THE STORE, although this sounds good in practice it is very unfair because you can have more than 45 coins and if you are lucky and the item is in the store (normally, at the last five rounds) You can buy three star pipes winning the game more easily.
Mario Party DS received mixed to positive reviews. It currently has a 7.3 on IGN, who called it "a huge leap over the last portable rendition."
Final Calification: 6.59/10
7 - Mario Party 6
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Good Points:
1 - The graphics are decent, although they use the same designs as Mario Party 4 and 5
2 - They added day and night that changed every three turns on all boards, like the horror land board from Mario Party 2
3 - There are a fair number of mini-games and a great selection
4 - You can make purchases with stars of many things
5 - Mario Party 5 orb slots improved them, even if you fall into your own trap, it no longer affects you and gives you five coins
6 - The boards are very large and entertaining
7 - Finally you can buy your own orbs, unlike the previous game where they were given to you for free, but it was totally random.
8 - It has several quite good game modes including the extras.
Bad Points:
1 - They added something new that ended up being crap, which is the microphone, an accessory that connects to Slot B of the Gamecube Memory Card
The problem that it is very imprecise and you have to know and speak English perfectly and it is very difficult to use it
Luckily it's not required to play, you can disable the microphone minigames or just play with the L and R button actions
Besides that the microphone accessory was made only for SIX GAMES: Mario Party 6, Mario Party 7, Karaoke Revolution Party, Odama, Chibi-Robo!, and Densetsu no Quiz Ou Ketteisen. (and of those three are exclusive to Japan)
2 - The Soundtracks are hardly memorable compared to the fifth game and back.
3 - The Endurance Alley mode is a TOTALLY BROKEN mode, you have to play 100 random minigames without losing, the problem is not that the difficulty increases, but that there are minigames that are literally based on luck like Pitifall that can go out there and if you lose you go back to start from the beginning
Also it is not mandatory or necessary to unlock anything and you earn almost nothing worthwhile, just 10 STARS, although fortunately they corrected this in the PAL version a bit
Curiosities: Trap Ease Artist, Same Is Lame, Pitifall, and Trick or Tree are not available in the Endurance Alley in the PAL version of the game, the reason likely being that they are all luck-based.
Final calification: 6.72/10
6 - Mario party 7
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Good Points:
1 - Graphics improved quality in part at least
2 - The character-specific color coding was eventually removed.
3 - The game is the first to offer six bonus stars, all of which are random instead of three as in previous games making it much more competitive.
4 - The boards are gigantic, based on different places in real life such as China and Japan
5 - It is one of the Mario Party with the largest number of minigames without counting the recycles or remakes like the top 100 or the Superstars, having 88 minigames.
Speaking of which, it's the classic Mario Party with fewer mini-games of pressing a single button very quickly.
6 - Toadsworth's microphone minigames are like Mario Party 3 Game Guy, but better because your bet is optional
7 - Pretty good story mode of traveling to different parts of the world on a cruise (who knows you Oddysey)
8 - There is a store to buy many of the things in the game that is literally called "Duty Free Shop" Apparently in an anarcho-capitalist paradise
Bad Points:
1 - Koopa Kid is no longer a playable character and this is his last major appearance.
2 - The character orbs, while useful in their own ways, are imbalanced. The Triple Shroom and Magic orbs are extremely good and can be used at anytime, while others like the Fireball or Egg orbs are situational and can only be good when the opportunity presents itself.
3 - Speaking of which, although it has a very good amount of mini-games, unfortunately there are very few 4-player ones with only thirteen is these.
Final Calification: 6.89/10
5 - Mario Party 4
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Good Points:
1 - The graphics are spectacular, and the character models are very well done for being from 2002, so much so that the character designs remained almost unchanged until Mario Party 8 on the Wii.
2 - The minigames are very well done and it is possibly the Mario Party with the most entertaining and fair minigames
3 - It is one of the last Mario Parties to have memorable soundtracks, they are not as good as the first ones but they are quite good
4 - The gift mode lengthens and makes the duration of the game replayable
5 - It is the first Mario Party that can be played as a team in party mode.
6 - It is the last game in the series (until Mario Party 10) in which Donkey Kong is playable.
It is also the last game where the magic lamp and the Bowser mushroom appear (although the latter is almost impossible to see in action).
7 - It has good game modes and extra minigames like Beach Volleyball, where you can play with all the characters in the game, including the non-playable ones that are the hosts like Toad, Koopa Troopa, Shy Guy, Boo, and even Koopa Kid and Bowser (only exception is Goomba because is the referre)
8 - Some memorable boards like the one with the casino-themed Goomba
9 - The dialogue can be humorous at times, an example is when the rules of Darts of Doom is being explained, a Koopa Kid says "The player with the least points..." and then the fan holding Koopa Kid says "Gets a back rub!"
10 - It is the first, last and so far only Mario Party to use a CGI scene in the intro and also to be the first to have the 3D boards, although the direction of the map is flat until Mario Party 5
Bad Points:
1 - There aren't many minigames even though they are super cool, there are only 60, while Mario Party 2 had 65 minigames (although some of those were enhanced editions of the first game) and Mario Party 3 had 71 minigames.
Other than that there is no/they removed the duel category in the minigames, the closest thing is the minigames against the hosts but they can only be played in story mode and when you win a board
2 - Speaking of the previous point, the minigame against Boo IS SUPER UNFAIR and very lucky to win it.
3 - Bowser's Big Blast minigame from Mario Party 2 returns, coincidentally being one of the worst minigames that could return for being one of battle and luck
4 - The special gifts, which are the gifts in which you have to achieve certain objectives in specific minigames, can be very frustrating like Shy Guy's plate or the worst and most difficult of all the Goomba Clock
Also, if you don't have that gift, you won't be able to have the star trophy
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5 - Bowser's mushroom made it the RAREEST item not only in the game, but almost in the saga (although not as much as the miracle capsule of Mario Party 5) In that unlike Mario Party 2 and 3, it only appears when Bowser does a gift falling into his box and almost never comes out, believe me when it is easier to win the lottery of 100 game coins several times than to get the bowser mushroom.
6 - The Doors Of Doom minigame in the extra mode is possibly one of the worst minigames in the saga, because it is practically and randomly to chance, all the doors have an already determined pattern that you cannot avoid even with tricks, although fortunately it is not in the main mode.
Final calification: 7.10/10
4 - Mario Party
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Good Points:
1 - It has a new, interesting premise for a Mario game: Mario and friends having a party and Bowser wants to ruin it. Because of its originality, this game was a great success and created the Mario Party franchise with a lot of great sequels in future Nintendo consoles.
2 - This game, like the Mario Kart franchise, revolutionized a concept in video games, in the first it was a karting game with elements of the franchise and fun settings and the second a board game but with playable minigames and a variety of boards and traps.
3 - The controls, despite the mini-games of crush buttons, are pretty decent and solid.
4 - Good graphics by the standards of the late 1990s.
5 - Playing on the island of minigames was a pretty good challenge, which is to play all the minigames in order to advance
6 - The soundtrack is very memorable and possibly the best music Mario Party ever.
7 - They have unique elements that no longer have in later installments, such as the Mushroom space, in which you can double dice or leave you immobile for one turn, and the one-player minigames, which were only seen again in the shit of Advance and in Mario Party 8. , (although there are only three and nothing else to appear in story mode)
Bad Points:
1 - THE INFAMOUS AND HORRIBLE MINI-GAMES OF ROTATING THE STICK, these include Tug O' War, Paddle Battle, Pedal Power
2 - Unlike Super Mario Kart and Mario Kart 64, which did have their elements as something revolutionary in the genre, There are no items in this game, which cuts out a significant amount of strategy the player can play. The closest thing to "items" are the random dice blocks and the warp block, but they only appear randomly. Due to these factors, it is near impossible for a player who is behind to catch up to the person who is in first, the only real way they can do so is with chance time.
3 - You also have to be careful, because it is the only Mario Party where you can lose coins even in 4-player minigames
Final calification: 7.25/10
3 - Mario Party 5
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Good points:
1 - Of all the Mario Parties that used the orb formula, this is the best.
2 - Good story mode in which it is based on preventing the world of dreams from becoming the world of nightmares
3 - They removed Donkey Kong and added Toad as a playable
4 - Besides that they added the category of Donkey Kong minigames which are very good
5 - Lots of great modes, like Party Mode, Story Mode, Mini-Game Mode, Super Duel Mode, and Bonus Mode. Beach Volleyball that returns from the previous game or the battle mode with ships (Super Duel Mode), in which you play a tournament or with a friend a battle with a custom ship, besides that the more minigames you win, you unlock improvements for that way
6 - The capsules are great items, as you can place them on the boards or use them on yourself (which will cost you coins), and is a nice new technique of using items introduced in this game.
7 - This game marks the playable debuts of Toad, Boo, and Koopa Kid.
8 - The Star Spirits from Paper Mario are the hosts of this game, and are very enjoyable to watch, as they represent the dreams very well, being that stars are out at night when everyone’s dreaming.
9 - The Duel minigames that had been taken from the fourth game returned.
10 - The new boards are fully rendered in 3D, and are all fun to play, with many being enjoyable Dream worlds, and the final board, Bowser’s Nightmare, being outstanding, showing not all dreams are good.
11 - It is possibly one of the last Mario Party to have memorable soundtracks
Bad Points:
1 - MANY OF BOWSER'S MINI-GAMES are very frustrating or almost impossible to save and there are many consequences for losing whereas in the fourth game, Bowser's mini-games had only one loser (although the good thing is that Donkey Kong can save you from time to time in return to lose 20 coins, although it is rare)
2 - Some of the dueling minigames get very unfair because they are very luck based and adding the fact that from this Mario Party stars are bet on duels makes it more fucked up.
3 - It is also the classic Mario Party with the most mini-games to press the button quickly
4 - Combining it with the colon, the worst of all is Button Mashers, because you have to press a lot of buttons at the same time very quickly.
5 - Despite the capsules being great items, the Capsule System itself is inferior compared to the items. Instead of deciding which item to buy, you get a random capsule. Not only that, but you also need to pay if you want to use the capsule on yourself, and no matter if you throw your capsule on a space, your own capsule will harm you, which can make the game pretty unfair at times. Thankfully, Mario Party 6 did it right with the orb mechanic along with making the orbs purchasable too.
Also see action the miracle capsule is almost impossible to see
Final calification: 7.50/10
2 - Mario Party 2
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Good Points:
1 - Good graphics by the standards of the end of the 1990s.
2 - The soundtrack is good and it has memorable songs like Bowser Appears, Keepin on the Path, Going Somewhere, Let The Game Begin, Horror Land and Couldn't Be Better.
It is the second game along with the first with the best soundtrack
3 - The game has 6 boards and in each changes the appearance of the characters to suit the theme of the board, This dramatically increases the game's replay value. Although there's fewer boards than its prequel, their much higher in quality.
4 - There are over 65 minigames in this game, which is a slight improvement on the 50 minigames from the previous installment. Compared to its predecessor, Its minigames are of much higher quality. It also ports over many of Mario Party 1's minigames, but are improved.
Nintendo learned the lesson of the minigames where you have to roll the analog stick about and since Mario Party 2, the analog stick has been used sparingly and by the time of the GameCube, Nintendo's analog sticks have gotten much more comfortable to use. Nintendo also did not create more mini-games that rely on using constant rotation of the analog stick to win until Mario Party: Island Tour.
5 - It is the first Mario Party to include items, Allowing much greater amount of strategic play.
6 - The game has a pretty decent amount of content for an N64 game released in 1999, with there being a lot more features and a better UI than the previous game, which is very impressive and quite the nice amount of accomplishment to take the new at the time spin off series in a new turn by expanding the gameplay a bit and fixing some flaws that were previously apparent.
7 - It was responsible for setting the foundation for later installments, as with the new features implemented into this games like items would also see a decent amount of changes in later installments, and some of the newer games would tend to spice things up a bit to make the formula fresh and exciting.
Bad Points:
1 - The fact that many of the minigames are ports of the first game can be a turn off. About 1/3rd of the minigames are recycled from Mario Party.
2 - You can only carry one item in this game, which either decreases or increases an items value. Skeleton Keys are essentially worthless if you don't intend on going through a gate immediately, and the Plunder Chest is overpowered as it can prevent any other player from getting strong items like Magic Lamps, Boo Bells, Gold Mushrooms, or even other Plunder Chests without their items getting stolen. The other players essentially have to team up to counter the player with the plunder chest.
Final calification: 7.88/10
1 - Mario Party 3
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1 - Duel Mode was interesting, and was a fun new mode to add.
2 - The game has 12 boards, 6 from Battle Royal, and 6 from Duel Mode, and it beats out Mario Party 1's number of boards: 8, as each of these new boards have their own new functions, which were really fun, including Waluigi's Island, our first character themed board since Mario Party 1.
3 - There are 71 minigames in the game, which is a slight improvement compared to Mario Party 2's 65 minigames.
4 - Introduced some fun new mini games, like Storm Chasers, Eatsa Pizza, Vine with Me, and Toadstool Titan
5 - The first Mario Party game to expand the roster, as Daisy and Waluigi make their playable debut.
6 - Like Mario Party 2, good graphics by 2000 standards.
7 - The soundtrack was good, especially during the mini games. Some memorable songs are Genie’s Theme, Chilly Waters, Stardust Battle, Spiny Desert, and Panic!.
8 - Gave us our first boss fight mini game, being vs the Millennial Star, Stardust Battle, which was awesome.
9 - Introduced Story Mode, which was great.
10 - While Tumble was basically a Toad knock-off, he was still a favorite cute character as he was the first of the unique Mario Party hosts of each game, especially when he's revealed to have the true Millennium Star, who is super adorable, at the end of Story Mode.
11 - In Battle Royal, you can now carry 3 items, compared to just 1 in Mario Party 2.
12 - There are item minigames, as well as item questions for item spaces, making this more interesting, and you can get a rare item from the question if you pick the most honest answer, but only if you are answering Toad's question.
13 - They have an impressive total of 20 items, some new and some returning from Mario Party 2.
Bad Points:
1- Game Guy was not a fun mode, as these mini games are hard and would result in coins being lost if you end up losing in these mini games. Thankfully, this was the only Mario Party game to have this.
2 - The Lucky Lamp is way too cheap to buy, it costs 20 coins to get. In the previous game and next game, it was 30 coins. The lowered price makes it very easy for players to get stars with ease.
Final calification: 8.20/10
And what is your favorite Mario Party? put it down
Now I will leave the sources of Wikipedia, MarioWiki and some other person who influenced my opinions to give credit
See you soon Superstar!

I am an Aires on the east coast who is also a hopeless romantic, sentimental fool, and looking for my monogamous soul mate, no polyamory, to be with me and accept me and not be judged. Though I warn you now I expect to give the same and I expect us to share all things in our lives good or bad and if anything happens to talk to each other not to run to our friends who are maybe close but are always going to be outside our relationship. I also want to be able to just talk about how our days have gone, how we feel, how the weather is, and normal conversations as well. That’s how a team works and what I want. I am also shy because of life experience despite that I warmed up quickly in high school and was a prince there but retreated a bit after school and losing contact with my friends, recently reconnected with them and a handful I absolutely admire for their loyalty even after all the years. I hope to have my book published in 5 years but I expect not as I am always reading new research and refining plus I’m working on an ultra realistic map for it, I like making them. So I expect to just be on the middle but one day it will be completed, maybe a series not sure. I am an artist, graphic art and literature also a caregiver. My hobbies include as you guessed art, video games, RPGs,trivia, reading, some movies & TV shows. I’m a sweet, intelligent, compassionate, chivalrous knight who believes in truth, honor, love, family and am looking for a lady of my own. I guess that makes me a little old fashioned, but sometimes old fashioned is what we need. I'm a straight man who tries to be fair but I'm use to standing on my own, regardless of how hard the struggle even if sometimes its only by crawling, but I am my own man with a strong endurance. I don't do drugs or drink myself, never have not even after surgery or injury as I said I'm use to standing on my own and surviving so I need all my senses at their sharpest so I can make the best decisions on how to do that, plus I'm proud of just how strong I am, even more than I thought I was. I’m also a unique person. If you've seen Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Rings, I look kinda like Aragorn there perhaps a bit more like in Return of the King during Winter months. I might be willing to trade photos later after getting to know each other better. I got a heart of gold to give to the right lady, hopefully for eternity. Current song: Lost in the Echo. Got questions? Ask it’s how we learn. Maybe we can play the question game and learn about each other. I'm looking forward to hearing from you.
Any age 18+.
If you read this and would like to respond, DM me or chat but DM works better than chat for me usually, but please tell me your favorite color and age so I know you actually read this, ok? If I don't respond immediately, I'll be checking in later sometime so be patient please.

I am an Aires on the east coast who is also a hopeless romantic, sentimental fool, and looking for my monogamous soul mate, no polyamory, to be with me and accept me and not be judged. Though I warn you now I expect to give the same and I expect us to share all things in our lives good or bad and if anything happens to talk to each other not to run to our friends who are maybe close but are always going to be outside our relationship. I also want to be able to just talk about how our days have gone, how we feel, how the weather is, and normal conversations as well. That’s how a team works and what I want. I am also shy because of life experience despite that I warmed up quickly in high school and was a prince there but retreated a bit after school and losing contact with my friends, recently reconnected with them and a handful I absolutely admire for their loyalty even after all the years. I hope to have my book published in 5 years but I expect not as I am always reading new research and refining plus I’m working on an ultra realistic map for it, I like making them. So I expect to just be on the middle but one day it will be completed, maybe a series not sure. I am an artist, graphic art and literature also a caregiver. My hobbies include as you guessed art, video games, RPGs,trivia, reading, some movies & TV shows. I’m a sweet, intelligent, compassionate, chivalrous knight who believes in truth, honor, love, family and am looking for a lady of my own. I guess that makes me a little old fashioned, but sometimes old fashioned is what we need. I'm a straight man who tries to be fair but I'm use to standing on my own, regardless of how hard the struggle even if sometimes its only by crawling, but I am my own man with a strong endurance. I don't do drugs or drink myself, never have not even after surgery or injury as I said I'm use to standing on my own and surviving so I need all my senses at their sharpest so I can make the best decisions on how to do that, plus I'm proud of just how strong I am, even more than I thought I was. I’m also a unique person. If you've seen Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Rings, I look kinda like Aragorn there perhaps a bit more like in Return of the King during Winter months. I might be willing to trade photos later after getting to know each other better. I got a heart of gold to give to the right lady, hopefully for eternity. Current song: Lost in the Echo. Got questions? Ask it’s how we learn. Maybe we can play the question game and learn about each other. I'm looking forward to hearing from you.
Any age 18+.
If you read this and would like to respond, DM me or chat but DM works better than chat for me usually, but please tell me your favorite color and age so I know you actually read this, ok? If I don't respond immediately, I'll be checking in later sometime so be patient please.

The Golden Temple of Priceless Treasures

Imagine an ancient temple with walls made of gold and vaults filled with priceless treasures. Piles and piles of gold coins, ancient golden umbrellas, countless rings, lockets, necklaces of gold and silver, and huge precious stones wrapped in layers of silk.
Enormous hordes of golden bows, arrows, shields, swords, and gold thrones encrusted with thousands of invaluable gems tucked deep into cavernous vaults. We are talking about trillions of dollars worth of valuables. This is only the actual value, not the priceless antique cost, which will be priceless even if we attempt to estimate it.
Welcome to the Padmanabhaswamy Temple lying within the state of Kerala, India. The Padmanabhaswamy Temple is among the wealthiest in the world. Some texts dating from before 500 BC referred to it as “The Golden Temple” and claimed it was made almost entirely of solid gold in ancient times.
And more than the gold, the ancient mysterious secrets of the temple make fascinating reading, with much of the complex still unexplored or kept secret from the outside world for hundreds of years.
Read more.....
https://exemplore.com/legends/The-Dark-Secrets-of-Vault-B-Inside-Indias-Richest-Temple