I have been following the fasting science and lifestyle for years now, couple of years ago i was overweight although i always had a good amount of muscle since i have been (inconsistently in the last few years) trained in the gym for the last 10 years and I am someone prone to build muscle fast but also prone to keep fat (endomorph), I am 5.825 (173 Cm), So, I did try my fasting routine and went from 83-84 Kgs to 72-73, In hindsight i did some mistakes, one of them was going too fast, doing 24 hours fast everyday, alternating 48-72 hours fast almost once a week, the problem is that i found it very hard to eat the needed amount of protein and macro to keep as much muscle as i could.... also, it was during a lockdown and i am sure bodyweight exercises aren't nearly as efficient as going to the gym.
The first experiment led me to lose a lot of weight in around 2 to 3 months, I was satisfied with the weight loss and the almost non-existent hunger, but i would force myself to eat a lot of meat and things in 1 hour and i think i depleted myself from nutrients, causing an exaggerated loss in muscles.
Fast forward to 72-73 Kgs and I was fit but not shredded, the abs were not showing much and i lost a LOT of volumes, then i started to work on a boat and the kitchen had a fixed menù and from there i started to eat carbs and everything again and i bounced back to 77-78 Kgs, bit overweight but not too much... Now, I didn't mantain a good diet at all and i have been very unhealthy, I am 88 KGS, the fattest I have ever been, I am starting again a weight loss program, this time i will do things differently, here's what I am gonna do: 1) Weight Training with Fundamentals 3 times x week (mon, wed, sat), I will stick to a 16/8 during those days, ensuring i can eat more and allow myself to eat more calories, including some carbs on saturday, such as a pizza or some pasta or sushi
2) Do 20/4 the other days, or 36 hours of alternate day fasting the other days, i still need to figure out what is better for me
3) Walk 10k steps on the fasting day
The goal is to lose fat, while trying to keep as much muscle as possible, i think the 16/8 days will help me to refeed and going into an anabolic state, I will eat some carbs to increase insuling and high quality protein to try to keep as much muscle as possible, while walking during the fasting days and eat almost no carbs.
I think in this way i can manage to lose weight slowly enough to keep as many muscles as possible, this will bring me an overall better shape and therefore i'll need to lose less weight in comparison to going down deep with all these extreme fasting routines...
Any ideas or thought?
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​
Hello !
I'm a photojournalist working mainly in France on social issues and in est Europe.
Every day, with my coffee, I check out the various French and international media in search of stories. I spend a lot of time on the various subreddits, and that's fascinating!
But it's always frustrating because, in the end, the best stories are the ones you find when you meet people in the field, by talking to them, by being curious :)
I'm convinced that the problems and initiatives that take place at local level are essential and that they hold the true identity of France.
For me, Reddit is a bit of a cross between these 2 things. Echoes from the street (and the fields) told by real people that I can read from home.
That's why I thought I could call on the Reddit community to help me build a new documentary: a research project focusing on local social issues.
So I'm throwing a bottle into the sea.
If you know of any social issues or initiatives going on in your area, I'd love to hear from you! They could be environmental issues, inequalities, education, health, diversity, social justice or any other subject that has a significant impact on society.

So this story comes from yesterday's session involving me (DM) and the solo PC (yes it's a solo campaign). This is based in the same story with the same character that I talked about in this reddit post a while back:
https://www.reddit.com/DnD/comments/wpbzcl/a_pc_moment_that_made_me_proud/
There's not much relation per se apart from the world and characters ofc. Now let me tell of an intense close call that happened in yesterday's session. (TL:DR at the bottom)
So it's a long time in game since the interaction in the last reddit post. The PC, Variel, is now level 10 (5 Fiend Warlock / 5 Mastermind Rogue). After being attacked by a constant threat of a dangerous cult that took her brother, she leaves the city of Hazelron to begin heading eastward to reach her hometown of Devana as there's been many clues that lead to the cult and its leaders reside within its grounds. To get there, she must first ride through a thick forest of redwood trees and a mountain range. The forest journey is smooth sailing with her new Phantom Steed dubbed Lady Marshmallow (google that name and you'll see her glory). However, due to the difficult, rocky terrain of the mountains, she must travel slower in order to be safe.
I have Variel roll 2d6 for some random encounters.
Encounter 1 - On one of the nights, as she begins setting up camp, she notices there's a large boulder on the road behind that wasn't there before and quickly realizes it's flesh and not rock. Variel quickly hides and sees two large ogres arrive at her camp. The ogres are annoyed that their food is gone and both sit down saddened as their bellies rumble. They talk in broken Common about how hungry they always are and one suggests that they go down into the woods as there's plenty of food there to which the other immediately explains how unsafe that is due to too many dangers. Variel is forced to stay put for an hour straight listening before the two ogres see wolves in the distance and take chase in the instant. Variel sets up a Tiny Hut for protection and avoids any combat that could've happened.
Pretty casual right? No intensity there when you avoid it with ease. Then came the 2nd encounter.....
Encounter 2 - A few days later, still in the mountains, PC comes across tracks of a large beast (low Nature check to see what it is) with splodges of dried blood that lead up the mountains to a small outcropping about 150-200ft up. Variel, wanting to get to Devana as soon as possible, ignores this as time is of the essence. I have her roll for Lady Marshmallow's stealth to see how quiet she can be. She rolls a total of 16 (DC was 18). A part of the rocky road collapses down the mountain scaring the steed. A large impact can be heard upon the outcropping....and then another. Emerging out, she saw a large dragon-like head with brown/grey skin akin to the mountainous terrain turn to see her and make chase immediately; this time, instead of hiding, Variel prepared to dodge. Roll Initiative. (Just to clarify, the beast is a wyvern with some more HP as PC can do a decent amount of damage now)
The combat lasted 5 rounds. Variel sent out Eldritch Blast after Eldritch Blast with some hitting and a lot missing. She constantly tries to stealth but on an open, mountainous road, there isn't many places to hide. The wyvern bites and stabs PC with its stinger dealing good damage in return. On round 3, Variel decides to teleport onto the creature's back to try and deal damage directly onto its head and neck. The wyvern, in retaliation, begins to fly high into the sky to try and buck Variel off to which, after she fails to hold on with her 5 Strength, it succeeds. PC falls 120ft instantly taking 40ish damage leaving her with 10ish hp. Variel decides to play dead to trick the wyvern into leaving her alone (rolls a 12 Performance check). The beast crashes down onto the ground and sees through the trick and bites down onto Variel knocking her unconscious and due to the wyvern's multiattack, it strikes with its stinger......dealing 2 failed death saves.
The feelings of panic and fear begin to rise in both of us. This is the first time she's gone down.
I ask her to roll a death save.........10. Just makes it.
I ask her to roll another.........12. Just makes it again.
During this, I asked her for an important memory (good or bad) of her character's past. She chooses when she found her lost brother a couple sessions back. I begin to detail how she is back in the hidden basement and the two embrace. Her brother talks about his scars once more and the two are filled with glee.
Whatever she rolls next determines if she lives or dies. I ask her roll a last death save........19!!!!
As she achieves the 19, I then have brother say something he didn't say during the reunion "Don't worry. You'll find me because you're strong. I know you are." Variel awakes being dragged up the cliffside by the wyvern and quickly Misty Stepped away and managed to sneak away on 1hp.
She walks for hours not being able to find the strength to summon her steed. Eventually, Variel begins making her Tiny Hut spell when she's visited by the leader of the cult she's hunting: Vezzunith. Vezzunith has been helping Variel find the cult as he just wants to live peacefully away from it all but recently, Variel has been disliking the leader. Vezzunith explains how scared he was seeing Variel almost die and that he would've saved her had she gone under. Variel doesn't care. The two begin to argue until Vezzunith lashes out one statement:
"You know what? Go ahead, become a murderer. You talk about your rage so much you might as well listen to it. Go get yourself killed."
With some more words shared, Vezzunith vanishes leaving Variel alone. She goes to sleep but that one statement sticks with her. She dreams about doing exactly that. She dreams of killing everyone who's ever wronged her and after its all done, she begins to giggle...then laugh....then cackle. She watches as the lands around her and Devana wreathe in flames but she doesn't care. All she does is smile. Soon after she awakes the next day and gradually realizes it was all a dream and pushes on saddened by the reveal.
TL:DR - PC almost died for the first time and then had intense chat with close friend now kind of frienemy.
This was such a dramatic session and I loved every ounce of it. It was the first time I as a DM had come close to a PC death during a campaign. Even though it was terrifying as this is a solo game so if she dies, the story could end, it was exhilarating to be a part of. And the intense discussion afterwards? Damn good too. So if you're somehow reading Variel/Ariaki, cheers for another awesome moment and good luck on your journeys.

my name is justin. i'm a 17 year old male and, believe it or not, i have a porn addiction.
i've had a porn addiction ever since i was 12 years old. i was exposed to it around the age of 7-9 and didn't start masturbating until i was a pre-teen. it started off normally, just basic pornography of actors who are paid to be sexualised, but it got so much worse overtime. i had started using the social media photos of girls from my school, some of them i barely knew and some of them who were close friends, as my pornography. instead of using any of the millions of videos of people having sex available online that were posted with the intent of being used as jerking off material, i often used a photo of a girl at the beach or a video of her doing a tiktok dance and i often did it without regret because that was what my friends did. i had surrounded myself with people who were equally as addicted as me, i even knew a guy who forced one of his friends to stalk a girl around school and take photos of her ass so he could send them to all of his friends. i look back on what he did now as an absolutely disgusting act of dehumanizing and sexualisation, but as a 13 year old? i didn't give a shit, i just thought the girl was hot and downloaded one of the photos to throw on the pile of instagram screenshots. what's worse is that i keep doing it. i keep going to these girl's accounts and sexualising them. i have tried to stop myself countless times, i've been able to avoid using their photos for weeks at a time, i even got a whole month without using any of their photos or videos, but i always fall back into the pit of doing it and i hate that.
the addiction got way worse recently when i started using reddit as a platform to do erotic roleplays. i must've deleted 5 accounts by now to try and stop myself, but i always make another and i always start again. these roleplays started simple enough as classic porn scenarios: a student seeks extra credit, a guy helps his mom out with yoga, a girl cucks her boyfriend. but they became far, far more dehumanizing as time went on. nearly every scenario i did involved the girl becoming a submissive sex slave to the male and at that point, i kind of realised that it's getting out of hand.
i've installed the cold turkey blocker onto my computer and added a bunch of porn websites to it, alongside the social media accounts of every single one of those girls, and have been trying to use it to stop the addiction. it hasn't worked all that well, i can't block every porn website ever no matter how hard i try, but i've blocked every website that i could for the next month.
what i'm trying to gain by joining this subreddit and posting this is a sense of support and motivation to stop jerking off for at the very least a week. this addiction to porn has consumed my life and motivation to do anything other than masturbate. i want that motivation back and i don't want to lose myself to this addiction anymore than i have. one of my best friends recently told me he's been porn clean for 20 days and i want to be able to say the same to him 20 days from now. anyway, thank you for reading. i support all of you on your journey to recovery and i hope we can walk that road together.

+I am 28 now. As young as 14, I was thinking about doing porn when I was OLDER.
+I have dictator fantasies.
+I have a boxing fetish and I logically broke it down into 3 fetishes:
1) BDSM (most obvious one) (punching with faux leather gloves)
2) exhibitionism (half naked, crowd watching)
3) rape (half naked, forcing opponent into vulnerable positions)
+By the way, I wrote in a journal at school that I wanted to beat someone in a boxing fight and then fart on them.
+My fondness for someone is depends how much I believe they'll do what I want.
+I want nothing to do with people who have verbal outbursts and when it's a family member I wish I could live somewhere else.
+I unplugged my controller when playing a fighting video game and whipped my friend with the plug because I was annoyed at them for spamming the same moves.
+I asked strangers online to rate my ass before.

Gigabyte Vision OC GeForce RTX 3090 24 GB
Intel Core i7 13700KF
Asus z690-a prime 32gb ddr5 5600mhz
Coolermaster masterliquid 360L core
corsair 5000x rgb ql edition
1tb crucial p3 plus ssd
850w corsair rm850
​
I've been playing fortnite on this pc and my framerate has been quite inconsistent. It usually sticks around 180-200 but sometimes drops down to below 100. Is this normal for fortnite or something wrong?

Now I know there's a lot of fud surrounding the SEC. And solana's place in the blockchain and its future, I just want to take the time to tell everyone who's worried about Solana don't be. The project is working on a ton of things right now trying to make blockchain as more integrated in the life as it can be. We got a network of strong defi related products to use hell star atlas is even listed on the epic game store at times like this rather than worrying about losing some money (even though we all know the rule of don't invest anything, you're not willing to lose) focus on where it's going and not where it is. Look at what happened a couple years ago. Solana hit a high of $250 Canadian. If it can do it once, it can definitely do it again. Sure FTX and Sammy boy might have had some sort of roll to play with it and help to go back down to where it is now but it's still a solid project we need to believe in the developers and believe in the ecosystem because the moment you stop believing in that stuff is the moment the project does die. A project is only a strong as it's fundamentals and it's community and I've been in Solana for about 3 years now and I still stick with the project. I will die with the project even if it goes down to zero. Long story short, don't let the fud beat you down, instead remember this chance that you were able to get in low and watch everyone else buying at a high price knowing that you need a very decent amount of money off a very good investments
We learn from mistakes and hardships, and we grow stronger together.
Thanks for reading my ted talk.

Contact me to get Iman Gadzhi - Agency Navigator by chatting me on +44 759 388 2116 on Telegram/Whatsapp.
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The topics inside Iman Gadzhi - Agency Navigator course include:

1. Agency Navigator course Core Curriculum
   
2. Custom E-Learning Platform For Agency Owners
   
3. Financial Planner, Revenue Calculator, Outreach Tracker & More Tools
   
4. Websites Templates, Funnels, Ads & More
   
5. Template Contracts, Sales Scripts, Agreements & More
   

The lessons in Iman Gadzhi - Agency Navigator will teach you how to:
- Starting Your Agency
- Finding Leads
- Signing Clients
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- Onboarding Clients
- Managing Client Communication...
...and much, much more!
To get Iman Gadzhi - Agency Navigator contact me on:
Whatsapp/Telegram: +44 759 388 2116 (Telegram: multistorecourses)
Reddit DM to u/CourseAccess
Email: silverlakestore[@]yandex.com (remove the brackets)

Contact me to get Iman Gadzhi - Agency Navigator by chatting me on +44 759 388 2116 on Telegram/Whatsapp.
I have Iman Gadzhi - Agency Navigator.
Iman Gadzhi - Agency Navigator course is one of the best products on how to start a marketing agency.
Iman Gadzhi - Agency Navigator includes over 50 hours of step-by-step training covering EVERY aspect of building an agency from scratch. This is almost a plug & play system with enough success stories to back it up! Signing clients, running Facebook ads, building out your team, on-boarding clients, invoicing, sales... this course has everything covered for you.
The topics inside Iman Gadzhi - Agency Navigator course include:

1. Agency Navigator course Core Curriculum
   
2. Custom E-Learning Platform For Agency Owners
   
3. Financial Planner, Revenue Calculator, Outreach Tracker & More Tools
   
4. Websites Templates, Funnels, Ads & More
   
5. Template Contracts, Sales Scripts, Agreements & More
   

The lessons in Iman Gadzhi - Agency Navigator will teach you how to:
- Starting Your Agency
- Finding Leads
- Signing Clients
- Getting Paid
- Onboarding Clients
- Managing Client Communication...
...and much, much more!
To get Iman Gadzhi - Agency Navigator contact me on:
Whatsapp/Telegram: +44 759 388 2116 (Telegram: multistorecourses)
Reddit DM to u/RequestCourseAccess
Email: silverlakestore[@]yandex.com (remove the brackets)

Hello,
The 4.7.6.0 finally removes the RTC error I discussed with you yesterday. Maybe the new webRTC (I am assuming you have updated/replaced that driver in the 4.7.6.0) driver did the magic. Now it is possible to enter the landing page of AgentDVr but as soon a camera (even a single camera) is added, AgentDVR stops responding with the following errors:

TURN: Welcome user TURN: Welcome user TURN: Welcome user invalid fastbin entry (free) /AgentDVentrypoint.sh: line 3: 8 Aborted (core dumped) /AgentDVAgent free(): invalid pointer /AgentDVentrypoint.sh: line 3: 8 Aborted (core dumped) /AgentDVAgent Fatal glibc error: malloc assertion failure in _int_malloc: (unsigned long) (size) >= (unsigned long) (nb) /AgentDVentrypoint.sh: line 3: 8 Aborted (core dumped) /AgentDVAgent free(): invalid pointer 

Notes:
- This setup is done in the docker image.
- OS Debian-Bookworm with FFmpeg 6 installed.
- Have tried increasing the shim size in docker container, but no luck.
​
Finally, Well done on fixing the "armhf" version of AgentDVR. The AgentDVR armhf will be perfect as other platforms very soon.
Regards.

PART SIXTY-FIVE
[Previous Part] [Beginning]
Whether it was a snow half-orc thing or because Felipe was the chief and in better control of himself, his rage, as he surged to the nearest tree and tore it to pieces, then ripped it out by its massive roots and beat it all into kindling (roaring the whole time), was the extent of his outpouring. Part of me felt sorry for the tree, but better it than us.
Tarq maintained a protective stance half a step ahead of me, tensing when Felipe began punching into the frozen soil, but within a minute or two, with both hands pressed into the ground, he leaned over the top of them and stilled.
In the past, half-orcs had been known to rage for hours … sometimes days, depending on the slight. When Felipe turned to us, his eyes were red with unshed tears. “Where is he?” he asked, his voice thick and gravelly.
“With the rest of my party, having his first meal. He’s scared, Felipe. We haven’t questioned him yet, except to learn his name is Shobi, and even that’s more a play on the slave designation they gave him. Snow-Half-Orc-Eight-One … and a few other numbers.”
Felipe frowned. “They’ve got more than half-orcs,” he said without hesitation.
I nodded in agreement. “I thought as much too. Why allocate the species in the brand unless you have others that are different?”
“Are you going to tell Gimweren?”
“I’ll let her know of the possibility. More to the point, you know your people better than I do. Should we let your troops know now or hold off in the hopes that they don’t locate the slave pits? How you were able to contain your rage just then was impressive, but neither place will be a good time to lose so many snow half-orcs to a war craze.”
Felipe looked away from me, palming his braid with both hands thoughtfully. “We get angry, but we don’t do the psychotic rage like our green-skinned cousins,” he said, which coincided with what I knew of the battle-grain debacle of the past. “And we are just settling in for the night. I’ll speak to the boy first, then talk to a small group of my people. Once they have accepted the situation, I’ll have them move out to notify the others. Hopefully, most, if not all of my people, will be apprised of the situation by morning.”
“Shobi is understandably very nervous. Do you need another few minutes to clear your head properly, or are you good to go?”
His lips pinched as he thought about it, then turned to a brand new tree and punched his fist dead centre through it up to his bicep. “Okay,” he declared after extracting his arm as if he were pulling it through water. “I’m good now.”
I dismantled the opaque sound-blister I had created around us and led him back to our area, showing him where the opening in our protection dome was. He paused at the human-sized entrance he and the other half-orcs could pass through. “You’re very scary, Emeron. You know that, right?”
“Sorry?”
He flicked a finger at the opening. “I had no idea this spell could be modified like this.”
To me, it wasn’t a modification. Not like the ones I was actively avoiding to side-step a potentially cataclysmic event like blending chain lightning and fireballs to create a firestorm. This was more like having a thousand troops in front of me and ordering nine hundred to turn left and use their shield to form a testudo, leaving the other one hundred as they were. I lifted my left shoulder, uttered a dismissive sound, and went inside.
Felipe followed, losing all interest in me and my magical ability as his eyes zeroed in on the boy tucked in behind the opening where no prying eyes would see him. Shobi had his head covered by a blanket, with another wrapped around his waist, still eating whatever rations my friends had found in my pack while I’d been away talking to Felipe. What stunned me was the sight of Milo chopping up my vegetables into fine cubes with the speed and grace of a professional chef. He caught me staring at him and lifted his knife just enough to point at Shobi.
I’m not entirely sure why I thought Milo couldn’t cook. Perhaps it was because the roles in his shire were so gender defined or because he’d never offered to before. But that skill with a blade didn’t come from butchering prey, and it was a story I made a mental note to ask him for as soon as I got the opportunity.
Felipe swivelled on his heel to face the boy and then dropped to his knees, his eyes taking in the gaunt features of a man-child who’d probably never had a real meal in his life. “Do you understand me?” he asked.
The boy’s eyes were so wide it would have been comical if it wasn’t so tragic as they took in every facet of the man kneeling before him before returning to his face and nodding silently.
“Do you speak?”
Shobi swallowed heavily and nodded again.
“Do you know who your parents are?”
Instead of answering, the boy reached out one hand and gingerly touched the leather bracer of Felipe’s armour. Felipe turned his hand, allowing the boy to trace his fingers across the seams and down onto his battle-hardened palms. “You fight,” he said, looking up at Felipe’s face.
“When I have to,” Felipe agreed. “And as of now, I will fight for you.”
The boy’s eyes immediately filled with tears. “I don’ wancha t’ die.”
It was more than the boy had ever said before, and I could already hear the differences in the dialogue. Shobi’s was more like the regular half-orc.
Felipe’s lips twitched into a forced smile. “I don’t plan on doing it anytime soon either, son. But those people who did this to you?” He lifted his hand to push back the blanket covering the boy’s head, and I watched the pain that danced across his face as the short hair, then the branding as the boy leaned forward, came into view. “I will end them all for this.” His tone had dropped to something I felt belonged on the other side of the gates of hell.
Shobi started to shudder. A little at first, but then more violently as Felipe’s words sank in. “No. No!” he insisted, his small frame shaking with determination. “Run. Flee! Hide! Free!” He gripped Felipe’s forearm, desperate to convey that message.
With his free hand, Felipe reached over his shoulder and drew one of his two swords, pointing it tip down and to the side where Shobi could see it. “We are not unarmed,” he said in his most assertive voice.
If anything, the sight of the sword made Shobi even more frantic. “NO!” he insisted, rising to his feet and pulling Felipe to his. “You not win! You not! Run! Run or we die!”
“My gun says we can,” I said, using their distraction to unsheathe my light weapon and hold it towards the roof of our dome with my finger nowhere near the trigger. I watched as Shobi’s eyes went wide with recognition, which confirmed what I’d thought. The Consitors also had light weapons. “That’s right, Shobi. We have them too.”
I saw his eyes drop to my gloved wrist and knew what he was looking for. “I am not one of them,” I promised. “And this is Chief Felipe. We’re here to free everyone, and we’re not leaving until we do.” It may not have been on my original agenda, but now that I knew about it, it was damn well up near the top of my to-do list, coming in just under the evisceration of the Consitor infiltrators. “And we have the numbers to do it. What we don’t have, is what you know. You escaped, Shobi. You got out. And now you need to tell us how you did that so we can use it to our advantage.”
“Emeron,” Felipe said, so softly I almost didn’t catch it.
“Yes?”
“I want my people to see Shobi as he is, but once that is done, would you please heal him?”
I looked between him and the boy. “I’m not sure what you’re asking,” I admitted. “He’s not in great health, but he’s not …”
“Could you heal his scalp and then grow his hair so that he never has to see himself like this again?”
I breathed out slowly. “Healing the burnt tissue is something any defence mage can do, however forcing one aspect of someone to age faster than normal, which is essentially what you’re asking me to do—that I’m not so sure of. I wouldn’t want to risk accidentally aging the boy as well.”
Felipe’s nose screwed up in annoyance. “Is that a light weapon?” he asked, finally noticing my gun.
“Yes,” I nodded. “And it is connected to me and me alone. If anyone else were to try and use it, they would die.”
“Yuh, yuh!” Shobi agreed, nodding emphatically. “They scream, fly apart and poof. Gone. Bad! Very bad!”
That was something I didn’t know, and Shobi was apparently speaking from experience. “When did you see it happen?”
Shobi’s gaze dropped to the floor. “Masters drop guns. Good vermins get food. Vermins who use them…”
I sheathed my gun while Felipe’s attention was on the boy, then snapped my fingers twice for both of their attention. “Vermins?” I tried very hard to keep the censure out of my tone, but the way Shobi’s head dipped low, I hadn’t been overly successful.
I watched Shobi patting himself on the chest while his other hand squeezed Felipe’s wrist. He then pointed out Milo, Thalien, Lanna and Tarq before he stopped and stared hard at Shay-Lee since our resident half-elf looked more human except for her slightly pointed ears.
“Her too,” I growled, for again, his twisted worldview confirmed much. Vermins? I would not show these Consitor dogs any mercy at all. The extent of my mercy went to how quickly that ship of theirs was destroyed. I saw Felipe’s jaw clench and knew we were of the same mind there.
“Alright,” I said, releasing the breath I hadn’t realised I’d been holding. “This is how we’re going to proceed. Felipe, you bring up to speed only those who were at that first meeting in Tetorli. I’ll come with you and erect another opaque sound blister so their various reactions won’t be seen by others. Thalien, you and Lanna go to Gimweren and speak to those she had at that same meeting. We’ll reconvene here after that, and Shobi can tell us what we need to know about getting into Jinis Ridge.”
I waited just long enough for everyone to agree to my directions, then continued, “This will be the first time we’ll have information on what’s going on inside Jinis Ridge, but Shobi is young and clearly exhausted, so we won’t be pushing him too hard for details tonight. We’ll get what we can and pick it up again in the morning, but not before you and Gimweren spread the word that we’ll be camping an extra day here.”
“We’re only a day’s ride from Cerro Nexo,” Shay Lee quickly argued. “Why not ride there with him and have this discussion with the elves too?”
Thalien hummed in agreement, and in fairness, I could see the merits of their argument. Ironically, ten years ago, I’d have done just that and to hell with what the boy had endured. “Because I’m not about to force this young man back towards the one place he’s just killed himself to escape from. He got this far all by himself, and although I plan on winning this war, there will be casualties. He will NOT be amongst them. We’ll draw all the information we can from him, and then we’ll get him the hell out of here.”
I felt Shobi’s eyes on me, and when I turned, Felipe had his hand on the boy’s shoulder, squeezing gently. “Is that what you wish? To be safe, far, far from here?” he asked. Shobi nodded so hard I thought his neck was going to snap. “Very well. I have fighters outside. Many men and women who will die to protect you. Once you’ve told us everything you can about your …err… where you were,” —like me, Felipe would rather gargle crushed glass than speak of the slave pits to Shobi— “They’ll take you far away, to our home in the south. Thousands of us are there. You’ve been so brave to come this far, and I promise you, with everything in me and our people, you’ll never be alone again.”
Tears welled in Shobi’s eyes, and without warning, he lurched forward and wrapped his arms around Felipe’s neck, burying his face against his throat. Felipe tipped backwards under the unexpected impact, but Tarq’s reflexes had him standing behind the snow half-orc chief, supporting Felipe’s back with his legs.
The second blanket fell away at the sudden movement, reminding me he was dressed only in a leather loincloth. Felipe closed his eyes and angled his head against Shobi’s, curling his arms around the younger man’s trembling body. Now and again, his hand would travel up to Shobi’s back to cup his shaved head, only to change direction before coming into contact with the brand.
I stared at Felipe’s clothing, knowing there weren’t any class distinctions between him and what his people wore, and commanded the dust dots to create an exact copy of it in Shobi’s size. Truthfully, I should’ve done this before, but better late than never. Included in that order were the boots and whatever passed for snow half-orc underwear. Yes, it would mean every nick, tear and stain in the chief’s clothes would be replicated in the smaller size, but better that than botching something more fundamental.
The dust dots whirled, creating something from nothing until they had everything piled neatly on my outstretched hand. Except for the boots on top, the dots had even gone to the trouble of putting it in the order that it would be donned.
Poor Shobi had never worn clothes, and as soon as Felipe pulled each piece into place, the boy tugged and picked at the hems and seams. He was delighted to be rid of the loincloth, though. That he threw straight into the fire.
I tried very hard not to react to something like that and our food being within the same proximity. At least it had been cleaned, thanks to Lanna; otherwise, we’d probably all be gagging on the stench that would quickly follow.
The boots were the most challenging thing for him to adapt to. His ankles rolled with each step, and sheer pride kept him upright. “They pinch my toes,” he complained to Felipe, his new hero.
“Your toes have spread from not wearing shoes. Even now, look,” the big man explained, putting his booted foot down beside Shobi’s. “Yours are wider in the toe than mine because those boots were made specifically for you. They fit fine.”
Shobi squinted, realising his were at least an inch wider, despite the rest of the boot being two-thirds of Felipe’s. Shobi’s feet were more like that of a regular half-orc, probably for the same reason.
When Felipe and I went to leave to speak to the other snow half-orcs, Shobi clung to Felipe’s hand and all but wrapped himself around the chief’s arm. Nothing either of us said could convince him to let go.
“My people will not be happy to learn you have been treated like an animal,” Felipe tried to explain for the hundredth time. “I don’t want them to frighten you when they start throwing things to vent their anger.”
“You be here?” Shobi asked, somehow interlocking their fingers even as he pointed to where Chief Felipe stood.
“Of course.”
“I hide behind you.”
Felipe snorted, and I had to smirk as well. That wasn’t precisely what Felipe had meant, but it seemed Shobi had chosen himself a champion. “Nothing untoward will ever touch you again as long as I breathe, boy. Count on that.”
Shobi pressed his forehead into Felipe’s upper bicep, and Felipe’s jaw tensed as our eyes met, both of us silently wishing we could purge all that had happened to the youngster. It didn’t take a genius to realise it would take magic and a crowbar to separate them, either.
“Okay,” I said, coming up with a new plan on the fly. I hid my hand inside my jacket and had the dust dots craft me a quilted coif in Shobi’s size, having it appear in my hidden hand. From there, I went over to the boy and slid it over his head to hide his brand, and when his head lifted to see what I was doing, I tied the strings under his chin. “Leave that on,” I said as he went to touch the fabric. My eyes then went to Felipe. “Once those at this meeting have seen the brand, Thalien and Milo will remove the boy and repair his scalp. Time will grow his hair out, but at least he won’t have that brand beyond tonight.”
I put my hand on Shobi’s cheek and guided his face to look at me. “Have you ever seen a half-orc in a rage? When they get really, really mad?” I didn’t care how much he clung to Felipe. If this were all too new for him and the sight of his own people raging frightened him, I’d have Harmony put the boy to sleep for a few minutes while we were away.
Shobi nodded. “Sportsday.”
I really didn’t want to know what he meant by that. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather stay here with Harmony and Liab?”
Shobi looked past me to where Harmony and her familiar sat, watching. I took the tightening grip on Felipe’s arm to mean ‘No’.
“Alright then,” I said, waving them both towards the opening. “Let’s do this.”
The snow half-orcs reacted as well as I expected, but an hour later, I had fifteen of one race and sixteen of the other sitting inside our dome. The line of myself and my friends with our backs to our fire was no different to that night in Tetorli, though this time, Felipe sat directly across from me instead of on my right. Shobi sat on his feet, his shins flush to the ground and his weight leaning sideways against Felipe. More interestingly, Felipe had draped his braid across Shobi’s shoulders with the weighted end pooled possessively in the boy’s lap. The way Shobi’s other hand caressed the braid and smiled shyly at those around him, he was nervous, but Felipe’s presence made him feel safe.
I couldn’t help but look to my left where Tarq stood, knowing that feeling very well.
“Let us see it,” Gimweren commanded, flicking her finger at the youngster.
“Do not bark orders at him, Overseer,” Felipe warned. “It is only through his bravery that you are now aware that they could very well have the young of your kind in there as slaves too.”
“They do,” Shobi answered, looking up at his hero. “They have all vermins.”
Gimweren met Felipe’s eyes, but then she drew in a deep breath and held it for several seconds before dipping her head in a silent nod. I noticed several of the warriors on both sides had dragged their hands through the frozen ground to control their tempers, partially due to the boy’s presence but also because they were under my roof, which was where they wanted to stay. “Alright, lad. When you’re ready, please take off the coif and twist around so we can see what those animals did to you.”
Even though I’d seen it before, looking at the seared flesh and burnt bone, my stomach roiled, and no less than three dwarves rose to their feet. “Boy,” they all shouted at once. If it weren’t for the concern in their eyes, I would’ve ordered them back to their seats.
“Shobi,” Felipe corrected.
“Shobi,” the dwarf closest to me repeated while the other two retook their seats in deference to him. “Would you allow me to fix that for you right now? I’m Overseer Gimweren’s personal defence mage. Do you know what that is?”
Shobi leaned harder against Felipe and shook his head.
“Among other things, I’m a magical healer, and I’m begging you to let me take that scar away. Please?”
Shobi looked at me, and when I rolled my hand to give him the choice, he looked up at Felipe. “They won’t hurt you, son,” he promised.
The son part was new.
“I’m assuming no one needs to see it again?” the male defence mage ran his eye along both sides, almost daring anyone to argue with him. Unsurprisingly, no one did. The dwarf then moved to stand directly in front of Shobi and knelt in front of him.
We all waited while the defence mage completed the sequence that would make the dust dots repair the physical damage. It only took a minute. “There,” he said with a smile, reaching forward to touch the back of Shobi’s head. I couldn’t see Shobi’s reaction since the dwarf stood between us, but I could picture it, especially when the defence mage continued on. “The snow half-orcs have always looked after their own, but you have my vow now to add to that. Anyone who comes at you must go through me first.”
“AYE!” “Hear, hear!” the line of dwarves cried in unison. Even Gimweren added her shout to the cry.
I looked back at my friends and saw Harmony and Lanna clasping their hands to their chests, both fighting the tears that banked in their eyes, and I could appreciate the sentiment. The boy had won the respect and loyalty of not one army but two.
For the next hour, Shobi told us in his limited dialect about his life in the slave pits of Jinis Ridge. Many of his explanations required physical prompting when words failed him, but no one spoke to contradict or interrupt him. If he was to be believed, he wasn’t a captured prisoner turned slave like I thought. He’d been born in the pits from parents who’d been brought together for the specific purpose of breeding.
And as I listened to his tale, I thought about our own slave trade and realised his story probably wasn’t that different to so many others. The palace didn’t have slaves; only a few of the capital’s population kept them, but they weren’t outlawed.
In fact, people in certain provinces made good coin peddling in flesh. I myself had parted with a significant sum of money to buy Harmony’s freedom when she’d been taken, and I hadn’t thought to ask myself why I had even allowed it to happen in the first place. The slaves were former citizens whose citizenship was stripped from them by others who were only citizens themselves. A collar and a brand were all that separated an imperial citizen and a slave, and we had allowed that to happen.
No … I had allowed that to happen.
It was a startling wake-up call to realise the only difference between the two types of slavers was their place of origin. That if the Consitors were Imperials, we wouldn’t be so up in arms about them enslaving people.
I glanced at where Felipe sat protectively at Shobi’s side and knew I had to amend that. The snow half-orcs were the exception. No one had ever taken a snow half-orc as a slave before that I knew of.
I felt a hand on each of my shoulders and knew without looking that one belonged to Harmony and the other to Milo. Tarq always knew what I was thinking, but those two had the uncanny knack of knowing instinctively what I was feeling, and right then, it wasn’t good. I hadn’t protected all of my people—only some of them.
When this was all over, I knew I’d be discussing this at length with Roald, and I wouldn’t stop until he agreed to make a proclamation outlawing slavery within our borders. Some livelihoods would suffer, but on the whole, we didn’t need slaves. They were simply convenient. Buying someone outright instead of paying a daily wage was easier.
Depending on how wound up I got, I might even push for a total ban on slaves within the empire, including any overseas visitors.
Leave them home, or watch them be taken from you and freed.
I liked the sound of that.
Perhaps I was getting too emotionally invested, but what was the point of being the Emperor’s Shadow if I couldn’t do what should’ve already been done to safeguard not just the majority of my people but each and every imperial citizen? Slaves, before they were enslaved, would have paid their taxes too, which should have given them certain protections, and I had seriously fallen down on the job there.
Not anymore.
* * * ((All comments welcome. Good or bad, I'd love to hear your thoughts 🥰🤗 )) For more of my work including WPs: Angel466 or an index of previous WPS here. FULL INDEX OF WE PLAN, GODS LAUGH TO DATE CAN BE FOUND HERE!!

PART SIXTY-FIVE
[Previous Part] [Beginning]
Whether it was a snow half-orc thing or because Felipe was the chief and in better control of himself, his rage, as he surged to the nearest tree and tore it to pieces, then ripped it out by its massive roots and beat it all into kindling (roaring the whole time), was the extent of his outpouring. Part of me felt sorry for the tree, but better it than us.
Tarq maintained a protective stance half a step ahead of me, tensing when Felipe began punching into the frozen soil, but within a minute or two, with both hands pressed into the ground, he leaned over the top of them and stilled.
In the past, half-orcs had been known to rage for hours … sometimes days, depending on the slight. When Felipe turned to us, his eyes were red with unshed tears. “Where is he?” he asked, his voice thick and gravelly.
“With the rest of my party, having his first meal. He’s scared, Felipe. We haven’t questioned him yet, except to learn his name is Shobi, and even that’s more a play on the slave designation they gave him. Snow-Half-Orc-Eight-One … and a few other numbers.”
Felipe frowned. “They’ve got more than half-orcs,” he said without hesitation.
I nodded in agreement. “I thought as much too. Why allocate the species in the brand unless you have others that are different?”
“Are you going to tell Gimweren?”
“I’ll let her know of the possibility. More to the point, you know your people better than I do. Should we let your troops know now or hold off in the hopes that they don’t locate the slave pits? How you were able to contain your rage just then was impressive, but neither place will be a good time to lose so many snow half-orcs to a war craze.”
Felipe looked away from me, palming his braid with both hands thoughtfully. “We get angry, but we don’t do the psychotic rage like our green-skinned cousins,” he said, which coincided with what I knew of the battle-grain debacle of the past. “And we are just settling in for the night. I’ll speak to the boy first, then talk to a small group of my people. Once they have accepted the situation, I’ll have them move out to notify the others. Hopefully, most, if not all of my people, will be apprised of the situation by morning.”
“Shobi is understandably very nervous. Do you need another few minutes to clear your head properly, or are you good to go?”
His lips pinched as he thought about it, then turned to a brand new tree and punched his fist dead centre through it up to his bicep. “Okay,” he declared after extracting his arm as if he were pulling it through water. “I’m good now.”
I dismantled the opaque sound-blister I had created around us and led him back to our area, showing him where the opening in our protection dome was. He paused at the human-sized entrance he and the other half-orcs could pass through. “You’re very scary, Emeron. You know that, right?”
“Sorry?”
He flicked a finger at the opening. “I had no idea this spell could be modified like this.”
To me, it wasn’t a modification. Not like the ones I was actively avoiding to side-step a potentially cataclysmic event like blending chain lightning and fireballs to create a firestorm. This was more like having a thousand troops in front of me and ordering nine hundred to turn left and use their shield to form a testudo, leaving the other one hundred as they were. I lifted my left shoulder, uttered a dismissive sound, and went inside.
Felipe followed, losing all interest in me and my magical ability as his eyes zeroed in on the boy tucked in behind the opening where no prying eyes would see him. Shobi had his head covered by a blanket, with another wrapped around his waist, still eating whatever rations my friends had found in my pack while I’d been away talking to Felipe. What stunned me was the sight of Milo chopping up my vegetables into fine cubes with the speed and grace of a professional chef. He caught me staring at him and lifted his knife just enough to point at Shobi.
I’m not entirely sure why I thought Milo couldn’t cook. Perhaps it was because the roles in his shire were so gender defined or because he’d never offered to before. But that skill with a blade didn’t come from butchering prey, and it was a story I made a mental note to ask him for as soon as I got the opportunity.
Felipe swivelled on his heel to face the boy and then dropped to his knees, his eyes taking in the gaunt features of a man-child who’d probably never had a real meal in his life. “Do you understand me?” he asked.
The boy’s eyes were so wide it would have been comical if it wasn’t so tragic as they took in every facet of the man kneeling before him before returning to his face and nodding silently.
“Do you speak?”
Shobi swallowed heavily and nodded again.
“Do you know who your parents are?”
Instead of answering, the boy reached out one hand and gingerly touched the leather bracer of Felipe’s armour. Felipe turned his hand, allowing the boy to trace his fingers across the seams and down onto his battle-hardened palms. “You fight,” he said, looking up at Felipe’s face.
“When I have to,” Felipe agreed. “And as of now, I will fight for you.”
The boy’s eyes immediately filled with tears. “I don’ wancha t’ die.”
It was more than the boy had ever said before, and I could already hear the differences in the dialogue. Shobi’s was more like the regular half-orc.
Felipe’s lips twitched into a forced smile. “I don’t plan on doing it anytime soon either, son. But those people who did this to you?” He lifted his hand to push back the blanket covering the boy’s head, and I watched the pain that danced across his face as the short hair, then the branding as the boy leaned forward, came into view. “I will end them all for this.” His tone had dropped to something I felt belonged on the other side of the gates of hell.
Shobi started to shudder. A little at first, but then more violently as Felipe’s words sank in. “No. No!” he insisted, his small frame shaking with determination. “Run. Flee! Hide! Free!” He gripped Felipe’s forearm, desperate to convey that message.
With his free hand, Felipe reached over his shoulder and drew one of his two swords, pointing it tip down and to the side where Shobi could see it. “We are not unarmed,” he said in his most assertive voice.
If anything, the sight of the sword made Shobi even more frantic. “NO!” he insisted, rising to his feet and pulling Felipe to his. “You not win! You not! Run! Run or we die!”
“My gun says we can,” I said, using their distraction to unsheathe my light weapon and hold it towards the roof of our dome with my finger nowhere near the trigger. I watched as Shobi’s eyes went wide with recognition, which confirmed what I’d thought. The Consitors also had light weapons. “That’s right, Shobi. We have them too.”
I saw his eyes drop to my gloved wrist and knew what he was looking for. “I am not one of them,” I promised. “And this is Chief Felipe. We’re here to free everyone, and we’re not leaving until we do.” It may not have been on my original agenda, but now that I knew about it, it was damn well up near the top of my to-do list, coming in just under the evisceration of the Consitor infiltrators. “And we have the numbers to do it. What we don’t have, is what you know. You escaped, Shobi. You got out. And now you need to tell us how you did that so we can use it to our advantage.”
“Emeron,” Felipe said, so softly I almost didn’t catch it.
“Yes?”
“I want my people to see Shobi as he is, but once that is done, would you please heal him?”
I looked between him and the boy. “I’m not sure what you’re asking,” I admitted. “He’s not in great health, but he’s not …”
“Could you heal his scalp and then grow his hair so that he never has to see himself like this again?”
I breathed out slowly. “Healing the burnt tissue is something any defence mage can do, however forcing one aspect of someone to age faster than normal, which is essentially what you’re asking me to do—that I’m not so sure of. I wouldn’t want to risk accidentally aging the boy as well.”
Felipe’s nose screwed up in annoyance. “Is that a light weapon?” he asked, finally noticing my gun.
“Yes,” I nodded. “And it is connected to me and me alone. If anyone else were to try and use it, they would die.”
“Yuh, yuh!” Shobi agreed, nodding emphatically. “They scream, fly apart and poof. Gone. Bad! Very bad!”
That was something I didn’t know, and Shobi was apparently speaking from experience. “When did you see it happen?”
Shobi’s gaze dropped to the floor. “Masters drop guns. Good Vermins get food. Vermins who use them…”
I sheathed my gun while Felipe’s attention was on the boy, then snapped my fingers twice for both of their attention. “Vermins?” I tried very hard to keep the censure out of my tone, but the way Shobi’s head dipped low, I hadn’t been overly successful.
I watched Shobi patting himself on the chest while his other hand squeezed Felipe’s wrist. He then pointed out Milo, Thalien, Lanna and Tarq before he stopped and stared hard at Shay-Lee since our resident half-elf looked more human except for her slightly pointed ears.
“Her too,” I growled, for again, his twisted worldview confirmed much. Vermins? I would not show these Consitor dogs any mercy at all. The extent of my mercy went to how quickly that ship of theirs was destroyed. I saw Felipe’s jaw clench and knew we were of the same mind there.
“Alright,” I said, releasing the breath I hadn’t realised I’d been holding. “This is how we’re going to proceed. Felipe, you bring up to speed only those who were at that first meeting in Tetorli. I’ll come with you and erect another opaque sound blister so their various reactions won’t be seen by others. Thalien, you and Lanna go to Gimweren and speak to those she had at that same meeting. We’ll reconvene here after that, and Shobi can tell us what we need to know about getting into Jinis Ridge.”
I waited just long enough for everyone to agree to my directions, then continued, “This will be the first time we’ll have information on what’s going on inside Jinis Ridge, but Shobi is young and clearly exhausted, so we won’t be pushing him too hard for details tonight. We’ll get what we can and pick it up again in the morning, but not before you and Gimweren spread the word that we’ll be camping an extra day here.”
“We’re only a day’s ride from Cerro Nexo,” Shay Lee quickly argued. “Why not ride there with him and have this discussion with the elves too?”
Thalien hummed in agreement, and in fairness, I could see the merits of their argument. Ironically, ten years ago, I’d have done just that and to hell with what the boy had endured. “Because I’m not about to force this young man back towards the one place he’s just killed himself to escape from. He got this far all by himself, and although I plan on winning this war, there will be casualties. He will NOT be amongst them. We’ll draw all the information we can from him, and then we’ll get him the hell out of here.”
I felt Shobi’s eyes on me, and when I turned, Felipe had his hand on the boy’s shoulder, squeezing gently. “Is that what you wish? To be safe, far, far from here?” he asked. Shobi nodded so hard I thought his neck was going to snap. “Very well. I have fighters outside. Many men and women who will die to protect you. Once you’ve told us everything you can about your …err… where you were,” —like me, Felipe would rather gargle crushed glass than speak of the slave pits to Shobi— “They’ll take you far away, to our home in the south. Thousands of us are there. You’ve been so brave to come this far, and I promise you, with everything in me and our people, you’ll never be alone again.”
Tears welled in Shobi’s eyes, and without warning, he lurched forward and wrapped his arms around Felipe’s neck, burying his face against his throat. Felipe tipped backwards under the unexpected impact, but Tarq’s reflexes had him standing behind the snow half-orc chief, supporting Felipe’s back with his legs.
The second blanket fell away at the sudden movement, reminding me he was dressed only in a leather loincloth. Felipe closed his eyes and angled his head against Shobi’s, curling his arms around the younger man’s trembling body. Now and again, his hand would travel up to Shobi’s back to cup his shaved head, only to change direction before coming into contact with the brand.
I stared at Felipe’s clothing, knowing there weren’t any class distinctions between him and what his people wore, and commanded the dust dots to create an exact copy of it in Shobi’s size. Truthfully, I should’ve done this before, but better late than never. Included in that order were the boots and whatever passed for snow half-orc underwear. Yes, it would mean every nick, tear and stain in the chief’s clothes would be replicated in the smaller size, but better that than botching something more fundamental.
The dust dots whirled, creating something from nothing until they had everything piled neatly on my outstretched hand. Except for the boots on top, the dots had even gone to the trouble of putting it in the order that it would be donned.
Poor Shobi had never worn clothes, and as soon as Felipe pulled each piece into place, the boy tugged and picked at the hems and seams. He was delighted to be rid of the loincloth, though. That he threw straight into the fire.
I tried very hard not to react to something like that and our food being within the same proximity. At least it had been cleaned, thanks to Lanna; otherwise, we’d probably all be gagging on the stench that would quickly follow.
The boots were the most challenging thing for him to adapt to. His ankles rolled with each step, and sheer pride kept him upright. “They pinch my toes,” he complained to Felipe, his new hero.
“Your toes have spread from not wearing shoes. Even now, look,” the big man explained, putting his booted foot down beside Shobi’s. “Yours are wider in the toe than mine because those boots were made specifically for you. They fit fine.”
Shobi squinted, realising his were at least an inch wider, despite the rest of the boot being two-thirds of Felipe’s. Shobi’s feet were more like that of a regular half-orc, probably for the same reason.
When Felipe and I went to leave to speak to the other snow half-orcs, Shobi clung to Felipe’s hand and all but wrapped himself around the chief’s arm. Nothing either of us said could convince him to let go.
“My people will not be happy to learn you have been treated like an animal,” Felipe tried to explain for the hundredth time. “I don’t want them to frighten you when they start throwing things to vent their anger.”
“You be here?” Shobi asked, somehow interlocking their fingers even as he pointed to where Chief Felipe stood.
“Of course.”
“I hide behind you.”
Felipe snorted, and I had to smirk as well. That wasn’t precisely what Felipe had meant, but it seemed Shobi had chosen himself a champion. “Nothing untoward will ever touch you again as long as I breathe, boy. Count on that.”
Shobi pressed his forehead into Felipe’s upper bicep, and Felipe’s jaw tensed as our eyes met, both of us silently wishing we could purge all that had happened to the youngster. It didn’t take a genius to realise it would take magic and a crowbar to separate them, either.
“Okay,” I said, coming up with a new plan on the fly. I hid my hand inside my jacket and had the dust dots craft me a quilted coif in Shobi’s size, having it appear in my hidden hand. From there, I went over to the boy and slid it over his head to hide his brand, and when his head lifted to see what I was doing, I tied the strings under his chin. “Leave that on,” I said as he went to touch the fabric. My eyes then went to Felipe. “Once those at this meeting have seen the brand, Thalien and Milo will remove the boy and repair his scalp. Time will grow his hair out, but at least he won’t have that brand beyond tonight.”
I put my hand on Shobi’s cheek and guided his face to look at me. “Have you ever seen a half-orc in a rage? When they get really, really mad?” I didn’t care how much he clung to Felipe. If this were all too new for him and the sight of his own people raging frightened him, I’d have Harmony put the boy to sleep for a few minutes while we were away.
Shobi nodded. “Sportsday.”
I really didn’t want to know what he meant by that. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather stay here with Harmony and Liab?”
Shobi looked past me to where Harmony and her familiar sat, watching. I took the tightening grip on Felipe’s arm to mean ‘No’.
“Alright then,” I said, waving them both towards the opening. “Let’s do this.”
The snow half-orcs reacted as well as I expected, but an hour later, I had fifteen of one race and sixteen of the other sitting inside our dome. The line of myself and my friends with our backs to our fire was no different to that night in Tetorli, though this time, Felipe sat directly across from me instead of on my right. Shobi sat on his feet, his shins flush to the ground and his weight leaning sideways against Felipe. More interestingly, Felipe had draped his braid across Shobi’s shoulders with the weighted end pooled possessively in the boy’s lap. The way Shobi’s other hand caressed the braid and smiled shyly at those around him, he was nervous, but Felipe’s presence made him feel safe.
I couldn’t help but look to my left where Tarq stood, knowing that feeling very well.
“Let us see it,” Gimweren commanded, flicking her finger at the youngster.
“Do not bark orders at him, Overseer,” Felipe warned. “It is only through his bravery that you are now aware that they could very well have the young of your kind in there as slaves too.”
“They do,” Shobi answered, looking up at his hero. “They have all vermins.”
Gimweren met Felipe’s eyes, but then she drew in a deep breath and held it for several seconds before dipping her head in a silent nod. I noticed several of the warriors on both sides had dragged their hands through the frozen ground to control their tempers, partially due to the boy’s presence but also because they were under my roof, which was where they wanted to stay. “Alright, lad. When you’re ready, please take off the coif and twist around so we can see what those animals did to you.”
Even though I’d seen it before, looking at the seared flesh and burnt bone, my stomach roiled, and no less than three dwarves rose to their feet. “Boy,” they all shouted at once. If it weren’t for the concern in their eyes, I would’ve ordered them back to their seats.
“Shobi,” Felipe corrected.
“Shobi,” the dwarf closest to me repeated while the other two retook their seats in deference to him. “Would you allow me to fix that for you right now? I’m Overseer Gimweren’s personal defence mage. Do you know what that is?”
Shobi leaned harder against Felipe and shook his head.
“Among other things, I’m a magical healer, and I’m begging you to let me take that scar away. Please?”
Shobi looked at me, and when I rolled my hand to give him the choice, he looked up at Felipe. “They won’t hurt you, son,” he promised.
The son part was new.
“I’m assuming no one needs to see it again?” the male defence mage ran his eye along both sides, almost daring anyone to argue with him. Unsurprisingly, no one did. The dwarf then moved to stand directly in front of Shobi and knelt in front of him.
We all waited while the defence mage completed the sequence that would make the dust dots repair the physical damage. It only took a minute. “There,” he said with a smile, reaching forward to touch the back of Shobi’s head. I couldn’t see Shobi’s reaction since the dwarf stood between us, but I could picture it, especially when the defence mage continued on. “The snow half-orcs have always looked after their own, but you have my vow now to add to that. Anyone who comes at you must go through me first.”
“AYE!” “Hear, hear!” the line of dwarves cried in unison. Even Gimweren added her shout to the cry.
I looked back at my friends and saw Harmony and Lanna clasping their hands to their chests, both fighting the tears that banked in their eyes, and I could appreciate the sentiment. The boy had won the respect and loyalty of not one army but two.
For the next hour, Shobi told us in his limited dialect about his life in the slave pits of Jinis Ridge. Many of his explanations required physical prompting when words failed him, but no one spoke to contradict or interrupt him. If he was to be believed, he wasn’t a captured prisoner turned slave like I thought. He’d been born in the pits from parents who’d been brought together for the specific purpose of breeding.
And as I listened to his tale, I thought about our own slave trade and realised his story probably wasn’t that different to so many others. The palace didn’t have slaves; only a few of the capital’s population kept them, but they weren’t outlawed.
In fact, people in certain provinces made good coin peddling in flesh. I myself had parted with a significant sum of money to buy Harmony’s freedom when she’d been taken, and I hadn’t thought to ask myself why I had even allowed it to happen in the first place. The slaves were former citizens whose citizenship was stripped from them by others who were only citizens themselves. A collar and a brand were all that separated an imperial citizen and a slave, and we had allowed that to happen.
No … I had allowed that to happen.
It was a startling wake-up call to realise the only difference between the two types of slavers was their place of origin. That if the Consitors were Imperials, we wouldn’t be so up in arms about them enslaving people.
I glanced at where Felipe sat protectively at Shobi’s side and knew I had to amend that. The snow half-orcs were the exception. No one had ever taken a snow half-orc as a slave before that I knew of.
I felt a hand on each of my shoulders and knew without looking that one belonged to Harmony and the other to Milo. Tarq always knew what I was thinking, but those two had the uncanny knack of knowing instinctively what I was feeling, and right then, it wasn’t good. I hadn’t protected all of my people—only some of them.
When this was all over, I knew I’d be discussing this at length with Roald, and I wouldn’t stop until he agreed to make a proclamation outlawing slavery within our borders. Some livelihoods would suffer, but on the whole, we didn’t need slaves. They were simply convenient. Buying someone outright instead of paying a daily wage was easier.
Depending on how wound up I got, I might even push for a total ban on slaves within the empire, including any overseas visitors.
Leave them home, or watch them be taken from you and freed.
I liked the sound of that.
Perhaps I was getting too emotionally invested, but what was the point of being the Emperor’s Shadow if I couldn’t do what should’ve already been done to safeguard not just the majority of my people but each and every imperial citizen? Slaves, before they were enslaved, would have paid their taxes too, which should have given them certain protections, and I had seriously fallen down on the job there.
Not anymore.
* * *
((All comments welcome. Good or bad, I'd love to hear your thoughts 🥰🤗 ))
For more of my work including WPs: Angel466 or an index of previous WPS here.
FULL INDEX OF WE PLAN, GODS LAUGH TO DATE CAN BE FOUND HERE!!

Hi all,
I use XAMPP on Windows to build out wordpress sites, some for clients, some for testing, sandbox etc. Small scale stuff, really, it's not my primary job. But it got me curious ...
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I notice that I'm repeating identical tasks, and I'm thinking about scripting a turnkey 'install' for a base wordpress site, partly to save time, but also to explore the scripting side of what I can eventually automate. I've been around windows batch and powershell scripts for a while, but I thought I'd ask if anyone knew of, or used anything, that would jumpstart my process?
At this stage, I'm starting with a functioning/running web server, database platform on Windows. So I'd like to automate:
-download latest wordpress zipfile
Based on a specified/custom 'sitename': -create my folder structure -create a database
-Unzip the wordpress.zip
​
(I assume from here on is wp-cli stuff ?)
-perform the initial wordpress site install
-add any base plugins
-add any themes, or other tweaks I need.
At this stage, most of the things I've found are either starting at the 'Wordpress is already installed/WP-CLI" steps, or it's all linux specific (which I have no problem with, but I'm just curious about Windows specific for now).
I appreciate any thoughts you may have? Or if I have yet to discover some motherlode of resources that are what I'm asking about.
​
Appreciate you all.
​

Recently had a cool but basic 90s collared shirt sell for asking price, I usually snoop the profiles or area my items are heading cos I’m genuinely curious where my items will be going. This profile was dedicated to buying second hand to sell to customers in Japan. Shirt went for like 30 and idk how much they’re planning on up charging for this shirt to make profit… i assume they are filling barrels of clothes to ship. I know shipping internationally from the US can be tricky and costly, but is there a platform to connect with customers like this besides eBay?

First off, there's some subjective stuff on this post, It's basically full of my opinions, but bear with me.
Over the years, system memory and video memory sizes have been getting closer to each other. Especially for the average user who only games on their computers.
Here's my history of PC building, unless defined ratio is for ideal ratio:

• 10:1 ratio - Pentium 133mhz with 40MB edoram and 4MB PCI S3 Virge DX
  
• 16:1 (I don't know the ideal of that time) ratio - Pentium II 266mhz with 64MB sdram and same videocard
  
• 8:1 ratio - Pentium III 500mhz with 256MB sdram and 32MB PCI Nvidia (Had to upgrade for GTA3)
  
• 8:1 (ideal) / ratio 2:1 (mine) - Years later upgraded that same PC to 512MB sdram and 256MB AGP radeon because Need for Speed. I still wrote 8:1 ratio because at the time my setup was outdated and all my friends had P4 cpu's with 2GB ddr ram.
  
• 8:1 ratio - Pentium D 2.8ghz with 2GB DDR2 and 256MB Radeon X700 laptop.
  
• 8:1 ratio - Core2Duo 3.0ghz with 4GB DDR2 and 512MB Radeon HD4830.
  
• 8:1 ratio - i5-3550 with 8GB DDR3 and 1GB Radeon HD6870.
  

From here on out, it gets increasingly more worrying. 8GB system memory kept being viable for many years for the average gaming user. But I kept upgrading

• 4:1 (ideal) / 6:1 (mine) ratio, Same system with 12GB DDR3(3-sticks) and 2x1GB Radeon HD6870 in Crossfire. One of the sticks, despite being same brand and model was 2 ranks rather than 1. It was manufactured much more recently than the other 3.
  
• 2:1 (ideal) / 5.33:1 (mine) ratio - I got the other stick working after a bios upgrade, also upgrades my GPU to a 3GB Radeon R280x. But at this time 4GB vram was considered somewhat decent If I remember right.
  
• 2:1 ratio - Ryzen 5 1600AF with 16GB DDR4-3200 and 8GB Radeon RX5500XT
  
• 4:3 ratio - Ryzen 5 5600 with 32GB DDR4-3200 and 12GB Radeon RX6700XT, but 16GB system memory is sufficient, so 4:3 ratio.
  

Today, arguably, as a minimum, 16GB system memory is still sufficiently enough for 1080p gaming because more than 12GB memory is rarely used during gaming. While 8GB video memory is not sufficient. Latest titles, or even old titles like RDR2 completely use up the 8GB. Not to mention that both Playstation and Xbox has more video memory. And as a result, recent game titles require more than 8GB vram even at 1080p.
TLDR:
So, at a minimum, one needs 16GB ram and 12GB vram. That is a 4:3 ratio, almost 1:1, this is outrageous. Of course there are no 8GB DDR5 sticks, or they are rare, so you can't sensibly buy just 16GB of DDR5 memory for your computer. At a minimum you can buy 32GB. This skews the ratio to 2.66:1.
But, this is a whole another issue for the desktop market, which is already failing. Everybody knows the server market is carrying x86, but even that is encroached by Arm. I mean, everybody has multiple arm devices, phones, smart TV's, automobiles, more phones. Yet not everyone has a PC. By PC I strictly mean x86 Linux and Windows of course, but I digress. Let me get back to the topic at hand.
Apple, yes that Apple, has made certain innovations that got rid of separate memory for system and video. They market this as "unified memory". Their low-tier has 4 memory channels, mid-tier 8, high-end has 16. This provides so much memory bandwidth it's sufficient for graphics applications. As a result, they do not need specialized memory for graphics.
I have never used a mac or an Iphone, yet this is a much welcome innovation for me. I want Intel and AMD to pick up the pace and give us more memory channels too. Preferably with smaller memory modules.
Because at the end of the day, at any time, one of the memory is always underutilized. Vram is virtually unused while not playing games.
Same thing applies to GPU and CPU too. Because while evaluating the player input and calculating logic, GPU is literally idling. And while rendering the CPU is virtually idling. I say virtually because the CPU needs to micromanage what the GPU does, it's just how the GPU works, it's not magical. It could be argued that these cyclic idling during games is beneficial for cooling or whatever, but it could also be argued that they don't have to.
I've went off the topic again at that last paragraph. But anyway, I don't want to pay for a specialized video memory anymore. Apple's unified memory sounds good, PC market needs that innovation.

Before I get in to it I made this cos I don't think our current chronology makes much sense, cave men times centuries of no advancement, the ancient times centuries of no advancement and then medieval times centuries of no advancement, and then suddenly 100 years ago some guy invents electric.. I believe the whole of human history is no more than 1270 years old and the same phantom duplicates of 753 years have been used twice (three in total to artificially extend the calendar with the what we call 753 AD being the true start of it all.
Why I think it's 1270, were two duplicate 753 year timelines used?
Interestingly enough there are some coincidences when you translate the AUC calendar to the AD one, like the first sack of Constantinople lines up to the fall of Constantinople pretty closely. so the first sack of Constantinople was 1204 AD, the year 453 AD is 1206 AUC which is pretty close to the number 1204, and the fact it lines up closely with 453 AD shows a thousand years manipulation is there but not in the way some think.
Another coincidence is the council of Nicea and the acceptance of christianity in Rome in 313 AD. 313 AD is the year 1066 AUC and the council of Nicea translates to 1078 AUC, this puts it bang in the Gregorian reform if you translate them to 1066 AD and 1078 AD.
Count back 325 years from 1078 and you get the year 753, 753 years was the number BC until the Roman calendar start, and we can now put this together with what Heinsohn said that the events of ancient and late antiquity seemed to show through stratigraphic data as happening far later between the 8th and 10th century until a flood in the mid 900's known as the tenth century collaps occured.
Now I ask what period would be the fabrication, the later or earlier, well the earlier of course, it is far more easy to fabricate history way further back, too close and people would notice, plus we have a lack of archeology other than buildings for ancients which will be justified as well it is ancient stuff so obviously the archeology will be lacking... Conveniently, also remember we don't have a single body for a Roman emperor.
What seems to have happened is one event has been played out twice in two duplicate phantom lines.
The years 753 BC to 1 AD And the years 1 AD to 753 AD Seem to be two phantom duplicates of 753 years of all the events that actually happened between. 753 AD and 1506 AD.
It would seem Exiguus's change to the calendar in 532 was to turn the Julian calendar in to the year 1532, this means all Julian calendars worldwide were updated to this new date. This is why the Russian calendar in 1917 wasn't 1000 years behind, it would seem it was all done by the Catholic church at the time as a way to fabricate a popery lineage far longer than it was and make the history of christianity and the Romans far grander than what they really were.
The real start date of our calendar and life was the year we call 753 AD, Pepin the short had no parents, anyone in that year was created by the creator and were the age they were at creation, the creator gave us the maps and some of the buildings were created by the creator and he decided who would be king from the start, in this time, giants, intelligent beasts we now call dinosaurs who we are told were dumb existed and built some of these buildings, those ancient pics of Gods were real beings, along with wooly mammoths and Alaska wasn't frozen over. 200 years later in what we call the year 900's there was major cataclysms caused by what Heinsohn reckoned were comets wiping out most of civilisation, this then starts the polytheist pagan era of Saxons, etc and in what we call the 11th century is when christianity takes over and starts persecuting pagans etc, the original religion of the world. The pagans mostly the good guys fighting against the Monetheistic parasites who want to get everyone to worship one deity. Saxons and Norman's a good example of this. The monotheistic parasites eventually enslave from the top and sacrifice men in satanic rituals known as battles for centuries. So come the year 1506 all of human history is only 753 years old, not 1506 plus the BC years like we've been told.
With this 753 years and the events within played out twice to artificially extend our history, you want the real history guys look from what we call 753 AD and that is it, except the flood of the 900's has been covered up along with the giants and how the buildings really came to be of course, and the fact the "ancient Egyptians" existed in the period before the flood as well in a Green Africa, not a desert Africa.
But I truly believe this, I think the whole of human history going by this is only 1270 years old and that puts us in 1270 exactly with no BC years, not 2023. Radio carbon dating has cleverly gate kept the Darwinist timeline which is what all mainstream historians have to stick to viciously, but I think and do think the millions of years thing is absurd and is and was garbage, the mammoths, dinosaurs and other animals etc did exist but just before the period we call the 900's and were wiped out in these cataclysms 200 years in to the whole of human history, not millions of years ago, every catastrophe spoke of was the same event, there has never been millions of years.
Human history would make much more sense if we was only in the year 1270 from the creation of the world, let's redate some important events using this logic, the true start of christianity was actually with the Franks and they are possibly the people of Judea.
World starts, everything created is at its default age 1 Charlemagne becomes King 15 Vikings first invade Britain 40 Viking invasion of Paris 92 Major cataclysms occur late 100's/early 200's Battle of Hastings 313 Council of Nicea and the Gregorian reform 325 The Anarchy 385 Fall of Constantinople (Rome) 453 First Baron's war 462 Second Baron's war 511 Hundred years war 584 The black death 593 Battle of Agincourt 662 The Ottomans take Constantinople in the 700's War of the roses 702 America "discovered" (invaded) 739 Reformation begins 764
In 779 the Catholic Church changes all Julian calendars to the year 1532 AD and creates the two phantom lines.
Scaliger solidifies the two phantom duplicates of 753 years with the Catholic church, 1609. Of course 1609 was really the year 856.
The key would be in the Gregorian calendar of 1582, now I'm not saying they changed the time on the Gregorian calendar as this would have shown in Russia in 1917 as they didn't adopt the Gregorian until 1917 but I do think Pope Gregory in 1582 was fixing a problem that earlier falsified chronology on the Julian had caused to synchronisation with other calendars, also causing issues in astronomic cycles. 10 days was added to fix the falsification and put the calendar back in sync I believe, but someone who can study properly and understands the technicalities of calculations might be able to solve this one for me. What it naturally tells me is other world calendars we're all 10 days ahead, but why, what caused the Julian to be 10 days out of sync? That is the key here.

All Madden Gameplay review
New body types are horrible, the look like giants apes and are disproportionate as hell.
Some smoother animations in running but that leads to loss of momentum in movement, one step cutting with a quick back will literally reset momentum to zero. Not realistic at all. Hard to explain but think of zone running where you see the hole and explode. Well in madden since i’m going lateral if I see the whole I cut through and my guy now resets his momentum to zero thus leaving the CPU(who isn’t penalized by speed) a free tackle.
Speaking of CPU, turbo related block shedding is still there. If you hit turbo before clearing a block the CPU will block shed and tackle you. This hasn’t been fixed in forever.
Passing is broken. Receivers let the ball hit them in the back of the head, jersey, thigh, etc without reacting at all. It was an enough of an occurrence that I became extremely annoyed. My team consistently has between 4-6 drops per game will the CPU has zero. Every. Game.
Franchise does have a few new editions like contract restructuring, draft strength, mini camp, etc. But don’t get too excited.
EA seems to have the single most incompetent devs of all time because there is NO SOUL to any of it.
Contract restructuring is push a button and it kicks the cap hit down the road.
Draft strength is dope.
mini camp is extremely blah, PS2 era Madden was waaaaaay more fun.
Same coach player scenario cut scenes that make no sense
Same announcers saying the wrong crap to break immersion (announcing I lost my last two games even though I was undefeated)
Post play interaction has some new animations but it’s EA. The “he’s crazy” DB animation now plays 89 times a game 😒. Like. it’s ALWAYS half baked with them.
Refs are back had to crazy Defensive pass interference calls made. Was cool and disappointing. Cool it was call, disappointing because it’s the same slow pull the receiver down animation. Doesn’t even look real.
Game plays like your fighting gravity at most times. I know they want to make it feel weighted, but nah.

Preferably looking for another TM like myself, but anyone is fine, mostly looking for someone to chat with online, but if you live near id be down to hangout after texting for a while, I love music of all kinds, cooking, art and cars. I am 420 friendly. I am a dominant leaning switch I genuinely love fighting for dominance...hard. I am a very kinky person if you like it chances are I do to, past all the uh gayness lol, I do enjoy deep conversations late at night and science topics alot. I don't know, hit me up, Dm me I promise I dont bite ill take friendship or more

Why is it that in battles I could be fighting let’s say a Lanturn and it’s charged attack is ‘surf’ then all of a sudden the next charged attack it throws my way is a ‘thunderbolt’ ? Why does it have two different charged attacks ? Feel like I’m missing out on this broken ability…