Windmills for pond aeration
I contacted my spirit guide for the first time
2023.06.10 19:11 forahuvi I contacted my spirit guide for the first time
In the past hour I contacted my spirit guide for the first time. Or one of them.
At the start of my meditation I heard: “Do not fear, God is here”.
I was a little scared, but continued any way. I was sitting in my dim kitchen, with a candle I lit with the intention that it was for my guide. I was sitting in a basic meditation stance and focused for the first couple minutes on my breathing.
I visualized a luscious forest/jungle. I heard crickets and frogs. There were hanging trees, some branches extending to a pond below. There was a waterfall and moss-covered rocks and logs. I walked on a soft earthen path with my hiking boots.
I reached a clearing before I even could have guessed I’d be ready. It was black rocks covered in moss. I saw my spirit guide somewhat. Not very clear.
It’s a she with perfectly shaped nails and hands, almost white as snow. Her voice sounded like my own but slower and more loving. I asked her name and she said Senova. But I’m not sure if I got it right. She was very tall very thin and she didn’t have wings but it’s like energy leaked from behind her that was sort of shaped like what could be wings.
I asked her “who am I” and she said “good / one of the good ones. There is good and evil in this world”.
She told me to keep faith. Enjoy the little things. Spend time with family and friends. That there is a man waiting for me. Someone I should meet.
I sat down on a moss rock and burst out crying. I told her: “I am so tired. I want to go home, I want to go home”. And she said: “not yet”.
Then I thanked God for this experience and blew out the candle.
I’ve been hearing “keep faith” a lot lately so I’ll keep trudging on as I have and stay hopeful.
submitted by forahuvi to spirituality [link] [comments]
At the start of my meditation I heard: “Do not fear, God is here”.
I was a little scared, but continued any way. I was sitting in my dim kitchen, with a candle I lit with the intention that it was for my guide. I was sitting in a basic meditation stance and focused for the first couple minutes on my breathing.
I visualized a luscious forest/jungle. I heard crickets and frogs. There were hanging trees, some branches extending to a pond below. There was a waterfall and moss-covered rocks and logs. I walked on a soft earthen path with my hiking boots.
I reached a clearing before I even could have guessed I’d be ready. It was black rocks covered in moss. I saw my spirit guide somewhat. Not very clear.
It’s a she with perfectly shaped nails and hands, almost white as snow. Her voice sounded like my own but slower and more loving. I asked her name and she said Senova. But I’m not sure if I got it right. She was very tall very thin and she didn’t have wings but it’s like energy leaked from behind her that was sort of shaped like what could be wings.
I asked her “who am I” and she said “good / one of the good ones. There is good and evil in this world”.
She told me to keep faith. Enjoy the little things. Spend time with family and friends. That there is a man waiting for me. Someone I should meet.
I sat down on a moss rock and burst out crying. I told her: “I am so tired. I want to go home, I want to go home”. And she said: “not yet”.
Then I thanked God for this experience and blew out the candle.
I’ve been hearing “keep faith” a lot lately so I’ll keep trudging on as I have and stay hopeful.
2023.06.10 19:10 _schubie_ Copper sulfate in stainless steel cell culture incubator water bath
Hey everyone! I’m looking to get copper sulfate for our incubator and I have some questions. First off, where do you get yours from. I see a lot of pond grade on Amazon. But sigma, fisher, etc. all have it at varying costs. Just wondering where you order yours from. Second, I’ve read some conflicting issues with CuSO4 being corrosive to steel, so you either have to have a copper lined incubator, or a stainless steel water bath in your incubator. But I’ve also seen that it’s corrosive to stainless steel. So I guess I’m just wondering what your experiences are with your own incubator water baths? Just let me know when y’all can! Thanks!
submitted by _schubie_ to research [link] [comments]
2023.06.10 19:04 Satan_Seagull666 I have a newt in my pond, and I think their pregnant...now I have to change their name, I called him Fred Newton. Anyway, give me any suggestions for help, I have two fish and like 16 tadpoles. Here's a random photo of a newt I found on Google.
 | submitted by Satan_Seagull666 to newts [link] [comments] |
2023.06.10 19:01 eeeeeu Moradaya Rise
"Immortal Spirits of Fate, you who weave destiny, you who are my greatest muse and have spun countless stories in my ears, do not sit in idle silence toward me now. Sing to me of the birth of the Moradaya who came here from those mountainous lands of yore. May my words be true and my tongue possess the skill to utter the tale you speak into me without fault."
—An invocation to the spirits. Similar words are commonly spoken by storytellers in pursuit of favor from those who dictate the webs of fate.
As the cold wind howls through the valleys between that fractured piece of the Alpide belt born of the Paleogene in times long passed and nestled between two seas split by the crushing power of the advancing Arabian plate, a band traveling south and east on the backs of short stocky horses orients themselves against the rising sun hidden behind jagged peaks on the horizon which cut the sky like the serration on teeth of ocean sharks these migrants will never encounter, escape from this desolate winter landscape the one thing on their minds. They are Anyana, Iranic peoples whose ancestors roamed the steppes past the great mountains to the north where their distant cousins still drive livestock across a great sea of grass so wide and expansive it is hard for them to imagine both the land there and here in these claustrophobic ravines and gullies wrought by tectonic chaos belong to the same world. They do.
The Anyana abandoned such a pastoralist way of life when they migrated south along the coast of the Black Sea, known to them as Banga Marea, the Great Sea, which was vaster than any their ancestors before them had ever beheld, and into the lowlands between the Greater and Lesser Caucasus where rivers flow west into that massive body of water and the land is lush and fertile for farming. But this land of plenty where it seems the divines had tried their hand at crafting a paradise was not to be the home of the Moradaya. The Anyana who settled in these lands, which were at that time home to a population of Colchic Proto-Kartvelians, enslaved and intermingled with these local peoples from the coast to as far east as those who later formed the Kingdom of Asmanakashra, but many more of their brethren found no place in the small space of these lowlands, cramped as they were after the arrival of a lurch of people pouring inward as if the levy of the Greater Caucasus which once separated two worlds alien to one another had burst, and instead chose to push onward into the mountains to the south, spreading in all directions and hunting for whatever small abundances might be found in their alpine surroundings.
Massifs rise from underfoot across the plateau of the Armenian Highlands where Anyan has become the dominant culture and language, but divisions have already formed in this people. Wars were fought. Battles raged. Subjugation. The harsh topography of these lands and divisions between those original tribes who made the journey south drive the Anyana apart and erode their united identity like rivers splitting from one source in a delta before rushing out to sea, quickened by the absorption of local people's ways of life in the disparate and nascent polities forming among their culture. Some of the tribes have become wary of one another, others hostile and others more simply apathetic toward the Anyana living elsewhere in the plateau where even a few miles distance divided by a range of peaks can feel a world away.
The tribe Moradaya trace their lineage to a number of deva, beings akin to spirits or gods, the stories of their genesis passed down through the generations by oral recital and never received by the youth in quite the same manner or meaning each telling. Those travelers journeying across the Lesser Caucasus have heard the myths of their tribe’s origins many times, so often each might recite the tales from memory, as they did in the company of one another as solace for their otherwise pitiful position in a false remembrance of their greater past. The content of those myths is for another time than this. Their tribe has yet to find a home where they might permanently achieve peaceability and rest. For years they have searched, living scattered about Anyan lands, but this will soon be no more.
The band of men and women and children with their horses and all the belongings they managed to pack for the journey set their ambitions on the valley where meets a moot of all the Moradaya. For too long they have gone without a chieftain holding any true vision, but with the death of Small Vanga, deva bless his spirit, comes an opportunity to appoint a new ruler, one who might lead them to the home of which they have long dreamt. The winter journey for them has been grueling, but their ways demand a new chieftain be elected as soon as all the clan chiefs are able to convene. In that band marching beneath the slopes and now in the belly of a ravine, scrawny trees twisting and fighting each other for the scant light of the sun that makes it down all the way, Skoda goes with his family and a small number of his most trusted men to represent his clan, the Donsudra, and their wishes at the moot.
All free men are welcome to participate in the moot and the election of a new chieftain, but the clan chiefs are shouldered with the extra responsibilities of negotiating the affair and preventing strife at the results of the tribe’s decision. Skoda’s young age once made other chiefs wary of his abilities to lead, but since then he proved himself to be a skilled warrior and therefore, in their eyes, a leader in his campaigns against the Urartians, the native inhabitants of this alpine plateau, and many favor him to become the new chieftain.
After weeks of travel through winding mountain passes, Skoda and their band reach the banks of Soinya Marea, Lake Sevan, the water frozen therein beginning to thaw as spring emerges. Thin trees with leaves stripped and dead bushes and lichen growing on rocky outcroppings dot the hilly landscape. Smoke rises in the distance. Others from Moradaya had already arrived and created a camp where they weathered the remains of the cold season waiting to elect the new chieftain. Skoda’s band sets up their own tents in the disorganized array of other temporary homes along a network of mud pounded into the ground by feet of people buzzing around the camp. Tired from their journey, he rests.
They are some of the last to arrive, and soon after making their place all the clan chiefs are present on those banks, and the moot is called. They meet at the debouch of a stream snaking down to the idle water along an escarpment and flowing inside, the shallow depths gurgling over a bed of rocks. Men of other kinds have trodden these lands for hundreds of thousands of years since the age of Acheulean stone, and now rills formed in the mud by surface water from the melting snow are trampled underfoot as they gather into a haphazard circle, a little empty space in the center.
Clans Donsudra, Ibera, Kudogre, Paraba, Velun and Festuda all convene here. Besides Skoda, other favorites for chieftain are Oruges, son of the late Small Vanga, and Ekpuda, the wise and elderly leader of the Paraba. The law speaker initiates the day, and the shaman says a prayer and performs a ritual, and the thing begins. Oruges boasts of his own grandeur, standing in the center of the crowd who send cheers and jeers alike his way.
"He should be chieftain!"
"Someone older like Ekpuda ought to be in charge!"
"His father led us to ruin, and he'll do the same!"
They argue for some time with no resolution.
"Quiet, children." Ekpuda waves a single hand in the air, and soon all are silent. "I am too old to lead. That job belongs to those whose lives are still more ahead than behind them."
A murmur grows in the crowd.
"But, I must admit, I doubt Oruges' abilities as a leader, even if I respected his father."
A roar. Everyone was up in arms and yelling.
"I don't see anyone better!"
"Vanga's spawn is too weak!"
"Who else will be chieftain?"
Skoda walks to the center, the walls of which now undulate in the mass of upset bodies. "I will lead us."
After much deliberation and arguing, Skoda is narrowly elected as Moradaya's new chieftain, the first ever from clan Donsudra. He sets his mind on the task of finding his people a land on which they may grow and prosper, and these thoughts occupy every still moment for over a year until an opportunity presents itself.
The Urartian kingdom of Ushnu to the south had fallen into a state of civil war over the rights of inheritance pertaining to their king, and Skoda decides to take the opportunity and strike.
The war effort on part of the Moradaya is successful, and they drive out the rulers of Ushnu, known to them as Ošneš, and take over the land with their armies. They expand east into the territory of tribes Urartian and Iranian alike and settle them as their own.
Ošneš rests west of the endorheic lake of brine, Unya Marea, or Lake Urmia as it might be known to us. Fed by rivers, the lake lets loose none of its water except in evaporation, a draconic beast hoarding its wealth for itself. A place of stagnancy, though much life calls the lands around home. There exist many plots of arable terrain here, and it seems to all Moradaya, Skoda first of all, a good place to settle. To the east of this great salt pond is a river valley sandwiched by mountains north and the stratovolcano which looms over all therein and will soon become a place of great spiritual power south. Here, the Moradaya found a city, that of Majadaragand, the City of the Middle Valley.
For some time, perhaps a century or so, the Moradaya have called these lands home. The Urartians of the old kingdom of Ushnu still do so too, though they are in the process of being subsumed into Anyan ways of life, an integration which lends to the growing distinction between Moradaya and other Anyana. The real history of their conquests merges with legend, birthing new myths among the tribe's members now growing fat off the land. This is how the Moradaya came into their home.
Name: Moradaya
Gov't Type: Sedentary
Techs: Iron Age, Horse domestication, Spoked Wheel
map
submitted by eeeeeu to HistoricalWorldPowers [link] [comments]
—An invocation to the spirits. Similar words are commonly spoken by storytellers in pursuit of favor from those who dictate the webs of fate.
As the cold wind howls through the valleys between that fractured piece of the Alpide belt born of the Paleogene in times long passed and nestled between two seas split by the crushing power of the advancing Arabian plate, a band traveling south and east on the backs of short stocky horses orients themselves against the rising sun hidden behind jagged peaks on the horizon which cut the sky like the serration on teeth of ocean sharks these migrants will never encounter, escape from this desolate winter landscape the one thing on their minds. They are Anyana, Iranic peoples whose ancestors roamed the steppes past the great mountains to the north where their distant cousins still drive livestock across a great sea of grass so wide and expansive it is hard for them to imagine both the land there and here in these claustrophobic ravines and gullies wrought by tectonic chaos belong to the same world. They do.
The Anyana abandoned such a pastoralist way of life when they migrated south along the coast of the Black Sea, known to them as Banga Marea, the Great Sea, which was vaster than any their ancestors before them had ever beheld, and into the lowlands between the Greater and Lesser Caucasus where rivers flow west into that massive body of water and the land is lush and fertile for farming. But this land of plenty where it seems the divines had tried their hand at crafting a paradise was not to be the home of the Moradaya. The Anyana who settled in these lands, which were at that time home to a population of Colchic Proto-Kartvelians, enslaved and intermingled with these local peoples from the coast to as far east as those who later formed the Kingdom of Asmanakashra, but many more of their brethren found no place in the small space of these lowlands, cramped as they were after the arrival of a lurch of people pouring inward as if the levy of the Greater Caucasus which once separated two worlds alien to one another had burst, and instead chose to push onward into the mountains to the south, spreading in all directions and hunting for whatever small abundances might be found in their alpine surroundings.
Massifs rise from underfoot across the plateau of the Armenian Highlands where Anyan has become the dominant culture and language, but divisions have already formed in this people. Wars were fought. Battles raged. Subjugation. The harsh topography of these lands and divisions between those original tribes who made the journey south drive the Anyana apart and erode their united identity like rivers splitting from one source in a delta before rushing out to sea, quickened by the absorption of local people's ways of life in the disparate and nascent polities forming among their culture. Some of the tribes have become wary of one another, others hostile and others more simply apathetic toward the Anyana living elsewhere in the plateau where even a few miles distance divided by a range of peaks can feel a world away.
The tribe Moradaya trace their lineage to a number of deva, beings akin to spirits or gods, the stories of their genesis passed down through the generations by oral recital and never received by the youth in quite the same manner or meaning each telling. Those travelers journeying across the Lesser Caucasus have heard the myths of their tribe’s origins many times, so often each might recite the tales from memory, as they did in the company of one another as solace for their otherwise pitiful position in a false remembrance of their greater past. The content of those myths is for another time than this. Their tribe has yet to find a home where they might permanently achieve peaceability and rest. For years they have searched, living scattered about Anyan lands, but this will soon be no more.
The band of men and women and children with their horses and all the belongings they managed to pack for the journey set their ambitions on the valley where meets a moot of all the Moradaya. For too long they have gone without a chieftain holding any true vision, but with the death of Small Vanga, deva bless his spirit, comes an opportunity to appoint a new ruler, one who might lead them to the home of which they have long dreamt. The winter journey for them has been grueling, but their ways demand a new chieftain be elected as soon as all the clan chiefs are able to convene. In that band marching beneath the slopes and now in the belly of a ravine, scrawny trees twisting and fighting each other for the scant light of the sun that makes it down all the way, Skoda goes with his family and a small number of his most trusted men to represent his clan, the Donsudra, and their wishes at the moot.
All free men are welcome to participate in the moot and the election of a new chieftain, but the clan chiefs are shouldered with the extra responsibilities of negotiating the affair and preventing strife at the results of the tribe’s decision. Skoda’s young age once made other chiefs wary of his abilities to lead, but since then he proved himself to be a skilled warrior and therefore, in their eyes, a leader in his campaigns against the Urartians, the native inhabitants of this alpine plateau, and many favor him to become the new chieftain.
After weeks of travel through winding mountain passes, Skoda and their band reach the banks of Soinya Marea, Lake Sevan, the water frozen therein beginning to thaw as spring emerges. Thin trees with leaves stripped and dead bushes and lichen growing on rocky outcroppings dot the hilly landscape. Smoke rises in the distance. Others from Moradaya had already arrived and created a camp where they weathered the remains of the cold season waiting to elect the new chieftain. Skoda’s band sets up their own tents in the disorganized array of other temporary homes along a network of mud pounded into the ground by feet of people buzzing around the camp. Tired from their journey, he rests.
They are some of the last to arrive, and soon after making their place all the clan chiefs are present on those banks, and the moot is called. They meet at the debouch of a stream snaking down to the idle water along an escarpment and flowing inside, the shallow depths gurgling over a bed of rocks. Men of other kinds have trodden these lands for hundreds of thousands of years since the age of Acheulean stone, and now rills formed in the mud by surface water from the melting snow are trampled underfoot as they gather into a haphazard circle, a little empty space in the center.
Clans Donsudra, Ibera, Kudogre, Paraba, Velun and Festuda all convene here. Besides Skoda, other favorites for chieftain are Oruges, son of the late Small Vanga, and Ekpuda, the wise and elderly leader of the Paraba. The law speaker initiates the day, and the shaman says a prayer and performs a ritual, and the thing begins. Oruges boasts of his own grandeur, standing in the center of the crowd who send cheers and jeers alike his way.
"He should be chieftain!"
"Someone older like Ekpuda ought to be in charge!"
"His father led us to ruin, and he'll do the same!"
They argue for some time with no resolution.
"Quiet, children." Ekpuda waves a single hand in the air, and soon all are silent. "I am too old to lead. That job belongs to those whose lives are still more ahead than behind them."
A murmur grows in the crowd.
"But, I must admit, I doubt Oruges' abilities as a leader, even if I respected his father."
A roar. Everyone was up in arms and yelling.
"I don't see anyone better!"
"Vanga's spawn is too weak!"
"Who else will be chieftain?"
Skoda walks to the center, the walls of which now undulate in the mass of upset bodies. "I will lead us."
After much deliberation and arguing, Skoda is narrowly elected as Moradaya's new chieftain, the first ever from clan Donsudra. He sets his mind on the task of finding his people a land on which they may grow and prosper, and these thoughts occupy every still moment for over a year until an opportunity presents itself.
The Urartian kingdom of Ushnu to the south had fallen into a state of civil war over the rights of inheritance pertaining to their king, and Skoda decides to take the opportunity and strike.
The war effort on part of the Moradaya is successful, and they drive out the rulers of Ushnu, known to them as Ošneš, and take over the land with their armies. They expand east into the territory of tribes Urartian and Iranian alike and settle them as their own.
Ošneš rests west of the endorheic lake of brine, Unya Marea, or Lake Urmia as it might be known to us. Fed by rivers, the lake lets loose none of its water except in evaporation, a draconic beast hoarding its wealth for itself. A place of stagnancy, though much life calls the lands around home. There exist many plots of arable terrain here, and it seems to all Moradaya, Skoda first of all, a good place to settle. To the east of this great salt pond is a river valley sandwiched by mountains north and the stratovolcano which looms over all therein and will soon become a place of great spiritual power south. Here, the Moradaya found a city, that of Majadaragand, the City of the Middle Valley.
For some time, perhaps a century or so, the Moradaya have called these lands home. The Urartians of the old kingdom of Ushnu still do so too, though they are in the process of being subsumed into Anyan ways of life, an integration which lends to the growing distinction between Moradaya and other Anyana. The real history of their conquests merges with legend, birthing new myths among the tribe's members now growing fat off the land. This is how the Moradaya came into their home.
Name: Moradaya
Gov't Type: Sedentary
Techs: Iron Age, Horse domestication, Spoked Wheel
map
2023.06.10 19:00 SkittishReflections I was Forced to Live a Nightmare
When you're rich enough, you get perks you can only dream of. Literally. But somehow, my paradise turned into hell.
Have you ever had a dream so amazing, you wished you could relive it? Explore it? Relish it? Well, when you're rich enough, you don't have to wish. It's a reality thanks to dream banks. You may have heard of them and their pricy services, which include recording, saving, and projecting dreams.
For example, if you'd like a dream recorded, you can book one of their luxurious suites for the night, where the dream techs will fit you with a special helmet and leave you to rest. The next morning, they'll replay the recorded dream for you via the helmet and ask if you want to shell out the extra bucks to save it. If you don't, they'll delete it and you can pay to book for another time to try again.
If you do decide to save it, you must select an item within the dream that will act as the exit key. (This will come in handy during projections.) While still wearing the helmet, you must touch the item, and the dream techs will label those electric signals as the key.
Afterwards, everything is saved under your name, and you can now relive your dream at any time by booking a suite for three, five, or eight hours. Unlike recordings, during projections, you don't have to wait for sleep to come. After you enjoy a snack of your choice, the helmet is fitted and you're immediately transported to your dream, where you have free will and can enjoy it at your leisure. And if you ever need to leave early, this is when you touch the key, which will shut down the helmet right away.
In my case, the key is the stegosaurus leather rug I have hanging on the wall of my throne room. I never have a reason to touch it otherwise, making it a perfect key. I've also never had to touch it. Experiencing life as an all-powerful, worshipped being who lives on my own planet and hunts dinosaurs in my spare time, I relished my dream to the last second.
Yes, the fees are exorbitant, but at the time, I felt it was worth it. The techs were skilled, the system was sleek, and the dreams were private. Each could only be unlocked by the unique brainwaves of the dreamer.
Or so I thought.
My literal nightmare began when I booked a five-hour projection on a rainy Friday afternoon. After taking a sip of champagne to wash down the cranberry brie bites, I settled into the cool silk sheets with a smile. My usual dream tech smiled back as she fastened my helmet, and the last thing I heard was her wishing me pleasant dreams before I was plunged into darkness.
I waited for the split-second adjustment from reality to the dream world, and my confusion grew when I didn't find myself on my throne surrounded by fawning gods and goddesses.
Instead, I found myself in the middle of an endless street. Alone. There were no cars, no life, not even wind. Towering street lamps lined the sidewalk as far as I could see, arcing over the road and tinting everything an eerie red. Behind them, identical buildings stood side by side, silent, their dark, narrow windows hollow.
My pulse spiking, I whipped around. The other direction was just as endless. Uneasy confusion prickled beneath my skin. This had to be someone else's dream. The techs must have made a mistake. I didn't know how it was possible, but there was no other explanation.
My unease piqued as my situation sank in. I was in a stranger's dream and I didn't know the key. I was stuck here until my five hours ran out. Or until the techs realized their mistake. I was ready to rip them a new one once I was out, but until then, I had no choice but to wait.
I studied my surroundings with a frown before I walked over to the curb and sat down, and that was when I noticed I couldn't feel anything. I also noticed I was naked. It didn't matter. There was no one here, and none of this was real anyway.
Time passed, and I tried to distract myself from my nettled offense by humming, but no sound came out. Sitting up, I took a deep breath and screamed. Not even a squeak was heard. I slapped my hand against the ground. Nothing. This place was like a black hole of the senses.
Sighing, I lay down on my back and stared at the red light above me, wondering if I could fall asleep in a dream. I tried, but the more I wished to escape this silent, crimson prison, the more it seemed to come into focus. Soon, the utter lack of noise and movement grew from slightly unnerving to completely intolerable.
There was no way I could wait. I'd go insane. I had to get out of here. I had to find the key.
Jumping up, I ran to the nearest building and wrenched open the door, and a pitch black void greeted me. I gasped, and gasped again as it felt like my very breath was being suctioned out of my lungs. Panicking, silent wheezes rattled in my chest as I struggled to yank myself out of the vacuum, jerking my limbs and bucking my body until I toppled over backwards on the sidewalk.
Gulping in fitful breaths, I scrambled to my feet and ran down the road without looking back, my wide eyes scanning the horizon for salvation. I just wanted out of here, but the hellish path stretched on forever, making me feel like I was running in place as every identical building and street lamp mocked me. Even my silent stomping and mute panting served to draw insanity closer.
And then, a person showed up.
There, in the distance.
With my hope spurred, I raced towards them, desperate. I didn't care who they were. I needed to break this monotony.
As I got closer, hope morphed to confusion, and then to despair. The person was me. It was a mirror, propped up across the entire street.
Sweat-soaked, I slowed down to a jog before I stopped right in front of my reflection. It was me alright, naked, exhausted, and frustrated. But the eyes, something was off about the eyes. With an anxious frown, I stepped closer, staring into them, and they stared back …
… until they glanced behind me.
I gasped and jumped away, and so did my reflection … before it glanced over my shoulder again.
A chill trickled down my spine. My reflection had nothing behind it but the empty street, so I gulped and turned around, and my mouth fell open in a silent scream as a lovecraftian behemoth barrelled its way towards me. With its slick shell gleaming red beneath the lights, it slammed down one spiny tentacle after the other as its five mouths bared their dripping, concentric fangs.
Drenched in undiluted horror, tremors gripped my body as I stumbled away until my back was against the mirror. I knew death was a foolproof key in a dream, but I didn't know if this creature would kill me right away or leave me to suffer in agony until my five hours were up.
With it only inches away, I squeezed my eyes shut and pressed myself into the mirror, and my stomach flipped as I fell backwards. I opened my mouth to gasp, but there was nothing for me to draw in. Floating in an airless void, I flailed and thrashed, my wild eyes scanning the darkness for answers as I began to spin around.
Although death would free me, one of my greatest fears was suffocating. On one of my weightless rotations, a red, glass cube passed me by, and I grabbed it, hoping it was a breathing device. I brought it close to my face, and I gawked at what it held within.
Me.
Surrounded by identical buildings and red street lamps while a lovecraftian behemoth tore me apart.
Horrified, I threw the cube as far as I could and increased my efforts to escape this void. Yet all the flailing and thrashing was for naught as the darkness revealed no end. My eyesight began to go red as my lungs spasmed, and I clawed at my throat as my pulse stuttered in my chest.
The red kept growing and growing until it engulfed my entire vision, and I gave up. There was nothing to do but face my fears and die. With my straining heart lumbering, I let myself go limp as I stared at the red and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
I wasn't dying.
In fact, I could breathe just fine.
Frowning, I opened my eyes, and intense unease spread through my core. Above me, a red moon had taken up the entire sky, each one of its craters crystal clear, like eyes watching me. I turned my head away, and I realized I was in a park, laying down on the grass. Sitting up, I blinked in surprise at the pond right beside me, its opaque water reflecting the moon's red light. Ducks were swimming in a circle across its surface, their movements smooth with nary a splash.
Trees surrounded us, so dense I couldn't tell when one began and the other ended. It was mind-numbingly quiet here as well, and I still couldn't feel anything or make any noise, but at least the ducks were moving. This place seemed more tolerable than the last, and I was willing to wait out my five hours here. I hoped at least an hour had passed already, but with dreams, one never knew. All I knew was that I was too exhausted to search for the key. And too scared. I didn't know whose dream this was, but they had to be masochistic if they saved this nightmare.
Curling up beside the pond, I worked on calming myself down as I watched the ducks swim in their systematic circle over and over and over. I tried counting the rotations the way one would count sheep, but that still didn't lull me to sleep. I wished I'd chosen the three-hour projection, but at least I hadn't chosen the eight-hour one.
Distorted circus music crackled around me and I jolted up, my heart ricocheting in my chest. There was finally sound, but the last thing I wanted to hear was a cliche horror movie soundtrack. Gulping, I looked around. The music was coming from the trees, and my stomach dropped when I spied a shadow behind one of them. Then another. And another. They emerged into the crimson moonlight, and my blood turned to ice.
Clowns.
I whipped around, trembling to the rhythm of my frantic pulse. They were surrounding me. Dozens of them. As classic as any clown could be. Colorful clothes, big shoes, silly hair, exaggerated makeup. I wasn't scared of clowns, as long as they were where they belonged. And they didn't belong here, staring at me with big, empty eyes and yellow, toothy grins.
I tried to convince myself that they weren't dangerous since they didn't have weapons and didn't seem monstrous, but when they took a step closer in unison, I jumped back, nearly falling into the pond. The ducks remained oblivious, still swimming in their circle. The distorted circus music got louder, and my hair stood on end when I saw the grass ripple in front of each clown. They were sending something my way through the ground.
Panicking, I jumped into the pond, and I screamed as I sank right in. There was no bottom. There was no water either. The pond was filled with red, translucent spheres, each the size of a tennis ball. Still able to breathe, I began swimming through the spheres with clumsy breast strokes, just hoping I could end up as far away from the clowns as possible.
After swimming for what felt like enough time, I tried to swim up, until I realized I had no idea which direction I was facing. Remember a trick for those stuck in avalanches, I spat, but my glob of saliva just hovered in front of me. Before panic could set in, I noticed what looked like an office desk floating amidst the spheres in the distance. After blinking a few times to make sure it was really there, I swam towards it, desperate for any change in my situation.
It was an office desk, a wooden one with carved borders and locked drawers. Tucked beneath it was a stool, and the moment I pulled it out and set it under my ass, an office replaced the red spheres.
I grunted as gravity returned, and I looked around in bewilderment at the cluttered bookshelves and grimy floors. Dust was floating everywhere, highlighted by the red light filtering in through the blinds behind me. I jumped as a clock hanging on the wall chimed. Its glass was too dirty for me to tell the time, but I was glad I could hear. I coughed at the dust. And I could make noise. I dusted my hands. And I could feel. I could even smell, which I now wished I couldn't as I wrinkled my nose at the faint stench of rot.
After failing to read the spines of some of the books on the shelves, I studied the shadowy corners of the room. A slack-jawed skeleton hung in the far end, and a faded poster with anatomical diagrams curled off a cupboard. This had to be a doctor's office. Was the creator of this dream a doctor?
A silhouette slid in front of the frosted glass door, and I gulped as the knob began to turn. A hand reached in, gripping the edge one finger at a time, and my heart dropped as I knew this horror cliche was only going to be followed by another. Having no time to think, I slid off the stool and crouched beneath the desk, my hand over my mouth as cobwebs clung to me.
Praying spiders wouldn't swarm me, I peeked through a small slit in the wood, and I froze when an emaciated nurse walked in the room. Layers upon layers of blood coated her scrubs, so much so that I couldn't even tell what color they originally were. She had no shoes. No feet either. Just ankle stubs, and my stomach turned as I heard bone clunk against the tiles.
A surgical mask covered her face, as bloodstained as her scrubs, and grimy lab goggles obscured her eyes. I was grateful, because judging by the pus leaking out of her scabbed, balding scalp, I didn't want to know what her face looked like. The closer she got, the stronger the stench of rot became, and I struggled to keep myself from retching.
She stopped halfway into the room, and I gawked at her hands. They were transforming. Her fingers elongating into razor-edged blades. She then began to hunch over, and I cringed as her spine cracked and popped until she was as bent as a candy cane, her face staring at her pelvis.
As if that wasn't unsettling enough, her head creaked as it spun around 180 degrees, now facing the front, upside down. Right after, her arms shot to the ground, and I watched with increasing dread as she bent them at the elbows and wrists so they flanked her head like distorted T-Rex arms.
She spread her fingers out and took a few more steps towards me, and I held my breath, hoping she couldn't hear my rabid heart or smell my fear. Her ankle bones clicked and clacked against the tiles as she made her way around the desk, and I cowered as my frantic eyes searched for a weapon. I found none, but I did spy a brass button beside my head.
With her legs now an arms distance away, I had nothing to lose as I jammed my thumb into the button. The back of the desk flung open, and I scrambled to my feet and dashed out from my hiding place, screaming in response to the nurse screeching behind me. Bursting through the door, I held up my fists and began punching like a maniac in fearful anticipation of a horde of nurses swarming me.
Except I was no longer in a hospital. I was in an outdoor parking lot. Alone. And judging by the roiling red clouds, a storm was brewing. After a second to collect my bearings, I dove into the closest car, thankful it was unlocked. The moment I slammed the door shut, lightning blinded me as thunder cracked and the downpour began. Sighing in relief, I tried to shake away my adrenaline, but the bloodshot eyes in my rearview mirror reignited my panic.
Before I could react, a belt snapped over my neck, pinning my head back against the headrest. With a frightened wheeze, I clawed at the leather, and I flinched as hot, heavy breath wafted across my ear. Gagging at the putrid smell, I reached over, desperate to scratch my strangler's face or poke their eyes out.
I felt their greasy hair and tried to pull it, but my fingers refused to hold on. I tried again and again, using my nails for purchase, but the strands just kept slipping out of my weak grip. Shifting focus, I tried to claw at their eyes, but it felt as though I was moving through molasses as my hand slid down their face. Once I felt a wet, bulbous eye, I tried to scratch it, but I didn't have enough strength to do anything damage.
My frustration clashed with my terror and I tried to punch them, but my arm swung back in slow motion and merely prodded a stubbly cheek. Tears welled in my eyes as I writhed and gasped, my strangler's laugh adding insult to injury. Despite knowing death will set me free, fear and self-preservation rummaged through my mind, searching for a solution. And they found one.
Hoping I had enough grip and energy, I reached down and found the reclining lever. Wrapping my fingers around it tight, I jerked it up and heaved my body back, and I gulped in a deep breath as I fell backwards, the belt now slack. Not at all prepared to face my attacker, I slipped out from beneath the belt, flung open the door, and zoomed out into the storm.
Sheets of rain obscured my vision, but not enough for me to see that the keys were left inside a red convertible. After making sure no one was hiding in the back, I jumped in, started the engine, and took off, the wheels squealing through the puddles. A sole street curled down a hill, and I took it, adrenaline pumping in waves through my quivering body.
This rush was a confusing mixture of exhilaration and apprehension. I wanted out, but I wasn't giving up. I made it this far, and I was going to survive every cliche this masochist dreamed up. Sharks? Snakes? Zombies? Bring it on. And afterwards, I was going to detail every single trial and tribulation I went through as I sued the dream bank for all the trauma they caused me.
Up ahead, the road curved, and I gasped as it ended in a cliff. I slammed the breaks, but they didn't do anything. Breaking out in a cold sweat, I slammed them again and again as I yanked the hand break as far as it would go. The car refused to slow down, and I cursed myself for not anticipating this cliche. In a move of desperation, I swerved, but it wasn't enough as the car careened over the edge and took me with it.
My heart hung in my throat as I hung on to the steering wheel, my knuckles white, my screams frozen in my lungs, the raindrops like needles. An endless body of water spread below me, and I knew sharks were my next challenge. I screwed my eyes shut as I awaited the inevitable plunge …
… and I gasped as the car crashed against the surface.
I lurched forward, and I cried out as I bashed my forehead against the wheel. Groaning, I leaned back, my ears ringing as I looked around, disoriented. I was still in the convertible, but we were right side up, having crashed into the concrete wall of an indoor garage. Blood trickled down my face and I reached up, only to feel around my head in shock.
I was wearing the helmet.
Why was it in the dream?
Or had I made it out?
I looked down. I wasn't naked. My pyjamas were plastered to my sweat-soaked skin. I was out. I looked around at the broken glass and mangled metal in confusion. But if I was finally out, why was I in a car and not between silk sheets?
I removed the helmet, and a yell from behind made me jump. I turned to see one of the dream techs running towards me. Was she always that skinny? And why were her scrubs red instead of the usual blue?
She made it to me, panting as she took the helmet out of my hands, and I wrinkled my nose at her unpleasant breath. She said I'd had a nightmare and began sleepwalking, and I'd left the dream bank and stole a car from their underground parking before she triggered a wake-up signal in the helmet, which made me crash.
I stared at her, not believing what I was hearing. I told her I'd booked a projection, not a recording, and she gave me a concerned frown and claimed the opposite. Anger replaced my confusion, and I called her a liar and accused them of misconduct, and she reminded me that dreams can only be unlocked by the dreamer.
Furious, I cursed at her as I tried to get out of the car, demanding to see my file. She was quick to tell me not to move in case I made my injuries worse as she pulled out her phone and said she was going to call an ambulance.
While I sat there and waited, fuming, I glimpsed my reflection in the dangling rearview mirror. Unease rippled beneath my skin and I sat up, grabbing the mirror and angling it to show my neck.
There was an angry red mark across it.
As though I was recently strangled.
Trembling, I tilted the mirror up.
Cobwebs. Stuck in my hair.
Dumbstruck in utter stupefaction, I scanned the rest of my body. My pyjamas were dirty and there was black under my fingernails, but the rest of my examination was cut short by tinny circus music. A chill jolted down my spine and I whipped my head to face the dream tech. That was her ringtone. She smiled as she answered the call, and I drew back at her yellow, toothy grin.
What was going on? I was out of the dream, I knew I was. Had everything been real? What had the dream bank done with me? Done to me?
Ambulance sirens wailed as they entered the underground parking, and the flashing red lights reflecting off the walls triggered my recent traumas. With terror-fueled adrenaline flooding my veins, I jerked my legs free of the wreck, jumped out of the car, and booked it, the dream tech's yells merging with the screeching sirens behind me.
SR
submitted by SkittishReflections to nosleep [link] [comments]
Have you ever had a dream so amazing, you wished you could relive it? Explore it? Relish it? Well, when you're rich enough, you don't have to wish. It's a reality thanks to dream banks. You may have heard of them and their pricy services, which include recording, saving, and projecting dreams.
For example, if you'd like a dream recorded, you can book one of their luxurious suites for the night, where the dream techs will fit you with a special helmet and leave you to rest. The next morning, they'll replay the recorded dream for you via the helmet and ask if you want to shell out the extra bucks to save it. If you don't, they'll delete it and you can pay to book for another time to try again.
If you do decide to save it, you must select an item within the dream that will act as the exit key. (This will come in handy during projections.) While still wearing the helmet, you must touch the item, and the dream techs will label those electric signals as the key.
Afterwards, everything is saved under your name, and you can now relive your dream at any time by booking a suite for three, five, or eight hours. Unlike recordings, during projections, you don't have to wait for sleep to come. After you enjoy a snack of your choice, the helmet is fitted and you're immediately transported to your dream, where you have free will and can enjoy it at your leisure. And if you ever need to leave early, this is when you touch the key, which will shut down the helmet right away.
In my case, the key is the stegosaurus leather rug I have hanging on the wall of my throne room. I never have a reason to touch it otherwise, making it a perfect key. I've also never had to touch it. Experiencing life as an all-powerful, worshipped being who lives on my own planet and hunts dinosaurs in my spare time, I relished my dream to the last second.
Yes, the fees are exorbitant, but at the time, I felt it was worth it. The techs were skilled, the system was sleek, and the dreams were private. Each could only be unlocked by the unique brainwaves of the dreamer.
Or so I thought.
My literal nightmare began when I booked a five-hour projection on a rainy Friday afternoon. After taking a sip of champagne to wash down the cranberry brie bites, I settled into the cool silk sheets with a smile. My usual dream tech smiled back as she fastened my helmet, and the last thing I heard was her wishing me pleasant dreams before I was plunged into darkness.
I waited for the split-second adjustment from reality to the dream world, and my confusion grew when I didn't find myself on my throne surrounded by fawning gods and goddesses.
Instead, I found myself in the middle of an endless street. Alone. There were no cars, no life, not even wind. Towering street lamps lined the sidewalk as far as I could see, arcing over the road and tinting everything an eerie red. Behind them, identical buildings stood side by side, silent, their dark, narrow windows hollow.
My pulse spiking, I whipped around. The other direction was just as endless. Uneasy confusion prickled beneath my skin. This had to be someone else's dream. The techs must have made a mistake. I didn't know how it was possible, but there was no other explanation.
My unease piqued as my situation sank in. I was in a stranger's dream and I didn't know the key. I was stuck here until my five hours ran out. Or until the techs realized their mistake. I was ready to rip them a new one once I was out, but until then, I had no choice but to wait.
I studied my surroundings with a frown before I walked over to the curb and sat down, and that was when I noticed I couldn't feel anything. I also noticed I was naked. It didn't matter. There was no one here, and none of this was real anyway.
Time passed, and I tried to distract myself from my nettled offense by humming, but no sound came out. Sitting up, I took a deep breath and screamed. Not even a squeak was heard. I slapped my hand against the ground. Nothing. This place was like a black hole of the senses.
Sighing, I lay down on my back and stared at the red light above me, wondering if I could fall asleep in a dream. I tried, but the more I wished to escape this silent, crimson prison, the more it seemed to come into focus. Soon, the utter lack of noise and movement grew from slightly unnerving to completely intolerable.
There was no way I could wait. I'd go insane. I had to get out of here. I had to find the key.
Jumping up, I ran to the nearest building and wrenched open the door, and a pitch black void greeted me. I gasped, and gasped again as it felt like my very breath was being suctioned out of my lungs. Panicking, silent wheezes rattled in my chest as I struggled to yank myself out of the vacuum, jerking my limbs and bucking my body until I toppled over backwards on the sidewalk.
Gulping in fitful breaths, I scrambled to my feet and ran down the road without looking back, my wide eyes scanning the horizon for salvation. I just wanted out of here, but the hellish path stretched on forever, making me feel like I was running in place as every identical building and street lamp mocked me. Even my silent stomping and mute panting served to draw insanity closer.
And then, a person showed up.
There, in the distance.
With my hope spurred, I raced towards them, desperate. I didn't care who they were. I needed to break this monotony.
As I got closer, hope morphed to confusion, and then to despair. The person was me. It was a mirror, propped up across the entire street.
Sweat-soaked, I slowed down to a jog before I stopped right in front of my reflection. It was me alright, naked, exhausted, and frustrated. But the eyes, something was off about the eyes. With an anxious frown, I stepped closer, staring into them, and they stared back …
… until they glanced behind me.
I gasped and jumped away, and so did my reflection … before it glanced over my shoulder again.
A chill trickled down my spine. My reflection had nothing behind it but the empty street, so I gulped and turned around, and my mouth fell open in a silent scream as a lovecraftian behemoth barrelled its way towards me. With its slick shell gleaming red beneath the lights, it slammed down one spiny tentacle after the other as its five mouths bared their dripping, concentric fangs.
Drenched in undiluted horror, tremors gripped my body as I stumbled away until my back was against the mirror. I knew death was a foolproof key in a dream, but I didn't know if this creature would kill me right away or leave me to suffer in agony until my five hours were up.
With it only inches away, I squeezed my eyes shut and pressed myself into the mirror, and my stomach flipped as I fell backwards. I opened my mouth to gasp, but there was nothing for me to draw in. Floating in an airless void, I flailed and thrashed, my wild eyes scanning the darkness for answers as I began to spin around.
Although death would free me, one of my greatest fears was suffocating. On one of my weightless rotations, a red, glass cube passed me by, and I grabbed it, hoping it was a breathing device. I brought it close to my face, and I gawked at what it held within.
Me.
Surrounded by identical buildings and red street lamps while a lovecraftian behemoth tore me apart.
Horrified, I threw the cube as far as I could and increased my efforts to escape this void. Yet all the flailing and thrashing was for naught as the darkness revealed no end. My eyesight began to go red as my lungs spasmed, and I clawed at my throat as my pulse stuttered in my chest.
The red kept growing and growing until it engulfed my entire vision, and I gave up. There was nothing to do but face my fears and die. With my straining heart lumbering, I let myself go limp as I stared at the red and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
I wasn't dying.
In fact, I could breathe just fine.
Frowning, I opened my eyes, and intense unease spread through my core. Above me, a red moon had taken up the entire sky, each one of its craters crystal clear, like eyes watching me. I turned my head away, and I realized I was in a park, laying down on the grass. Sitting up, I blinked in surprise at the pond right beside me, its opaque water reflecting the moon's red light. Ducks were swimming in a circle across its surface, their movements smooth with nary a splash.
Trees surrounded us, so dense I couldn't tell when one began and the other ended. It was mind-numbingly quiet here as well, and I still couldn't feel anything or make any noise, but at least the ducks were moving. This place seemed more tolerable than the last, and I was willing to wait out my five hours here. I hoped at least an hour had passed already, but with dreams, one never knew. All I knew was that I was too exhausted to search for the key. And too scared. I didn't know whose dream this was, but they had to be masochistic if they saved this nightmare.
Curling up beside the pond, I worked on calming myself down as I watched the ducks swim in their systematic circle over and over and over. I tried counting the rotations the way one would count sheep, but that still didn't lull me to sleep. I wished I'd chosen the three-hour projection, but at least I hadn't chosen the eight-hour one.
Distorted circus music crackled around me and I jolted up, my heart ricocheting in my chest. There was finally sound, but the last thing I wanted to hear was a cliche horror movie soundtrack. Gulping, I looked around. The music was coming from the trees, and my stomach dropped when I spied a shadow behind one of them. Then another. And another. They emerged into the crimson moonlight, and my blood turned to ice.
Clowns.
I whipped around, trembling to the rhythm of my frantic pulse. They were surrounding me. Dozens of them. As classic as any clown could be. Colorful clothes, big shoes, silly hair, exaggerated makeup. I wasn't scared of clowns, as long as they were where they belonged. And they didn't belong here, staring at me with big, empty eyes and yellow, toothy grins.
I tried to convince myself that they weren't dangerous since they didn't have weapons and didn't seem monstrous, but when they took a step closer in unison, I jumped back, nearly falling into the pond. The ducks remained oblivious, still swimming in their circle. The distorted circus music got louder, and my hair stood on end when I saw the grass ripple in front of each clown. They were sending something my way through the ground.
Panicking, I jumped into the pond, and I screamed as I sank right in. There was no bottom. There was no water either. The pond was filled with red, translucent spheres, each the size of a tennis ball. Still able to breathe, I began swimming through the spheres with clumsy breast strokes, just hoping I could end up as far away from the clowns as possible.
After swimming for what felt like enough time, I tried to swim up, until I realized I had no idea which direction I was facing. Remember a trick for those stuck in avalanches, I spat, but my glob of saliva just hovered in front of me. Before panic could set in, I noticed what looked like an office desk floating amidst the spheres in the distance. After blinking a few times to make sure it was really there, I swam towards it, desperate for any change in my situation.
It was an office desk, a wooden one with carved borders and locked drawers. Tucked beneath it was a stool, and the moment I pulled it out and set it under my ass, an office replaced the red spheres.
I grunted as gravity returned, and I looked around in bewilderment at the cluttered bookshelves and grimy floors. Dust was floating everywhere, highlighted by the red light filtering in through the blinds behind me. I jumped as a clock hanging on the wall chimed. Its glass was too dirty for me to tell the time, but I was glad I could hear. I coughed at the dust. And I could make noise. I dusted my hands. And I could feel. I could even smell, which I now wished I couldn't as I wrinkled my nose at the faint stench of rot.
After failing to read the spines of some of the books on the shelves, I studied the shadowy corners of the room. A slack-jawed skeleton hung in the far end, and a faded poster with anatomical diagrams curled off a cupboard. This had to be a doctor's office. Was the creator of this dream a doctor?
A silhouette slid in front of the frosted glass door, and I gulped as the knob began to turn. A hand reached in, gripping the edge one finger at a time, and my heart dropped as I knew this horror cliche was only going to be followed by another. Having no time to think, I slid off the stool and crouched beneath the desk, my hand over my mouth as cobwebs clung to me.
Praying spiders wouldn't swarm me, I peeked through a small slit in the wood, and I froze when an emaciated nurse walked in the room. Layers upon layers of blood coated her scrubs, so much so that I couldn't even tell what color they originally were. She had no shoes. No feet either. Just ankle stubs, and my stomach turned as I heard bone clunk against the tiles.
A surgical mask covered her face, as bloodstained as her scrubs, and grimy lab goggles obscured her eyes. I was grateful, because judging by the pus leaking out of her scabbed, balding scalp, I didn't want to know what her face looked like. The closer she got, the stronger the stench of rot became, and I struggled to keep myself from retching.
She stopped halfway into the room, and I gawked at her hands. They were transforming. Her fingers elongating into razor-edged blades. She then began to hunch over, and I cringed as her spine cracked and popped until she was as bent as a candy cane, her face staring at her pelvis.
As if that wasn't unsettling enough, her head creaked as it spun around 180 degrees, now facing the front, upside down. Right after, her arms shot to the ground, and I watched with increasing dread as she bent them at the elbows and wrists so they flanked her head like distorted T-Rex arms.
She spread her fingers out and took a few more steps towards me, and I held my breath, hoping she couldn't hear my rabid heart or smell my fear. Her ankle bones clicked and clacked against the tiles as she made her way around the desk, and I cowered as my frantic eyes searched for a weapon. I found none, but I did spy a brass button beside my head.
With her legs now an arms distance away, I had nothing to lose as I jammed my thumb into the button. The back of the desk flung open, and I scrambled to my feet and dashed out from my hiding place, screaming in response to the nurse screeching behind me. Bursting through the door, I held up my fists and began punching like a maniac in fearful anticipation of a horde of nurses swarming me.
Except I was no longer in a hospital. I was in an outdoor parking lot. Alone. And judging by the roiling red clouds, a storm was brewing. After a second to collect my bearings, I dove into the closest car, thankful it was unlocked. The moment I slammed the door shut, lightning blinded me as thunder cracked and the downpour began. Sighing in relief, I tried to shake away my adrenaline, but the bloodshot eyes in my rearview mirror reignited my panic.
Before I could react, a belt snapped over my neck, pinning my head back against the headrest. With a frightened wheeze, I clawed at the leather, and I flinched as hot, heavy breath wafted across my ear. Gagging at the putrid smell, I reached over, desperate to scratch my strangler's face or poke their eyes out.
I felt their greasy hair and tried to pull it, but my fingers refused to hold on. I tried again and again, using my nails for purchase, but the strands just kept slipping out of my weak grip. Shifting focus, I tried to claw at their eyes, but it felt as though I was moving through molasses as my hand slid down their face. Once I felt a wet, bulbous eye, I tried to scratch it, but I didn't have enough strength to do anything damage.
My frustration clashed with my terror and I tried to punch them, but my arm swung back in slow motion and merely prodded a stubbly cheek. Tears welled in my eyes as I writhed and gasped, my strangler's laugh adding insult to injury. Despite knowing death will set me free, fear and self-preservation rummaged through my mind, searching for a solution. And they found one.
Hoping I had enough grip and energy, I reached down and found the reclining lever. Wrapping my fingers around it tight, I jerked it up and heaved my body back, and I gulped in a deep breath as I fell backwards, the belt now slack. Not at all prepared to face my attacker, I slipped out from beneath the belt, flung open the door, and zoomed out into the storm.
Sheets of rain obscured my vision, but not enough for me to see that the keys were left inside a red convertible. After making sure no one was hiding in the back, I jumped in, started the engine, and took off, the wheels squealing through the puddles. A sole street curled down a hill, and I took it, adrenaline pumping in waves through my quivering body.
This rush was a confusing mixture of exhilaration and apprehension. I wanted out, but I wasn't giving up. I made it this far, and I was going to survive every cliche this masochist dreamed up. Sharks? Snakes? Zombies? Bring it on. And afterwards, I was going to detail every single trial and tribulation I went through as I sued the dream bank for all the trauma they caused me.
Up ahead, the road curved, and I gasped as it ended in a cliff. I slammed the breaks, but they didn't do anything. Breaking out in a cold sweat, I slammed them again and again as I yanked the hand break as far as it would go. The car refused to slow down, and I cursed myself for not anticipating this cliche. In a move of desperation, I swerved, but it wasn't enough as the car careened over the edge and took me with it.
My heart hung in my throat as I hung on to the steering wheel, my knuckles white, my screams frozen in my lungs, the raindrops like needles. An endless body of water spread below me, and I knew sharks were my next challenge. I screwed my eyes shut as I awaited the inevitable plunge …
… and I gasped as the car crashed against the surface.
I lurched forward, and I cried out as I bashed my forehead against the wheel. Groaning, I leaned back, my ears ringing as I looked around, disoriented. I was still in the convertible, but we were right side up, having crashed into the concrete wall of an indoor garage. Blood trickled down my face and I reached up, only to feel around my head in shock.
I was wearing the helmet.
Why was it in the dream?
Or had I made it out?
I looked down. I wasn't naked. My pyjamas were plastered to my sweat-soaked skin. I was out. I looked around at the broken glass and mangled metal in confusion. But if I was finally out, why was I in a car and not between silk sheets?
I removed the helmet, and a yell from behind made me jump. I turned to see one of the dream techs running towards me. Was she always that skinny? And why were her scrubs red instead of the usual blue?
She made it to me, panting as she took the helmet out of my hands, and I wrinkled my nose at her unpleasant breath. She said I'd had a nightmare and began sleepwalking, and I'd left the dream bank and stole a car from their underground parking before she triggered a wake-up signal in the helmet, which made me crash.
I stared at her, not believing what I was hearing. I told her I'd booked a projection, not a recording, and she gave me a concerned frown and claimed the opposite. Anger replaced my confusion, and I called her a liar and accused them of misconduct, and she reminded me that dreams can only be unlocked by the dreamer.
Furious, I cursed at her as I tried to get out of the car, demanding to see my file. She was quick to tell me not to move in case I made my injuries worse as she pulled out her phone and said she was going to call an ambulance.
While I sat there and waited, fuming, I glimpsed my reflection in the dangling rearview mirror. Unease rippled beneath my skin and I sat up, grabbing the mirror and angling it to show my neck.
There was an angry red mark across it.
As though I was recently strangled.
Trembling, I tilted the mirror up.
Cobwebs. Stuck in my hair.
Dumbstruck in utter stupefaction, I scanned the rest of my body. My pyjamas were dirty and there was black under my fingernails, but the rest of my examination was cut short by tinny circus music. A chill jolted down my spine and I whipped my head to face the dream tech. That was her ringtone. She smiled as she answered the call, and I drew back at her yellow, toothy grin.
What was going on? I was out of the dream, I knew I was. Had everything been real? What had the dream bank done with me? Done to me?
Ambulance sirens wailed as they entered the underground parking, and the flashing red lights reflecting off the walls triggered my recent traumas. With terror-fueled adrenaline flooding my veins, I jerked my legs free of the wreck, jumped out of the car, and booked it, the dream tech's yells merging with the screeching sirens behind me.
2023.06.10 18:45 randomfloat Taste of Nordic taxes
 | Just received the latest edition of the BMW “Lifestyle magazine” with some investment car propositions. I keeps seeing the US part of this sub complaining about the dealer markups. But here on the other side of the pond, it’s the dealer markups and the state taxes that are crazy. submitted by randomfloat to BMW [link] [comments] M3 CS (unlimited production run). MSRP $136K, post tax: $415K M4 CSL (1500 cars production run). MSRP $159, post tax: $488K 3.0 CSL (50 cars production run). MSRP $847K, post tax: $2.1M My assumption is that the prices above are for the bare model without any extras. |
2023.06.10 18:25 OpiusDopius Flood Resistant Florida Native Ground Cover
I need some help from you lovely gardening folks here. I have a yard which has decent grass cover and then goes to just straight dirt due to flooding with heavy rains. I want to get some kind of ground cover in these areas which do flood sporadically. Most of the year they are dry areas and sandy soil but during rainy season, there's some times where they really flood enough where it looks like a small pond in the backyard. Does anyone have any suggestions for ground cover I could put in these areas?
submitted by OpiusDopius to gardening [link] [comments]
2023.06.10 18:15 lovelyrainyday [routine help] 26F trying to slow down signs of aging and fine lines
![[routine help] 26F trying to slow down signs of aging and fine lines](https://b.thumbs.redditmedia.com/1JKLM_RyjCYpSqLJQSzW2ngeIEELzKXu_kh8GCNkmxY.jpg "[routine help] 26F trying to slow down signs of aging and fine lines") | Hello everyone! I turned 26 last week and have had people guess my age as 28/29 for about a year now. Feel really confused about how old I look and frankly a little bad. I have combination but mostly dry skin and try my best to moisturize enough and drink enough water. I want to add vitamin C serum and hyaluronic acid to my routine to help with fine lines. I have fine lines on my forehead, under eyes, and around my mouth. Any other recommendations for products or routine? Thank you! submitted by lovelyrainyday to SkincareAddiction [link] [comments] My routine now: AM: if I didn’t use tretinoin the night before, I wash my face in the shower with cerave hydrating cleanser. If I used tret the night before, I just wash with water. Before makeup, I add a few drops of water to cerave facial moisturizing lotion SPF 30 and massage that into my skin. PM: wash with same cleanser, remove any remaining mascara with a Neutrogena makeup removing wipe VERY GENTLY. Pat my face dry. When totally dry I apply tretinoin 0.025%. I wait 20 mins then apply pond rejuveness cream. My skin loves anything lightweight and hydrating. Anything too thick just sits on my skin, so I have to add a couple drops of water to help with absorption. |
2023.06.10 18:07 Cosmic-Cherub Anyone doing any challenges or anything like that for there current play through?
 | I just got back into the game and started on my laptop for my modded farm save,but moved to my switch for a plain save and I want to do skill only challenges so I’m starting with fishing. I picked the beach farm and my only income is going to be from fishing. Want to give npcs gift welp they better love fish so Sebastian loves sashimi and Elliot loves lobster so I’ll go for one of them to marry. I also like how they fit since Elliot already lives on the beach and Sebastian is always at the lake or ocean so both enjoy water.Other npcs who also like fish I’ll befriend. I’m gonna go the joja route since I wouldn’t be able to finish the cc with just fishing because I can’t fish up quality crops. I’m not doing any foraging, farming, mining or anything else. Crab pots will be allowed and I can buy stuff from Willy such as Rod upgrades and the soup he sells other than that everything will come from fishing. Only thing I’m allowing myself to get from Pierre is backpack upgrades and that’s it. I will accept npc gifts because these will be people that I’ve befriended with my awesome fishing skills. I’ll also allow myself to clear my farm but that’s it no other mining or chopping of trees anywhere else. Then materials I do get from clearing the farm will go towards fishing ponds and chests but once I run out of materials from the farm itself I have to rely on just fishing to stack back up, no regrowing of trees or anything. submitted by Cosmic-Cherub to StardewValley [link] [comments] |
2023.06.10 17:44 IDidAOopsy Shubunkin gold fish tank mate?
Hey y'all,
I recently got a 120 gallon tank for my daughter's shubunkin. It's currently in the cycle process but I was thinking about picking up a buddy for the shubunkin when it's done. The shubunkins name is Navi, named by my daughter (Zelda fan)
The only thing I don't want is another very large fish like what articles about tank mates for shubunkins online say. I'd like the fish to have plenty of room to not be stressed and grow to their full potential, so a "pond mate" like another shubunkin or a koi fish isn't really ideal for me since the preferable minimum for them is 75 gallons each.
Would it be safe or practical getting a tank mate or even mates like a schooling style fish if Navi is still small so it would be used to a smaller fish? It's only a 2-3 inches right now. Got it as a baby just 2 months ago.
Any recommendations on type of fish? Does Navi even need any friends or will it be more comfortable in the large tank alone?
submitted by IDidAOopsy to Aquariums [link] [comments]
I recently got a 120 gallon tank for my daughter's shubunkin. It's currently in the cycle process but I was thinking about picking up a buddy for the shubunkin when it's done. The shubunkins name is Navi, named by my daughter (Zelda fan)
The only thing I don't want is another very large fish like what articles about tank mates for shubunkins online say. I'd like the fish to have plenty of room to not be stressed and grow to their full potential, so a "pond mate" like another shubunkin or a koi fish isn't really ideal for me since the preferable minimum for them is 75 gallons each.
Would it be safe or practical getting a tank mate or even mates like a schooling style fish if Navi is still small so it would be used to a smaller fish? It's only a 2-3 inches right now. Got it as a baby just 2 months ago.
Any recommendations on type of fish? Does Navi even need any friends or will it be more comfortable in the large tank alone?
2023.06.10 17:36 psychicinla Will fluval stratum help pond plant growth?
Hi everyone! Kind of a specific question but I'm trying to help out my mom. She just bought some water hyacinths to go in our pond and she has terrible luck with keeping them alive. She wants to use some of my fluval stratum that I use for planted tanks to see if it will help her pond plants grow better.
I'm just wondering if the aquasoil will make a difference on how well they grow or if she should just keep them free in the water. Any advice appreciated!!
submitted by psychicinla to ponds [link] [comments]
I'm just wondering if the aquasoil will make a difference on how well they grow or if she should just keep them free in the water. Any advice appreciated!!
2023.06.10 17:27 EDHav Skyrim SE some phyiscs not working / MCM not activatable Mods
Hi guys. After 8 years I started to play Skyrim Se again.
For my mods I use "MO2" "Nemesis" "Loot" "Bodyslide" (FNIS)
After my first try with the mods my game crashed every 2 minutes. So I reinstalled everything. 15Hours later everything was set up and fine.
My game looks very good, new animations and so on.
I was able to play it, but it is not perfect.
Here are my MAIN PROBLEMS.
Here is my mod list.
#Mod_Priority,#Mod_Status,#Mod_Name
"0000","+","Creation Club: ccQDRSSE001-SurvivalMode"
"0001","+","Creation Club: ccBGSSSE037-Curios"
"0002","+","Creation Club: ccBGSSSE025-AdvDSGS"
"0003","+","Creation Club: ccBGSSSE001-Fish"
"0004","+","DLC: HearthFires"
"0005","+","DLC: Dragonborn"
"0006","+","DLC: Dawnguard"
"0007","+","Nemesis Unlimited Behavior Engine"
"0008","+","Precision"
"0009","+","KS Hairdos - HDT SMP (Physics)"
"0010","-","TK Dodge RE-OnlyDodge"
"0011","+","Caliente's Beautiful Bodies Enhancer -CBBE-"
"0012","+","XP32 Maximum Skeleton Special Extended"
"0013","+","Simple Dual Sheath for 1.6.629 and newer"
"0014","+","CBPC Equipment Physics"
"0015","+","CBPC - Physics with Collisions"
"0016","+","All in one"
"0017","-","TK Dodge SE"
"0018","+","MCM Helper SE"
"0019","+","SkyUI_5_2_SE"
"0020","+","DynamicAnimationReplacerAE v1.1.3 for Skyrim 16629"
"0021","+","CBBE 3BA"
"0022","+","Animation Motion Revolution"
"0023","+","Payload Interpreter"
"0024","+","Papyrus Ini Manipulator"
"0025","+","dTry's Key Utils SE"
"0026","+","Elden Power Attack"
"0027","+","oneclickmodified v"
"0028","+","Attack MCO-DXP"
"0029","+","All in one (Anniversary Edition)"
"0030","-","IFrame Generator RE"
"0031","+","SCAR - Skyrim Combos AI Revolution"
"0032","+","SCAR AE Support"
"0033","-","Combat Pathing Revolution"
"0034","+","Behavior Data Injector"
"0035","+","Enhanced Enemy AI"
"0036","+","No Recoil"
"0037","+","Bash Behaviors Overhaul"
"0038","+","TrueHUD"
"0039","+","True Directional Movement"
"0040","+","Disable Turn Animation SE I AE"
"0041","+","Combat behavior improved"
"0042","-","Retimed Hit Frames"
"0043","+","1"
"0044","+","Valhalla Combat"
"0045","+","Behavior Data Injector Universal Support"
"0046","+","Skyrim Priority SE AE"
"0047","-","(Part 1) SSE Engine Fixes for 1.5.39 - 1.5.97"
"0048","-","PapyrusUtil SE - Scripting Utility Functions"
"0049","+","PapyrusUtil AE SE - Scripting Utility Functions"
"0050","+","IFrame Generator RE AE Support"
"0051","-","(Part 1) SSE Engine Fixes for 1.6.629 and newer"
"0052","+","Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Patch"
"0053","+","Odin 2.0.1"
"0054","+","MergeMapper"
"0055","+","powerofthree's Tweaks"
"0056","+","Spell Perk Item Distributor"
"0057","+","Resistances and Weaknesses - Main File"
"0058","+","TDF Equipment Restriction v2_6_8 SE"
"0059","+","Magic Sneak Attacks"
"0060","+","Airgetlam -Modern Magic Sounds Rework- 4.1 Redesigned"
"0061","-","Finally First Person Magic Animation"
"0062","+","Embers XD"
"0063","+","ENB Light"
"0064","+","Visual Animated Enchants"
"0065","+","Goetia Animations - Magic Spell Casting"
"0066","+","Goetia Animations - Enchanted Staves"
"0067","+","Conditional Armor Type Animations - CATA"
"0068","+","Goetia Animations - Sprint"
"0069","+","Animation Queue Fix"
"0070","+","Goetia Animations - Female Idle Walk And Run"
"0071","+","Deadly Spell Impacts"
"0072","+","1. Ultimate HD Fire Effects SSE - Ultra Resolution"
"0073","+","Spell Rune Retexture - Full SSE Port - 2k"
"0074","+","Realistic Skin and Hair Shaders - Giants"
"0075","+","Arctic - Frost Effects Redux"
"0076","+","Realistic Skin Shaders- Falmer and Hagraven"
"0077","+","powerofthree's Papyrus Extender"
"0078","+","Mysticism - A Magic Overhaul"
"0079","+","Simple Scroll Transcribing - Mysticism"
"0080","+","Equipable Spell Tomes - Redone"
"0081","+","Simple Wearable Lanterns"
"0082","+","Frozen Electrocuted Combustion"
"0083","+","Wizard Hats - Full"
"0084","+","Archmage SE - Johnskyrim - 2k"
"0085","+","Battle Mage Armour"
"0086","+","Skyrim 3D StoneWalls"
"0087","+","Fortified Whiterun"
"0088","+","ENB Helper SE 1.5 for SSE 1.5.97"
"0089","+","Water for ENB Particle Patch"
"0090","+","EVLaS"
"0091","+","Less Distracting Blowing Snow Effects 1.0"
"0092","+","Obsidian Mountain Fogs 1.01.zip"
"0093","+","Ennead Banners 2K.7z"
"0094","+","RUSTIC SOULGEMS - Special Edition - 2K Unsorted"
"0095","+","Point The Way"
"0096","-","EEKs Renthal Flora Collection"
"0097","+","Cathedral - 3D Lavender - Vanilla Size"
"0098","+","TB's Metal Chains 2K Performance SSE Variant"
"0099","+","Medieval Spirits"
"0100","+","Riekling Barrels SMIM"
"0101","+","Rudy HQ - More Lights for ENB SE - Soulgems"
"0102","+","SMIM Barrel Expansion - Mead Barrel - Oil Barrel - Butter Churn"
"0103","-","4K SMIM Carriage Seat"
"0104","+","Static Mesh Improvement Mod"
"0105","+","Particle Patch for ENB"
"0106","+","Cathedral - Weathers"
"0107","+","Lanterns Of Skyrim II"
"0108","+","Skyrim Horses Renewal SSE 1.0.1"
"0109","+","Skyrim 3D Windmill"
"0110","+","Blended Roads"
"0111","+","Simple Sacks SE"
"0112","+","ETHEREAL CLOUDS SE - 2K"
"0113","+","Waterplants - lily only"
"0114","+","tanningrack001 real skin"
"0115","+","Holy Cows - 4K (Performance Version)"
"0116","+","Purple Tail Fix for Skyrim Horses Renewal SE"
"0117","+","Campfire Backpack HD"
"0118","+","Campfire 1.12.1SEVR Release"
"0119","+","A Quality World Map - Classic with All Roads"
"0120","+","Cutting Room Floor"
"0121","+","No Snow Under The Roof 3.2"
"0122","+","Cutting Room Floor - No Snow Under the Roof"
"0123","+","Rudy HQ - Falling Leaves and Needles for ENB SE"
"0124","+","Skyrim 3D Furniture"
"0125","+","Water for ENB"
"0126","+","Windy Grass - Multiplier 7"
"0127","+","Cathedral - 3D Mountain Flowers"
"0128","+","Origins Of Forest - 3D Forest Grass"
"0129","-","Folkvangr - Grass and Landscape Overhaul"
"0130","+","Rudy ENB Cathedral Weathers ADDONS and REQUiRED Files"
"0131","+","Wonders of Weather"
"0132","+","Smoother Skies"
"0133","+","Fluffy Snow - 2K"
"0134","+","Enhanced Blood Textures"
"0135","+","Skyrim 3D Rocks"
"0136","+","Bent Pines II"
"0137","+","2K Ulvenwald 3.1 - Forest Overhaul"
"0138","-","Northern Grass"
"0139","+","JK's Riverwood V1.3d - SSE"
"0140","+","DynDOLOD Resources SE"
"0141","+","DynDOLOD DLL SE - Scripts"
"0142","+","DynDOLOD DLL SE - SKSE64 Plugin - Skyrim Special Edition 1.6.40"
"0143","+","Xyn's Elemental Cloak Spells"
"0144","+","BURP Spell Tomes"
"0145","-","Majestic Mountains Darkside"
"0146","+","BodySlide and Outfit Studio -"
"0147","+","Simplicity of Snow"
"0148","-","HDT-SMP for SSE 1.5.97"
"0149","+","Faster HDT-SMP"
"0150","+","RaceMenu Anniversary Edition"
"0151","+","Bijin Warmaidens SE"
"0152","+","Bijin Wives SE 1.1.2"
"0153","+","Bijin NPCs SE 1.2.1"
"0154","+","High Poly Head SE"
"0155","+","Greek Goddess - All in One"
"0156","+","Expressive Facegen Morphs SE"
"0157","-","Hvergelmir's Aesthetics - Brows"
"0158","-","Northborn Scars"
"0159","+","Female Makeup Suite - Face - 2K"
"0160","+","(3) Community Overlays 1 - Main - CBBE 2K"
"0161","+","KS Hairdos SSE"
"0162","+","Better Female wrists hands ankles and leg ratio twists for XPMSSE"
"0163","+","SkFO SE -Skin Feature Overlays- 4K"
"0164","+","Wood elf K preset for bijin"
"0165","+","SE SG Brows"
"0166","+","Improved Eyes Skyrim"
"0167","+","The Eyes of Beauty SSE"
"0168","+","Bijin Skin - CBBE"
"0169","+","Northborn Scars - High Poly Head"
"0170","+","More Scar Sliders for High Poly Head"
"0171","+","The Great Cities - Resources"
"0172","+","SmoothCam - Modern Camera Preset"
"0173","+","Real Mountains - fomod"
"0174","-","Wearable Lanterns 4.0.3 Release"
"0175","+","Immersive Fallen Trees SSE"
"0176","+","Immersive Patrols (11 vs 11 Battles)"
"0177","+","Run For Your Lives"
"0178","+","Immersive Fallen Trees Patch"
"0179","+","Better Jumping SE"
"0180","+","VolcanicHeatHaze-by-fadingsignal.rar"
"0181","+","Immersive Citizens - AI Overhaul"
"0182","+","Immersive Laundry 1.0d SSE"
"0183","+","Flying Crows SSE ESPFE"
"0184","+","Morning Fogs SSE - Thick Fog"
"0185","+","Book Covers Skyrim SE - Desaturated.7z"
"0186","+","ElSopa Big Backpack"
"0187","-","Wet and Cold SE"
"0188","-","Artesian Cloaks of Skyrim"
"0189","+","Sexy Skyrim SE Statues"
"0190","+","2k-4k. New Statue of Talos SE 1.2.1"
"0191","+","JContainers SE"
"0192","+","Base Object Swapper"
"0193","+","Diverse Dragons Collection SE"
"0194","+","Elevated NPCs"
"0195","+","Cloaks Of Skyrim Retextured 2k"
"0196","-","Cloaks of Skyrim SSE"
"0197","+","ScaleformTranslationPP"
"0198","+","Whose Quest Is It Anyway"
"0199","+","Nocturnal Moths"
"0200","+","Volumetric Mists"
"0201","+","Immersive Wenches SE"
"0202","-","Blowing in the Wind"
"0203","-","Immersive Equipment Displays for 1.5.39 - 1.6.353"
"0204","+","Immersive Equipment Displays for 1.6.629 and newer"
"0205","+","Civil War Battlefields"
"0206","+","Footsteps Sounds Overhaul"
"0207","+","Northgirl Armor UNP"
"0208","+","TL_ElvenArmorSA - SSE CBBE-NEW-2-Slider.7z"
"0209","-","Wind Ruler Armor - Female helmet no hair SE"
"0210","+","1WRSE"
"0211","+","DX Dark Knight Armor - My Final Version by Xtudo SE CBBE"
"0212","+","SkyTEST - RealisticAnimals and Predators 1_65_02 - CCSM (CreationClub Survival Mode)"
"0213","+","Eviscerate"
"0214","+","Daedric Cloaks"
"0215","+","Footprints 1.6.1"
"0216","+","Skeleton Replacer HD"
"0217","+","NORDIC UI - Interface Overhaul"
"0218","-","Wearable Lanters Fix"
"0219","+","Night Skies - Natural Fantasy (8K) - No Cross Stars"
"0220","+","Better Dynamic Snow SE"
"0221","+","Skyrim Remastered - Glaciers and Ice Quality Version"
"0222","+","Skyrim Bridges"
"0223","+","Rudy HQ - Nordic Ruins SE version"
"0224","+","Kurone CBBE Body"
"0225","+","Wood Elf preset A High poly"
"0226","+","Expressive Facial Animation - Female Edition"
"0227","+","Kala's Eyes"
"0228","+","Diamond Textures CBBE v2 based on FSC"
"0229","+","Realistic Haircolors FINAL"
"0230","+","Ethel face preset"
"0231","+","High elf preset Mid high poly"
"0232","+","Dark elf commoner"
"0233","+","Koralina's Makeup Tweaks 2k ESL"
"0234","+","Ariel Nyr - High Poly Character Preset - RaceMenu"
"0235","+","Deadly Dragons"
"0236","+","High Poly Project"
"0237","+","Dark Elf Lantern ENB Light"
"0238","+","Real Rabbits HD - Fluffy"
"0239","+","Cloaks and Capes SMP"
"0240","+","SPID-ified - HDT-SMP for Cloaks and Capes"
"0241","-","Cloaks and Capes RETEX"
"0242","-","Even More Brows HPH"
"0243","-","Better Third Person Selection (AE - SE)"
"0244","+","BTPS - Nordic UI (E) Activation Button Replacer"
"0245","+","Birds and Flocks"
"0246","+","Dungeon Darkness SE"
"0247","-","Smooth Magic Casting Animation"
"0248","+","EVG Animation Variance"
"0249","-","The Joy of Perspective"
"0250","+","The Joy of Perspective SSE"
"0251","-","Smooth Random Magic idle Animation 2.0"
"0252","+","Vanargand Animations - Sneak Archery"
"0253","+","Vanargand Animations - Archery"
"0254","+","Vanargand Animations - Sneak Idle Walk and Run"
"0255","+","Dynamic Random Spell Idle - Player NPC All"
"0256","+","Headhunter - Bounties Redone"
"0257","+","Landscapes - Cathedral Concept"
"0258","+","VioLens - A Killmove Mod SE"
"0259","-","FNIS Behavior SE 7_6"
"0260","-","FNIS - Output"
"0261","+","Verdant - A Skyrim Grass Plugin - ESP"
"0262","+","Immersive Armors 8.1 SSE Test"
"0263","+","Wild Witch"
"0264","+","Viridian Knight Armor"
"0265","+","Nemesis Output"
"0266","+","IED - Weapons Repositioner"
"0267","+","Modern Brawl Bug Fix"
"0268","+","BackshieldsSE"
"0269","+","Backshields position patch for Cloaks of Skyrim"
"0270","+","Immersive Equipment Displays - Mura Presets"
"0271","+","Improved Alternate Conversation Camera SE"
"0272","+","SmoothCam"
"0273","+","Sound Record Distributor"
"0274","+","Bowlegged jump fix"
"0275","+","A Bow's Whisper - Vanilla"
"0276","+","Immersive Sounds - Compendium"
"0277","+","No snow under the roof - Bug fixes v1.4"
"0278","+","Landscape Fixes For Grass Mods"
"0279","+","EmbersXD - Campfire Patch"
"0280","+","Immersive Armor"
"0281","-","Main File"
"0282","-","DMCO Sound Replacer DS1"
"0283","+","Dodge MCO-DXP"
"0284","+","Infinity Dodge"
"0285","+","Bug Fixes SSE (Special Edition)"
"0286","+","XPMSSE - Nemesis - Script Fix - SE"
"0287","+","D13 Faster Get Up Stand Up SSE"
"0288","+","XP32 Maximum Skeleton Special Extended - Fixed Scripts"
"0289","+","Gesture Animation Remix (DAR) - main archive"
"0290","+","No Spinning Death Animation"
"0291","-","360 Movement behavior fixes"
"0292","+","360 Movement Behavior"
"0293","-","Pretty Combat Animations (SE)"
"0294","-","Pretty Combat Animations - Spell Master (SE)"
submitted by EDHav to skyrimmods [link] [comments]
For my mods I use "MO2" "Nemesis" "Loot" "Bodyslide" (FNIS)
After my first try with the mods my game crashed every 2 minutes. So I reinstalled everything. 15Hours later everything was set up and fine.
My game looks very good, new animations and so on.
I was able to play it, but it is not perfect.
Here are my MAIN PROBLEMS.
- ks physics does not work. I used Bodyslike to implement them. (Hair physics)
- CBPC equipment physics does not work.
- I can't activate many mods ingame in my MCM, like "Smooth cam" settings or presets are not saved.
- outfits and cloaks have no physics either. ( tries to implement them with bodyslide)
Here is my mod list.
#Mod_Priority,#Mod_Status,#Mod_Name
"0000","+","Creation Club: ccQDRSSE001-SurvivalMode"
"0001","+","Creation Club: ccBGSSSE037-Curios"
"0002","+","Creation Club: ccBGSSSE025-AdvDSGS"
"0003","+","Creation Club: ccBGSSSE001-Fish"
"0004","+","DLC: HearthFires"
"0005","+","DLC: Dragonborn"
"0006","+","DLC: Dawnguard"
"0007","+","Nemesis Unlimited Behavior Engine"
"0008","+","Precision"
"0009","+","KS Hairdos - HDT SMP (Physics)"
"0010","-","TK Dodge RE-OnlyDodge"
"0011","+","Caliente's Beautiful Bodies Enhancer -CBBE-"
"0012","+","XP32 Maximum Skeleton Special Extended"
"0013","+","Simple Dual Sheath for 1.6.629 and newer"
"0014","+","CBPC Equipment Physics"
"0015","+","CBPC - Physics with Collisions"
"0016","+","All in one"
"0017","-","TK Dodge SE"
"0018","+","MCM Helper SE"
"0019","+","SkyUI_5_2_SE"
"0020","+","DynamicAnimationReplacerAE v1.1.3 for Skyrim 16629"
"0021","+","CBBE 3BA"
"0022","+","Animation Motion Revolution"
"0023","+","Payload Interpreter"
"0024","+","Papyrus Ini Manipulator"
"0025","+","dTry's Key Utils SE"
"0026","+","Elden Power Attack"
"0027","+","oneclickmodified v"
"0028","+","Attack MCO-DXP"
"0029","+","All in one (Anniversary Edition)"
"0030","-","IFrame Generator RE"
"0031","+","SCAR - Skyrim Combos AI Revolution"
"0032","+","SCAR AE Support"
"0033","-","Combat Pathing Revolution"
"0034","+","Behavior Data Injector"
"0035","+","Enhanced Enemy AI"
"0036","+","No Recoil"
"0037","+","Bash Behaviors Overhaul"
"0038","+","TrueHUD"
"0039","+","True Directional Movement"
"0040","+","Disable Turn Animation SE I AE"
"0041","+","Combat behavior improved"
"0042","-","Retimed Hit Frames"
"0043","+","1"
"0044","+","Valhalla Combat"
"0045","+","Behavior Data Injector Universal Support"
"0046","+","Skyrim Priority SE AE"
"0047","-","(Part 1) SSE Engine Fixes for 1.5.39 - 1.5.97"
"0048","-","PapyrusUtil SE - Scripting Utility Functions"
"0049","+","PapyrusUtil AE SE - Scripting Utility Functions"
"0050","+","IFrame Generator RE AE Support"
"0051","-","(Part 1) SSE Engine Fixes for 1.6.629 and newer"
"0052","+","Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Patch"
"0053","+","Odin 2.0.1"
"0054","+","MergeMapper"
"0055","+","powerofthree's Tweaks"
"0056","+","Spell Perk Item Distributor"
"0057","+","Resistances and Weaknesses - Main File"
"0058","+","TDF Equipment Restriction v2_6_8 SE"
"0059","+","Magic Sneak Attacks"
"0060","+","Airgetlam -Modern Magic Sounds Rework- 4.1 Redesigned"
"0061","-","Finally First Person Magic Animation"
"0062","+","Embers XD"
"0063","+","ENB Light"
"0064","+","Visual Animated Enchants"
"0065","+","Goetia Animations - Magic Spell Casting"
"0066","+","Goetia Animations - Enchanted Staves"
"0067","+","Conditional Armor Type Animations - CATA"
"0068","+","Goetia Animations - Sprint"
"0069","+","Animation Queue Fix"
"0070","+","Goetia Animations - Female Idle Walk And Run"
"0071","+","Deadly Spell Impacts"
"0072","+","1. Ultimate HD Fire Effects SSE - Ultra Resolution"
"0073","+","Spell Rune Retexture - Full SSE Port - 2k"
"0074","+","Realistic Skin and Hair Shaders - Giants"
"0075","+","Arctic - Frost Effects Redux"
"0076","+","Realistic Skin Shaders- Falmer and Hagraven"
"0077","+","powerofthree's Papyrus Extender"
"0078","+","Mysticism - A Magic Overhaul"
"0079","+","Simple Scroll Transcribing - Mysticism"
"0080","+","Equipable Spell Tomes - Redone"
"0081","+","Simple Wearable Lanterns"
"0082","+","Frozen Electrocuted Combustion"
"0083","+","Wizard Hats - Full"
"0084","+","Archmage SE - Johnskyrim - 2k"
"0085","+","Battle Mage Armour"
"0086","+","Skyrim 3D StoneWalls"
"0087","+","Fortified Whiterun"
"0088","+","ENB Helper SE 1.5 for SSE 1.5.97"
"0089","+","Water for ENB Particle Patch"
"0090","+","EVLaS"
"0091","+","Less Distracting Blowing Snow Effects 1.0"
"0092","+","Obsidian Mountain Fogs 1.01.zip"
"0093","+","Ennead Banners 2K.7z"
"0094","+","RUSTIC SOULGEMS - Special Edition - 2K Unsorted"
"0095","+","Point The Way"
"0096","-","EEKs Renthal Flora Collection"
"0097","+","Cathedral - 3D Lavender - Vanilla Size"
"0098","+","TB's Metal Chains 2K Performance SSE Variant"
"0099","+","Medieval Spirits"
"0100","+","Riekling Barrels SMIM"
"0101","+","Rudy HQ - More Lights for ENB SE - Soulgems"
"0102","+","SMIM Barrel Expansion - Mead Barrel - Oil Barrel - Butter Churn"
"0103","-","4K SMIM Carriage Seat"
"0104","+","Static Mesh Improvement Mod"
"0105","+","Particle Patch for ENB"
"0106","+","Cathedral - Weathers"
"0107","+","Lanterns Of Skyrim II"
"0108","+","Skyrim Horses Renewal SSE 1.0.1"
"0109","+","Skyrim 3D Windmill"
"0110","+","Blended Roads"
"0111","+","Simple Sacks SE"
"0112","+","ETHEREAL CLOUDS SE - 2K"
"0113","+","Waterplants - lily only"
"0114","+","tanningrack001 real skin"
"0115","+","Holy Cows - 4K (Performance Version)"
"0116","+","Purple Tail Fix for Skyrim Horses Renewal SE"
"0117","+","Campfire Backpack HD"
"0118","+","Campfire 1.12.1SEVR Release"
"0119","+","A Quality World Map - Classic with All Roads"
"0120","+","Cutting Room Floor"
"0121","+","No Snow Under The Roof 3.2"
"0122","+","Cutting Room Floor - No Snow Under the Roof"
"0123","+","Rudy HQ - Falling Leaves and Needles for ENB SE"
"0124","+","Skyrim 3D Furniture"
"0125","+","Water for ENB"
"0126","+","Windy Grass - Multiplier 7"
"0127","+","Cathedral - 3D Mountain Flowers"
"0128","+","Origins Of Forest - 3D Forest Grass"
"0129","-","Folkvangr - Grass and Landscape Overhaul"
"0130","+","Rudy ENB Cathedral Weathers ADDONS and REQUiRED Files"
"0131","+","Wonders of Weather"
"0132","+","Smoother Skies"
"0133","+","Fluffy Snow - 2K"
"0134","+","Enhanced Blood Textures"
"0135","+","Skyrim 3D Rocks"
"0136","+","Bent Pines II"
"0137","+","2K Ulvenwald 3.1 - Forest Overhaul"
"0138","-","Northern Grass"
"0139","+","JK's Riverwood V1.3d - SSE"
"0140","+","DynDOLOD Resources SE"
"0141","+","DynDOLOD DLL SE - Scripts"
"0142","+","DynDOLOD DLL SE - SKSE64 Plugin - Skyrim Special Edition 1.6.40"
"0143","+","Xyn's Elemental Cloak Spells"
"0144","+","BURP Spell Tomes"
"0145","-","Majestic Mountains Darkside"
"0146","+","BodySlide and Outfit Studio -"
"0147","+","Simplicity of Snow"
"0148","-","HDT-SMP for SSE 1.5.97"
"0149","+","Faster HDT-SMP"
"0150","+","RaceMenu Anniversary Edition"
"0151","+","Bijin Warmaidens SE"
"0152","+","Bijin Wives SE 1.1.2"
"0153","+","Bijin NPCs SE 1.2.1"
"0154","+","High Poly Head SE"
"0155","+","Greek Goddess - All in One"
"0156","+","Expressive Facegen Morphs SE"
"0157","-","Hvergelmir's Aesthetics - Brows"
"0158","-","Northborn Scars"
"0159","+","Female Makeup Suite - Face - 2K"
"0160","+","(3) Community Overlays 1 - Main - CBBE 2K"
"0161","+","KS Hairdos SSE"
"0162","+","Better Female wrists hands ankles and leg ratio twists for XPMSSE"
"0163","+","SkFO SE -Skin Feature Overlays- 4K"
"0164","+","Wood elf K preset for bijin"
"0165","+","SE SG Brows"
"0166","+","Improved Eyes Skyrim"
"0167","+","The Eyes of Beauty SSE"
"0168","+","Bijin Skin - CBBE"
"0169","+","Northborn Scars - High Poly Head"
"0170","+","More Scar Sliders for High Poly Head"
"0171","+","The Great Cities - Resources"
"0172","+","SmoothCam - Modern Camera Preset"
"0173","+","Real Mountains - fomod"
"0174","-","Wearable Lanterns 4.0.3 Release"
"0175","+","Immersive Fallen Trees SSE"
"0176","+","Immersive Patrols (11 vs 11 Battles)"
"0177","+","Run For Your Lives"
"0178","+","Immersive Fallen Trees Patch"
"0179","+","Better Jumping SE"
"0180","+","VolcanicHeatHaze-by-fadingsignal.rar"
"0181","+","Immersive Citizens - AI Overhaul"
"0182","+","Immersive Laundry 1.0d SSE"
"0183","+","Flying Crows SSE ESPFE"
"0184","+","Morning Fogs SSE - Thick Fog"
"0185","+","Book Covers Skyrim SE - Desaturated.7z"
"0186","+","ElSopa Big Backpack"
"0187","-","Wet and Cold SE"
"0188","-","Artesian Cloaks of Skyrim"
"0189","+","Sexy Skyrim SE Statues"
"0190","+","2k-4k. New Statue of Talos SE 1.2.1"
"0191","+","JContainers SE"
"0192","+","Base Object Swapper"
"0193","+","Diverse Dragons Collection SE"
"0194","+","Elevated NPCs"
"0195","+","Cloaks Of Skyrim Retextured 2k"
"0196","-","Cloaks of Skyrim SSE"
"0197","+","ScaleformTranslationPP"
"0198","+","Whose Quest Is It Anyway"
"0199","+","Nocturnal Moths"
"0200","+","Volumetric Mists"
"0201","+","Immersive Wenches SE"
"0202","-","Blowing in the Wind"
"0203","-","Immersive Equipment Displays for 1.5.39 - 1.6.353"
"0204","+","Immersive Equipment Displays for 1.6.629 and newer"
"0205","+","Civil War Battlefields"
"0206","+","Footsteps Sounds Overhaul"
"0207","+","Northgirl Armor UNP"
"0208","+","TL_ElvenArmorSA - SSE CBBE-NEW-2-Slider.7z"
"0209","-","Wind Ruler Armor - Female helmet no hair SE"
"0210","+","1WRSE"
"0211","+","DX Dark Knight Armor - My Final Version by Xtudo SE CBBE"
"0212","+","SkyTEST - RealisticAnimals and Predators 1_65_02 - CCSM (CreationClub Survival Mode)"
"0213","+","Eviscerate"
"0214","+","Daedric Cloaks"
"0215","+","Footprints 1.6.1"
"0216","+","Skeleton Replacer HD"
"0217","+","NORDIC UI - Interface Overhaul"
"0218","-","Wearable Lanters Fix"
"0219","+","Night Skies - Natural Fantasy (8K) - No Cross Stars"
"0220","+","Better Dynamic Snow SE"
"0221","+","Skyrim Remastered - Glaciers and Ice Quality Version"
"0222","+","Skyrim Bridges"
"0223","+","Rudy HQ - Nordic Ruins SE version"
"0224","+","Kurone CBBE Body"
"0225","+","Wood Elf preset A High poly"
"0226","+","Expressive Facial Animation - Female Edition"
"0227","+","Kala's Eyes"
"0228","+","Diamond Textures CBBE v2 based on FSC"
"0229","+","Realistic Haircolors FINAL"
"0230","+","Ethel face preset"
"0231","+","High elf preset Mid high poly"
"0232","+","Dark elf commoner"
"0233","+","Koralina's Makeup Tweaks 2k ESL"
"0234","+","Ariel Nyr - High Poly Character Preset - RaceMenu"
"0235","+","Deadly Dragons"
"0236","+","High Poly Project"
"0237","+","Dark Elf Lantern ENB Light"
"0238","+","Real Rabbits HD - Fluffy"
"0239","+","Cloaks and Capes SMP"
"0240","+","SPID-ified - HDT-SMP for Cloaks and Capes"
"0241","-","Cloaks and Capes RETEX"
"0242","-","Even More Brows HPH"
"0243","-","Better Third Person Selection (AE - SE)"
"0244","+","BTPS - Nordic UI (E) Activation Button Replacer"
"0245","+","Birds and Flocks"
"0246","+","Dungeon Darkness SE"
"0247","-","Smooth Magic Casting Animation"
"0248","+","EVG Animation Variance"
"0249","-","The Joy of Perspective"
"0250","+","The Joy of Perspective SSE"
"0251","-","Smooth Random Magic idle Animation 2.0"
"0252","+","Vanargand Animations - Sneak Archery"
"0253","+","Vanargand Animations - Archery"
"0254","+","Vanargand Animations - Sneak Idle Walk and Run"
"0255","+","Dynamic Random Spell Idle - Player NPC All"
"0256","+","Headhunter - Bounties Redone"
"0257","+","Landscapes - Cathedral Concept"
"0258","+","VioLens - A Killmove Mod SE"
"0259","-","FNIS Behavior SE 7_6"
"0260","-","FNIS - Output"
"0261","+","Verdant - A Skyrim Grass Plugin - ESP"
"0262","+","Immersive Armors 8.1 SSE Test"
"0263","+","Wild Witch"
"0264","+","Viridian Knight Armor"
"0265","+","Nemesis Output"
"0266","+","IED - Weapons Repositioner"
"0267","+","Modern Brawl Bug Fix"
"0268","+","BackshieldsSE"
"0269","+","Backshields position patch for Cloaks of Skyrim"
"0270","+","Immersive Equipment Displays - Mura Presets"
"0271","+","Improved Alternate Conversation Camera SE"
"0272","+","SmoothCam"
"0273","+","Sound Record Distributor"
"0274","+","Bowlegged jump fix"
"0275","+","A Bow's Whisper - Vanilla"
"0276","+","Immersive Sounds - Compendium"
"0277","+","No snow under the roof - Bug fixes v1.4"
"0278","+","Landscape Fixes For Grass Mods"
"0279","+","EmbersXD - Campfire Patch"
"0280","+","Immersive Armor"
"0281","-","Main File"
"0282","-","DMCO Sound Replacer DS1"
"0283","+","Dodge MCO-DXP"
"0284","+","Infinity Dodge"
"0285","+","Bug Fixes SSE (Special Edition)"
"0286","+","XPMSSE - Nemesis - Script Fix - SE"
"0287","+","D13 Faster Get Up Stand Up SSE"
"0288","+","XP32 Maximum Skeleton Special Extended - Fixed Scripts"
"0289","+","Gesture Animation Remix (DAR) - main archive"
"0290","+","No Spinning Death Animation"
"0291","-","360 Movement behavior fixes"
"0292","+","360 Movement Behavior"
"0293","-","Pretty Combat Animations (SE)"
"0294","-","Pretty Combat Animations - Spell Master (SE)"
2023.06.10 17:27 ScottyPrime I did the Far Harbor Trifecta - and saved Kasumi as well -
Step 1) do as little as necessary for the Children of Atom, Synth Acadia, Far Harbor until you can get Kasumi to travel home and reunite with her parents.
Step 2) Get Dima his memories back, and play the memories out to get enough information about the launch key and the windmill maintance method for killing off Far Harbor dock dwellers.
Step 3) Report to Institute/BoS - have them kill off Acadia. (My playthrough, I used the Institute. And then enjoyed the show during Acadia's downfall.)
Step 4) Launch the Nuke to get the CoA all the rads they want! (Buff up, armor up, etc - you get about 30 seconds to escape The Nucleus, and every CoA is well armed and will be shooting at you consistently)
Step 5) Enjoy the graphics of the nuke by looking about right after you go through the exit door to the Island
Step 6) Go over to the windmill maint - use Terminal 3 to run the corruption/shutdown program.
Step 7) Head on over to Far Harbor, and enjoy the show as big nasty creatures from the fog overrun their little town.
Step 8) Congrats - Far Harbor is at peace, REST IN PEACE
submitted by ScottyPrime to Fallout [link] [comments]
Step 2) Get Dima his memories back, and play the memories out to get enough information about the launch key and the windmill maintance method for killing off Far Harbor dock dwellers.
Step 3) Report to Institute/BoS - have them kill off Acadia. (My playthrough, I used the Institute. And then enjoyed the show during Acadia's downfall.)
Step 4) Launch the Nuke to get the CoA all the rads they want! (Buff up, armor up, etc - you get about 30 seconds to escape The Nucleus, and every CoA is well armed and will be shooting at you consistently)
Step 5) Enjoy the graphics of the nuke by looking about right after you go through the exit door to the Island
Step 6) Go over to the windmill maint - use Terminal 3 to run the corruption/shutdown program.
Step 7) Head on over to Far Harbor, and enjoy the show as big nasty creatures from the fog overrun their little town.
Step 8) Congrats - Far Harbor is at peace, REST IN PEACE
2023.06.10 17:01 Hoghunter200 [A3][Recruiting][40k][Serious][EST][NA/EU] 777th Siege Korps of Krieg
![[A3][Recruiting][40k][Serious][EST][NA/EU] 777th Siege Korps of Krieg](https://external-preview.redd.it/9sIPHOaNBPX42X_7iJnnHa27j1UenUTYCLmpYWMSfBE.jpg?width=216&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=7ea71cfbd8d694f97fb44a3a51404926690633f1 "[A3][Recruiting][40k][Serious][EST][NA/EU] 777th Siege Korps of Krieg") | Hello all, we are the 777th Siege Korps of Krieg, a new Death Korps of Krieg unit! We formed this place after being unable to find a unit we really vibed with for quite a while so instead of continuing the search we decided to found our own unit. Our hope is to be a relatively serious unit with a few jokes here and there allowed, this doesn't mean "yes sir no sir" Though it does mean that we are going to be a tad stricter about things. To explain in straight terms, We are fine with you making jokes with your friends here though don't go overboard and ruin other people's fun. submitted by Hoghunter200 to FindAUnit [link] [comments] Our Schedule: Our operations are currently set every Saturday at 2pm EST (7pm GMT) so that our friends across the pond have a chance at joining. We also hold side operations throughout the rest of the week as well. Our hopes are that as we grow we can find other individuals interested in zeusing so that not only our main zeus can play an op once and a while but also so that we could possibly hold multiple main ops a week. When Joining: When you join the unit basically you just need to say in the channel you can type in if you are a unit rep or wanting to join, At that point you will have a few questions sent to you that are just basics for you to answer, Here they are so you can answer them when you first join if you wish. Where did you hear about us? What is your age? Are you new to Arma? Do you need help with TFAR Can you make our operations at 2pm EST on Saturdays? Do you have any questions? MOS We offer: Rifleman Marksmen Anti-Tank Quartermaster (medic) Melta Gunner Plasma Gunner Grenadier Heavy Gunner Flame Trooper Engineer Death Korp Riders Grenadier Bodyguards Squad Leader Pilot (Planned for the future though it depends entirely on unit growth) Armor (Planned for the future though it depends entirely on unit growth) Our Rules: - Discord Rules: -No NSFW/NSFL content
Closing Statement: Just a quick thank you to everyone who read this far down for spending the time to do so and for being interested in the unit, Feel free to message me any questions you may have as I'm more than happy to answer questions about the unit, Have a nice day and hope to see you in Ops! Discord: https://discord.gg/9amxYE5Vbf |
2023.06.10 16:35 Gist_it A Ukrainian nuclear plant is facing a water shortage
A Ukrainian nuclear plant is facing a water shortage, putting more strain on the facility, which has been under Russian occupation.
The backstory: The dam holding back the Kakhovka Reservoir, used by the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station for cooling water, was destroyed June 6, and the water level has dropped over 20 feet. * The plant has already experienced power failures, fires, and shelling during the occupation.
Current situation: The facility has its own two-mile-wide cooling pond with water levels remaining stable, and the International Atomic Energy Agency believes the water should last for several months. * All six reactors are currently shut down, and alternative water sources, such as wells and mobile pumps, are being considered.
Concerns: With a dwindling workforce due to the occupation, some experts are worried about the ability to set up alternative systems in time to prevent potential radioactive release or permanent damage to the reactors. * However, there is not enough heat to cause a catastrophic meltdown like the one at Chernobyl in 1986.
View original article on NPR
This summary was created by an AI system. The use of this summary is subject to our Terms of Service.
submitted by Gist_it to SummarizeNow [link] [comments]
The backstory: The dam holding back the Kakhovka Reservoir, used by the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station for cooling water, was destroyed June 6, and the water level has dropped over 20 feet. * The plant has already experienced power failures, fires, and shelling during the occupation.
Current situation: The facility has its own two-mile-wide cooling pond with water levels remaining stable, and the International Atomic Energy Agency believes the water should last for several months. * All six reactors are currently shut down, and alternative water sources, such as wells and mobile pumps, are being considered.
Concerns: With a dwindling workforce due to the occupation, some experts are worried about the ability to set up alternative systems in time to prevent potential radioactive release or permanent damage to the reactors. * However, there is not enough heat to cause a catastrophic meltdown like the one at Chernobyl in 1986.
View original article on NPR
This summary was created by an AI system. The use of this summary is subject to our Terms of Service.
2023.06.10 16:33 StrakaFlocka Filtration advice needed
 | I have a small 27gal container pond and am looking for some filter advice. The pond gets strong morning sun but then is mostly indirect light the rest of the day. I have a small water feature that comes out of the top of the log but I am heavily thinking of removing that and getting an actual filter. I’m not sure what the best option is. I’ve been looking at submersible UV filter on Amazon but I’m not sure if that’s going to be my best bet or if a standard filter style will be better. I’m on a tight budget here as this is a small side project. submitted by StrakaFlocka to ponds [link] [comments] I’ve found these two types. |
2023.06.10 16:09 JoshAsdvgi THE SKY WALKER OF HURON
 | submitted by JoshAsdvgi to Native_Stories [link] [comments] THE SKY WALKER OF HURON Here is the myth of Endymion and Diana, as told on the shores of Saginaw Bay, in Michigan, by Indians who never heard of Greeks. Cloud Catcher, a handsome youth of the Ojibways, offended his family by refusing to fast during the ceremony of his coming of age, and was put out of the paternal wigwam. It was so fine a night that the sky served him as well as a roof, and he had a boy's confidence in his ability to make a living, and something of fame and fortune, maybe. He dropped upon a tuft of moss to plan for his future, and drowsily noted the rising of the moon, in which he seemed to see a face. On awaking he found that it was not day, yet the darkness was half dispelled by light that rayed from a figure near him—the form of a lovely woman. “Cloud Catcher, I have come for you,” she said. And as she turned away he felt impelled to rise and follow. But, instead of walking, she began to move into the air with the flight of an eagle, and, endowed with a new power, he too ascended beside her. The earth was dim and vast below, stars blazed as they drew near them, yet the radiance of the woman seemed to dull their glory. Presently they passed through a gate of clouds and stood on a beautiful plain, with crystal ponds and brooks watering noble trees and leagues of flowery meadow; birds of brightest colors darted here and there, singing like flutes; the very stones were agate, jasper, and chalcedony. An immense lodge stood on the plain, and within were embroideries and ornaments, couches of rich furs, pipes and arms cut from jasper and tipped with silver. While the young man was gazing around him with delight, the brother of his guide appeared and reproved her, advising her to send the young man back to earth at once, but, as she flatly refused to do so, he gave a pipe and bow and arrows to Cloud Catcher, as a token of his consent to their marriage, and wished them happiness, which, in fact, they had. This brother, who was commanding, tall, and so dazzling in his gold and silver ornaments that one could hardly look upon him, was abroad all day, while his sister was absent for a part of the night. He permitted Cloud Catcher to go with him on one of his daily walks, and as they crossed the lovely Sky Land they glanced down through open valley bottoms on the green earth below. The rapid pace they struck gave to Cloud Catcher an appetite and he asked if there were no game. “Patience,” counselled his companion. On arriving at a spot where a large hole had been broken through the sky they reclined on mats, and the tall man loosing one of his silver ornaments flung it into a group of children playing before a lodge. One of the little ones fell and was carried within, amid lamentations. Then the villagers left their sports and labors and looked up at the sky. The tall man cried, in a voice of thunder, “Offer a sacrifice and the child shall be well again.” A white dog was killed, roasted, and in a twinkling it shot up to the feet of Cloud Catcher, who, being empty, attacked it voraciously. Many such walks and feasts came after, and the sights of earth and taste of meat filled the mortal with a longing to see his people again. He told his wife that he wanted to go back. She consented, after a time, saying, “Since you are better pleased with the cares, the ills, the labor, and the poverty of the world than with the comfort and abundance of Sky Land, you may return; but remember you are still my husband, and beware how you venture to take an earthly maiden for a wife.” She arose lightly, clasped Cloud Catcher by the wrist, and began to move with him through the air. The motion lulled him and he fell asleep, waking at the door of his father's lodge. His relatives gathered and gave him welcome, and he learned that he had been in the sky for a year. He took the privations of a hunter's and warrior's life less kindly than he thought to, and after a time he enlivened its monotony by taking to wife a bright-eyed girl of his tribe. In four days she was dead. The lesson was unheeded and he married again. Shortly after, he stepped from his lodge one evening and never came back. The woods were filled with a strange radiance on that night, and it is asserted that Cloud Catcher was taken back to the lodge of the Sun and Moon, and is now content to live in heaven. |
2023.06.10 15:57 meowcats734 Chapter Repost
Soulmage
Before I could second-guess myself, I took the mug and——spat the burning liquid out, what the fuck was that made of, paint stripper? The other patrons of the bar gave me looks ranging from amused to annoyed as I scowled at the metal mug. Zhytln gave me an unamused look and took out a rag to clean up the mess—that was odd, why didn't she just cast a spell? I slid guilt over repentance to tap into oppression and pointed a finger, opening a line of howling vacuum in the air over the spilled drink. Zhytln gave me a nod of thanks.
"If you find the alcohol too unpleasant," Zhytln began, but I waved her away and took another sip—smaller this time, and braced for impact. It still made me want to vomit, but so did seeing frozen hands and sightless eyes whenever I cast frost magic. Focusing my soulsight inwards... the alcohol did seem to affect my emotions in the way Zhytln had described. Like an earthquake deep beneath the ocean floor, fracturing the crust to reveal the burning core within.
"I'm... ready," I mumbled. My head was already spinning. Maybe I should've gone slower?
"Then what do you want to forget?" Zhytln asked.
I closed my eyes, and that undersea vent bled lava, hissing as it cooled in the bitter waters. "I want to forget—"
Zhytln's hand reached out in realspace, grabbing that chunk of burning basalt memory in soulspace, and we plunged into a memory of a soldier's life's end.
I hadn't dressed for a blizzard—nobody in the Silent Peaks had prepared for the sudden, unseasonal storm. Until two weeks ago, my entire battlechoir had been dressed for the summers of the Redlands, wearing nothing but shifts and loincloths and sometimes even less. But now that the snow was knee-deep, there were hardly enough clothes on all of us combined to keep a single person warm. This had no ill effects on our bodies, our skin and blood pressure were healthy, and there was no significant discoloration on our exposed extremities.
I shivered in the bar as Zhytln didn't do anything at all to the smooth oval of polished basalt in my soul. "That's... the changes you're making are too obvious."
"Truly?" Zhytln asked, surprised. "My other patrons have never even noticed."
"Your other patrons aren't soulmages," I shot back. "You would notice if someone had sanded down your memories so sloppily. It's like screaming in the middle of a whispered sentence."
"Fair enough. Let me try for something more subtle," she said, and nothing changed because there was nobody who could remember a world where things had been different.
I was perfectly comfortable in the freezing weather, because we had packed enough clothing for the entire battlechoir, because I was the only member of the battlechoir. There'd been a vote, and everyone else in the battlechoir had chosen me to report our losses back to central command. Except it was so easy to get lost in this storm, and I ended up finding my way back with no difficulties.
"I wanted you to make me forget, Zhytln. I didn't ask you to tell your own story about what happened."
The basalt had been heated and aerated and reshaped into something lighter than water, airy enough to float, and Zhytln explained, "Even with the alcohol's aid, extracting a memory is like precipitating a sugar cube from water. No matter how cleverly you go about it, some trace elements will always remain. I am connecting those trace elements into a new framework that—if all goes well—should have a less abrasive impact on your mental well-being."
Hmm. Well, I suppose there was one way to test if her methods worked. I held a hand out, calling cold into my palm, and that volcano in my soul trembled as the memory flashed forth like lightning.
I died in the snow. I died alone, with the friends and comrades of my battlechoir, who didn't die and lived a long and happy life that never happened because there was nobody else in my battlechoir who were so happy to see me when I emerged from the cold and dark into the frigid warm release of waking up to another sunny day—
Zhytln's brows were creased in concentration as she danced between geyser after geyser of magma, channeling and working and remaking them into something confusing and sickening and gross, something false and unnatural, and... something that was still, awfully, less painful than the truth.
I watched as the fragile, bloated stones that Zhytln had twisted the magma into drifted upwards from the depths of the ocean of my soul.
Then I willed the cold in my hands to form a thin veneer of ice. Nothing major, not even a simple frostbolt. But for the first time since the storm, even though I felt disquieted and my head ached, my hands were steady and the weight of my memories light.
I closed my palm as Zhytln brushed her hair out of her eyes, calming herself from the exertion.
Then I took another swig of throat-searing alcohol and slammed it down on the table.
"Keep it coming," I slurred out. "There's more where that came from."
A.N.
For some reason Reddit decided to mess around with how it counts characters, so I had to split this chapter in two.
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Table of Contents
A Book I Wrote
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2023.06.10 15:56 esox_angler Flyfishing Goldfish
I know the City killed off a couple retention ponds last year for goldfish, but does anybody know of any ponds that still have goldfish this year? I figured if there are any ponds with goldfish still i would try to catch a couple flyfishing.
Thanks in Advance!
EDIT: Just to add to this. Since it seems to be getting downvoted. I do not agree with people releasing their goldfish into the wild. They are horrible for the ecosystem and are incredibly invasive. Buuuuuuut if they are still out there I love flyfishing and thought catching a goldfish on a fly would be a fun challenge.
submitted by esox_angler to saskatoon [link] [comments]
Thanks in Advance!
EDIT: Just to add to this. Since it seems to be getting downvoted. I do not agree with people releasing their goldfish into the wild. They are horrible for the ecosystem and are incredibly invasive. Buuuuuuut if they are still out there I love flyfishing and thought catching a goldfish on a fly would be a fun challenge.
2023.06.10 15:11 Krushed_RED_pepperR Friday night hot takes coming out on twitter
submitted by Krushed_RED_pepperR to GreatLakes [link] [comments]
2023.06.10 15:00 girl_from_the_crypt Stuck on earth and looking for a job: We're summoning a sea goddess
If I’d had any idea that the same six ladies who had been cooking and serving me meals and beverages were secretly a coven, I… well, I probably would have kept going there anyways. We’d arranged to meet after hours together with my savior human and Elijah Carter to go down to the grotto. The witches were already waiting for us outside the unlit neon sign. They were wearing the same matching dresses that constituted their mildly out-of-date yet undoubtedly elegant diner uniforms. With them, swaying and light on his feet like a tiny golden bird, was Frankie Preston.
I skipped up to him to give him a hug. He rolled his eyes, then wrapped his arms around me rather tightly. “Hey Sunshine. Oh. He-ey,” he added to Nettie when she came up behind us. “We’re good, right?”
“I said so, didn’t I,” she replied evenly. “I gotta stick to my word now, for better or for worse.”
“You know, I like you just fine. I was being an asshole for no reason. It’s not gonna happen again.”
“It better not,” she said, shrugging sweetly while not bothering to hide the threatening undertone in her response.
“Right,” Rhonda chimed in, looking slightly uncomfortable. “I understand you got a nixie or mermaid needs rescuing…”
“Precisely. You’re sure this is manageable for your coven?” I ventured.
“I’m not sure about anything. But I told you we’d see what we can do.” She gave me a generous smile. “You’re getting the friends-and-family-discount.” She reached over to ruffle Fran’s hair. He groaned, then moved over to me to make room for Nettie as she sidled up to the ladies.
I slid my hand into his. He grinned. “Demanding, you.”
I withdrew. “Sorry.”
“Oh, brother,” he grumbled, snatching back my hand. “Sure stand out from this crowd tonight, don’t I?” he asked jokingly, nodding at the gathering.
“You stand out most of the time.” I perked up when Mae-Lynn pointed out another, decidedly taller figure approaching. Eli was wearing a longer coat, shielding himself from the nightly chill carried to us upon the breeze. His hands were buried in his pockets and his shoulders hunched, but a smile crossed his face nevertheless when he spotted us. "Good to see you. How've you been?"
I traded uncertain glances with Nettie, then Fran. "Busy," I concluded, answering for the three of us.
"I'm glad you came," my savior human supplied.
"I don't know if I can be of much use," he muttered, allowing her to wrap her arms around him for a moment.
Rhonda waved him off. "Sure you can. Let's get going, now that we're all here."
Our group began to head down to the beach. Dim moonlight illuminated our path through the streets and across the sandy expanse, guiding us along with the sound of tossing waves drawing nearer. The smell of salt hung heavily above us, the wind tugged on our clothes and tousled our hair. We were a strange procession as we climbed over the rocks and down to the mouth of the cave. Had anybody seen us, I wouldn't know what they'd have made of it. I glanced over at Nettie to find her shivering. Whether it was due to the crisp spring night temperature or the excitement of the moment I couldn't tell. Instead, I reached for her hand. "Are you alright?"
She gave me a wavering nod. Flicking on her lime green flashlight, she allowed the bright beam to cut through the darkness. Her thumb rubbed over the stickers adorning the shaft of the small torch—a piece of memorabilia from our early years. "I put those there," I reminded her, pointing them out.
"Oh, I know," she deadpanned. "That was the same week I gave you all those handicraft supplies. Never again. You know how long it took to pry off the dozens of googly eyes you glued to the toilet seat?"
"It was artful. I thought you'd like them."
She snorted, lightly batting my shoulder. "Of course you did." Her chest heaved as she took a deep, cleansing breath. "Okay. Let's go."
Elijah and I led the way ahead, the former carrying his own heavy flashlight which he kept trained on the ground at our feet. We tried to stay as close together as possible, wary of the slippery surface we were walking on. The further we proceeded, the more anxious we became. Eli hid it masterfully, the only thing that gave away his apprehension being the vein that bulged on his forehead. I could feel his tension, though. It was in his shoulders, the stiff way he held his neck, in the force of his grip on the torch. It almost looked like he was trying to crush it.
The witches appeared to be nowhere near as impressed. They moved forward with a relaxed sort of confidence, casually stepping over puddles in their paths as though they were merely skirting around tables at the diner. Their attitude was mirrored by Frankie. I couldn’t help but glance back at him over my shoulder every couple seconds, his wheat-blond locks bouncing around his head with each of his spirited steps. Nettie Peterson, hanging from my arm, followed my gaze and let out a low grunt. “That boy is entirely too cheerful right now,” she muttered, only to squeak when she nearly tripped over a small rock. “Lord, I hope you know where we’re going.”
“Sure we do,” Elijah replied from up front.
“Approximately,” I added.
We weaved our way through the tunnels, trying to recall the way to the corpse cave. Rhonda had told us she wanted to see Kit Sutton’s mother. In a strange way, I was looking forward to seeing the sleeping giantess again. Despite the horror she was surrounded with, her sight had left a deep impression on me. The coven was chatting to each other in the back, their hushed voices the only sound to break the otherwise clammy, uneasy silence. Until we heard it.
A voice carried through the darkness, sweet and bell-bright with a heated, gravelly undertone. Her song filled the washed out corridors, echoing off the rounded stone walls and riding the ripples of the lake we were currently passing by. The words were in a foreign tongue, but I would have recognized my roommate’s singing anywhere.
Nettie tensed up, her arm around mine turning to stone. I could hear the hitch in her breath, taking note of the way her eyes grew wide in the lamplight. Our whole group had come to a halt in the middle of the large cave room, glancing about in awe as we tried to locate the source of the voice. It sounded like it was coming from everywhere at once, an omnipresent melancholy with just the hint of a fury in it. Like a calm, slow river with a strong, rapid undercurrent. I listened in rapture, my gaze fixed on my savior human’s elegant profile. Her lower lip trembled ever so slightly, its gloss capturing the warm sheen.
"Kit!" she suddenly called out.
The song broke off, leaving only eerie silence.
"Are you there?" my best friend shouted again, her voice nearly breaking.
Everything was still for another beat. Then we heard stones shift and clatter, followed by naked feet slapping the wet ground. We turned around, and there, standing beneath the arch of one of the side tunnels, was Kit Sutton. Nettie let out a sharp cry, broke free from my hold and ran towards her, wrapping her arms around the taller woman's neck. Kit stared down at her in shock before throwing her arms around her, burying one hand in her long, dark coils of hair and pressing the other to the small of her back. Anabel, who works the kitchen at the diner, let out a soft coo. We stayed back for the two of them to have their moment before my savior human eventually disentangled herself.
"You're very wet," she told Kit, inspecting her now damp sweater.
My roommate's lips curled. "I mean, you hugged me pretty close, so…"
Nettie smacked her upper arm. "Idiot," she whispered, her tone warm and gentle.
The smile faded from Kit's face as her eyes roamed the small crowd, settling on me. "What are you doing here? I told you not to come back, and now you've actually brought more people?"
"Kit, this is the coven from the diner. Coven, this is the water spirit I told you about." I turned to Rhonda, who nodded and took a step forward.
"We came to see if we can't do something about your situation," she told her.
Kit scrunched her brows. "You guys are a coven?"
"They are," I supplied. "And they managed to hold off my stalker with their magic so they're pretty serious about it. That reminds me; I have a stalker now. Anyways, they want to see your mom."
My roommate looked beyond skeptical. "You know this is dangerous, right?"
Hailey groaned. "Girl, we've been in this for a long-ass time. Either you let us see what we can do or you don't, but don't think for a moment that we're ignorant."
Kit threw up her arms. "Fine. Come along then. I warned you."
She started marching ahead, her impossibly long hair trailing behind her like a veil. Nettie had to be careful not to step on it as she walked alongside her, the two having linked hands. When we reached the corpse room, my savior human looked like she was about to faint. The sight once again sent a cold chill down my spine and I instinctively looked over at Eli Carter. His face was scrunched up, his brows knitted as he attempted to keep his eyes trained on the ground. Frankie on the other hand appeared to be rather interested, his gaze roaming the hall. The coven didn’t seem to care whatsoever, instead following Kit to the water hole where the enormous statuesque creature was resting.
“Woah,” Nettie said eloquently as she leaned over to look into the depths of the pond. “That’s your mom?”
Kit Sutton gave a brief, unspirited nod. “She is, actually. Quite a bit bigger than me but yeah. Well, I don’t see how this is—” She fell silent when the six ladies started to round the pit, exchanging knowing glances as they reached for each others’ hands. “What? What now, what are we doing?” she stammered, taking a step back and slightly raising her barnacle-covered arms.
Hailey turned to her with an encouraging smile. “We could wake her up. I really think we could.”
For a moment, she didn’t respond. “You think that’d help?” she then asked.
“Would it help to have a giant sea goddess up against your father?” Rhonda deadpanned. “Of course it would. He clearly had a problem with her, else he wouldn’t have done that. He felt threatened, most likely. You might not be able to fight back against him yourself, but she ought to tip the scales.”
“Great idea,” Frankie said, earning a proud nod from the older waitress. “It’s a good rule of thumb. If you’re too weak, you just find someone strong and scary to hide behind.” He beamed at me. “You’re so pretty, Eva.”
Kit snorted, looking a little more at ease but still uncertain. “You guys know I’ve actually never spoken with her, right? What if she’s, like, feral? Maybe she won’t want to help me; she could just make things worse.”
“Worse?” Nettie Peterson blurted out. “Girl, you’re grounded for a hundred years! It doesn’t get much worse than that.”
“Good point.”
“Glad we agree,” Mae-Lynn crisply chimed in. “Okay now, everyone join hands, go on.” She reached out for us and we gathered around the pool. Nettie entwined her fingers with mine on my left while Aliyah, the oldest of the witches from the looks of it, took her place on my right. She told Frankie to stay out of the circle, giving him an apologetic smile as she sent him off to wait on the side. “Sorry, sweetie,” she told him over her shoulder. “But having an inorganic link might disturb the chain.”
“So what now?” Elijah asked.
“All of you just close your eyes and clear your minds. Don’t think of anything, like you’re meditating. You’ve got to stay calm. I’m gonna borrow what I energy I can from your minds and use it for the big girl,” Rhonda told us, pointing her chin at the motionless giantess in the water down below. “Now, what Blue here says is true, so if this works, we’ll just all bolt, okay? We wake up the water queen and then we leg it.” She nodded to Kit. “You have the best chances at dealing with her on your own. I’m optimistic overall but she’s been locked inside her own body for God knows how long. She’s likely to be confused and we don’t want to make her feel ganged up on.”
“That actually makes sense,” my roommate conceded, brightening up a bit.
“Everybody ready?” Rhonda asked, receiving scattered nods and mumbles of affirmation. Bracing herself, she rolled her shoulders and proceeded to raise her voice, beginning to murmur something I could not understand. It sounded like a human language, but not any one that I knew. My heart was beginning to beat a little faster, her rhythmic cadence reminding me of the beating of a drum. I couldn't help it. I took a peek at Rhonda, my stomach sinking when I saw her face.
Her eyes were wide open and had rolled back into her head, leaving only the white to fill the eerie, void spaces. Her body was trembling as if there were invisible hands shaking her by the shoulders. The veins and arteries on her face and neck were standing out, weirdly discolored. The longer I looked at them, the darker they became until eventually turning black entirely. They were pulsating, the blood pumping through them at a powerful, forcible pace.
I pressed my eyes shut once more, trying to clear my mind despite the image sticking with me. Focus on nothing, focus on nothing…
It turned out to be quite difficult. I've never tried to actively empty my head before, not like this. Something always kept popping in, disturbing the peace up there. Unwanted thoughts of Jewel's tears, the Devourer Of Worlds, my intestines quelling from my stomach pushed their way into the void I was trying desperately to create. When it wasn't that, it was the image of Frankie's beautifully coordinated movements. I briefly allowed my eyes to flutter open once again to turn and sneak a glance at the waiter. He was sitting cross-legged on the rocky ground, busy tossing pebbles at the slimed-up corpses to see if they stuck. Forcing myself to concentrate, I tried to picture what "nothing" would even look like.
Probably all black. Light had to be absent after all. Endless; no ceiling, no floor, nothing to stand on and nothing overhead. Nothing to hear, see, smell or feel. Nothing at all; nowhere.
Around me, I felt the air in the room beginning to heat. The grating of stone upon stone penetrated my ears in the most uncomfortable way, but this time, I was determined not to muck it up. My facial muscles straining as I clenched my lids and mouth shut, I tried to ignore the sound of water beginning to bubble nearby. The pond was hissing as if it were a pot of boiling soup, splashes and dripping noises overtaking the silence. Rhonda's voice rose higher and higher, bouncing off the hollowed cavern walls and coming back with three times the volume. Goosebumps threatened to break out on my arms, the hairs on the back of my neck already standing up. I had lost my sense of space—I had no idea who was standing beside me anymore, I could barely feel their hands in mine; their touch was a foreign sensation I was only distantly aware of.
There truly was nothing there. Nothing but Rhonda's chanting. It filled every nook and cranny of my mind, coming from everywhere around me. My pulse was fluttering as if dancing to its rhythm. My heart was pounding like a drum to the best of its cadence. A faint sense of panic was whispering to me at the edge of my conscience, but it was unable to perturb the nothing. There was a veil before my inner eye that could not be lifted anymore.
And then, all of a sudden, one of the hands I was holding was wrenched from my grasp as a scream interrupted the incantative chorus. "Run!" Rhonda cried out.
My eyes flew open, instantly coming to rest on the pond. The water's surface was bulging, looking like a stretched out balloon about to burst. It formed a strained, blue dome, as from beneath it, two enormous hands rose to break its ceiling.
"She's coming!" Kit yelled out, her face a contorted grimace of hope and horror. "Get out of here! Hurry!" Shoving Nettie and Eli towards the exit, she rallied our group.
Frankie had jumped up and snatched my hand, already dragging me into the direction of the corridor. I craned my neck to look behind me, only for him to pull harder. "This room is gonna be flooded in, like, a moment! You wanna drown?" my waiter shouted, largely into my ear. I was still a bit dazed, the mental fog from the ritual not yet having let up. I really didn't have the time to come to, though. The ground was shaken by a sudden, massive earthquake. The walls began to shudder, drops of water raining down on us from all sides along with tiny pebbles coming loose from up above.
"Get out of here!" Kit bellowed, her voice so loud it came close to cracking.
Rhonda and the rest of her coven were already crowding the mouth of the cave room, racing out into the tunnel single file. I, Frankie and Elijah followed on their heels, the latter ducking his head as he slipped through the opening. Nettie kept looking back over her shoulder. I yelled her name at the same time as Kit shouted at her to leave. Eli Carter was already fumbling with his flashlight and grabbed her wrist with his other hand to drag her into the corridor with us. "You need to—"
"I know," she interrupted him, tearing herself loose and breaking into a sprint.
And thus, we ran. Somehow, it was a lot easier to find the way back than I'd expected. Before I even had the time to process the twists and turns in our path, we were already standing outside the cave again. The stale air from inside was replaced with the fresh smell of salt and the roaring of restless waves. My heart was pounding like a sledgehammer, my blood singing in my veins.
"We can't stay here," Eli hollered as he emerged behind us. "When that thing stands up, the whole cave is gonna break in! Move!"
Nettie Peterson let out a high-pitched whine but readily hurried along as the ten of us scrambled up the sand and boulders, away from the grotto and the shore. We finally came to a halt a safe distance away on one of the cliffs, overlooking the scene. For a moment, the only sound disrupting the nightly symphony was our joint heavy breathing.
Then the sound of massive rocks shifting and cracking reached our ears. From the grotto, a vibration spread through the ground all the way over to where we were standing. The mouth of the cave began to crumble, bits of stone falling down and sealing the opening. Then the whole cave began to split. My savior human grabbed onto my arm, her fingernails digging into my skin. "She'll be okay, right?"
"For sure," I said, ignoring my pulse thrumming in my ears.
Time to call Mary Markov again.
X
1
2: deadbeat roommate
3: creepy crush
4: relocation
5: beach concert
6: First date
7: Temp work
8: roommate talk
9: a dismal worldview
10: warehouse
11: staircase
12: explanation
13: hurt
14: hospital
15: ocean
16: diner
17: government work
18: something in the caves
19: shopping cart
20: olms and Jewels
21: long hair
22: recruitment
23: waitresses
24: dollhouse
25: burning plastic
26: fog dimension
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I skipped up to him to give him a hug. He rolled his eyes, then wrapped his arms around me rather tightly. “Hey Sunshine. Oh. He-ey,” he added to Nettie when she came up behind us. “We’re good, right?”
“I said so, didn’t I,” she replied evenly. “I gotta stick to my word now, for better or for worse.”
“You know, I like you just fine. I was being an asshole for no reason. It’s not gonna happen again.”
“It better not,” she said, shrugging sweetly while not bothering to hide the threatening undertone in her response.
“Right,” Rhonda chimed in, looking slightly uncomfortable. “I understand you got a nixie or mermaid needs rescuing…”
“Precisely. You’re sure this is manageable for your coven?” I ventured.
“I’m not sure about anything. But I told you we’d see what we can do.” She gave me a generous smile. “You’re getting the friends-and-family-discount.” She reached over to ruffle Fran’s hair. He groaned, then moved over to me to make room for Nettie as she sidled up to the ladies.
I slid my hand into his. He grinned. “Demanding, you.”
I withdrew. “Sorry.”
“Oh, brother,” he grumbled, snatching back my hand. “Sure stand out from this crowd tonight, don’t I?” he asked jokingly, nodding at the gathering.
“You stand out most of the time.” I perked up when Mae-Lynn pointed out another, decidedly taller figure approaching. Eli was wearing a longer coat, shielding himself from the nightly chill carried to us upon the breeze. His hands were buried in his pockets and his shoulders hunched, but a smile crossed his face nevertheless when he spotted us. "Good to see you. How've you been?"
I traded uncertain glances with Nettie, then Fran. "Busy," I concluded, answering for the three of us.
"I'm glad you came," my savior human supplied.
"I don't know if I can be of much use," he muttered, allowing her to wrap her arms around him for a moment.
Rhonda waved him off. "Sure you can. Let's get going, now that we're all here."
Our group began to head down to the beach. Dim moonlight illuminated our path through the streets and across the sandy expanse, guiding us along with the sound of tossing waves drawing nearer. The smell of salt hung heavily above us, the wind tugged on our clothes and tousled our hair. We were a strange procession as we climbed over the rocks and down to the mouth of the cave. Had anybody seen us, I wouldn't know what they'd have made of it. I glanced over at Nettie to find her shivering. Whether it was due to the crisp spring night temperature or the excitement of the moment I couldn't tell. Instead, I reached for her hand. "Are you alright?"
She gave me a wavering nod. Flicking on her lime green flashlight, she allowed the bright beam to cut through the darkness. Her thumb rubbed over the stickers adorning the shaft of the small torch—a piece of memorabilia from our early years. "I put those there," I reminded her, pointing them out.
"Oh, I know," she deadpanned. "That was the same week I gave you all those handicraft supplies. Never again. You know how long it took to pry off the dozens of googly eyes you glued to the toilet seat?"
"It was artful. I thought you'd like them."
She snorted, lightly batting my shoulder. "Of course you did." Her chest heaved as she took a deep, cleansing breath. "Okay. Let's go."
Elijah and I led the way ahead, the former carrying his own heavy flashlight which he kept trained on the ground at our feet. We tried to stay as close together as possible, wary of the slippery surface we were walking on. The further we proceeded, the more anxious we became. Eli hid it masterfully, the only thing that gave away his apprehension being the vein that bulged on his forehead. I could feel his tension, though. It was in his shoulders, the stiff way he held his neck, in the force of his grip on the torch. It almost looked like he was trying to crush it.
The witches appeared to be nowhere near as impressed. They moved forward with a relaxed sort of confidence, casually stepping over puddles in their paths as though they were merely skirting around tables at the diner. Their attitude was mirrored by Frankie. I couldn’t help but glance back at him over my shoulder every couple seconds, his wheat-blond locks bouncing around his head with each of his spirited steps. Nettie Peterson, hanging from my arm, followed my gaze and let out a low grunt. “That boy is entirely too cheerful right now,” she muttered, only to squeak when she nearly tripped over a small rock. “Lord, I hope you know where we’re going.”
“Sure we do,” Elijah replied from up front.
“Approximately,” I added.
We weaved our way through the tunnels, trying to recall the way to the corpse cave. Rhonda had told us she wanted to see Kit Sutton’s mother. In a strange way, I was looking forward to seeing the sleeping giantess again. Despite the horror she was surrounded with, her sight had left a deep impression on me. The coven was chatting to each other in the back, their hushed voices the only sound to break the otherwise clammy, uneasy silence. Until we heard it.
A voice carried through the darkness, sweet and bell-bright with a heated, gravelly undertone. Her song filled the washed out corridors, echoing off the rounded stone walls and riding the ripples of the lake we were currently passing by. The words were in a foreign tongue, but I would have recognized my roommate’s singing anywhere.
Nettie tensed up, her arm around mine turning to stone. I could hear the hitch in her breath, taking note of the way her eyes grew wide in the lamplight. Our whole group had come to a halt in the middle of the large cave room, glancing about in awe as we tried to locate the source of the voice. It sounded like it was coming from everywhere at once, an omnipresent melancholy with just the hint of a fury in it. Like a calm, slow river with a strong, rapid undercurrent. I listened in rapture, my gaze fixed on my savior human’s elegant profile. Her lower lip trembled ever so slightly, its gloss capturing the warm sheen.
"Kit!" she suddenly called out.
The song broke off, leaving only eerie silence.
"Are you there?" my best friend shouted again, her voice nearly breaking.
Everything was still for another beat. Then we heard stones shift and clatter, followed by naked feet slapping the wet ground. We turned around, and there, standing beneath the arch of one of the side tunnels, was Kit Sutton. Nettie let out a sharp cry, broke free from my hold and ran towards her, wrapping her arms around the taller woman's neck. Kit stared down at her in shock before throwing her arms around her, burying one hand in her long, dark coils of hair and pressing the other to the small of her back. Anabel, who works the kitchen at the diner, let out a soft coo. We stayed back for the two of them to have their moment before my savior human eventually disentangled herself.
"You're very wet," she told Kit, inspecting her now damp sweater.
My roommate's lips curled. "I mean, you hugged me pretty close, so…"
Nettie smacked her upper arm. "Idiot," she whispered, her tone warm and gentle.
The smile faded from Kit's face as her eyes roamed the small crowd, settling on me. "What are you doing here? I told you not to come back, and now you've actually brought more people?"
"Kit, this is the coven from the diner. Coven, this is the water spirit I told you about." I turned to Rhonda, who nodded and took a step forward.
"We came to see if we can't do something about your situation," she told her.
Kit scrunched her brows. "You guys are a coven?"
"They are," I supplied. "And they managed to hold off my stalker with their magic so they're pretty serious about it. That reminds me; I have a stalker now. Anyways, they want to see your mom."
My roommate looked beyond skeptical. "You know this is dangerous, right?"
Hailey groaned. "Girl, we've been in this for a long-ass time. Either you let us see what we can do or you don't, but don't think for a moment that we're ignorant."
Kit threw up her arms. "Fine. Come along then. I warned you."
She started marching ahead, her impossibly long hair trailing behind her like a veil. Nettie had to be careful not to step on it as she walked alongside her, the two having linked hands. When we reached the corpse room, my savior human looked like she was about to faint. The sight once again sent a cold chill down my spine and I instinctively looked over at Eli Carter. His face was scrunched up, his brows knitted as he attempted to keep his eyes trained on the ground. Frankie on the other hand appeared to be rather interested, his gaze roaming the hall. The coven didn’t seem to care whatsoever, instead following Kit to the water hole where the enormous statuesque creature was resting.
“Woah,” Nettie said eloquently as she leaned over to look into the depths of the pond. “That’s your mom?”
Kit Sutton gave a brief, unspirited nod. “She is, actually. Quite a bit bigger than me but yeah. Well, I don’t see how this is—” She fell silent when the six ladies started to round the pit, exchanging knowing glances as they reached for each others’ hands. “What? What now, what are we doing?” she stammered, taking a step back and slightly raising her barnacle-covered arms.
Hailey turned to her with an encouraging smile. “We could wake her up. I really think we could.”
For a moment, she didn’t respond. “You think that’d help?” she then asked.
“Would it help to have a giant sea goddess up against your father?” Rhonda deadpanned. “Of course it would. He clearly had a problem with her, else he wouldn’t have done that. He felt threatened, most likely. You might not be able to fight back against him yourself, but she ought to tip the scales.”
“Great idea,” Frankie said, earning a proud nod from the older waitress. “It’s a good rule of thumb. If you’re too weak, you just find someone strong and scary to hide behind.” He beamed at me. “You’re so pretty, Eva.”
Kit snorted, looking a little more at ease but still uncertain. “You guys know I’ve actually never spoken with her, right? What if she’s, like, feral? Maybe she won’t want to help me; she could just make things worse.”
“Worse?” Nettie Peterson blurted out. “Girl, you’re grounded for a hundred years! It doesn’t get much worse than that.”
“Good point.”
“Glad we agree,” Mae-Lynn crisply chimed in. “Okay now, everyone join hands, go on.” She reached out for us and we gathered around the pool. Nettie entwined her fingers with mine on my left while Aliyah, the oldest of the witches from the looks of it, took her place on my right. She told Frankie to stay out of the circle, giving him an apologetic smile as she sent him off to wait on the side. “Sorry, sweetie,” she told him over her shoulder. “But having an inorganic link might disturb the chain.”
“So what now?” Elijah asked.
“All of you just close your eyes and clear your minds. Don’t think of anything, like you’re meditating. You’ve got to stay calm. I’m gonna borrow what I energy I can from your minds and use it for the big girl,” Rhonda told us, pointing her chin at the motionless giantess in the water down below. “Now, what Blue here says is true, so if this works, we’ll just all bolt, okay? We wake up the water queen and then we leg it.” She nodded to Kit. “You have the best chances at dealing with her on your own. I’m optimistic overall but she’s been locked inside her own body for God knows how long. She’s likely to be confused and we don’t want to make her feel ganged up on.”
“That actually makes sense,” my roommate conceded, brightening up a bit.
“Everybody ready?” Rhonda asked, receiving scattered nods and mumbles of affirmation. Bracing herself, she rolled her shoulders and proceeded to raise her voice, beginning to murmur something I could not understand. It sounded like a human language, but not any one that I knew. My heart was beginning to beat a little faster, her rhythmic cadence reminding me of the beating of a drum. I couldn't help it. I took a peek at Rhonda, my stomach sinking when I saw her face.
Her eyes were wide open and had rolled back into her head, leaving only the white to fill the eerie, void spaces. Her body was trembling as if there were invisible hands shaking her by the shoulders. The veins and arteries on her face and neck were standing out, weirdly discolored. The longer I looked at them, the darker they became until eventually turning black entirely. They were pulsating, the blood pumping through them at a powerful, forcible pace.
I pressed my eyes shut once more, trying to clear my mind despite the image sticking with me. Focus on nothing, focus on nothing…
It turned out to be quite difficult. I've never tried to actively empty my head before, not like this. Something always kept popping in, disturbing the peace up there. Unwanted thoughts of Jewel's tears, the Devourer Of Worlds, my intestines quelling from my stomach pushed their way into the void I was trying desperately to create. When it wasn't that, it was the image of Frankie's beautifully coordinated movements. I briefly allowed my eyes to flutter open once again to turn and sneak a glance at the waiter. He was sitting cross-legged on the rocky ground, busy tossing pebbles at the slimed-up corpses to see if they stuck. Forcing myself to concentrate, I tried to picture what "nothing" would even look like.
Probably all black. Light had to be absent after all. Endless; no ceiling, no floor, nothing to stand on and nothing overhead. Nothing to hear, see, smell or feel. Nothing at all; nowhere.
Around me, I felt the air in the room beginning to heat. The grating of stone upon stone penetrated my ears in the most uncomfortable way, but this time, I was determined not to muck it up. My facial muscles straining as I clenched my lids and mouth shut, I tried to ignore the sound of water beginning to bubble nearby. The pond was hissing as if it were a pot of boiling soup, splashes and dripping noises overtaking the silence. Rhonda's voice rose higher and higher, bouncing off the hollowed cavern walls and coming back with three times the volume. Goosebumps threatened to break out on my arms, the hairs on the back of my neck already standing up. I had lost my sense of space—I had no idea who was standing beside me anymore, I could barely feel their hands in mine; their touch was a foreign sensation I was only distantly aware of.
There truly was nothing there. Nothing but Rhonda's chanting. It filled every nook and cranny of my mind, coming from everywhere around me. My pulse was fluttering as if dancing to its rhythm. My heart was pounding like a drum to the best of its cadence. A faint sense of panic was whispering to me at the edge of my conscience, but it was unable to perturb the nothing. There was a veil before my inner eye that could not be lifted anymore.
And then, all of a sudden, one of the hands I was holding was wrenched from my grasp as a scream interrupted the incantative chorus. "Run!" Rhonda cried out.
My eyes flew open, instantly coming to rest on the pond. The water's surface was bulging, looking like a stretched out balloon about to burst. It formed a strained, blue dome, as from beneath it, two enormous hands rose to break its ceiling.
"She's coming!" Kit yelled out, her face a contorted grimace of hope and horror. "Get out of here! Hurry!" Shoving Nettie and Eli towards the exit, she rallied our group.
Frankie had jumped up and snatched my hand, already dragging me into the direction of the corridor. I craned my neck to look behind me, only for him to pull harder. "This room is gonna be flooded in, like, a moment! You wanna drown?" my waiter shouted, largely into my ear. I was still a bit dazed, the mental fog from the ritual not yet having let up. I really didn't have the time to come to, though. The ground was shaken by a sudden, massive earthquake. The walls began to shudder, drops of water raining down on us from all sides along with tiny pebbles coming loose from up above.
"Get out of here!" Kit bellowed, her voice so loud it came close to cracking.
Rhonda and the rest of her coven were already crowding the mouth of the cave room, racing out into the tunnel single file. I, Frankie and Elijah followed on their heels, the latter ducking his head as he slipped through the opening. Nettie kept looking back over her shoulder. I yelled her name at the same time as Kit shouted at her to leave. Eli Carter was already fumbling with his flashlight and grabbed her wrist with his other hand to drag her into the corridor with us. "You need to—"
"I know," she interrupted him, tearing herself loose and breaking into a sprint.
And thus, we ran. Somehow, it was a lot easier to find the way back than I'd expected. Before I even had the time to process the twists and turns in our path, we were already standing outside the cave again. The stale air from inside was replaced with the fresh smell of salt and the roaring of restless waves. My heart was pounding like a sledgehammer, my blood singing in my veins.
"We can't stay here," Eli hollered as he emerged behind us. "When that thing stands up, the whole cave is gonna break in! Move!"
Nettie Peterson let out a high-pitched whine but readily hurried along as the ten of us scrambled up the sand and boulders, away from the grotto and the shore. We finally came to a halt a safe distance away on one of the cliffs, overlooking the scene. For a moment, the only sound disrupting the nightly symphony was our joint heavy breathing.
Then the sound of massive rocks shifting and cracking reached our ears. From the grotto, a vibration spread through the ground all the way over to where we were standing. The mouth of the cave began to crumble, bits of stone falling down and sealing the opening. Then the whole cave began to split. My savior human grabbed onto my arm, her fingernails digging into my skin. "She'll be okay, right?"
"For sure," I said, ignoring my pulse thrumming in my ears.
Time to call Mary Markov again.
X
1
2: deadbeat roommate
3: creepy crush
4: relocation
5: beach concert
6: First date
7: Temp work
8: roommate talk
9: a dismal worldview
10: warehouse
11: staircase
12: explanation
13: hurt
14: hospital
15: ocean
16: diner
17: government work
18: something in the caves
19: shopping cart
20: olms and Jewels
21: long hair
22: recruitment
23: waitresses
24: dollhouse
25: burning plastic
26: fog dimension
2023.06.10 14:49 wdyszkie Problem areas.
https://imgur.com/a/0MABeKa
I have some areas with moss taking over. Grass is Centipede from SuperSod. The area near the bench has some drainage issues with clay close to the surface. Each year, the area is getting bigger. I’m finding a lot of mixed info online. My idea is to dig/rake up moss, then dig and till up that area and mix in some stuff to make it drain better. The final picture shows a corner where the roots of the dogwood are near the surface. Maybe just add some soil on top. I then plan to just get some sod and place on top of everything. I’m too lazy for seeds. I aerated and tried to level with sand/soil mix last year.
Thoughts? Ideas?
submitted by wdyszkie to lawncare [link] [comments]
I have some areas with moss taking over. Grass is Centipede from SuperSod. The area near the bench has some drainage issues with clay close to the surface. Each year, the area is getting bigger. I’m finding a lot of mixed info online. My idea is to dig/rake up moss, then dig and till up that area and mix in some stuff to make it drain better. The final picture shows a corner where the roots of the dogwood are near the surface. Maybe just add some soil on top. I then plan to just get some sod and place on top of everything. I’m too lazy for seeds. I aerated and tried to level with sand/soil mix last year.
Thoughts? Ideas?