PROMPT #19: Weal

Contains body horror, mild descriptions of violence, and allusions to kidnapping.

"Blackram."

He jolted awake, halfway to mistaking the voice for the red-masked man's. But it was only Sid, standing over his bed. The first thing Blackram saw was the knife in their left hand.

"Where is she?" Blackram mumbled, because he had been stirred from his first bells of sleep within the last few days. "Sigrid, she-"

Sid shook their head. "Still where you've left her. Blackram, enough of this. You've not left the catacombs for weeks."

Some irritation he could not fully place propelled Blackram out of bed. He rolled out his shoulders, flexed out the fingers of his right hand and felt the familiar ache in his palm. A fresh stream of blood and pus and something else he couldn't readily identify in the dark oozed out from the wound; tamping down his disappointment and some muted stirring of dread, he went to go to the water pump near the cliff face to wash it out for the umpteenth time.

"You've been getting weaker by the day," Sid argued. They stowed their dagger at their waistband and lifted up a bucket, setting it down with purpose beside where Blackram knelt at the spigot.

"Which is why I told you I didn't want to be woken."

They rolled their eyes, then began to pace. "How much longer will you kill yourself for this red-masked devil? Drive yourself ever deeper into your debt to them?"

"It's… not…" Blackram winced as the cold water touched his skin, until the chill overrode all other sensation and left his flesh numb. "It's not… a debt." He had known debts: his bounty hunter father had not come into his profession out of any joy for it, but to settle a blood feud for the man whose partner he had killed. He didn't have the words for what it was, though perhaps "gift" was the closest he could think of.

He knew far better than to say as much to Sid, who was already laughing - as dry and humorless as the bone dust littering the halls above them.

"What is it that has you so enthralled, then? This poisoned notion of godhood?" Sid held their arms outstretched, perhaps to indicate the majesty of the whole of the catacombs. "You are already a god in your own right, and your people see as much. Why don't you? Speak to any of the bones, if you've any doubt of it."

With his good hand, he closed off the water from the spout. The flow of fluids from his hand had not ceased, nor even abated. "That's enough, Sid."

"Surely it cannot be for this woman you barely know."

And what if it is? he longed to ask. Instead, he turned away in the hopes of finding a clean bandage.

Sid accepted his silence as tacit agreement, but they did not pursue the topic. Something had shifted in their demeanor - a tautness to their posture. "Have you ever seen a person die by infection, Blackram?" they said at last.

"No." The closest he'd ever come was seeing fever tear through the Saltery when he was yet a boy.

"It is one of the most agonizing deaths imaginable. Regardless of which part is infected, the organs shut down one by one, all while the brain screams for relief." They offered a moment of silence with which he might contemplate this death for himself. "I would not watch you suffer such a fate, my friend."

Blackram's eyes trailed downward to the barest glimmer of the blade tucked into their waistband. "Nor would I ever ask such a thing of you. Which is why, if you've any qualms with…" With what - his leadership, his priorities, his friendship? "…any qualms about us, you can say your piece, here and now, or you can leave."

Sid drew closer. They had shared so much of themself over the past few years, such that their proximity should not have been unnerving, and yet Blackram readied for the worst.

"Very well," they said, their voice uncharacteristically light. "I have never known you to sway from your course. Until, that is, you began to heed your red-masked benefactor." They raised their hands in surrender, and the dagger was there, gleaming in the candlelight; Blackram had not even seen them draw it. "But only one thing upon this star can bring about the ruin of a god such as you, and it has already begun its work. …Farewell, Blackram."

The words filled him with a dread he could not fathom, a fear as opaque as the warning itself. Sid was walking away with their back turned, as sure of their retreat as they had been throughout all their other partings from the catacombs. There was a twisted sort of relief to it nonetheless, what with the understanding that they could simply part ways, even if they would never again speak as friends, and that it would not inherently consign Sid to death-

They mean to excise the infection.

The whisper in his ear was unmistakable this time, even welcome amid his turmoil; nevertheless, Blackram's panic gave way to rage. "What do you mean?"

But the Ascian remained silent - and in truth, he needed no further prompting.

Immediately before the curtain, Sid stilled at the sound of his voice. Blackram took a step toward them, then another, until he lunged for the dagger in their hand and somehow wrested it from them.

"You," he panted, "will not lay a finger on her."

He slashed outward and the blade came away red. Sid loosed a cry of pain, but Blackram could not determine amid the darkness where they'd been struck; he saw only Sid's pale hands reaching back for the dagger, reaching for him. They had only to grab his right hand at an awkward angle and squeeze, and the pain from the infection was enough to make Blackram abandon all his other instincts.

"Listen to me," they said, beseeching. Their gaze flicked to the blade, which lay upon the floor of the cavern, out of reach for them both. "This cannot be what you want."

Blackram swung a fist; they dodged backward more out of luck than any real dexterity. They had only a few fulms until they reached the curtain that blocked off his chambers from the rest of the catacombs, and Blackram did not know who would be near enough, quick enough, or bold enough to respond to an alarum about his second in command. Sid tried to flee, but Blackram sent him sprawling with a kick. As they fruitlessly scrabbled for purchase upon the stone floor, Blackram lowered himself to their level.

"You meant all along to murder Sigrid. Do not deny it."

Sid sputtered, and spat out a mouthful of blood. "Bastard," they wheezed, an insult all the more ironic coming from them.

Blackram took hold of them by their hair, prompting another scream, and dragged them through the curtain with every onze of his fading strength.

All at once, for the first time he could remember, Blackram resented the distance of his chambers from the catacombs' main artery. He leaned against the rough limestone wall to catch his breath but did not remove or loosen his grip from his friend.

He longed to show some modicum of restraint, even now, and yet his Echo flared before he could control it. Here, amid the remains of countless dead from eras past and the tumult of their cries, Blackram recognized but one: further up along the wall lay a set of bones that had been cracked long before decay and age had reached them. He felt anew for himself the harsh sting of the lash, the agony of the metal rod that had broken the defiler-chief's body for the last time, so painful for its resurgence that he almost dropped his own captive. His right hand, racked by the persistent, pulsating ache of the wound Sigrid had dealt him, refused to heed his base instincts.

So too was he nearer to Brynhilde's crypt than he had been in weeks. Even now, even with so great a distance left still to traverse, the sound of Brynhilde's dying gasps filled his ears.

Vasu rounded the corner at that moment, just as he righted himself and gave Sid's body another hoist upwards along the ascending path. His mouth fell open in shock.

"Get Merfyn and Unsynskaet," Blackram ordered. "Tell them… tell them to ready the Iron Maiden."

this was funnier in my head

RICOHブラックラムズ東京　マスコットキャラクター　

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Knives Out and Glass Onion - a Knives Out Mystery A Rian Johnson whodunnit

By Rico Jr - Illustrator/Designer

Blackram Hall: whodunit, noir, murder mystery, pulp, hardboiled, italian giallo, crime, spy stories, serial killers, vintage, manor houses, life and death.

forgot to post on this account again LOL. anyway blackram (from memory) doodle [not a ship]

one of the funniest things about delita claiming that he’s a lieutenant of the blackram knights, besides it just being blatantly not true, is that the one and only thing we know about the blackrams before that scene is their active role in suppressing peasant revolts (as per the tavern rumors). not only did delita lie his way into becoming the commander of knights he never was even remotely affiliated with, he successfully rebranded the group from an aristocratic anti-commoner force to the personal army of ivalice’s most eligible peasant king

🤡❌🤲🤯

🤡 What’s a line, scene, or exchange you’ve written that made you laugh?

Can I talk about upcoming chapters of PSST? The exchange about the Blackram Knights or Delita's wonderful poem. Probably any bit where she Gets Him I guess, lol

❌ What’s a trope you will never write?

No tropes. Eschew character and story. Form only.

🤯 What’s a genre you struggle with as a writer (ex. romance, action, etc.)?

Definitely romance, I can write about Characters Who Are In A Relationship, I guess, but I don't think I could write about the relationship without my beloved wife to rely on for characterization. I write about divorce even when I'm not intending to. (see following answer)

🤲 Would you please share a snippet of a wip?

I'm shy. okay. here. hit and run

"This isn't real. That doesn't bother you?"

Ryuuki reached for Tama's hand. It was translucent, and pulsed with veins of energy, RGB red. The only colour in the simulation. "No," he murmured, threading her fingers between his own, "It doesn't bother me."

Tama's smile, when he looked up at her, was conflicted, her glossy mouth pinched. "I see. 'Because the rest of the world isn't real, either'... or something like that."

"I didn't say... that, I didn't say anything..."

“But something like that.” Tama lifted an eyebrow at him. "Am I close?"

Ryuuki didn’t say anything, but watched the blues of the ceiling shift, a faint line bisecting the wooden beams. The image refreshed, reliably, every six seconds. Here, the seams were obvious.

Black Ram Viski Fiyatları içeriğimizde Bulgar Viskisi olan ve Koç Viskisi olarak da geçen Black Ram Viskinin 2023 - 2024 yılı itibariyle fiyatlarını açıklayacağız. Bulgar Viskisi olarak da geçen Black Ram Bulgaristan'ın en önemli alkollü içecek üreticilerinden Vinprom Peshtera tarafından üretilmektedir. Uzun süre beklemesi gereken bir viski türü olduğu içinde Black Ram'in tadı diğer viskilere oranla çok daha iyidir. Black Ram Viski Fiyatları - 2024 Black Ram 100 cl Fiyatı1000 TLBlack Ram 20 cl Fiyatı350 TLBlack Ram 70 cl Fiyatı:780 TL Bulgaristan Black Ram Viski Fiyatları - 2023 Bulgaristan 1 Lt Black Ram fiyatı20 LevaBulgaristan 700 ml fiyatı15 LevaBulgaristan 500 ml Black Ram10 LevaBulgaristan 200 ml Black Ram fiyatı5 Leva Black Ram Viski Nedir? Blackram viski, Bulgaristan'da üretilen bir viski markasıdır. Bu viski, yüksek kaliteli arpa maltından üretilir ve uzun yıllar fıçılarda olgunlaştırılarak benzersiz bir lezzet profili elde eder. Blackram viski, uzun süreli olgunlaşma süreci sayesinde zengin bir aroma ve kompleks bir tat profiline sahiptir. İskoç viski geleneğinin bir parçası olan Blackram, viski tutkunları arasında oldukça popülerdir. İlginizi çekebilir: Viski Fiyatları Black Ram Viski Nasıl Üretilir? Blackram viski, özenle seçilen arpa maltının fermantasyonu ve distilasyonuyla üretilir. Ardından, elde edilen viski, özel olarak seçilmiş meşe fıçılarda uzun yıllar boyunca olgunlaştırılır. Bu süreçte viski, fıçıdan aldığı lezzetleri ve karakteristik özellikleri kazanır. Son olarak, olgunlaşma sürecinin ardından viski şişelenir ve tüketime sunulur. Black RAM viski orjinal olduğu nasıl anlaşılır?Şişenin yassı olup olmadığına dikkat edin. Orijinal şişesi dikdörtgen formunda ve uzunlamasınadır. Orijinal olduğunu anlamak için Viskinin üzerinde TAPDK kontrolünün olup olmadığını kontrol etmelisiniz. Ülkemizde yasal olarak satışı yapılan ve TAPDK bandrollü viskiler orijinaldir. Black RAM viski bozulur mu?Black Ramin alkol oranı oldukça fazladır. Bozulma oranı da düşük viskiler arasındadır. İlginizi çekebilir: Baileys Fiyat Black Ram Viski Yorumları Black Ram viski yorumlarını ise aşağıda bulabilirsiniz; üç, bilemedin dört bira parasına bunun litrelik olanını aldığında böyle bi aydınlanma yaşıyosun, "lan nası" falan... canım benim o. etiketindeki "karakoç"un bakışlarına kurban... uriah hippi net olarak fiyat performans ürünüdür. türkiye'de satılan viskileri alamayanlar için iki duble çak yatağı bulama salonda uyu viskisidir cayyokki Black Ram Viski Fiyatları ile ilgili Sıkça Sorulan Sorular Black RAM 1 lt ne kadar?1 LT Black Ram fiyatı ortalama 1000 TL civarındadır. Bulgar fiyatı ise yaklaşık olarak 20 levadır.

Nest way to get unsealing charmas

#NEST WAY TO GET UNSEALING CHARMAS PATCH#

#NEST WAY TO GET UNSEALING CHARMAS UPGRADE#

In jadestone do all the crafting profession. After that there is a bunch of quest nearby that also give good experience and with 30mins you have more than enough time to kill the mobs and complete the quest.ħ. Use it at that time and kill everyhing in the dreamdrfit. Also during early levels starting at the event where you enter the dreamdrift you there is a pot that gives you 100% additional exp form killing monster. I skip a lot of dungeon quest simply because it waste a lot of time and the experience you get sucks.Ħ. So spend the gold in the marketplace to get it.ĥ. Killing world boss takes too long and if you are alone sometimes you die several times before you can do it. For other world boss if you can just but the weapons and accessoires you need for breakthrough.

#NEST WAY TO GET UNSEALING CHARMAS PATCH#

No need to grind like patch of exilies or blackram narrows for the full set. The ones you get from the wheel of fate is good enough for leveling. You don't need to grind dungeons for soulsheilds. I don't keep going back and doing them.ģ. I usually only do dungeons when weapons and accessories breakthrough. The experience boost you get is pretty awesomeĢ. If you have the money get the perimum account. idk I guess I should have say its optional but meh oh well.ġ. Do you HAVE to do blackram narrows? No but I recommend it because of how faceroll that dungeon is now and because how good the soul shield is. Also the soul shield from blackram narrows will last you until you hit level 30 thats how good it is. You all have no idea how many times Ive had to tell my friends that they dont need to discard their hongmoon weapons and accessories for better ones because they can be upgraded as they level up. I said at the start, my video was created for new players. New players dont just magically learn the righ way to get through the leveling faster. They also used trash bopae instead of holding on to vridian or narrows set. So many thought they just get new weapons progressively.

#NEST WAY TO GET UNSEALING CHARMAS UPGRADE#

You wouldnt believe how many new players i had to teach to just upgrade their HM weapon & hm accessories. always one of those jerks in the positive threads. Love the random that tried to downplay this as "common sense" lol. The green E Fleet crit shields are less than 10s even for #8 on my server, so I'd just fuse the valor ones with some cheap buys from marketplace if that's available. For me, the moonwater valor shields were good enough before I got the silverfrost valor ones. Going to Bloodshade at level 45 is just not practical for a new player at this point in game, unless you have friends and family carry you to farm the dungeons over and over, or buy the emblems with Ncoins to exchange for the soul shields. Keys were more of a problem if RNG doesn't treat you nicely on weapon boxes. Unsealing Charms were not the problem while leveling, unless you unseal everything comes your way. Now that it's out, I suppose you could settle for the Silverfrost Valor set and skip Bloodshade if you like (though blue one costs 1 charm per set IIRC, so that's still not too bad a deal, I presume), but I haven't got that far with newly created chars yet to tell you for sure if it's actually a good idea. Decent stats overall that will last you throughout Act 4 and still let you be decent enough to farm the other dungeons for better SS (lvl 45-50). My SS progression would be Stalker (lvl 6) -> Viridian (lvl 20) -> Cinderlands (lvl 36), then go for Bloodshade (lvl 45). None of the soul shields before that one is worth spending charms on. Among the soul shields that require Unsealing Charms, I'd start with Bloodshade one (start with blue as you do 24-man and replace them with purple as you get them from both 24 and 6-man). if you waste multiple 3 unsealing charms just for 1 soul shield to get the stats you want and max number, you will run out of unsealing charms without realizing when they run out, and they cost 10s+20c each if you have unsealing charms go for it, but i suggest you to keep what stats you get from 1st of each soul shield you unseal. i'm surprised that you didn't even mention this important detail? what if you get stats that are worse than the Viridian Valor soul shield? the same for Infernal soul shield at 36lvl, and those require 3 unsealing charms for each. you need 2 unsealing charms for each 1, and the stats they will have and the number of the stats are random(low, minimum, max). Your suggestion to get blackram purple soulshield is horrible, especially for new players.

Mera by Black Ram

PROMPT #24: Vicissitudes

My annual “This one’s short but kind of fucked up if you’ve read Godhands” piece.

For a mercy, his hand was still intact.

But he was growing weaker, and he had only his and Sigrid's latest separation to blame. He shivered constantly for want of warmth and could scarcely keep any food down, to the point that even pure water unsettled his stomach. When two days passed of being unable to do anything but lie in discomfort, he asked for one of his Knights to bring him a bowl of the broth usually kept in reserve for Sigrid, and a pinch of her vera root as well. 

 The medicine at least brought him the relief of sleep, accompanied as it was by troubled dreams that were Sigrid's more than his: the sights and imaginings drew from her recollections, from places he imagined were Ul'dah and Gridania. In one dream, he traveled through a cloistered forest dappled with red leaves and could not shake the feeling that something pursued him. He walked alone for malms with that presence bearing down upon his back and at last came upon a village, but the doors to all the houses and cabins and sheds had been thrown wide, with only decayed smears of blood and streaks of gore as the only signs that anyone had once lived there at all. He turned to leave but heard the familiar blow of someone stoking a forge, and in the dream his heart soared at the sound. He ran toward it and his footfalls provoked whatever followed after him, until he could no longer be certain that he would make it in time to see-

"My lord!"

Blackram did not recognize the voice in the time it took to regain his bearings and stir himself from slumber. "Come in," he urged them, his voice hoarse from disuse over what must have been days. "Stand on the far side of the room, please, where I can see you."

The Knight obliged, moving with practiced silence, until they came into view and revealed themself to be Ceallach. Blackram tried to sit himself upright to greet him but resolved instead to lean against a pillow.

"Apologies for greeting you in this state," he began.

Ceallach shook his head, a genuine concern written over his face. "On the contrary, I'm sorry disturbing you, my lord. Is there anything I can bring for you?"

Blackram pondered the question, but the only answer his mind could conjure was Sigrid, and that would be an impossibility. "Do not trouble yourself. You have news to share?"

For the first time in Blackram's memory, Ceallach faltered, albeit momentarily. "...Rúni and Merfyn are dead. They were patrolling the Sprawl. Someone threw a hammer and cracked Rúni's skull. Merfyn challenged the one he thought responsible but didn't call for a duel; he was ambushed from behind during the fight."

Blackram's stomach heaved. Not so far off, in the catacomb chamber above and over from where he lay, Sigrid let out a sob of regret. Ceallach turned, as if he too had heard her grief through the layers of stone.

"Thank you," Blackram began, "for relaying this news. Do you have any suspicions as to who may have instigated their deaths, in either case?"

Something shifted in Ceallach's demeanor, until his relief lay bare. Blackram remembered then that he'd been recruited from the Balam Ring, where failure of any sort was much more likely to be met with additional punishments for all involved.

"None, my lord - I'm sorry. The Sprawl's residents have all but closed ranks, and with both of our own killed at the scene, it took Unsynskaet a full fifteen minutes to run all the way from the southern quarry crossroads to see for himself what was going on."

And fifteen minutes was plenty of time for anyone in the Sprawl to concoct a perfect alibi.

"We could go in to knock heads together and hope someone confesses, but after the way they took down Rúni and Merfyn..." Again Ceallach hesitated. "Based on what I heard, I don't think it was premeditated. Any of it."

Ceallach did not have to explain the significance of that assertion: that the people of the Sprawl were chafing against the Blackram Knights' presence, and that doubling down would likely stir even more unrest. "Who was scheduled to take over for Rúni and Merfyn?"

"Gylda and Ingram, my lord."

"Send Raz instead."

Ceallach's eyes widened. "Just Raz, my lord?"

"Say what you will of him-" And other Knights, especially the elder ones, had said plenty of Raz: that he lacked deference, that he spent more time daydreaming than he did following orders, that he spoke too loudly and thought too slowly. "-but Raz could spend a full moon in the Sprawl without anyone being any the wiser. If we're to find the truth of what happened today, it will not be through force."

"Understood. I'll send Raz at once."

"If you can't find him," Blackram added after a moment of thought, "wait for him where the old markets meet with the dark water." Raz spent most of his time in the tunnel leading up to the Keane House, as it was the one place where he knew he could be of use; he had told Blackram as much himself, entirely unprompted.

Ceallach nodded. "Thank you, my lord."

As he turned to leave, Blackram said, "Wait," and the young warrior returned to his bedside. There Blackram fumbled with one of the extraneous covers: his own fur cloak, draped over his blankets to better capture his own heat. He lifted it with his unblemished hand, weakened though it was from whatever illness gripped him, and Ceallach accepted it.

"Take this to Our Lady," he said. "Fasten it around her, and see to it that she knows that comfort, at least."

[NOT A SHIP] blackram doodles for the 2 fans out there… and there will be more

All black RAM with red accents. #RAM #RAM1500 #BlackRAM #RedAccents #VVMRTC #VVMotorsRTC #VVMotorsRAMTruckCenter https://www.instagram.com/vvmotorsrtc/p/Bvb-dyiA_aS/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=kcn1e39e9klb

Knives Out - Rian Johnson (2019)

From cinesthetic

Blackram Hall: The guy practically lives in a Clue board