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rainbow-squirrels-7 · 6 years

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I’m back with another summary of last time session of my DND campaign, The Kleos Guild! I don’t feel like typing it all up again, so I’m just going to copy/paste my ‘last time on’ part from my script...

-Only my Bard and my Paladin were able to show up, so I just had the Monk and the Druid follow along and not do much

-After sending away the army of monsters using the amazingly powerful symphony song from the Kleos Guild, The Tree of Life, the four of you were made Professional Heroes, and you were also inducted into the Amethyst Division of the Kleos Guild by Peregrine Grace, one of the Heroes you found, as she is afraid that the Song Thief who stole the magical Song Crystal from Bard City will strike again. About a week later, Peregrine was absent, but Kristofferson, a member of the Guild was showing you around (Kristofferson is an orc, he’s the engineer of the warp panels of the Guild). You were in the third level basement of the Guild HQ in Ferryrock, when Peregrine showed up from the cathedral portal, informing you all that the other three Guildmasters are coming for a meeting to discuss the Song Thief. Daisy the orc woman, who plays a cello warped in from King’s Reach, where the Sapphire Division is based, and Sam the Tiefling woman who plays a Djembe drum warped in from Noble Springs, where the Emerald Division is based. You all wait for Murphy to show up from the Ruby Division in Roots, but he doesn’t, and you all go up to hear the meeting instead. Peregrine explains the situation to the other two Guildmasters, and both of them insist that their respective Crystals are well-protected. Daisy wonders where Murphy is, and Sam says that it’s his loss if his Crystal gets stolen since he was obviously too busy to come to the meeting that would help protect it. Before anyone can say anything else, Kristofferson bursts into the room and he exclaims that the warp panel to Roots just went out (the panel to Bard City, where the other Song Crystal had been stolen and the citizens were trapped inside and unable to make sound was also previously noticed to be grayed out).

You get ready to go to Roots quickly, planning to take the train. Before you go, Peregrine gave you a few Escape Orbs and instructed you to use them in favor of trying to fight the Song Thief if it came to that, as it is more important that you didn’t become trapped in Roots. The train ride was uneventful, but very scenic out in the desert. Arriving in Roots, you witnessed an altercation between a mustached man and a Dragonborn man, whom you assumed to be Murphy based on his red bandana. Murphy was angry at the man, who was revealed to be the mayor of the town, McCoy Hatfield

-side note, neither of my players noticed my joke with the Mayor’s name. You know... McCoy Hatfield... from the Hatfields and McCoys...

-anyway, because the mayor shut down his Guild after all the members went missing. Hatfield gave Murphy a few days to try and find his Guildmembers, but if he didn’t, he’d take his building and the land it’s on. You then followed Murphy to the Cactus Spit, the saloon in Roots, and you met his friend, the bartender, who is a Lizardfolk man named Bacon. You also got to experience the local fancy delicacy, Roots’ famous cactus juice, which is really really awful tasting,

-I described it like tasting like pure vinegar with a dash of cinnamon and a fruity aftertaste, which would be nice, but its overpowered by all the Bad

-and Murphy got it for you all as a joke, knowing it was bad, and he explained that only rich people drink to seem classy. Murphy then explains a few things about the town, including the Mayor’s owning of the fields around Roots that are full of holes, which is where the Roots Union digs for cactus roots to make the drink, which is then shipped all across the land in barrels by train. Murphy is about to explain more, but Bacon interrupts him, saying that the nightfall curfew is about to start, and that everyone should get home. Saying that he’ll meet you at the saloon first thing in the morning, you part ways with Murphy.

-The next morning, Murphy does not show up at the saloon. You investigate the Ruby Division HQ, but you find it empty, aside from the Division’s Tree of Life, which securely has its Song Crystal. Gnu (Gnome Monk) and Bec (Half-orc Druid) are left here to guard it, while Alexander (Half-elf Bard) and Gixa (Dragonborn Paladin) try to find Murphy. You head to the Sheriff’s Office on the suggestion of Bacon, as the Sheriff is his brother, and meet two more Lizarfolk people: Eggs, who is the Sheriff of Roots, and Old Man Toast, who is Bacon and Eggs’ grandpa, and he also owns a goat farm on the outside of town. Toast is raving on about how he thinks El Chupacabra stole his goats again, and Eggs is annoyed, and he forces the three of you out of his office. Toast then drags you to his farm to try and find out where his goats went. After a bit of split investigation, in which Gixa tried and failed to find Mayor Hatfield, Gixa does a ‘Speak With Animals’ spell and asks the goats if they saw who stole their friend, and they say that he was taken by a bird man.

-I had the goats say ‘baaa’ even when they were able to be understood by Gixa

-You remembered that the Song Thief was said to wear a bird mask, and following some drag marks leading back into town, you see if you can find him. Instead, you’re lead to a curio shop called Huitzilopochtli’s. Inside, you met Frida, the half-elf girl who is perpetually annoyed, as she is working in retail. You discovered that all the artifacts in the shop are tourist-trap type fakes, and you’re also introduced to Huitzilopochtli himself, who is a raven man.

-I tried to have Huitzilopochtli have a Mexican accent, but I don’t know if I pulled it off well enough

-Frida quickly confirms that all Huitzilopochtli’s magic is fake, and though Huitzilopochtli tries to prove her wrong by telling your fortune (in which wrongly guesses you forgot something),

-I’m assuming my players forgot this little detail, but Huitzilopochtli isn’t wrong. They did forget that they’re actually from the future. They don’t know that they forgot this, though.

-and later he ends up failing a bluff when trying to cover up why the drag marks lead to his shop. It turns out that Huitzilopochtli stole the goat to use some of its fur in a taxidermy, and you take him back to Toast to apologize and to return the goat. The last place in Roots you go is the water tower, which gave you a nice view of the town, but also of the land outside, and you saw some lines that formed a giant petroglyph (Nazca lines style) in the shape of a spider, leading to a rock formation called the Holehills.

-Regrouping with Gnu and Bec, you left Bacon to guard the Ruby Division HQ, with Alexander giving him his Reunion Cape (an item I repurposed from Pokemon Mystery Dungeon. It allows the user to, when they’re separated, have their teammates warp back to their position). You then followed the drag marks to the Holehills, and after dodging some spider-themed traps, you found yourselves at a cliff palace. Acrobatically going down the cliffs, you went into the cliff palace, and found a silk cocoon hanging from one of the ceilings. After a fight with a giant spider, you cut open the cocoon, and inside was a very woozy Murphy, who had been taken by spiders during the night. He directs you to another room, where you found a whole bunch more cocoons. You fought three more spiders, and then cut down the rest of the cocoons. And last, you found on one of the spiders, a silk handkerchief identical to one that Mayor Hatfield had earlier.

-You all rush back to Roots, and find that Bacon has been knocked out, lying outside the HQ. Murphy takes him and the rest of the citizens who had been kidnapped into the hotel for medical attention, and the four of you go inside the Ruby Division HQ. There, you found Mayor Hatifield, trying to take the Song Crystal himself. But as soon as he steps into a shaft of moonlight shining through the greenhouse, he turns into a spider himself. You make astonishingly quick work of him, and while deciding whether to kill him or not, a ‘Fire Bolt’ spell shoots through the open door, making the decision for you. It is followed by a piano rendition of a song you recognize as The Tree of Life,

-song link

-and you found yourselves frozen in place, and in the presence of the Song Thief. While you all are frozen by his song, the Thief takes the Song Crystal, and uses an Escape Orb before you can catch him. Alexander, Gnu, and Bec use their own Escape Orb to warp out of town before the silence can catch up with them, but Gixa tries to go save some of the citizens. She decides to only take Murphy along with her (even though Bacon and a few others were right near by), and uses her own Escape Orb right before the wave of silence fell and got them.

-On the edge of town, you watched as a barrier of silence descended. A few tried to escape, Huitzilopochtli even trying to fly out, but nothing worked, and just like Bard City, the citizens are trapped and unable to make any noise or music at all. Murphy became very mad at Gixa for not saving anyone else except him, and Gixa was filled with a crushing guilt. A horse is summoned magically, and Bec aslo turned into a horse, and you wandered through the desert for two days before coming to a settlement, and taking the train back to Ferryrock. Back at the main Guild Headquarters, Peregrine is absent again, but she shows up the next morning after you all take a much-needed rest. Alexander and Murphy go talk to Peregrine and explain what happened. Peregrine seemed concerned, and she sympathized with what happened to Roots, as the exact same thing happened to Bard City. The session ended right after Peregrine expressed that she will come with you when you go to wherever the Song Thief strikes next.

-I’m trying to get my players to think its suspicious how often Peregrine is gone. But idk if they’re catching on.

-Next up is the African jungle-themed island of Noble Springs. There’s also a Chernobyl-style ‘nucleomagic’ plant that had a meltdown and made the jungle very dangerous to get through because of the radiation.

#Hawk plays DND #dnd #d&d #dungeons and dragons #dnd 5e

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blackphoenixalchemylab · 7 years

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The Weenies Are In!

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Halloween starts early at the lab, and we’re excited to present the Halloween 2017 update! It’s here! The cornerstone of this year's collection is a spirited tribute to Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart," featuring numerous heart-stopping illustrations by Drew Rausch (as previewed above).

But wait! There are more collections within the Collection: Pile of Leaves, Pumpkin Spice Whatever (It will never die!), Samhainophobia (be very afraid), and, of course, the season’s stirring Single Notes.

The 2017 Weenies, all limited editions, are all ready and waiting for you online. If you’d like to catch a whiff of the whole set—and a whole lot more—come smell us at New York Comic Con, October 5 through 8. Or send your fairy to Comic Con on a Weenie-gathering mission.

NOW, HERE’S EVERYTHING!

ALL SOULS

A day of remembrance and intercession. Without the prayers and sacrifices of their families and loved ones, the faithful departed may not be cleansed of their venal sins, and thereby cannot attain beatific vision. On November 2nd, prayers are sung and offerings are made to aid lost souls in transcending purgatory. An incense blend that invokes the higher qualities of mercy and compassion, mingled with the soft, sugared currant scent of offertory soul cakes.

THE APPARITION

When by thy scorne, O murdresse, I am dead,And that thou thinkst thee freeFrom all solicitation from mee,Then shall my ghost come to thy bed,And thee, fain'd vestall, in worse armes shall see;Then thy sicke taper will begin to winke,And he,whose thou art then, being tyr'd before,Will, if thou stirre, or pinch to wake him, thinkeThou call'st for more,And in false sleepe will from thee shrinke,And then poore Aspen wretch, neglected thouBath'd in a cold quicksilver swear wilt lyeA veryer ghost than I;What I will say, I will not tell thee now,Lest that preserve thee; and since my love is spent,I'had rather thou shouldst painfully repent,Than by my threatenings rest still innocent.

Quicksilver-cold and heartless: white sandalwood, immortelle, zdravetz, and oudh.

APPLE BUTTER RUM

Spiced rum with cinnamon, apple butter, nutmeg, and thick vanilla cream.

CARDAMOM CREAM PUMPKIN CAKE

Thick lumps of pumpkin cake with cardamom-cream frosting and a dusting of cinnamon.

CHOCOLATE BLOOD

A sideways ode to Hitchcock’s Psycho, by way of Bosco Chocolate Syrup.

CINNAMON CHAI CUPCAKE

A cozy accompaniment on chilly autumn nights.

DAY OF THE SKULLS

In Bolivia, many people hold to the tradition of keeping the skulls of their ancestors with them in their homes, caring for their remains. It is believed that each person has seven souls, and one of those souls stays with the skull after death, enabling a spirit to grant protection and prophetic dreams to their descendants, and to bless their families with good health and prosperity.

The Bolivian Fiesta de las Natitas, or Dia de los Natitas, is a day of honor for these ancestors. Their skulls are dressed with fragrant blossoms, and offerings of cocoa leaves, alcohol, and cigarettes are made.

White sandalwood, beeswax, and frankincense crowned by hydrangea, rose, and kantuta blossoms, dressed with tobacco, cocoa leaves and flowers from the sacred Cactus of the Four Winds.

DIRGE

We do lie beneath the grass In the moonlight, in the shade Of the yew-tree. They that pass Hear us not. We are afraid They would envy our delight, In our graves by glow-worm night. Come follow us, and smile as we; We sail to the rock in the ancient waves, Where the snow falls by thousands into the sea, And the drown’d and the shipwreck’d have happy graves.- Thomas Lovell Beddoes

Yew berries and cypress boughs, ropes of kelp and sea spray.

FEEDING THE DEAD

A barrel of beer, a pyramid of cakes, and three sticks of incense.

HALLOW-E’EN, 1914

"Why do you wait at your door, woman,Alone in the night?”“I am waiting for one who will come, stranger,To show him a light.He will see me afar on the roadAnd be glad at the sight.” “Have you no fear in your heart, woman,To stand there alone?There is comfort for you and kindly contentBeside the hearthstone.”But she answered, “No rest can I haveTill I welcome my own.”“Is it far he must travel to-night,This man of your heart?”“Strange lands that I know not and pitiless seasHave kept us apart,And he travels this night to his homeWithout guide, without chart.” “And has he companions to cheer him?”“Aye, many,” she said.“The candles are lighted, the hearthstones are swept,The fires glow red.We shall welcome them out of the night—Our home-coming dead.”- Winifred M. Letts

A welcome for the home-coming dead: an incense of dried ivy and maple leaf with honeyed fig, black cypress, and grave dirt.

HAUNTED SEAS

A gleaming glassy ocean Under a sky of grey;A tide that dreams of motion, Or moves, as the dead may;A bird that dips and wavers Over lone waters round,Then with a cry that quavers Is gone—a spectral sound. The brown sad sea-weed drifting Far from the land, and lost;The faint warm fog unlifting, The derelict long tossed,But now at rest—though haunted By the death-scenting shark,Whose prey no more undaunted Slips from it, spent and stark.

- Cale Young Rice

Seaspray and flecks of foam welling with opoponax and labdanum’s sepulchral moans.

IN A WHISPERING GALLERY

That whisper takes the voiceOf a Spirit, speaking to me,Close, but invisible,And throws me under a spellAt the kindling vision it brings;And for a moment I rejoice,And believe in transcendent thingsThat would make of this muddy earthA spot for the splendid birthOf everlasting lives,Whereto no night arrives;And this gaunt gray galleryA tabernacle of worthOn this drab-aired afternoon,When you can barely seeAcross its hazed lacuneIf opposite aught there beOf fleshed humanityWherewith I may commune;Or if the voice so nearBe a soul’s voice floating here.- Thomas Hardy

Marbled white iris, white tobacco flower, Italian bergamot, white leather, and Mysore sandalwood.

LA CALAVERA CATRINA

The Lady of the Graveyard! Autumn leaves, wild roses, bourbon vanilla, dry chamomile, and a bouquet of bright chrysanthemums and Mexican marigolds.

OCTOBER

Ay, thou art welcome, heaven's delicious breath!

When woods begin to wear the crimson leaf,

And suns grow meek, and the meek suns grow brief

And the year smiles as it draws near its death.

Wind of the sunny south! oh, still delay

In the gay woods and in the golden air,

Like to a good old age released from care,

Journeying, in long serenity, away.

In such a bright, late quiet, would that I

Might wear out life like thee, 'mid bowers and brooks

And dearer yet, the sunshine of kind looks,

And music of kind voices ever nigh;

And when my last sand twinkled in the glass,

Pass silently from men, as thou dost pass.

Dry, cold autumn wind. A rustle of red leaves, a touch of smoke and sap in the air.

PUMPKIN BROWNIES

Swirled with caramel and topped with sour cream frosting.

PUMPKIN CHYPRE

A gleaming auburn chypre shot through with streaks of pumpkin.

PUMPKIN SUGAR 2017

Crystallized glittering shards of lightly spiced pumpkin sugar.

SAMHAIN 2017

Truly the scent of autumn itself -- damp woods, fir needle, and black patchouli with the gentlest touches of warm pumpkin, clove, nutmeg, allspice, sweet red apple and mullein.

SEPTEMBER MIDNIGHT 2017

Lyric night of the lingering Indian Summer,

Shadowy fields that are scentless but full of singing,

Never a bird, but the passionless chant of insects,

Ceaseless, insistent.

The grasshopper's horn, and far-off, high in the maples,

The wheel of a locust leisurely grinding the silence

Under a moon waning and worn, broken,

Tired with summer.

Let me remember you, voices of little insects,

Weeds in the moonlight, fields that are tangled with asters,

Let me remember, soon will the winter be on us,

Snow-hushed and heavy.

Over my soul murmur your mute benediction,

While I gaze, O fields that rest after harvest,

As those who part look long in the eyes they lean to,

Lest they forget them.

- Sara Teasdale

A myrrh-darkened amber chypre sweetened by newly-ripened black pomegranate.

SUGAR SKULL 2017

Vibrant with the joy and sweetness of life in death! A blend of five sugars, lightly dusted with candied fruits.

THE WITCH BRIDE 2017

A fair witch crept to a young man's side,

And he kiss'd her and took her for his bride.

But a Shape came in at the dead of night,

And fill'd the room with snowy light.

And he saw how in his arms there lay

A thing more frightful than mouth may say.

And he rose in haste, and follow'd the Shape

Till morning crown'd an eastern cape.

And he girded himself, and follow'd still

When sunset sainted the western hill.

But, mocking and thwarting, clung to his side,

Weary day!-the foul Witch-Bride.

(Aw, c'mon, Allingham. Foul is a pretty strong choice of words, dontcha think?)

Pale and lovely, with eyes belladonna-wide: hemlock blossoms and ghostly nightshade veiled by wisteria, white frankincense, black amber, and narcissus resin.

++ HALLOWEEN 2017: PILE OF LEAVES

Every leaf tells a story.

DEAD LEAVES AND SQUISHED CANDY CORN

DEAD LEAVES, HEMP, MOSSY SOIL, FRANKINCENSE AND OUDH

DEAD LEAVES, TUSCAN LEATHER, WHITE AMBER, AND MIMOSA BLOSSOM

DEAD LEAVES, PINEAPPLE, PATCHOULI, AND VETIVER

DEAD LEAVES, LEMON VERBENA, AND CEDAR

DEAD LEAVES, BOURBON, BLACK CHERRY, AND AN ORANGE TWIST

DEAD LEAVES, BLACK PLUM, BITTER CLOVE, AND OUDH

DEAD LEAVES AND PINK PEPPERCORN

DEAD LEAVES, VIOLET CANDY, AND SUGAR CRYSTALS

DEAD LEAVES, COCONUT, AND CHAMPACA BLOSSOM

++ HALLOWEEN 2017: SINGLE NOTES

Black Phoenix’s cheeky interpretation of the iconic scents of the season. No actual single notes—or hags—were harmed during the creation of these blends.

BLOOD SQUIB

BOBBING FOR APPLES

GRAVEYARD DIRT

PAPIÉR-MÂCHE GHOST

PLASTIC PUMPKIN CANDY TUB

PUMPKIN SPICE EVERYTHING

UNSETTLING CLEAR PLASTIC MASK

++ HALLOWEEN 2017: PUMPKIN SPICE WHATEVER

We’re going to keep jumpin’ that pumpkin spice shark until there’s no pumpkins left to spice. Prime motivation: this is hella funny. Illustration by Drew Rausch!

PUMPKIN SPICE CATHEDRAL

Pumpkin spiced incense smoke!

PUMPKIN SPICE OPIUM POPPY

Pumpkin spiced euphoria!

PUMPKIN SPICE EMBALMING FLUID

Pumpkin spice that funeral home!

PUMPKIN SPICE SNAKE OIL

Pumpkin spice them carnies!

PUMPKIN SPICE SHOGGOTH

Bursting bubbles of self-luminous pumpkin spice!

PUMPKIN SPICE PERVERSION

You dirty bird.

PUMPKIN SPICE HARLOT

Pumpkin spice that brothel!

++ HALLOWEEN 2017: SAMHAINOPHOBIA

A celebration of the terrors of the season.

CHIROPTOPHOBIA

Fear of Bats

A flutter of leather becomes a swarm of buffeting musks, tangled with a white flash of sandalwood and near-inaudible shrieks of eucalyptus and elemi.

COIMETROPHOBIA

Fear of Cemeteries

Upturned earth, moss-damp and thick with creeping things. A shard of mahogany from a broken casket. Creaking marble doors pushing open under moonlit skies.

HEMOPHOBIA

Fear of Blood

Crimson splatter, pulsating with blackened vetiver.

NEBULAPHOBIA

Fear of Fog

Sinuous, suffocating tendrils of grey ambergris, white frankincense, and cade.

SAMHAINOPHOBIA

Fear of Halloween

Menacing vetiver, patchouli, and clove with a shock of bourbon geranium, grim oakmoss, and dread-inspiring balsams pierce the innocuous scent of autumn leaves.

++ THE TELL-TALE HEART

Story by Edgar Allan Poe, art by Drew Rausch, scents by Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab.

I HEARD MANY THINGS IN HELL

The disease had sharpened my senses -- not destroyed -- not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily -- how calmly I can tell you the whole story.

Hearken and observe: black iris, French lavender, Roman chamomile, and frankincense.

THE EYE OF A VULTURE

It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night. Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! yes, it was this! He had the eye of a vulture -- a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees -- very gradually -- I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.

Milky white fluid obfuscating a pale, lilac-blue iris.

YOU FANCY ME MAD

Now this is the point. You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded -- with what caution -- with what foresight -- with what dissimulation I went to work! I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him.

Percolating with derangement: flashing spikes of orange blossom, neroli, lemon, and bitter clove in a bubbling mass of opoponax, patchouli, and thick, black vetiver.

GROAN OF MORTAL TERROR

Presently I heard a slight groan, and I knew it was the groan of mortal terror. It was not a groan of pain or of grief -- oh, no! -- it was the low stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the soul when overcharged with awe. I knew the sound well. Many a night, just at midnight, when all the world slept, it has welled up from my own bosom, deepening, with its dreadful echo, the terrors that distracted me. I say I knew it well.

Opaque grey amber and opoponax swelling up like thick smoke, pressed under the weight of baleful tobacco.

THE MOURNFUL INFLUENCE OF THE UNPERCEIVED SHADOW

I knew what the old man felt, and pitied him, although I chuckled at heart. I knew that he had been lying awake ever since the first slight noise, when he had turned in the bed. His fears had been ever since growing upon him. He had been trying to fancy them causeless, but could not. He had been saying to himself -- "It is nothing but the wind in the chimney -- it is only a mouse crossing the floor," or "It is merely a cricket which has made a single chirp." Yes, he had been trying to comfort himself with these suppositions: but he had found all in vain. All in vain; because Death, in approaching him had stalked with his black shadow before him, and enveloped the victim. And it was the mournful influence of the unperceived shadow that caused him to feel -- although he neither saw nor heard -- to feel the presence of my head within the room.

Unutterable dread: thick black patchouli, shadow musk, myrrh, and threads of hot saffron mired in sweet, viscous labdanum.

And now at the dead hour of the night, amid the dreadful silence of that old house, so strange a noise as this excited me to uncontrollable terror.

THE DEAD HOUR OF THE NIGHT

Mist-shrouded pine and moonflower creeping over flaccid opium poppies.

THE DREADFUL SILENCE OF THAT OLD HOUSE

Polished mahogany blanketed by myrrh.

STEALTHILY, STEALTHILY

When I had waited a long time, very patiently, without hearing him lie down, I resolved to open a little -- a very, very little crevice in the lantern. So I opened it -- you cannot imagine how stealthily, stealthily -- until, at length a simple dim ray, like the thread of the spider, shot from out the crevice and fell full upon the vulture eye.

It was open -- wide, wide open -- and I grew furious as I gazed upon it. I saw it with perfect distinctness -- all a dull blue, with a hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow in my bones; but I could see nothing else of the old man's face or person: for I had directed the ray as if by instinct, precisely upon the damned spot.

A dim ray upon the vulture eye: smoked violets and bulbous orris, threads of crumbling lavender, and wet iris butter.

OVER-ACUTENESS OF THE SENSE

And have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the sense? -- now, I say, there came to my ears a low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I knew that sound well, too. It was the beating of the old man's heart. It increased my fury, as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage.

Hyper-aware, swirling with delusions: orange blossom, lemon balm, and clove.

THE HELLISH TATTOO OF THE HEART

But even yet I refrained and kept still. I scarcely breathed. I held the lantern motionless. I tried how steadily I could maintain the ray upon the eve. Meantime the hellish tattoo of the heart increased. It grew quicker and quicker, and louder and louder every instant. The old man's terror must have been extreme! It grew louder, I say, louder every moment! -- do you mark me well I have told you that I am nervous: so I am.

Blood musk and pulsating black pepper, a throb of bitter almond, and cracked pimento.

SUSPICION OF FOUL PLAY

If still you think me mad, you will think so no longer when I describe the wise precautions I took for the concealment of the body. The night waned, and I worked hastily, but in silence. First of all I dismembered the corpse. I cut off the head and the arms and the legs.

I then took up three planks from the flooring of the chamber, and deposited all between the scantlings. I then replaced the boards so cleverly, so cunningly, that no human eye -- not even his -- could have detected any thing wrong. There was nothing to wash out -- no stain of any kind -- no blood-spot whatever. I had been too wary for that. A tub had caught all -- ha! ha!

When I had made an end of these labors, it was four o'clock -- still dark as midnight. As the bell sounded the hour, there came a knocking at the street door. I went down to open it with a light heart, -- for what had I now to fear? There entered three men, who introduced themselves, with perfect suavity, as officers of the police. A shriek had been heard by a neighbour during the night; suspicion of foul play had been aroused; information had been lodged at the police office, and they (the officers) had been deputed to search the premises.

Clean wood floors, a clean tub, clean, clean, clean, with no stain of any kind, no blood-spot whatsoever.

THE WILD AUDACITY OF MY PERFECT TRIUMPH

I smiled, -- for what had I to fear? I bade the gentlemen welcome. The shriek, I said, was my own in a dream. The old man, I mentioned, was absent in the country. I took my visitors all over the house. I bade them search -- search well. I led them, at length, to his chamber. I showed them his treasures, secure, undisturbed. In the enthusiasm of my confidence, I brought chairs into the room, and desired them here to rest from their fatigues, while I myself, in the wild audacity of my perfect triumph, placed my own seat upon the very spot beneath which reposed the corpse of the victim.

A jubilant and deranged lime absinthe.

SINGULARLY AT EASE

The officers were satisfied. My manner had convinced them. I was singularly at ease. They sat, and while I answered cheerily, they chatted of familiar things. But, ere long, I felt myself getting pale and wished them gone. My head ached, and I fancied a ringing in my ears: but still they sat and still chatted.

Rum cakes and black tea, blueberry scones and biscuits.

VIOLENT GESTICULATIONS

No doubt I now grew very pale; -- but I talked more fluently, and with a heightened voice. Yet the sound increased -- and what could I do? It was a low, dull, quick sound -- much such a sound as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I gasped for breath --and yet the officers heard it not. I talked more quickly -- more vehemently; but the noise steadily increased. I arose and argued about trifles, in a high key and with violent gesticulations; but the noise steadily increased. Why would they not be gone?

An erratic pomegranate mint, high-pitched and flailing with eucalyptus, above a throbbing core of black musk.

#bpal #weenies #edgar allen poe #pumpkin #pumpkin spice #halloween #tell-tale heart

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solivar · 7 years

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WIP: Ghost Stories On Route 66

ake the one in which Hanzo is an expatriate art student, Jesse is a National Park Service ranger, weird stuff is going down in the New Mexican desert, and their lives collide in the middle of it.

No, this chapter isn’t done yet but I hope to finish tomorrow.

The light that enfolded him faded slowly to gray and then to dark. The warmth that enfolded him faded slowly to cool, and it was the touch of something far colder on his eyelids that prompted him to open them. The wind that kissed his face also lifted the hair from his shoulders, heavier against his scalp than it had been in years, shining a pure and perfect white in the light shed by the river of stars arching across the sky overhead, bowing down to touch the peak of the mountain looming far in the distance before him. A cloak of red and gold lay over his shoulders and a glittering silver path lay at his feet and he stepped upon it and began walking. He did not look back; he knew that there would be nothing for him if he did.

He walked for perhaps forever or perhaps less, and came to a place where the path became a narrow pass between two high cliffs. The shadows lay deep between the walls of stone but in those places where the starlight touched, the white of age-bleached bone shone among the drifting sand, here the unmistakable curve of a shattered human skull, there the fragments of broken human ribs. He sensed within those high bloodstained cliffs a cruelty and malice beyond even humanity, a hunger for blood and flesh that could never be sated. He sensed also that it slept, bound by a will both ancient and strong, and so he walked through the Rock-Monster Pass unharmed.

He walked again for long or perhaps not long at all, and came to a broad plain that extended as far as he could see and beyond even that. In reeds the plain was covered, as tall as a man with great leaves upon them. The wind sang through them and the leaves struck against one another with a sound like the ringing edges of knives, from their tips blew tassels of dried human skin, sere human flesh. He sensed within those waving reeds a savagery and bloodthirst beyond even humanity, a hunger for blood and flesh that could never be sated. He sensed also that it slept, bound by a will both ancient and strong, and so he walked along the Slashing-Reed Path unharmed.

He walked and before he knew that time or distance had passed, he came to an open valley. Cane cactus grew along its sides and across its flat, crowned in masses of sweet-smelling flowers and limned in thorns the length of a man’s hand, glistening with poison. Long strands of human hair hung from their hundreds of barbs and at their bases lay a tumbled scree of many fallen bones. He sensed within those spiny branches a hatred and spite beyond even humanity, a hunger for blood and flesh that could never be sated. He sensed also that it slept, bound by a will both ancient and strong, and so he walked through the Poison Cactus Country unharmed.

He walked what only seemed a few minutes before he came to a barren land of rolling dunes, sand piled in waves taller than a tall man’s head. The wind whistled along them and stirred from beneath them the ashen remains of many who had struggled to escape and burned, shriveled to nothing. He sensed within those sparkling sands a wrath and wickedness beyond even humanity, a hunger for blood and flesh that could never be sated. He sensed also that it slept, bound by a will both ancient and strong, and so he walked through Burning Sands Desert unharmed.

And so it was that he made the rest of his journey towards the far star-touched mountain and came at last to the forest that gathered at its feet. There in the shadow of the pines, just off the path itself, he saw a flicker of firelight and heard the sound of a sweet voice singing and all at once the cold and weariness of his long journey fell upon him and he found he could go no further.

Another traveler sat in the shadow of the pines feeding sweet-smelling wood to a gentle, warming fire and, coming closer, he found that he knew the traveler’s face but could not say why. The traveler looked up as he approached, a smile more warming than the flames curving his mouth, and his eyes shone golden in the dark. “You’ve come a long way just to see me, cousin.”

“I...have?” Hanzo asked, and for the first time realized his journey had a purpose. “Who are you?”

“A friendly face in the cold and lonely dark, I hope.” The traveler said, lightly, and Hanzo knew the name belonging to that face, but not the name of what looked out through his unnaturally bright eyes.

“You are not Je -- the ranger that I know.” Hanzo replied and stayed where he was on the far side of the fire. “Who are you?”

“Will you not join me by the fire, cousin?” The traveler murmured, and stirred the pot sitting in the coals, releasing a fragrant burst of steam. “You are cold and weary, and I have warmth and comfort to offer you.”

“You call me cousin but you are no kin of mine that I know.” Hanzo replied and held his ground. “Who are you?”

“Ah, Hanzo Shimada, the things you don’t know yet could fill an ocean.” The traveler grinned and caught Hanzo’s eyes with his own and he felt himself touched by a will both ancient and strong -- touched, but not bound. “I think, my stubborn young friend, that the more important question here is who are you?”

“I...do not know what you mean.” Hanzo whispered and shivered as the cold settled into his bones.

“Oh, I think you do.” The traveler stirred the pot again, and poured a stream of fragrant liquid into the bowl he held. “Sit, child. Warm yourself and drink. Stop thinking of all those faery tales you heard as a boy and attend to the here and now.”

Hanzo came closer and sank down next to the fire, gathering the red and gold cloak that was not his closer around himself, and accepting the bowl the traveler handed to him. It was sweeter than the sweetest honey and more bitter than the ashes of ten thousand broken dreams and he knew, as he drank it, he would never taste anything like it again. He sat silently for a long moment, and allowed the warmth of the fire and the warmth of the drink soak into him, and when he spoke it was softly. “I know who I am, stranger.”

“No. I think you do not.” The traveler stretched his long body out on the ground on his side of the fire, and for the first time Hanzo saw that the tips of his fingers ended in claws. “I think you know who you thought you were -- who you thought you were meant to be. You came here to this place you had only read about in books because you thought you would find it as barren and blasted and empty as you felt in your own soul...and instead the desert is alive in ways you never could have guessed. You came here to wither alone into the nothing you thought you were.”

“I am nothing.” Hanzo replied, and gazed down, his reflection dark in the surface of the traveler’s strange drink. “I could do nothing to protect myself. I endangered the lives of my friends and my brother and could do nothing to help them. Minamikaze was correct -- I am not a dragon, and I will never be one.”

“There are more things in this world than dragons and nothing, my cousin. There is more in you than that.” The traveler’s hand cupped his chin, claws gentle against the skin of his cheek. “And, for the record, Minamikaze is a judgmental asshole who’s been right exactly twice in his entire existence and when next you see him, you can tell him I told you that.”

Hanzo choked on something halfway between a laugh and a sob, and the traveler’s fingers brushed the tears from his face.

“You do not know who you are, cousin. But you have chosen the path that will lead you to the where and the when that you will.” Warm lips brushed his forehead. “You need only the courage to walk it.”

“I -- “

In the distance, a howl rose, sharp as the edge of a knife and cold as death. The wind stilled before it and fled, the boughs of the pines overhead and the ground beneath them shivered, and the flames of the fire itself lost their warmth.

“The Serpent-Wolf hunts you still, hungry as only a thing that has tasted of your soul and now your flesh can be. For the sake of the one who lent you this, I think you should, perhaps, not meet him just now.” The traveler stroked his hand down the golden border of the cloak and seized his wrist in a taloned hand. “Wake up, cousin. We shall speak again.”

The traveler’s claws bit deep, drawing blood.

Hanzo jerked awake and the first coherent through to crawl out of the swirling morass of inchoate madness that was his mind was, I know that ceiling.

He did, in fact, know it: large wooden beams, carved their lengths with repeating geometric motifs painted particularly vivid shades of red and gold, white and ocher, paler latillas perpendicular and he was totally looking up at the ranger’s bedroom ceiling for the second time that week and his head spun savagely with the disorientation of it. He was looking up at the ranger’s ceiling. He was laying in the ranger’s bed, wrapped in the ranger’s wonderfully soft and warm sheets and comforter, his head resting on the ranger’s pillows, and he had absolutely no memory whatsoever of how he came to be there. In fact, the very last thing he could consciously recall was the sensation of being shot.

He lay perfectly still for a moment and took stock of the contents of his mind. Yes, that was a rather vivid and unmistakable memory of catching a couple very real and sincere bullets in the midst of an otherwise surreally horrific dinner hour at the Student Union. Moving slowly, he peeled back the covers and pulled up the hem of the tee he was wearing, expecting blood and pain and bloody pain to ambush him at any moment and found, to his pure and perfect astonishment, absolutely no physical suggestion of anything untoward whatsoever. No bandages, no blood, not even a powder burn where the ranger had held the barrel almost flush with his body and pulled the trigger. His arm, on the other hand, was wrapped in lengths of cloth dressing -- each finger individually, feeling too thick and clumsy to use properly, and up beyond the hem of the sleeve, the skin feeling prickly enough as he moved to discourage even thinking about unwinding any of it.

A sound caught his ear: something halfway between a deep breath and a gentle almost-snore. Given the precise gravity of recent events, it was with only a relatively small amount of surprise that he turned his head and found Zenyatta laid out next to him, deeply and comfortably asleep from the quality of his breathing. Beyond him, half-sitting, half-slouching in one of the ranger’s heavy old wooden chairs, his feet propped up on the far side of the bed, was Genji, his head thrown back and his neck crooked at an angle incompatible with human contentment. One of the ranger’s ceramic mugs, probably containing the world’s most powerful sedative tea, or possibly four times the average dosage of pharmaceutical-grade ketamine, or possibly both sat on the bedside table at his elbow.

For an instant the relief of seeing them both there, safe and unharmed, rose up in his chest and made his head spin, and it was all he could do breathe around it. Zen didn’t so much as stir when he touched his shoulder and shook him gently or when he slipped out of bed and padded around it on stockinged feet to check on Genji. Who did not respond in any way when Hanzo maneuvered his head and neck enough to insert a pillow behind both or rearranged the blankets a bit to cover his feet as well as his arms. It wasn’t chilly, precisely, but he fed the fire another sweetly resinous bit of fuel and closed the door firmly behind him as he stepped out into the hall, where it was genuinely cool. A wavering light shone through the kitchen entrance arch, its source an oil lamp on the counter next to the sink. The drainer, he could not help but notice, contained far more mugs than it was likely for one man to use on his own.

In the living room, he found the furniture rearranged -- the coffee table and a few of the chairs pushed back against the far wall to accommodate the introduction of a camp cot, occupied by Lucio, hands wrapped around the sides even in his sleep. Hana slept on the world’s most comfortable couch, wrapped burrito-style in three blankets, only the very top of her head peeking out. A second oil lamp burned on the dining space table and the fire was fed and as he turned he saw the flicker of firelight beyond the window seat curtains. He found his shoes lined up with all the others next to the door, his jacket hanging from the rack, and he pulled both on before he stepped outside, where it was so genuinely cold that his breath escaped in a puff of frost and an involuntary cough.

“Darlin’,” The ranger greeted him from the comfortably firelit shadows at the far end of the porch, “you should not be out of bed yet.”

The firelight illuminated his face in flickering planes of light and shadow, his eyes dark and tired and entirely human, neither shining red nor flashing beast-golden and somehow more beautiful for it. It took Hanzo a moment to find his voice. “I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep. May I join you?”

The ranger patted the spot next to him on the bench where he sat. Hanzo folded himself into it, tucking his legs up to conserve warmth, and before he was even finished settling himself, the ranger spread the blanket he was sitting under over Hanzo, as well, and wrapped the free side of that red and gold cloak around his shoulders. Warmth enfolded him, shared body heat and the ranger’s cedar-sage-spice scent and it was all he could do not to curl against him, rest his head on his shoulder and his hand on his chest, the desire sudden and fierce.

“May I?” The ranger asked, softly, and for a moment Hanzo couldn’t imagine what he meant.

“Oh.” Realization dawned. “Yes. Yes, you may.”

It came out, he thought, reasonably even if somewhat squeaky and the ranger’s arm came down around his shoulders, gathering him close against his side. Under the cloak he was wearing one of those heavy suede-and-shearling jackets and, beneath his cheek and the palm of his hand, it was just as soft as it looked. The fire was burning in one of those gourd-shaped firepits in an iron stand, giant extinct prehistoric squash consumed by the megafauna that once roamed Ice Age North America variety, the smoke was sweet when the breeze wafted it in their direction, and unless he was grossly mistaken that was the ranger’s cheek resting against the crown of his head and that was definitely his hand, warm, gentle, callused, resting over his own. Hanzo closed his eyes and luxuriated in it, soaked in the comfort and peace, knowing that it could not last.

Ranger McCree’s voice, when next he spoke, was a soft rumble under Hanzo’s ear. “I oughta be askin’ you all kinds of questions about how your insides feel, but I don’t have the heart for that right now. You mind?”

“Not at all,” Hanzo murmured dreamily. “It can wait until later.”

“Glad we’re in agreement.” The grip on his hand, and across his shoulders, tightened a fraction.

Hanzo drifted, not quite asleep and not quite awake, safe and at rest and aware of nothing but the presence of the man next to him and the contentment of holding and being held by him. At some point, he heard something: a long, low howl that sounded nothing like the creature that hunted him and so he barely stirred. At some point he heard the rustle of almost-silent wings and the deep-throated rasping of an owl, somewhere quite close by. At some point, there were voices, human voices, including the ranger’s, but the gentle caress of a hand down his spine soothed him back down before they could disturb him. What finally brought him back was the slow fade of darkness into light, touching his eyelids from the outside, and when he opened them the eastern sky beyond the cluster of autumn-red dogwoods nearest the porch was growing pale with dawn.

The ranger seemed to know he was back without the necessity of speech. “Ana and Reinhardt are bringin’ some things over for breakfast this morning -- you up to helpin’ prepare our contribution?”

“Of course.” Hanzo agreed.

Neither of them moved except, perhaps, to squeeze the last microns of separation from between their bodies.

“I’m thinkin’ scrambled eggs and home fries,” Ranger McCree murmured. “I’m afraid I don’t have the kitchen space and probably not the time for individual eggs to order.”

“That sounds delightful.” Hanzo agreed, nestled unmoving against his side.

“And some bacon and sausage, because what this meal definitely needs is an abundance of protein options. I can almost guarantee that Granny and Grandpa are gonna bring fruit and pastries and all the breakfast sweets you could possibly want.” The ranger’s arm tightened around his waist. “I hope y’all find some spice tolerable.”

“Hana makes a haejangguk so hot you could use it to keep warm in the middle of a blizzard.” Hanzo replied, and laced their fingers together on the ranger’s chest.

He was absolutely certain those were lips pressed against his scalp. “We’re goin’ t’have to get up, darlin’.”

“A few more minutes.” Hanzo whispered and the ranger, evidently, agreed, because he didn’t move again until the sky faded from gray to silver to palest blue and the last of the stars went out.

When he finally did move, he didn’t go far, rising to his feet with an audible snap-crackle-pop of unsatisfactory spinal alignment and a groan as he stretched it out.

“I’m sorry we sort of kicked you out of your own house. And your own bed. And, uhm, yeah, I’m just really sorry about this whole thing.” Hanzo unfolded his legs, pushed himself to his feet and found himself a moment later writhing in agony on the cold planks of the front porch while two million pins and an approximately equal number of needles reminded him why warm cuddles were not an actual substitute for healthy circulation. “Oh for fuck’s sake.”

Ranger McCree looked down upon him with an expression that was attempting, valiantly, to be Concerned and Kindly and was failing horribly at both because he was also visibly trying not to laugh. His dark eyes were dancing with a gale of suppressed cackles, the little lines next to them deepening from the force of his repression, the corners of his mouth twitching uncontrollably.

“Go ahead, let it out.” Hanzo muttered and sat up on his own, waving a helping hand aside and rubbing feeling back into his calves.

Ranger McCree’s laughter was low and husky and crawled into his ears and down his spine and into his chest, where it began frolicking around with his heart, which had abruptly forgotten how to beat in a calm and steady fashion. It hadn’t yet recovered when the ranger reached for his hand to help him up and it continued to skitter around, richocheting off assorted ribs and internal organs as they soft-footed it through the entranceway and into the kitchen. The ranger flicked the control surface on the wall and soon the kitchen was illuminated by gentle, eye-comforting light panels scattered strategically around the room. He took the oil lamp chimney carefully in a potholder, blew it out, and locked it back into a circular clamp mounted to the wall above the sink. The pantry was deeper than Hanzo would have guessed, quite probably once an eat-in dining area repurposed to hold both a refrigerator and a standing freezer, built-in bins for edibles that didn’t really require refrigeration, canisters of flour, sugar, cornmeal, coffee, and the most extensive rack of spices, herbs, and loose-leaf teas he had ever encountered in a private home.

Ranger McCree wordlessly handed him a pair of unused rubber dishwashing gloves to put over his bandaged left hand and offered him first choice of cutting boards, knives, and vegetables. Hanzo settled himself on a stool at the work island and began turning a pile of potatoes into a bowl of evenly sized potato pieces while the ranger warmed the broiler and began laying out thick slices of bacon and rounds of sausage on two different pans. They worked in a warm and comfortable silence, Hanzo’s heart slowly settling back into its accustomed place, surrounded by a little curl of laughter.

The first pan went under the broiler and Jesse murmured, “I’m gonna check the fireplace in the bedroom -- if you could keep an eye on that for a minute, darlin’, I’d appreciate it.”

“Of course,” Hanzo whispered and his heart discovered renewed cause for acrobatics, some of them a bit nervous.

But Jesse returned a handful of minutes later mercifully unstabbed and unsliced. “Doc Tekhartha and your brother are still sawin’ logs, so I elected to let ‘em. The doc took a pretty hefty energetic shot to the third eye when all his defenses went kaboom at once back there, so he’s likely to need a bit of TLC when he finally does crawl outta bed.” He slid the pan out from under the broiler, scrutinized the quality of the cooking thus far, and slid it back in. “You got questions, I can tell.”

Hanzo did, in fact, have questions, potentially all the questions since the beginning of time, and they decided that was exactly the moment to engage in a vicious scrum for the honor of being first substantive inquiry out of his mouth.

“Why do you use oil lamps and fireplaces?” The first substantive inquiry, knocked to the floor by inanity, stared at the inside of his eyeballs in unmitigated horror. “I -- I mean, you’ve obviously got a modern electrical system here, your solar array is better than the one we’ve got at the condo, and, yeah, that was -- “

“When the wind blows out of the north long enough, at the right time of the year, it can mess with modern electronics pretty severely. Even here, where we’ve hardened it thoroughly against such things, it can still whistle through the cracks from time to time, particularly when the local atmosphere is unsettled and primed to allow it.” He smiled, flipped the bacon, and put it back in to finish cooking. “Like now, really. When that happens, it can get mighty cold, mighty fast, so it behooves me to have alternate means on hand for warmth and light and cookin’. If the power hadn’t worked when I tried, we’d be doin’ this outside over mesquite charcoal on the grill.”

“That...doesn’t happen very often in the city.” Hanzo pushed the bowl of neatly diced potatoes across the table, wiped his knife and board clean with a damp cloth, and set to work on the peppers. “Or at least I haven’t noticed it if it does.”

Jesse laid paper towels on a broad serving plate, transferred the bacon to it, and set it inside the microwave to keep warm. “It’s a little different in the city. Reality’s a little more...solid there, I wanna say. Even so, weird stuff can happen in the right places for it -- abandoned houses with bad reputations, public parks at the times when nobody’s supposed to be about, that sorta thing. Given half a chance, unearthly stuff like we’ve been dealing with will find a way.”

“Such as it did on campus...yesterday?” Hanzo guessed, because he didn’t feel quite famished enough to have experienced a multi-day blackout.

“Yesterday evening, yes.” In went the sausage and out came several boxes of eggs, a gallon of milk, and a bag of shredded cheese. “That was kind of an extreme example, but yeah.”

“Of course.” Hanzo replied, dolefully.

“And not at all your fault, because there was literally no way you could have guessed that this thing would be so persistent.” The ranger gave him the world’s most perfectly soothing Stern but Kindly look in response to his tone. “Doc Tekhartha, who I know for a fact is better-educated than average about things like this, probably didn’t guess it would be that persistent, or so bold, so y’all are most definitely off the hook.”

“I suppose that’s pretty true, but I didn’t take the whole dose of my tea the night before last, and you know Zenyatta.” Hanzo looked up as all the ranger’s words filtered in and settled into place.

“Know is a pretty strong word.” A wry little smile curled the corners of his mouth. “I’d go more with professional acquaintances -- I guest lecture on occasion at UNM, and we’re both members of the loose association of practicing crafty types around here. We haven’t had cause to actually work together before this, though I gotta say, I’m pretty impressed with the tricks he pulled off on the fly using duct tape and markers. Be interesting to see what he could do with proper materials.”

“My brother is likely to hate that. A lot.” Hanzo finished with the peppers and set to work on the onions, as Jesse cracked eggs into a fresh bowl. “And I apologize if he was -- “ Hanzo gestured with his knife, “particularly cutty-stabby last night.”

“To give him the credit he deserves, he did sorta see somebody he loves get shot right before his eyes, so I really didn’t blame him for the cutty-stabby.” He fetched a whisk and set to work breaking yolks with untoward deep concentration. “There’s generally no good way to react to that.”

“So the shooting thing was...real.” Hanzo laid aside his knife and breathed peace for a moment.

“Kinda yes and kinda no.” Jesse’s hand closed over his own. “What I shot at you weren’t bullets in the traditional sense of the term -- they were a shell of matter around an energetic payload keyed to deploy a particular pattern of force. In this case, exorcism rounds. The physical mass of the bullet discorporates on impact, and only the energy penetrates to do its work, which forced the thing inside of you to let go.”

Hanzo shivered uncontrollably for a moment, and the ranger’s hands came to rest on his shoulders. “So it...it isn’t...it’s not...there...any longer?”

“No.” And now those arms were around him again, holding him close as he shook and failed at not crying. “You’ve got some of what we call physical artifacts of possession still in place on your arm, and that’ll feel prickly and uncomfortable while it heals up, and we’ve still got some work to do to make you permanently safe, but no. It’s not still there and I have no intention of lettin’ it come back.”

“Promise?” Hanzo whispered against his chest.

“You have my word and my vow. This thing will never hurt you again while I’m still breathing.” Warm hands tilted his face up and warm lips brushed his forehead. “I promise.”

“Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” said someone quite nearby.

The ranger lifted his head, eyes narrowing, and looked around. “What was -- “

Hanzo groaned and buried his face in the ranger’s chest again, because that at least stood a pretty decent chance of ruining Hana’s shot.

“Oh, come on, don’t be like that, you two are like THIS CLOSE to paying for winter break in Cancun for ALL of us.” Hana came completely over the top of the sofa, phone in both hands. “My steam thinks you two are adorable, by the way, can you do that forehead kiss thing again but turn a little more fully in this direction so -- “

“Hana.” Lucio manifested next to her on the couch between one minute in the next and plucked the phone out of her hands. “Maybe we could give them, I dunno, five minutes of privacy? Sorry to interrupt, gang, but we’ve gotta go, I think I smell breakfast burning, seeya later.”

“That kinda is somethin’ -- oh, damn, the sausage.” Jesse snatched up the potholders and rescued the pan of gently smoking, more than slightly blackened sausage patties just before they caught fire. “Well, I hope y’all like it on the crunchy side. And since you two are awake, I hope you don’t mind bein’ drafted to help.”

Within ten minutes, the ranger had Hana measuring coffee and loose leaf tea and Lucio juicing two full bags of oranges. A taste test suggested that the sausage was retrievable provided the worst of the crispy spots were scraped off, so Hanzo took over that task while the ranger sauted onions and peppers over gentle heat and whisked together eggs and milk. Ten minutes after that, the aroma of perking coffee was propagating through the air and, ten minutes after that, the door to the ranger’s bedroom opened and Zenyatta emerged, blinking owlishly, into the light.

“Hey there, Doc.” The ranger poured eggs-and-milk into the pan, gave both a brief stir, and retrieved one of his heavy painted ceramic mugs from the drainer. “How ya feelin’?”

Zenyatta settled himself onto the stool Hanzo vacated in order to fetch a packet of tea and a single-serving strainer. “As though I have been run over by an overloaded trash truck that was also on fire. Which is to say, crispy and in need of ritual cleansing.” A wry smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. “And I would not refuse painkillers.”

“I’ve got a couple different sorts in the medicine cabinet -- darlin’, you’d be so kind?” The ranger asked, as he measured out the tea and poured the hot water. “It’s just next to the linen closet.”

Ranger McCree’s medicine cabinet was clearly assembled on the advice of a survivalist emergency medicine specialist who existed in active fear that the world was going to end sometime in the immediate future. There were at least six different varieties of OTC painkillers in the medicine cabinet, all of them in giant economy sized containers with their applications clearly labeled, and so Hanzo only grabbed the ones dealing with headache, fever, and body pain. Zenyatta was meditatively inhaling the vapors rising from the surface of his tea and being brought up to speed on current events by Lucio and Hana, with occasional interjections by Ranger McCree, by the time he returned.

“...and that’s when the big guy -- “ Hana was saying, as he re-entered the kitchen.

“Roadie,” Ranger McCree interjected, finishing off the scrambled eggs and pouring them into an enormous ceramic platter.

“ -- yeah, he got sick of waiting for everybody to hug it out and just picked you up,” She made a motion not unlike someone hefting a load of something on the blade of a shovel, “heaved you over one shoulder like sack of rice and started walking and we pretty much had to move it or lose it at that point, so Genji put his sword away -- and, believe me, I want to know where that came from because there is no way it came out of his backpack because it’s not there now and it wouldn’t fit anyway, I did measurements -- and he and Ranger McHottie here carried Hanzo down the stairs and there was smoke and rentacops and real cops and fire and rescue all over the place and the entire campus was blacked out and so was about half the city around us and before we finally fell asleep last night the news was saying some kind of major subterranean power relay station right near the school blew and that’s what they were blaming the whole thing on as of right now.” Hana took several deep breaths to recover from the oxygen deficiency that recital caused her. “And so, here we are, about to have breakfast.”

“Thank you,” Zenyatta replied warmly, to them both, as he selected his analgesic of choice. “It seems quite an eventful evening was had by nearly everyone.”

“That’s one way to describe it.” Lucio looked up from adding sugar and water to the jug of orange juice. “You accepting new patients, Doc?”

“I’m almost certain that the ethical canons of my profession don’t really cover situations like this so, yes, of course.” Zenyatta sipped his tea.

“Oh, good, ‘cause I’d hate to have to explain this to any other doctor.”

The ranger’s phone chimed gently and he stepped around the corner to answer it. Hana and Lucio exchanged a glance and immediately dragged him and Zenyatta into a huddle over the prep island.

“Are we agreed that this guy is possibly the hottest thing to ever wear a uniform apparently designed to absolutely negate personal hotness?” Hana asked, her tone low and intense.

“We are in agreement,” Lucio replied and Hanzo buried his burning face in his hands with an audible groan. “However, the precise state of his hotness is not really my concern at this moment. I admit, I was kinda mentally downplaying the whole ‘magic tea meant to keep my soul in one place’ thing in my head, Han, sorry about that, but, seriously what is this guy? Because I’m thinking ‘park ranger’ is only part of the definition. And that’s leaving out Roadie the Friendly Giant and his friend the psycho genius demolitions expert.”

“I could tell you,” Zenyatta murmured in the sort of low, soothing tones that had the effect of taking everyone’s body language and blood pressure down a few notches. “But it would be rude to discuss such things behind his back, when he has taken us into the safety of his home. I counsel patience.”

“I can do patience.” Hana agreed. “And not to belittle the seriousness of anything, really, that was pretty scary and intense back there, I mean, he totally shot you. But you weren’t shot? And it was freakworthy, but he was just so...nice? And he made us hot cocoa with real chocolate and gave us fresh clothes to sleep in and made sure we were all safe and comfortable and -- “

“Yes, I know,” said Hanzo who did, in fact, know quite well. “It seems to be his thing. Also, I understand that they weren’t real bullets.”

“Yeah, he said that but I’m not entirely sure Genji believed him which is another thing that’s a thing -- Genji, man.” Lucio flicked a glance down the hallway. “Your brother can get pretty hardcore from time to time but until last night I never thought I’d see him flat-out ready to kill somebody. And by ‘ready’ I mean ‘Hana and I had to physically restrain him from stabbing your boyfriend.’”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Hanzo replied to a chorus of eyerolls that included, to his surprise, Zenyatta.

“Semantics.” Hana replied, in almost precisely the same tone Genji used when he said it. “Listen, Hanzo, I’m going to strongly suggest that your face be the first thing he sees in order to prevent a potential outbreak of life-threatening violence.”

“That is not a bad idea at all.” Lucio concurred.

“I agree.” Zenyatta sipped his tea.

“Is this your way of getting me out of the kitchen so you can talk about me?” Hanzo asked, eying them all with newfound suspicion.

Any protestations of innocence were interrupted by the front door opening and closing and the ranger rejoining them, smoothing a pained look off his face. “Well, that was Ana and Rein, they’ll be here in about fifteen minutes and they’re bringing Jack and Gabe with them so...we’re going to need more seats. If you two,” he nodded at Hana and Lucio, “could give me a hand with that, I’d appreciate it greatly.”

“Sure!” Hana chirped. “Incidentally, do you have any more of these shirts? In pink? I mean, the fit’s nice and all but this isn’t really my color.”

The ranger smiled that genuine, bone-melting smile of his and Hanzo could not help but notice Hana’s knees swaying under the influence. “Y’all have no idea. There’s technically a gift shop in the park office across the way there -- I’ve got more stuff packed away in storage than I’ve ever sold. I’m sure we’ll be able to find you something after breakfast.”

“Cool. And a green one for Lu and Genji. And blue for Hanzo and Zen. And can we get our National Park Service passports stamped and you’ve still got those little pins and lanyard charms, right? I need to add those to my collection and maybe shoot some video and don’t you have some audio gear in your bag, ooooh, we could do a little mini-documentary and maybe our grades won’t get docked too hard…”

“She’s plotting something, isn’t she?” Zenyatta asked, amused, and finished his tea.

“I’m almost totally certain of it, yes.” Hanzo agreed. “I should probably see to Genji.”

“I concur. But before you go...may I?” Zenyatta gestured and Hanzo realized he was still wearing gloves and that what he wanted to see was beneath them.

“Of course.” He had, miraculously, not sweated through the bandages wrapped around his fingers despite the relative temperature inside the gloves.

Zenyatta took his hand in both of his own and bowed over it, eyes drifting half-closed and a low hum rising in his throat as he examined it, as he turned his wrist over to reveal the five tiny spots of dried blood welling up through the fabric. Hanzo almost jolted backwards out of his grip at the sight. “Whoever crafted this binding is skilled at their work.”

“If I hadn’t pulled yours loose -- “ Hanzo began and Zenyatta reached up to place two fingers across his lips.

“Mine were a stopgap, at best, and I am willing to guess that we all underestimated the lengths this thing would go to in its efforts to claim you. You have nothing to apologize for, least of all to me.” He looked up, eyes still gleaming faintly silver.

“You lot are in collusion to make sure no contrition from me goes unanswered, aren’t you?” Hanzo complained. “You were hurt.”

“Would offering an apology to me, and me accepting it, make you feel better about this situation?” Zenyatta asked with all apparent sincerity.

“Yes.” Hanzo paused for a moment, flustered, then soldiered on. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have put you in that position.”

“Very well. You apology is accepted.” Zenyatta smiled serenely, poured a cup of coffee from the carafe steaming gently on the counter, and handed it to him. “You should probably take this and go before the smell wakes him.”

#WIP Ghost Stories On Route 66

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projectnero · 5 years

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PSYCHOLOGICAL PROFILE: THE SHRUB

The brass never cease to amaze me at how ridiculous their codenames for our operatives are. Ms. Agave could slice any of them open and they give her a nickname that basically equates to a harmless bush, just because it is associated with a bush.

Ms. Agave is thankfully one of the least complicated members of this team, so this profile should end up being rather short.

NAME: Dinah Agave

ALIASES: Ms. Agave, Shrub, Prick, Cowgirl, Desperado

AGE: 44

HEIGHT: 5′6″

WEIGHT: 185 lbs.

SPECIES: Agave Barrel Cactus Dryad; American Southwestern; Century Variation

NOTABLE ABILITIES:

When it comes to survival, it seems that none of our operatives can beat out Ms. Agave. Dryads are known to take on the attributes of the plants they serve host to, and Ms. Agave seems to have taken the barrel cactus’s acclimation to harsh environments, ability to subsist on little water, and general energy stockpiling abilities to become almost completely self-dependent.

This holds true for endurance and stamina as well.

While Ms. Agave is no Aloe plant, she does seem to have profound healing abilities. Being the most natural being on the team, one literally connected to the Earth, it seems only natural. As such, Ms. Agave seems to be the plant-based equivalent of a universal plasma and blood donor, and provided she is given enough water, she can pump out an endless amount.

Ms. Agave also seems to be one of the few nonhumans on the team who bothered to pick up a gun before being recruited. Her former location was in what was previously the “American Frontier”, the Wild Wild West; she witnessed many encounters and seemingly scavenged what she could to become a legendary figure in her own right, and a deadly gunslinger.

I suppose nobody ever figured out that if you just shot the cactus she always stood next to, you wouldn’t die.

Ms. Agave’s aim with lever-action firearms is unrivaled, so much so that our resident cold-blooded sniper (who doesn’t even have a heartbeat to trip him up) was outgunned by Ms. Agave.

While nearly all other operatives on the team seem to be highly specialized in some form or another, Ms. Agave is a jack-of-all-trades. She is skilled in CQB and adept at providing firing support to front-line combatants such as Agent Shepherd or Agent Shifter, her high adaptability and low maintenance allows for her to be dropped behind enemy lines and engage in surveillance activities (she’s a fucking cactus, what enemy would shoot a cactus unprovoked), and she has seen enough and been around long enough to help me with the more technological aspects of my job, as well as serving as a go-between for the rest of the team and our head strategist, Mr. Takahashi.

This being said, Ms. Agave’s unique natural skills allow her to instantly tame any wild beast, sometimes even better than Mr. Amos can, and she is skilled at the art of terraforming, surpassing what even modern science is capable of.

As a cactus dryad, Dinah is capable of summoning the large, pin-like needles that surround her body at will, serving as a biological form of extra armor, though given the ready availability of other armor types, this seems to be redundant and only useful as a last-ditch effort. As it stands, the needles she produces while in Dryad form are much longer than that of a normal cactus and can be weaponized as crude projectiles.

As of [DATE REDACTED], Ms. Agave has been discovered to have an altered, superior state when continuously hooked up to a water source. The constant influx of water through apparatus similar to an oxygen canister mixed with an IV bag have significantly improved Ms. Agave’s response times, sturdiness, durability, strength, and cognitive activity. Some of our younger human colleagues have described her as the dryad version of a fictional character known as “Bane”. Given that both Bane and Ms. Agave are technically Mexican superhumans capable of great feats of strength and intellect and rely on various liquids for both sustenance and power, I would say the comparison is not completely unwarranted.

NOTABLE WEAKNESSES

Do you remember how I said water was a great source of strength for Ms. Agave? It also turns out to be a great weakness in many ways.

You see, the laws of nature dictate that no one species can be dominant, and if something does not have a natural predator, evolution will either make it so they do, or it will find ways to make them weaker. When evolution gave cactus plants their extreme adaptability, prickly spines, and resilience, it came with an unspoken contract. Immobility. Complete fucking immobility. Through intense training of her dryad form, Ms. Agave has slowly begun to overcome that, but she is still not as mobile as the typical human; indeed, were it not for the support devices hooked up to her, she would be even slower than Mr. Amos.

Given that Dinah still infuriatingly obeys the laws of nature and physics, she, like any other dense and immobile object when placed in water, will sink and drown. Swimming is a definitive no.

Dinah is insusceptible to psychological attacks and yet this also leaves her as the least relateable member of the team. Nobody seems to understand the gravity of a situation such as Dinah being in danger. Due to her status as a jack of all trades, she is one of our greatest trump cards, and even though the others should know better by now, they have a tendency to overestimate her abilities.

“Dinah got captured? Can’t she just like turn into a cactus and then escape by herself?” No Dean you absolute himbo, she CAN’T, and even if she COULD, we do NOT abandon team members.

Dinah is unable to speak, and unlike Dean’s telepathic communication abilities, she can only use sign language and written language. She is also unskilled in the art of body language despite logic dictating that, as a nonverbal communicator, other nonverbal communicative forms should be even easier. This is not the case.

DIAGNOSES

Inconclusive evidence.

BACKGROUND

My name is Dinah Agave. Doctor Fero was kind enough to at least allow me to write my own background.

There isn’t much to say, I suppose. I used to have a nice family, and being a barrel cactus wasn’t so bad.

Humans came along and the predictable, inevitable happened. The once peaceful desert was now inhabited by loud, somewhat annoying folks.

I remember the town vividly. They called it a boom town; lots of prospectors came and went, and law had yet to come to the waste. Well, law as the humans knew it. Somewhere along the line, the humans began to build closer to our edge of the valley... but never beyond. It was like we were used as markers. Eventually a sign with the town name was placed to sit next to us. It brought unwanted attention.

You see, as a cactus, I am not interesting. I am not supposed to be interesting. This is how it is. But humans are fascinated by the mundane aspects of nature, perhaps because they strayed so far from their own true selves, and time and time again, my family and I remained the only ones in the town unchanged. I remember one day a young woman from a nearby town came stumbling through the night, seeking refuge.

She collapsed just before the entrance to town, just at my feet, and her blood soaked my spines.

What followed was one of the most bizarre experiences of my life.

The body disappeared and for the first time in my life I ceased to be aware of anything. It was terrifying. This sleep you humans talk about is horrible. When I... awoke, I was dressed in leathers of all kinds, a long duster, and a wide-brimmed hat. I looked down and what were once nice little spines had changed into horrible fleshy human arms, ending in multi-limbed little things called hands. My body once straight and hard was now curvy and soft, and I felt myself slouch uncomfortably from the weight of the world. Why do humans fight against the gentle breeze, against gravity?

It seemed the woman who had stumbled into town in a bloodstained dress, who died at my feet, had been resurrected, only with my memories and perspective. Disgusting. If humans have such a thing as a soul, then I hope hers found the peace it needed.

Still, this body had its uses. I could now stand as a watchful guardian for my family and, begrudgingly, for the town I had come to care about. Thousands of so-called vaqueros, cowboys, and desperados came to the town. So many outlaws, too. I didn’t have much except for a six-shooter and a lever-action rifle.

And fucking invulnerability. That too.

None stood a chance and I became known as the Agave Guardian. Stupid, but it gets the point across. Eventually the town bustled into a metropolis and my work was done. The Sheriff once saw fit to award me with a gold star, unofficially deputizing me. I think all of them in that town knew the truth. I wasn’t just some woman who appeared overnight.

My confirmation that they had always known came in the form of some G-men showing up in the early 1900s, accusing me of being a “dryad” and conscripting me into their little task force.

So, there. Dinah Agave. The cactus prick from Project Nero. Don’t piss me off, and if you even think about hurting the people I care about, you will pay.

#project:nero #inhuman #dryad #agent shrub

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castlepinesmusic · 7 years

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Chapter 2: "Woo Hoo"- El Saguaro y la Guerra eterna>>>

Chapter 2: Woo Hoo

(El saguaro and the Eternal Ethereal War)

Chapter 2: Woo Hoo

(El saguaro and the Ethereal War)

Harvey Novona had lost track of where he was, like falling asleep at the wheel in a daydream, he didn’t know what astral vector he was leaving and which star orbit he was entering. He looked out into the immense blackness of the empty freeway of distant space he couldn't relate to and sighed. His partner and friend who only went by the name of Paco was pleasantly sleeping in the glistening wrap bag between the kitchen galley and the cockpit of their ship, Amen I. Harvey donned a dusted beige 10-gallon astronauts hat and helmet that had the name of their ship crudely drawn on the sides, Amen I. Harvey was a blue-blooded American Christian pilot and the only word he could ever agree on with his partner was “Amen”. Harvey would say the same tired prayer every night before they ate in training and the only response he got from all the Mexicans and latinos was when he said “Amen”. So Harvey said “Fuck it” and named his ship “Amen I” or more so, “so be it”.

The day that he was assigned to his ship with Paco, Harvey had snuck 10 extra rations of freeze-dried pork belly and 3 bottles of American whiskey and they became instant friends. Friendship was as a reliable a commodity as was a good spaceship, so they drunkenly painted the sides of their vessel and helmet hats with a black and red paint that could withstand the hottest temperatures in the vacuum of the weightless unknown.

“Fucking space dust looks like a bag of cornmeal” Harvey muttered as he blew hot air from his musty breath onto a small black kerchief he carried in his left back pocket. He could feel the slow rumble of the milky cosmos gushing like gooey molasses churning around the Amen I, churning like space and time were being muddled in a splintery butter barrel.

“These fucking blue sons of bitches, should kill all of them”. Harvey continued this one sided dialogue out loud in their shiny aluminum can space ship. The “Blue sons of bitches” he was cursing were the cancerously cantankerous Mandoloids, a foreign, alien civilazation from billions of light years away in the universe.

Harvey and Paco, along with hundreds of other duo missions, had been dispatched with a spaceship bellies worth of atomic weapons and an agenda to find the planet the Mandoloids were currently roosting and infesting.

Harvey and Paco didn't know much about the Mandoloids other than they were an interplanetary disease species that swarmed planets with carbon based life, absorbing the life and nutrients of each dandling orb until there was nothing left but desolation and death.

“Paco, you fucking guy... must be nice to snooze away while I’m up here in the pit.” Harvey smiled as he thought of his simple, brut friend. Paco could sleep carelessly through meteors, comet debris and the vicious turbulence that shook and showered the Amen like a desert monsoon swirling a bramble of branches and feathers and trash. Harvey turned the noise reduction knob up so that his ship became serene and silent and his friend could sleep. He wondered what Paco was dreaming about.

#######&&&&&&&&&^^^^^^^^

The small stature and mild mannered daily rituals of the Oaxaca people were visible to both the bearded white men wanting big, booming fire sticks buried deep into the hillsides beside villages of many people and the foreigner, petite, skinny eyed Chinese families scurrying like rabbits when one of their Father men dug with his hands into those hills and exploded like the dirt with the rest of the blasting earth.

They say that the people of the Oaxacan Desert have eyes cast down and thick, bushy eyebrows in order to keep focused on what the present day demanded of them. Paco was a small and non-haired man with big, strong hands that could pick cactus needles out of thick skins of squash and lift smooth, round river boulders whose weight was twice his size. Paco could peel 3 shucks of corn before his grandmother could take one out of the basket. Paco could watch the river or the lake for many hours and feel the fish he would catch and place them gently into a basket and carry that basket 5 kilometers on his left shoulder, in diligence and sustenance for his family.

Sometimes, when Paco and his grandmother sat by the river washing agave and cactus fruit she would ask him, “I have seen fast women break the kernels of dried corn and mash it into meal quickly, and I have seen mountain chested men and fathers wait for a fish for hours and come back to our people with nothing more than a misplaced emotion on a misplaced face.”

Paco’s face would smirk on the right hand corner like a fool and his grandmother would smile and say this “Your hands are fast boy” And then his grandmother would take one of her leathery hands, wet from the river water and gently place it on his ankle and say this, “Your legs are like a wind”

Paco’s Grandmothers lifetime of complete blindness was astute and affirming for a boy that could see everything she could not. Paco whimpered under a heavy and hot breath “I hope you are still alive Grandmother...”

The creek started at the basin of a vertical fall and the water flowed like an angered snake writhing and wriggling in pain. The Yaqui people sat at the foot of the basin at the end of the small water stream

waiting for bigger fish to fall into the smaller pools below. The strongest ones of the village harnessed and tied long branches of hard wood to their bodies. The tops of the longest branches stripped from the tallest trees the men could reach were topped with and tied with the leather from their cattle, sheep and small animals and at the tops held a hard and sharp rock. It was easy to tie one onto the end of a stick. Grandmother splashed louder than usual and sighed high into the great expanse of the space where the bright lights swing. “They are sending me into the sky. I am going into a rock beast into the air...” Paco’s grandmother had taught him to collect beautiful stones and berries and the birthed bounty of the desert that hugged their people and village. Her favorite thing to find were feathers that fell of the crooked wings of old birds and hawks and eagles. She gifted Paco a leathery coyote skin adorned in beads one night Paco was sitting alone by the edge of a drinking stream.

Paco’s grandmother was silent by the rivers edge as he peered down at his feather satchel and he knew that the light inside her had blown into the winds that carried the birds into the big black sea of the sky.

Paco grabbed his grandmothers body out of the river and carried her back to the village on his right hand shoulder, his feather satchel dragging in the red sand from his left shoulder. A blue singing bird dawdled in the arid sky above Paco and a small plume of feathers cascaded around him as he carried his grandmothers lifeless body to the village that she never left.

^^^^^^&&&*********&&&&&&&&&^^^^^^^^

Harvey slowly gyrated his 2 shoulders horizontally as slowly as the rest of his crickitty and decrepit carcass could carry him. He slithered oily and sticky like cold glue on the adhesive side of a forgettable painting of an angry, thick eye-browed, mustachioed donning portrait of a tyrants face plastered on the wall of a scared family in a dying country.

Harvey hobbled to the stern of the ship and briskly shook Paco with his right hand, stirring Paco’s floating consciousness from whatever realm of memories he was reliving. Pacos nose chortled and snarled and his left hand clutched for the hanging bag at his side.

“We’re here Packer. Gear up, I am gonna turn the ships gravity off. Do it now or else your dicks gonna be floating around trying to get in your damn pants.” Harvey was walking away as his voice got louder and stirred Paco awake.

“We there?” Paco mumbled through a sleepy left side of his drooled over mouth. “I bring tools?”

Harvey stopped his clunky walk in the circular entrance to the dimly lit cockpit and growled without turning around,

“Bring your tools Packer, but leave that leather bag...” Harvey slowed his speech mid sentence because he knew that Paco would bring his bag of bullshit trinkets and feathers no matter what was said.

“ah, Fuck it, I don’t care, bring it, your just leaving a cookie crumb trail to those blue assholes.” Paco was already scrambling like a viscous mass into his life support system, his chattel satchel was already tied around the suits left arm. Pacos eyes widened like a child and he clasped the his gloves on, wrenching his for his helmet and putting it under his arm.

“Lets go there Harvey, we are ready... Ready to go” Paco exclaimed nearly jumping up as the gravity was turned off on the ship.

Harvey zipped his suit up, holstered his gun and grabbed the tool box of explosives. He walked back to a fully awake Paco who was still clutching his helmet because he did not know how to put it on himself. Harvey latched the bronze polymer clasps of the helmet onto Pacos shoulders as the ships auto-pilot took the Amen out of orbit and down to the red planet below it. The hatch door of the rear end of the ship would open and Harvey and Paco would walk out onto this alien planet to lay down the tool box of explosives in a ditch. The proximity

screen of the Amen had been blinking bright red ceaselessly for the better part of Pacos sleep. They had found the roost of the Mandoloids.

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