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The Nazis worked on mind control and the US Government brought over 1000 Nazi scientist to work for the CIA on MK ULTRA and NASA with operation paperclip. MK ULTRA was ORGANIZED through the CIA office of scientific intelligence and COORDINATED through the US Army biological warfare laboratories and used research as a cover for HUMAN EXPERIMENTION and was also used for HARASSMENT, DISCREDITING, and DISABLING. The CIA continues MK ULTRA under a new name according to CIA whistleblower Dr Robert Duncan. They're using the watchlist as a sham to hide the targeted individual program and FBI Fusion Centers are organizing it and coordinating with CIA, FBI, NSA, Air Force, Infragard, Citizens Corps (neighborhood watch) and police. Police task forces use RISS ATIX, Infragard uses eGuardian, Citizens Corps uses HSIN, and first responders use FirstNet. They use a cover and script and twist everything and smear campaign you and track you everywhere with everyone and are always mobbing together using NLP sensitization anchoring and triggers colour coordinating with camo tape, one headlight, and caughing and use CIA mental torture techniques such as isolation, sleep deprivation, and noise campaigns to induce regression and helplessness and drive around in road convoys battle swarming with FBI managed aggression trying to cause car accidents and set you up with pro fighters and use DEWs to induce heart attacks and cancer and incite manic states to keep you talking for intelligence and set traps with kids, women, old people, tough pussys, and petty charges and stage ahead of you everywhere and use reaction abuse and gaslight and play the victim and everyone becomes convenient witnesses and gives perjured testimony in court and it will follow you in jail. They really want you isolated from anyone that's not a gangstalker (ciatch/FBI confidential human source) and the ultimate goal is suicide and half of TIs die from suicide and NEVER KNOW. They're using hyper game theory and guiding you to you're death like a chess piece controlling everything

This sub helped me out a lot so thought I'd share my experience in Japan. Hope I can bring a bit of a different perspective because unlike most of the people that seem to post here, we are definitively not early risers and rarely left the hotel before 1pm every day. Still had a great time and crowds were only an issue in a few places.
We're an early 30s Asian-American couple traveling from Germany, so we're coming at this from a bit of an in-between of Western and Eastern perspective. I have been to Japan when I was 15 with family, but remember basically nothing. It was my wife's first time. We had an absolutely wonderful time and both thought it was the best vacation we've had in years.
The trip was pretty last minute (for my standards at least). I started planning the trip from scratch (no flights, hotels or anything booked) in early April and our trip was May 18-30. We spent 5 days in Tokyo including DisneySea, 2 nights in Hakone, 3 nights in Kyoto including day trip to Nara, and 1 night in Osaka. We flew in to Tokyo Narita and flew out of Osaka Itami. We decided to fly from Osaka to Tokyo instead of bullet train back to Tokyo so we didn't have to buy JR rail pass and worry about luggage.
Tokyo

We stayed in Ginza, which was significantly cheaper than similar hotels in Shibuya or Shinjuku. Maybe it was because I was planning such last minute, but I enjoyed the area just fine. Lots of restaurants and close to Tokyo Station which was convenient.
Shout out to Star Club in Shinjuku. Had a wonderful Saturday night there drinking til 4am, chatting with other patrons and the super friendly bartender. Mix of locals and tourists.
T's Tantan Ramen in Tokyo Station was one of my favorite ramen places of the trip (tied with the Michelin star one from Kyoto, but minus the wait). The bowl had a good variety of vegetable ingredients (which didn't seem that common in Japan, most ramen was just noodles and meat) which I really appreciated. Small queue but didn't wait more than 10m.
The only restaurant reservation we made all trip was at Bon. Vegetarian multi-coursed meal. I would recommend, it was very nice, though sometimes a tad under salted for my taste. My wife loved it though. You get your own little private room to eat, even for two people, which was unexpected and very lovely.
Asakusa has a tourist center with air conditioning, bathrooms, and an 8th floor view. Nice place for a rest
Akihabara did nothing for us, as we're not really into anime or games. Pretty skippable if you are similar.
I thought Ameyoko Shopping District was a disappointment. More like a flea market, it was similar to many Taiwan street/night markets that we've been to before. We also had probably our worst meal in Japan here, at a hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant where the food was extremely mediocre. I would have skipped this place altogether and go to Ueno Park or something instead.
Character Street in Tokyo Station was very fun to explore, we did a lot of shopping there. Nice place to visit before taking the Shinkansen.
We enjoyed Takeshita Street in Harajuku. As mentioned before we went at around 8pm and it wasn't too crowded.
When planning I had thought about skipping Shibuya Scramble but I'm really glad I didn't. Something about witnessing the sheer number of people bustling about was so epic and grand. Reminded me of Saturday midnight at EDC (Electric Daisy Carnival) when the atmosphere is electric and everyone is moving from one main stage to another.
Golden Gai was interesting to look at, but way too claustrophobic for us. Very small alleys and very small bars.
I enjoyed Tsukiji Market a lot. This is one of the places I would agree with people here and advise you get there early. Take advantage of jet lag and get here before 7am, and it is literally a buffet of delicious fresh foods. (not much choice for vegetarians though sadly). By 8am it was starting to get REALLY crowded. I prefer picking out my sashimi this way as opposed to a restaurant tbh, you can look at many options and pick whatever looks freshest. First time eating Wagyu here, had it on a stick. Delicious. Not the cheapest, but I figured if I ate it at a restaurant I'd also be paying for table service and atmosphere. I'm not big on the "restaurant experience", I'd rather just eat my food and be on my way.
I thought Hamarikyu Gardens was wonderful. I love city parks where there is green, peaceful nature in the fore ground, contrasted by enormous skyscrapers towering in the background. Hamarikyu Gardens fits that perfectly. Got there right when they opened after visiting Tsukiji Market and it was a perfect way to walk off the big hearty breakfast. ~1 hour at a moderate pace should do it.
Ginza Corridor after work was very interesting to see around 5-7pm or so. Simply packed to the brim with business folks wearing suits and having a good time after their work day

DisneySea

We checked the weather and specifically went on a rainy weekday. I highly recommend, it was not crowded at all. Almost all the rides are indoors anyway and most of the queueing is either inside or covered. We got to the park at 2pm and basically rode everything we wanted before the park closed at 9pm with time to spare.
Popular rides still had 40m-1hour wait, but we used premier pass for Center of the Earth and Soaring. Most we ever waited was 20m for Finding Nemo (similar to Star Tours, all in Japanese but very fun). I checked the app the next day when it was sunny and saw the wait times for each attraction were 3-4x longer.
Another thing I think the rain helped with was that the premier passes did not sell out. We were able to buy them as late as 6pm to Journey to the Center of the Earth. (Fun ride, but I can't imagine waiting 1.5 hours for it)
I think Soaring is pretty meh, I'd probably skip it next time. I've been to the one in CA ages ago and remember thinking it was just okay too, but we had extra time so decided to try it here.
Sinbad was excellent, the ride that most exceeded expectations. It's basically "It's A Small World" but way better animatronics and story telling.
Indiana Jones is worse than in the one in California (less exciting, no fire effects), but the line was nonexistent so we went on it twice.
It stopped raining at night too so we were able to catch the Believe show with no issues. It's a good show but it is very long, about 40m. Much longer than I thought. After show is over, there's only about ~1 hour before the park closes, so good time to catch a last ride at one of the popular attractions while the locals are heading home.
I love how every restaurant has a display in front that shows you what the food will look like. They were all extremely accurate and not at all misleading!
(not a tip but a rant, is it really necessary to have 10 thousand parking spots when the vast majority of people are going to arrive on Tokyo's world-class public transit system?)

Hakone

Open Air Museum was really nice on a pleasant day. It's mostly outdoors. We spent a leisurely two hours there, but you could probably do it in one hour at a brisk pace.
We left our Ryokan at 1pm to do the Hakone Loop and still completed it comfortably with plenty of time spent on shopping.
Speaking of shopping, Cat Goods near Gora station was a wonderful little store full of cat stuff!! Our shopping list in Japan was basically to buy as much cat-themed home goods at possible, and we went crazy here. They also do tax-free! Recommend this place if cat-themed goods sounds interesting to you, the shop people were super nice!
We stayed 2 nights 3 days in a Ryokan. I purchased Hakone free pass for 3 days, which was maybe not worth it. The first and last day we only took transport to leave Hakone to Odawara station, so I think it would have been cheaper to use the IC card to pay for it ad-hoc instead of an entire extra "free pass" day. Might be worth looking in to.
If you have the Freepass, don't tag IC card at the stations. Show your Freepass to the attendant instead. It can't be a screenshot, they need to see the day
Google Maps was great everywhere except Hakone. For some reason it was especially unreliable here, it led us stray a few times.
Busses are faster for getting around, but have very little space for luggage and seemed packed with locals. If time is not an issue, I'd ride the Hakonetozan Line with your luggage, much more comfortable and more space.
If you can spare the money, getting a private onsen was really really nice. Plus you can drink while you chill!

Kyoto

Had an excellent time at Gion Bar M16, favorite bar experience we went to in Japan. The owner was super friendly and welcoming, and was himself a very interesting person that has lived a full life and travelled all over the world. Very interesting to talk to. He was also very knowledgeable about whiskey and drank whiskey with us while letting us try some different whiskeys and giving recs about what to buy and bring home. Also gave us lots of delicious and interesting snacks while we got drunk together. We also met a friend of the owner there who is a foreigner that has been living in Japan for 8 years, and gave us some recs.
One of his recs was Eikan-do Temple as a less-crowded temple option. Good rec! We really enjoyed this place a lot. Probably our favorite temple out of the 5 or so we visited. They have this really extensive "shoes-off" wooden walkway on support beams. It felt like exploring a big tree house, because the wooden part went up the cliff as well. The insides areas were also very extravagant and intricate. Not so many tourists, even Sunday middle of the day. I really recommend as well!
Another of his recs was Men-ya Inoichi (has a Michelin star). You line up when the shop opens to get a ticket, and then come back at a designated time, though there's still a wait before you actually eat. We probably waited ~50m in total, 20m at the beginning and 30m when we returned. Even then, thought it wasn't worth the time. Don't get me wrong it was very good, but IMO not significantly better than other ramen places.
Kodai-ji Temple was a miss for us, especially after Eikan-do. Thought it wasn't that interesting, would have skipped.
Kiyomizu-dera was indeed very nice, but very very crowded. Another place I would actually either going early or late for.
The shopping street in front of Kiyomizu-dera was super fun to browse, but also very crowded.
Had lunch at this tucked away Soba restaurant in an alley that was very nice, one of my favorite meals in Japan. Owner was friendly and spoke in Japanese to a translator that replayed his words in English. Noodles nice and chewy. Good experience, felt very personal!
We visited Yasaka-jinja Shrine and Maruyama Park both in the evening and during the day, and much much prefer it when it's dark. Less crowded and there are cute little lamps that are lit up and make the whole place look magical.

Nara

Arrived in Nara station at ~2:30pm and left at 7pm. Felt like we saw plenty.
Nothing new to add, the bowing deer are fun to visit and feed, though they can be quite aggressive. We went on Saturday and there was large crowds of children in their school uniforms, but we didn't really mind it too much.
Isuien Garden and Yoshikien Garden are both very nice gardens, good place to get away from crowds for some peace and quiet.

Osaka

Didn't spend much time in Osaka, but Dontonburi was fun to walk through and shop.
Ate at a very nice Okonomiyaki restaurant. It was our first time eating it so can't compare it to anywhere else, but the staff was super friendly and bubbly and we had an excellent time there. They also have a little dice game you can play to "gamble" on getting a drink for free, or "lose" and get the drink double sized and also pay 2x the price
Shout out to our hotel, Hotel Royal Classic Osaka. We were only there for one night, but my god this hotel was so convenient. Directly connected to the subway station via an elevator, and also has a 24-hour FamilyMart you can enter from the lobby. It was also only 3m walking away from a airport limousine bus, which made going to the airport super easy. If we ever visit Osaka for a longer stay, we would definitely book this hotel again.

Random Tips

The flipside to getting to a popular tourist spot early, is to get there very late. We visited Takeshita Street in Harajuku at 8pm at night and it was very comfortably not crowded. Also noticed other tourists spots tended to clear up near closing time, like Senso-Ji in Asakusa.
As everyone says, toilets are generally as clean as you can reasonably expect, everywhere from parks to gardens to subway stations. Nastiest toilet I saw was in Don Quixote at 1am, trash everywhere.
7/11 seemed to have English featured more prominently on their products labels compared to other convenience store chains. All the convenience store food options seemed very similar, so I started to favor 7/11 for the language convenience. (FamilyMart had English in super tiny letters on the side of the label lol)
In one of those small counter seating type restaurants, I saw someone take the wrong backpack when they left (didn't know it was the wrong backpack at the time ). A few minutes later, the person who's backpack was taken got up to leave, and was very confused trying to find his backpack. He spent a long 10m talking to the restaurants folks (in Japanese), before the original guy came back super apologetic. Anyway keep an eye on your stuff. I know Japan is a safe country, but accidents do happen.
One trick we had was to tie a little charm or hair tie to the handle of our umbrella, making it less likely someone would accidentally take yours from the sea of indistinguishable white plastic umbrellas.
Yes there's a lot of walking. My feet tend to get damp if I'm out all day and foot powder works wonders, highly recommend it. Picked up this trick while attending music festivals.
No issues with tax refunds and customs. We packed some of our stuff in carry-on in case they inspected, but nothing happened.
Used Ubigi esim and it was perfect. I bought 10gb and used 7gb over our trip, doing most of the navigation and planning. My wife bought 1gb and used about 700mb with just random internet surfing. I will 100% be using this service for travel to other countries in the future, not just Japan, it was so damn convenient.

Transportation

Definitely leave extra time for navigating subway stations, those things are like enormous underground malls.
Shinkansen app didn't work for our iphone country (Germany), but I was able to use the mobile web browser pretty easily. Great for free, last-minute rescheduling of Shinkansen tickets when we inevitably take too long shopping.
Apple Wallet Suica / IC card worked like a charm (with AMEX and Mastercard). One thing though it that it can sometimes take up to 1 minute for the money to load onto the account, so don't wait until the very last minute and accidentally hold up the bus.
Taxis are green when someone is in it and red when they are free (at least in Tokyo?). Confused the hell out of drunk me at 4am in the morning. I think in Kyoto it is orange instead when someone is in them, and the orange/red difference is quite hard to spot from far away.
On that note, I had sorta assumed the metro runs all night in Tokyo, but this is definitely not the case. They stop service from about midnight to 5am, so keep an eye on the last train if you do intend to catch it. Otherwise you'll have to take a more-expensive-than-usual taxi (captive markets), but not a big deal. We thought it was typically priced in comparison to most other US and European cities.
We had a choice between a 1 hour or 3 hour layover in Tokyo NRT and we chose 3 hour because we weren't sure how long it would take to transfer from Terminal 3 to Terminal 1 in NRT. In actuality it took less than 30m, so the 1 hour would have probably been fine. We didn't mind the extra buffer time to relax though.- Absolutely enormous plane flying between Osaka and Tokyo. Like literally it was the size of a transatlantic plane, with 10 seats in each row, for a sub 1 hour flight, completely full with business travelers (judging by their suits and brief cases).

Food

We aren't big foodies; we like Japanese food a lot but food isn't really a top priority for us while traveling. Some of our favorite meals were from 7/11 (kelp & bonito flavoured tofu stick, sukiyaki beef over rice, fish flavored cheese snacks, grilled squid. Yum!)
Most meals were good, if a bit straightforward. At least the places we ate at, main courses seemed to be carb heavy, with a side of meat, and little else. I know we could have gotten side dishes, but the portion sizes were too big for us to order more.
Very few vegetables in general, and if there were some they were pickled. (Guess it makes sense for an island country). I usually bring fiber pills with me when traveling and do recommend it for Japan too.
Wife is vegetarian, I am not. Japan is not particularly vegetarian friendly if you don't like tofu, which fortunately my wife does. Most places did have at least one tofu option, so it worked out okay for us. She doesn't follow it super strictly though. A few times she would order a dish and I would just pick out the meat from her bowl.
Portion sizes were a LOT bigger than I thought they would be. I think maybe we are just small eaters. US and European portions are a little bit bigger I suppose, but Japanese portion sizes were too big even for us. Especially ramen! It was crazy to see folks wolf down an giant bowl of ramen, then ask for an extra helping of noodles with their remaining soup, and finish that up too.
We only made one reservation beforehand and waited in line over 10m once. Worked out fine for us.
Restaurants tend to do last call an hour or more before closing, so don't get there too late. Happened to us twice before we learned our lesson, got to a restaurant about one hour before the listed closing hours and they turned us away.
The Japanese palette seems to be much more subtle than typical western palette, and notably less salty. We often find Asian food at US/German restaurants too salty or saucy. Even then, some of the food we ate was bordering on the minimum range of my taste buds to almost be bland. Just my opinion, most of it was good but sometimes the lack of salt was pretty noticeable to me. My wife tends to like things less salty than me though and she thoroughly enjoyed all of those meals no problem. Soup noodle places like ramen and udon are excluded from this, those were usually perfectly salted to my taste.
Walking while eating seemed fine. I saw at least 3 different instances of Japanese people doing it.
Apparently there are no laws banning public drinking in Japan. You can drink alcohol on the street no problem, but I rarely saw people doing that (unlike here in Germany where people seem to take full advantage of it and also leave trash everywhere). I did see a few groups of Japanese people doing it at night in Tokyo, usually near bus stops, and the next morning saw the empty bottles and cans. Guess there are litterers everywhere. We had a beer in the park at night, weren't loud about it and took our trash with us. That was very pleasant.

Hotels

Hotels always have liquid or foam hand soap! I hate the bar soaps that most Western hotels provide in the room, so I usually bring my own liquid hand soap. Was totally not necessary for this trip.
Lots of people on this sub have mentioned check-in time being very precise, as in you rarely can check in before the designated time. We didn't experience this first hand. But on the flip side, we did find out that check out time is very precise too! They start calling your room about 15-20m after your check out time. This is in contrast to most American/European hotels that we've stayed at, which are in my experience very lax about their check out times. We can often get away with leaving the room at 1-2 hours after the stated check out time (we're late risers). Not so in Japan.
Agree with other people's advice that booking a hotel close to a big subway station is probably the most important factor. It sucks having to walk 10m to the station every single day, and it is amazing when it is close. Also being close to a 24/7 convenience store was also very nice for late night munchies.

Language

We only knew sumimasen, konichiwa, and arigato gozaimasu and got alone just fine (lots of hand gestures!). We do know a bit of Mandarin Chinese though so that was helpful with reading signs.Some places knew Mandarin better than English and would switch to that if they thought we could speak it. Chinese tourism seems like big business (we saw a ton of Chinese tourists everywhere) so I guess it makes sense for people in tourism industry to cater towards that. Announcements (like over train stations) always went Japanese, English, often Chinese, then sometimes Korean.

Luggage Forwarding * I thought it was kind of expensive, but it does make things easier.- ○ Tokyo -> Hakone: 2310 yen- ○ Hakone to Kyoto: 2630 yen- ○ Kyoto -> Osaka: 1940 yen. * I feel like for that price you could take a taxi to and from your hotels to the train station and it wouldn't be much more work. There was plenty of space on the Shinkansen to put smaller checked luggage overhead. Then you don't have to prepack things the day before. * For the first leg Tokyo -> Hakone, we shipped two checked luggage which was about ~32 euros. After that we only shipped one, not two. * The middle ground we found was to designate one suitcase as souvenirs and dirty laundry and forwarded it every time. We would then travel with two carry-ons and one checked luggage. YMMV depending on your number of luggage and ease of carrying them.

Hey there, fellow gamers and enthusiasts! It's me, your friendly neighborhood stoner gamer, and I've got a question that's been burning in my hazy mind. So, picture this: I'm high as a kite, diving deep into the gaming universe, and it got me wondering – do any of the folks over at Digital Foundry share my love for Mary Jane?
Now, hear me out, my fellow explorers of the gaming realm. I've been going through their videos and articles, and there are a couple of dudes who seem like they've embraced the herb's magical powers. First up, we got Rich, the seasoned veteran. Man, you can't tell me he didn't enjoy a puff or two back in the day. That calm demeanor and those wise words? Totally weed vibes, man.
Then, there's Alex, living it up in Berlin. Come on, Berlin is like the cannabis capital of Europe, right? I can totally imagine Alex getting his hands on some of that sticky-icky, sparking up a joint, and geeking out over the latest tech and gaming news. It's like a match made in stoner heaven, dude!
But hey, I don't want to leave anyone out. John, Oliver, Tom, and Will, you guys rock too! I might be blazed out of my mind, but I feel this cosmic connection with you guys. So, let me know, my digital brethren – do any of you fine folks over at Digital Foundry share my passion for herbally enhanced gaming sessions? Let's spark up a conversation, light up the comments, and maybe even pass the virtual joint of camaraderie.
Remember, my fellow gamers, we're all here to celebrate the wonders of gaming and technology, no matter what substances may or may not be involved. So let's keep it chill, keep it groovy, and keep those frames per second high!
Peace, love, and happy gaming, my digital friends!
PS:Sorryifthispostseemslikeawavydream.

“I’m sorry; we’re going to astral travel to a flea market?” Charlotte asked incredulously as she watched Genevieve and I set up a meditation circle under the shade of a towering old willow tree in my cemetery. “What if we want to buy something? How will we bring it back?”
“We’re not going there to shop, Lottie. Samantha’s finally had a vision about Emrys,” Genevieve explained.
The Veil between the Physical and Astral Planes is exceptionally weak in my cemetery, especially at night and on hallowed days. When I sleep there, my subconscious mind is highly receptive to all manner of revelations from the Spirit World. When I saw a Blood Moon rise on the night of May fifth, the same night as a penumbral eclipse, I knew that my dreams would be prophetic.
“I had a dream about him last Friday,” I expounded. “He’s at some sort of otherworldly marketplace, one that’s not connected to the Crypto Chthonic Cuniculi, so it’s mostly inaccessible to the Ophion Occult Order. In my dream, Emrys invited us to come and speak with him while we were lucid. He drew a sigil for me, the same one I’ve drawn in the middle of the mediation circle. He said that all I’d have to do is toss an Undying Rose – the earthly effigy of the rose Persephone used to steal a drop of his blood – into the sigil and it will become an astral portal to where he is.”
I held up the deep purple rose that I had cut from its bush earlier that day. I don’t know for certain where the roses came from, but my best guess is that they were made by the same Occultist who hallowed my cemetery to Persephone; Artaxerxes Crow. They have some connection to Emrys as well, since the only other time I saw someone else use one was when his avatar was summoned into the Physical Plane on Halloween 2020.
Knowing that Emrys wouldn’t dare to set foot in a place that was sacred to the Goddess who was ultimately responsible for his cosmic defeat, I gently tossed the rose into the middle of the sigil.
“He invited all of us?” Charlotte asked with an incredulous raising of her eyebrow.
“He said me and my coven. If he had just meant me or me and Genevieve he would have said that,” I replied. “You and Elam are coming too. I want as many eyes on this place as possible so that we don’t miss anything. We may not get an opportunity like this again.”
“And this is safe? Visiting some random flea market between worlds?” Charlotte asked.
“Samantha and I have visited the Underworld and come back no problem,” Genevieve reminded her. “So long as we’re bound to our bodies and Elam is bound to Samantha, we can come back anytime. Don’t worry; this is going to be a blast! Adventures like these are the best part of being a Witch.”
“The only reason you were able to go to the Underworld is because Samantha’s cemetery came with an astral portal in the back,” Charlotte countered, gesticulating in the general direction of the archway that was still partially visible behind the light spring foliage. “Other than that, when have any of us ever done anything useful with our astral projection? This is still a physical place, right? We don’t have any of our physical senses available to us when we astral project, and I get extremely disoriented trying to navigate the mortal plane with clairvoyance alone.”
“It is a physical place, but one saturated with astral energy and full of occultists and occult artifacts. It will be extremely illuminated to our clairvoyance,” I assured her. “Elam will also be there to guide us. As a ghost, he’s much more practiced at traversing the mortal plane in an astral form.”
Charlotte folded her arms over her chest and turned to look at Elam, who was leaning up against the willow tree as he waited for us.
“I don’t suppose you could go and scout the place out for us ahead of time?” she asked.
“I can’t go too far from Samantha, and definitely not across planes,” he said with a shake of his head. “But Eve’s right. Your astral bodies will be in no danger, and you can return here in an instant whenever you want.”
“But what about Emrys? Didn’t that book Leon gave you say that he’s some sort of soul-flayer?” Charlotte asked me.
“It did,” I admitted. “Keep in mind though, that book was written by his enemies. I want to hear his side of things before this conflict of theirs spirals out of control.”
“Any update from Chamberlin about that?” Elam asked.
“Yeah, he said that after he failed to purify the Sigil Sand, Ivy’s onboard with negotiating some kind of truce with Emrys,” I replied. “The Grand Adderman’s still reticent, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s running out of options. I need to find out if Emrys will agree to peace talks.”
“Um, I get that, but I’m still kind of hung up on him potentially flaying our souls,” Charlotte reiterated.
“If Emrys and the Ophion Occult Order go to all-out war, there’ll be a lot of collateral damage and innocent souls caught in the crossfire,” Genevieve told her, gently grabbing hold of her and looking her straight in the eye. “Samantha, Elam, and I are doing this because if there’s any chance we can put an end to this before it starts, then it’s our responsibility to try. You don’t have to come with us, Lottie, but you’re still a member of our coven. Samantha and I would both feel a lot better with you there to help us.”
“Arghhh! All right, fine! I’ll come with you,” Charlotte gave in, plopping her butt down on the edge of the meditation circle. “If we’re holding hands, that will help keep our astral bodies together too, right?”
“I believe it should, yes,” I smiled at her, sitting down and reaching out for her hand.
Genevieve lit the incense and her bong filled with the entheogenic Delphi Dream, before sitting down to join us. She took a hit from the bong before passing it to me, and then to Charlotte before setting it aside out of the circle.
“Start with taking a deep breath, completely filling the lungs, and holding it for five heartbeats,” she guided us as she took hold of each of our hands. “Exhale completely, and wait five more heartbeats before breathing in again. Eyes closed, in through the nose, out through the mouth. Focus on the astral energies flowing through you with each breath, gently aligning each chakra until those energies are enough to lift you up and out of your body.”
In unison with one another, the three of us slowly breathed in and out, ignoring the material world around us and focusing upon the task at hand. Eve was first, as usual, and because we were all holding hands, Charlotte and I felt her eagerly tugging us up to speed us along.
I opened my eyes, and beheld the dull and muted Physical Plane through my clairvoyance, everything outshined by the radiant forms of my coven mates. I noted that Genevieve had eschewed her normal skyclad form when astral projecting and instead wore a cloak like Charlotte and I.
“Are you worried this place might have a no shirt, no shoes, no souls, no service policy?” I teased her.
“I just don’t want to risk a confrontation over it. I realize how important this is,” she answered. “Though I’m not actually wearing shoes, now that you mention it.”
“Christ, look at the sigil Samantha drew!” Charlotte said, pointing down at the meditation circle beneath us. The sigil wasn’t just glowing but flowing as well, churning the Aether around it in a misty, spectral vortex. “It’s an astral portal, isn’t it?”
“Oh yeah. It’s not stable, though. Good for one trip only,” Genevieve said with a delighted smile. “And Lottie, since we’re Neopagan Witches, try not to swear by Christ, okay?”
“Jesus!” she swore, both in defiance and in genuine annoyance.
“Elam! Elam, come join the circle! I don’t want to take any chances of severing our bond,” I instructed, letting go of Charlotte’s hand and waving him in between us.
Faithful Familiar that he was, he obeyed without hesitation. Despite my concerns, I think that he probably could have stayed behind if he had wanted. The fact that he was willing to follow me to an unknown otherworld without complaint really made me appreciate how devoted he was to me.
“We step in together on the count of three, got it?” I instructed, each of them nodding clearly in response. “One. Two. Three!”
We all extended our right feet into the vortex together, and the instant we did we were swept away, falling out of our own world and tumbling between the cracks of countless others. They weren’t real, I don’t think. At least, not as real as our world. They were potential realities, or realities that could have been once but now can never be, or fantasies that are so persistent in the minds of real people that in some sense or another, they become real themselves. I only saw glimmers of them, glimmers in nebulas made of primeval chaos and uttermost void.
It was outside of time, that place we travelled through, or at least we had no sense of it there. Our souls were haphazardly spat out upon a surreal landscape of earth, sea, and fire. Hilly plains of volcanic ash, incandescent calderas of lava and bubbling hot springs all intermeshed in a chaotic mosaic that didn’t seem to abide by any laws of geology or geography that I was familiar with. A strong but slow wind pushed fractal formations of dark silver clouds through a pale silver sky, illuminated by a single white orb which could have been either a bright moon or a faint sun.
While our spectral feet left no trace upon the ash we now stood upon, our presence nonetheless elicited a response from some of the local fauna. We were just able to catch a glimpse of some kind of shimmering scarabs burrowing themselves into the ash to escape the four otherworldly ghosts that had invaded their territory.
“Holy shit,” Charlotte murmured as we all gazed out upon the strange world we had found ourselves on. “This really isn’t on the Astral Plane. This is a real planet. This a real, alien planet! This is unbelievable!”
Genevieve glided over to one of the bubbling pools and peered into it, looking for any more signs of life.
“There’s some kind of bluish-grey algae growing on the rocks down there, and I think I can make out some small arthropods too. This planet’s alive!” she announced with glee, smiling and looking up at the alien sky.
Conjuring an astral approximation of my staff, I plunged it into a small mound of ash beside me. I watched curiously as the scarabs shot out in all directions, moving too quickly for me to get a good look at them, before scurrying back into the surrounding ash.
“These bugs can sense our presence,” I remarked. “How and why would clairvoyance evolve in insects on this world, and why would their first instinct be to flee?”
“Samantha!” Elam called out. “I think I found the Flea Market.”
We all gathered around him and looked where he was pointing. On a distant dune, we beheld the moulted carapace of a colossal insect, gleaming a brilliant, lustrous gold in the broken white light.
“That’s impossible!” Charlotte claimed. “That thing must be hundreds of meters long! No insect, no animal period could ever get that big on the Physical Plane!”
“It could be the Incarnation of some kind of Titan,” Genevieve suggested. “But… it’s dead. I can tell that even from here. It’s dead. It’s the corpse of a dead god, and now it’s being used as a swap meet with a punny name. Either whatever killed it just abandoned it, or…”
“Or is running the place,” I finished for her. “Well, we should see if we can find Emrys.”
In an instant, the world moved around us until we were at the entrance to the Flea Market. The colossal carapace was hollow inside, of course, and had been filled with a bustling city that looked like it had been created in the most ad hoc manner possible. There wasn’t a single straight street to be seen, and they converged with one another at random intervals. Stalls and buildings varied wildly in both design and materials, all imported from a plethora of different cultures across the planes.
Enormous shards of luminous glass levitated above the throng like a thousand Swords of Damocles, any or all of them seeming capable of succumbing to gravity at any moment. In the very center of the moulted husk dangled a great spiralling chrysalis or hive woven of iridescent silk, its function not being immediately apparent to me.
There must have been thousands of people there, and hundreds of merchants hawking their wares. Most of those who looked human still seemed a little off, like they were members of ethnicities that didn’t exist in our world. Some of the beings were near-human in appearance, many seemingly some kind of Fey or Seelie folk. There was even a small handful of people that weren’t remotely human at all.
The only thing they all had in common was that none were native to this world.
“Most of these people are here in person, aren’t they?” Charlotte asked.
“It would’ve been quite a feat for them to have built all of this while astral projecting,” Genevieve agreed.
“But if this place isn’t connected to the Cuniculi, then how did they get here?” Charlotte asked. “We’re on another planet, maybe even in another dimension. If getting here is beyond the Ooo’s abilities, then what sort of ungodly reality benders decided to turn it into a Flea Market?”
“Ladies, gentlemen, and any beings either too ancient and alien or too modern and alienated to settle on one or the other, come bear witness to one of the most astounding and atrocious abominations on this or any other world!” a fast-paced male voice rang out over the din of the crowd.
We turned to see a short, skinny, old-timey sort of carnival barker standing on a literal soap box, placed next to a large object draped in a black tarp.
“For the paltry price of a single three-headed coin, you can peer beneath the veil and behold with your own unbelieving eyes the mangled and mutilated monstrosity that lurks beneath!” the carnival barker continued. “But I must warn you, it is not possible to truly understand what dwells underneath without seeing it first! I cannot guarantee that you will still retain your sanity or will to live after witnessing the proverbial Mountains of Madness, for this low creature is truly like no other and serves only as a grim testament to the cruel sadism of the Lord Above! Anyone plagued by even the faintest lingering doubt as to their spiritual fortitude should not dare to even contemplate what might lie before me! But, for those brave, noble few who are truly dauntless of heart and incorrigible of spirit, I am proud to share with you this rare, unfathomable, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to witness sublime –”
The carnival barker was interrupted by a man yanking the sheet off the object beside him, revealing it to be a mirror.
“Whelp, that was a hell of an Im14andthisisdeep post, eh?” Charlotte mused.
Genevieve and I, however, were far too stunned to be amused; not by the mirror, but by the man who had unveiled it.
“It’s him, Lottie. That’s Emrys,” Genevieve whispered.
We had only seen him briefly once before, more than two-and-a-half years ago, but he was far from what anyone would call forgettable. He was tall and gaunt, with literal blue blood flowing beneath translucent skin. His long, receding hair and regal beard were pitch black, and dark miasma wafted from his eyes, nose, and mouth. He was dressed in dark sable robes with three overlapping Ouroboros’s tattooed on his forehead, with a pair of ophidian pupils lying in the spaces between them.
What stood out the most to us were the six silver Ouroboros chains bound around his wrists, ankles, waist, and neck. These were the chains the Ophion Occult Order had made to limit the power of his physical avatar, and it seemed he had not yet found a way to free himself from them.
“Are you still here?” Emrys asked in exasperation, tossing the veil back at the carnival barker in disdain.
“…Possibly,” the strange man replied evasively. “But not definitively, for purely legalistic reasons.”
“I believe Mathom-meister was quite clear when he said that your rather pitiful chicanery wasn’t welcomed here,” Emrys reminded him.
“And who is he to judge chicanery from cutthroat, capitalistic competition? Should not the Flea Market be a free market?” the charlatan demanded. “And while we’re on the topic of commerce, I don’t suppose you have enough three-headed coins to pay for all the poor souls you have so discourteously exposed to my exhibit against their will? I’d hate to have to start shaking people down to get my due.”
“Hard to believe your own circus threw you out,” Emrys said with a sardonic eye roll as he tossed him a small medallion. “You get one coin. Take it and get out of my sight.”
The charlatan flipped the coin in the air thrice, presumably to confirm it actually had three heads. Satisfied with its impossible dimensions, he shoved it into his pocket.
“It will cover the trolley ride home, at least,” he acquiesced, stepping off his soap box and turning to face his looking glass. “A shame though you can’t see the genius in my little avant-garde performance piece here, Emmy. Even I know that the monster in the mirror is often the hardest to recognize.”
As the man reached to pick up his mirror, his reflection’s arms shot through the glass and grabbed him by the wrists, pulling him in. Emrys immediately tried to chase after him, but bounced off the glass as if there was nothing supernatural about it at all.
“Bastard!” he cursed under his breath, before turning towards us and giving us a small apologetic smile. “I’m sorry you had to see that rather pathetic display. Unfortunately, the few meeting places I know of that are relatively safe from any Ophionic incursion also attract their fair share of other annoying miscreants.”
“If it didn’t attract a little bit of everything, it wouldn’t be a Flea Market, would it?” I asked rhetorically. “Thank you, Emrys, for inviting us. I’ve never been anywhere like this before.”
“And thank you for accepting. Samantha, Genevieve, it’s a pleasure to see you again, and a relief that you have not fallen under the auspices of the Ophion Occult Order,” he said with a gentle bow. “Elam, I remember you as well. Valiant but not reckless, you remained atop Pendragon Hill during my battle with the Darlings until your mistress was well out of harm’s way, and then you got the hell out of dodge yourself. Samantha couldn’t hope for a better Familiar. And Charlotte, any Witch that Samantha deemed worthy to induct into her coven is obviously someone whose acquaintance I am pleased to make. Welcome, all of you, to Mathom-meister’s Flea Market!”
“So this is where you’ve been hiding out the past two years?” Genevieve asked.
“Oh no. Far too Cosmopolitan for my tastes,” Emrys replied. “No, this is just a friendly place to meet those I consider friends – or potential friends, at least. I’d offer to show you around, but I know it’s difficult for you to astral travel for prolonged periods. Come with me to Mathom-meister’s house where we can talk freely, and we’ll discuss the situation with the Order.”
I gave him a small, single nod in response, and gestured with my staff that he should lead the way. He responded by pointing upwards, then vanished into his shadow form. When we looked up, we saw him waving at us from a balcony atop the great silken chrysalis.
We exchanged hesitant glances with one another, but ultimately followed him into the strange structure, moving from the ground to the balcony in an instant by will alone.
“How would an incarnate being get up here if they couldn’t fly or teleport?” Charlotte asked as she peered over the balcony’s teetering edge.
As though answering a summons, a humanoid creature apparated beside her in a flash of dark vapours. The hunched-back entity stood over six-and-a-half feet tall, and was clad in golden-brown erudite robes. Its squid-like skin was of a similar colour, and its entire face was a single gaping orifice that held a wispy, glowing orb in the center of its skull which I immediately recognized as its soul. A pair of long, fanged tentacles lined with pores and tendrils hung down from its head like a long, forked beard, and the seven digits shared by its two hands all bore wicked-looking talons, as did its two-toed, digitigrade feet.
“Not fly or teleport? What sort of pedestrian house guests do you think I entertain here?” the being asked wryly, its voice seeming to come from nowhere in particular.
Charlotte instinctively backed away from the creature and into the protective fold of our coven, but Emrys was quick to hold up his hand to plead for calm.
“Please, there’s no need for alarm. This is our host, Mathom-meister. He’s the only reason any of this is here in the first place,” Emrys informed us. “A year or two ago a companion of his unfortunately became one of the Darling Twin’s victims, and when he heard of my vendetta with them, he tracked me down; which is no small feat, I assure you.”
“It is for us. My people are a race of Planeswalkers. Traversing the many worlds of Creation is second nature to us,” Mathom-meister explained.
“I’ve… I’ve heard of your people, I think,” I said, softly and unsurely. “A friend of mine had an encounter with an artifact that gave her a vision of a race of strange and powerful sorcerers slaying their own god. I take it you’re the ones who slayed this Scarab Titan as well? That’s, that’s…”
“Horrifying, yes. That’s the idea,” he nodded. “You have nothing to worry about, young Witch. My people have no special interest in your world. This is purely personal. My friend is dead, and I want his murderers brought to justice; a goal which Emrys and I happen to have in common.”
“Feel free to share this information with the Ophion Occult Order, Samantha,” Emrys said. “I’d very much like for the Darling Twins to know what’s hunting them. Mathom-meister, please excuse me while I take my guests inside. We do have pressing business to discuss and their time is limited.”
The squid-cyclopes bowed gracefully, and my coven and I quickly scurried after Emrys as he led us inside through a towering hallway and into a large chamber that had been appointed as a living space.
I had thought that Emrys would want to speak with us alone, which was why I was surprised to see a young woman sitting cross-legged on a spongey yet chitinous object that I will for the sake of my sanity call a bean bag chair. Like Emrys, she was pale and blue-blooded, her choppy hair as black as coal. She wore a black robe and heavy black eyeliner, but these could not conceal the fact that she too had thin wisps of miasma emanating from her eyes.
“Is that your… daughter?” Charlotte asked, as baffled by her presence as any of us. The woman smiled warmly at the question.
“In a way. I was dead, and Emrys gave me new life. Now a part of the Outer Primordial Darkness he represents lives in me too,” she said serenely.
Hovering above her left palm were three small bluish-green orbs, lazily going around in a circle. They were translucent and held something inside them that I couldn’t make out, but the orbs themselves appeared to be melting and solidifying by the woman’s will.
“You’re Petra, aren’t you?” I asked as I cautiously approached her. “Chamberlin had mentioned that Emrys had taken an acolyte. I’m Samantha, and this is Genevieve, Elam, and Charlotte.”
“I know. The whole reason we’re here is to speak with you,” she nodded.
“The Ophion Occult Order calls me a soul-flayer, and I’m sure you were all wondering exactly what that meant before you came here,” Emrys said, standing proudly behind his acolyte. “Well, this is it. The Darkness Beyond is now a part of her, and a part of her now lives within the Darkness Beyond. She is not unchanged from what she was before, but neither has what she was been lost.”
“My interpretation of the term ‘soul-flaying’ was the complete removal of a person’s consciousness from their astral and physical bodies to be subsumed by your Darkness,” I countered. “They told me that what you’ve done with Petra here is just the limit of your power while you’re bound in their chains. Are you telling me that if your chains were broken, you wouldn’t be able to do any worse than this?”
“On my physical avatar? No. So long as my astral form remains chained and bound with the World Serpent, I cannot cleave a conscious mind from its astral substrate,” Emrys assured me.
“But that is your ultimate goal, isn’t it? Breaking the chains the Ophion Occult Order put on you is just a stepping stone to breaking the ones the gods bound you with?” Genevieve asked. “You’ve allied yourself with a literal god slayer. Do you expect us to believe that his people’s abilities aren’t something you intend to put to your own ends?”
“I don’t have an ultimate goal so much as I have a fundamental principle of opposing tyranny,” he claimed. “When I was a mere man, thousands of years ago, I was a tyrant. I believed that might made right so unquestionably that when my might began to fail me, the only thing I could think to do was to try everything in my power to restore it. This quest eventually led to me becoming one with the Darkness Beyond, which gave me not only the might I coveted but the wisdom I didn’t know I needed. It gave me perspective. It made me stronger than any human alive at that point but still let me realize how insignificant I was. It was humbling, and enlightening, and filled me both with remorse over my past actions and an impetus to use my newfound gifts to rectify them. I tried to overthrow the gods themselves which, in hindsight, was overly ambitious. I not only failed but had my soul devoured by the World Serpent, where it still resides to this day.
“I am not eager to bring the wrath of the gods down upon me once again. No, for now, I will be content to end the tyranny of the Ophion Occult Order. This is the message I’d like you to relay to them. If the Grand Adderman agrees to unbind my chains and step down from his post, I will spare his life. If he declines, I want the rest of the Order to know that I will show mercy to any who sides with me over him. I am willing to allow the Order to exist so long as it agrees to become more decentralized, democratic, and accountable. They will have to forfeit certain artifacts and individuals in their possession over to me, chief among them the Darling Twins, but I am willing to negotiate. If they aren’t, then I will overthrow the Grand Adderman by whatever means necessary and see the Order scattered to the four winds. It is entirely up to them whether or not the conflict between us escalates to full-on war. Have I made myself clear, Samantha?”
“I think so,” I said as I pensively considered everything he had said. “Why should they trust you to keep your word once your chains are broken? For that matter, why should we?”
He took a moment to consider his response, eyeing me over as though he was trying to divine something that would win over my trust.
“Samantha, you made a pact with Persephone to get your Spirit Familiar there; one where she swore by the River Styx. Is that correct?” he asked.
“It is,” I nodded.
“And in the years since, has Persephone ever broken that pact she swore to?” he asked.
“No, she hasn’t,” I replied.
“I may not be an Old God, but so long as my astral form remains bound by their chains, they have power over me,” he said. “Samantha Sumner, Hedge Witch of Harrowick Woods, I swear on the River Styx that I have spoken no lies to you today. I swear by the River Styx that I will abide by any Covenant that I and the Ophion Occult Order agree to in good faith and fair dealing that they do not break first. I swear by the River Styx that when my chains are broken, I will give you no cause to fear me or regret your trust in me.”
I gave a questioning glance to Genevieve, and then Elam, both of whom nodded in the affirmative.
“All right. An oath sworn on the River Styx is good enough for me. I’ll deliver your terms to Seneca Chamberlin,” I agreed. “I’m very grateful for the trust and respect you’ve shown for me and my coven, Emrys, though I can’t say I quite understand it. Out of all the guests that were there on the Hallow’s Eve you were summoned, why did Evie and I stand out to you?”
“The Ophion Occult Order deemed you worthy of inclusion in their cult, an offer you rejected on principle. You cheated Persephone, but you did it not to gain immortality for yourself but to save your friend from hell. You came here, thinking I could very well tear your souls asunder, but did so because you believed it was your duty to prevent needless suffering,” Emrys answered. “You are extraordinary in your craft, courage, and conscience, the latter of which especially stood out among the degenerates at that party. I do apologize if I frightened you at that event. I was a bit… irritable, given the circumstances. I’m glad we were able to meet again under more pleasant conditions.”
“So am I, Emrys,” I nodded. “I’m not sure exactly what this means or how relevant it is, but Seneca wanted me to tell you that he’s able to offer you the Dream Demon Red Ruck as a sacrifice.”
“Pffft. Tell him it’s hardly a sacrifice if I’m getting rid of a boogie man for him,” he scoffed. “In fact, now that you mention it, Ruck’s one egregore that might be of more use to me alive.”
I wanted to ask him what he meant by that, but we were suddenly interrupted by the rapid pounding of a gong somewhere down below. It seemed to be an alarm of some kind, as we could hear the panicked shouting and frantic racing of people either battening down or forsaking the Flea Market altogether.
Mathom-meister apparated into the middle of the room, his facial tentacles reflexively raised in a defensive position.
“Were you outside the market?” he demanded of us.
“The portal we came through deposited us a few miles outside of the market, yes,” I admitted.
“Damn,” Emrys cursed softly, though he sounded more frustrated than angry. “Meister, it’s not their fault. I knew they weren’t experienced Planeswalkers, I could have – ”
“It doesn’t matter!” Mathom-meister interjected. “They need to leave, now!”
“Why, what’s going on?” Genevieve demanded.
“The scarabs are swarming,” Petra explained. “Don’t feel bad; it happens often enough that they’re prepared for it.”
I wanted to press for more details, but I could hear the humming of a vast winged swarm steadily encroaching upon us.
“Don’t worry. Once you leave the swarm will disperse… eventually,” Emrys told us. “We’ve said all that need be said for now. Return home, and I’ll reach out to you again shortly, Samantha.”
Again, I wanted to object, but the swarm outside was growing louder and louder, and it occurred to me that we might not be completely safe from a biblical swarm of insects that could not only sense but evidently sought out souls.
This occurred to Charlotte as well, as she was the first of us to vanish and awaken back in her body. We could all feel the weight of her reembodied soul tugging on us to return with her. Genevieve immediately grabbed hold of my right hand and Elam my left, both of them refusing to leave before I did.
I spared one final glance at Emrys, lamenting that we couldn’t have had more time.
“I’ll relay everything you said to the Order. I’ll make sure they know you’re willing to negotiate a truce,” I vowed.
He gave me a gracious nod, and just as we heard the swarm start to pelt the exterior of the market, I forced my physical eyes open and was back in my body, still safely under a willow tree in my cemetery.
I immediately looked beside me to Genevieve, and saw that she was awake as well, and then around me for Elam, who seemed to be suffering a bit of spectral whiplash from being pulled back with me so suddenly, but was otherwise all right. Sighing with relief, I turned lastly to Charlotte, and saw that she was looking down at the mediation circle in dreaded horror.
Following her gaze, I saw that the Undying Rose was gone – spent, perhaps, in exchange for our passage – and in its place was the inert, and hopefully dead, body of one of the shimmering scarabs.

“I’m sorry; we’re going to astral travel to a flea market?” Charlotte asked incredulously as she watched Genevieve and I set up a meditation circle under the shade of a towering old willow tree in my cemetery. “What if we want to buy something? How will we bring it back?”
“We’re not going there to shop, Lottie. Samantha’s finally had a vision about Emrys,” Genevieve explained.
The Veil between the Physical and Astral Planes is exceptionally weak in my cemetery, especially at night and on hallowed days. When I sleep there, my subconscious mind is highly receptive to all manner of revelations from the Spirit World. When I saw a Blood Moon rise on the night of May fifth, the same night as a penumbral eclipse, I knew that my dreams would be prophetic.
“I had a dream about him last Friday,” I expounded. “He’s at some sort of otherworldly marketplace, one that’s not connected to the Crypto Chthonic Cuniculi, so it’s mostly inaccessible to the Ophion Occult Order. In my dream, Emrys invited us to come and speak with him while we were lucid. He drew a sigil for me, the same one I’ve drawn in the middle of the mediation circle. He said that all I’d have to do is toss an Undying Rose – the earthly effigy of the rose Persephone used to steal a drop of his blood – into the sigil and it will become an astral portal to where he is.”
I held up the deep purple rose that I had cut from its bush earlier that day. I don’t know for certain where the roses came from, but my best guess is that they were made by the same Occultist who hallowed my cemetery to Persephone; Artaxerxes Crow. They have some connection to Emrys as well, since the only other time I saw someone else use one was when his avatar was summoned into the Physical Plane on Halloween 2020.
Knowing that Emrys wouldn’t dare to set foot in a place that was sacred to the Goddess who was ultimately responsible for his cosmic defeat, I gently tossed the rose into the middle of the sigil.
“He invited all of us?” Charlotte asked with an incredulous raising of her eyebrow.
“He said me and my coven. If he had just meant me or me and Genevieve he would have said that,” I replied. “You and Elam are coming too. I want as many eyes on this place as possible so that we don’t miss anything. We may not get an opportunity like this again.”
“And this is safe? Visiting some random flea market between worlds?” Charlotte asked.
“Samantha and I have visited the Underworld and come back no problem,” Genevieve reminded her. “So long as we’re bound to our bodies and Elam is bound to Samantha, we can come back anytime. Don’t worry; this is going to be a blast! Adventures like these are the best part of being a Witch.”
“The only reason you were able to go to the Underworld is because Samantha’s cemetery came with an astral portal in the back,” Charlotte countered, gesticulating in the general direction of the archway that was still partially visible behind the light spring foliage. “Other than that, when have any of us ever done anything useful with our astral projection? This is still a physical place, right? We don’t have any of our physical senses available to us when we astral project, and I get extremely disoriented trying to navigate the mortal plane with clairvoyance alone.”
“It is a physical place, but one saturated with astral energy and full of occultists and occult artifacts. It will be extremely illuminated to our clairvoyance,” I assured her. “Elam will also be there to guide us. As a ghost, he’s much more practiced at traversing the mortal plane in an astral form.”
Charlotte folded her arms over her chest and turned to look at Elam, who was leaning up against the willow tree as he waited for us.
“I don’t suppose you could go and scout the place out for us ahead of time?” she asked.
“I can’t go too far from Samantha, and definitely not across planes,” he said with a shake of his head. “But Eve’s right. Your astral bodies will be in no danger, and you can return here in an instant whenever you want.”
“But what about Emrys? Didn’t that book Leon gave you say that he’s some sort of soul-flayer?” Charlotte asked me.
“It did,” I admitted. “Keep in mind though, that book was written by his enemies. I want to hear his side of things before this conflict of theirs spirals out of control.”
“Any update from Chamberlin about that?” Elam asked.
“Yeah, he said that after he failed to purify the Sigil Sand, Ivy’s onboard with negotiating some kind of truce with Emrys,” I replied. “The Grand Adderman’s still reticent, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s running out of options. I need to find out if Emrys will agree to peace talks.”
“Um, I get that, but I’m still kind of hung up on him potentially flaying our souls,” Charlotte reiterated.
“If Emrys and the Ophion Occult Order go to all-out war, there’ll be a lot of collateral damage and innocent souls caught in the crossfire,” Genevieve told her, gently grabbing hold of her and looking her straight in the eye. “Samantha, Elam, and I are doing this because if there’s any chance we can put an end to this before it starts, then it’s our responsibility to try. You don’t have to come with us, Lottie, but you’re still a member of our coven. Samantha and I would both feel a lot better with you there to help us.”
“Arghhh! All right, fine! I’ll come with you,” Charlotte gave in, plopping her butt down on the edge of the meditation circle. “If we’re holding hands, that will help keep our astral bodies together too, right?”
“I believe it should, yes,” I smiled at her, sitting down and reaching out for her hand.
Genevieve lit the incense and her bong filled with the entheogenic Delphi Dream, before sitting down to join us. She took a hit from the bong before passing it to me, and then to Charlotte before setting it aside out of the circle.
“Start with taking a deep breath, completely filling the lungs, and holding it for five heartbeats,” she guided us as she took hold of each of our hands. “Exhale completely, and wait five more heartbeats before breathing in again. Eyes closed, in through the nose, out through the mouth. Focus on the astral energies flowing through you with each breath, gently aligning each chakra until those energies are enough to lift you up and out of your body.”
In unison with one another, the three of us slowly breathed in and out, ignoring the material world around us and focusing upon the task at hand. Eve was first, as usual, and because we were all holding hands, Charlotte and I felt her eagerly tugging us up to speed us along.
I opened my eyes, and beheld the dull and muted Physical Plane through my clairvoyance, everything outshined by the radiant forms of my coven mates. I noted that Genevieve had eschewed her normal skyclad form when astral projecting and instead wore a cloak like Charlotte and I.
“Are you worried this place might have a no shirt, no shoes, no souls, no service policy?” I teased her.
“I just don’t want to risk a confrontation over it. I realize how important this is,” she answered. “Though I’m not actually wearing shoes, now that you mention it.”
“Christ, look at the sigil Samantha drew!” Charlotte said, pointing down at the meditation circle beneath us. The sigil wasn’t just glowing but flowing as well, churning the Aether around it in a misty, spectral vortex. “It’s an astral portal, isn’t it?”
“Oh yeah. It’s not stable, though. Good for one trip only,” Genevieve said with a delighted smile. “And Lottie, since we’re Neopagan Witches, try not to swear by Christ, okay?”
“Jesus!” she swore, both in defiance and in genuine annoyance.
“Elam! Elam, come join the circle! I don’t want to take any chances of severing our bond,” I instructed, letting go of Charlotte’s hand and waving him in between us.
Faithful Familiar that he was, he obeyed without hesitation. Despite my concerns, I think that he probably could have stayed behind if he had wanted. The fact that he was willing to follow me to an unknown otherworld without complaint really made me appreciate how devoted he was to me.
“We step in together on the count of three, got it?” I instructed, each of them nodding clearly in response. “One. Two. Three!”
We all extended our right feet into the vortex together, and the instant we did we were swept away, falling out of our own world and tumbling between the cracks of countless others. They weren’t real, I don’t think. At least, not as real as our world. They were potential realities, or realities that could have been once but now can never be, or fantasies that are so persistent in the minds of real people that in some sense or another, they become real themselves. I only saw glimmers of them, glimmers in nebulas made of primeval chaos and uttermost void.
It was outside of time, that place we travelled through, or at least we had no sense of it there. Our souls were haphazardly spat out upon a surreal landscape of earth, sea, and fire. Hilly plains of volcanic ash, incandescent calderas of lava and bubbling hot springs all intermeshed in a chaotic mosaic that didn’t seem to abide by any laws of geology or geography that I was familiar with. A strong but slow wind pushed fractal formations of dark silver clouds through a pale silver sky, illuminated by a single white orb which could have been either a bright moon or a faint sun.
While our spectral feet left no trace upon the ash we now stood upon, our presence nonetheless elicited a response from some of the local fauna. We were just able to catch a glimpse of some kind of shimmering scarabs burrowing themselves into the ash to escape the four otherworldly ghosts that had invaded their territory.
“Holy shit,” Charlotte murmured as we all gazed out upon the strange world we had found ourselves on. “This really isn’t on the Astral Plane. This is a real planet. This a real, alien planet! This is unbelievable!”
Genevieve glided over to one of the bubbling pools and peered into it, looking for any more signs of life.
“There’s some kind of bluish-grey algae growing on the rocks down there, and I think I can make out some small arthropods too. This planet’s alive!” she announced with glee, smiling and looking up at the alien sky.
Conjuring an astral approximation of my staff, I plunged it into a small mound of ash beside me. I watched curiously as the scarabs shot out in all directions, moving too quickly for me to get a good look at them, before scurrying back into the surrounding ash.
“These bugs can sense our presence,” I remarked. “How and why would clairvoyance evolve in insects on this world, and why would their first instinct be to flee?”
“Samantha!” Elam called out. “I think I found the Flea Market.”
We all gathered around him and looked where he was pointing. On a distant dune, we beheld the moulted carapace of a colossal insect, gleaming a brilliant, lustrous gold in the broken white light.
“That’s impossible!” Charlotte claimed. “That thing must be hundreds of meters long! No insect, no animal period could ever get that big on the Physical Plane!”
“It could be the Incarnation of some kind of Titan,” Genevieve suggested. “But… it’s dead. I can tell that even from here. It’s dead. It’s the corpse of a dead god, and now it’s being used as a swap meet with a punny name. Either whatever killed it just abandoned it, or…”
“Or is running the place,” I finished for her. “Well, we should see if we can find Emrys.”
In an instant, the world moved around us until we were at the entrance to the Flea Market. The colossal carapace was hollow inside, of course, and had been filled with a bustling city that looked like it had been created in the most ad hoc manner possible. There wasn’t a single straight street to be seen, and they converged with one another at random intervals. Stalls and buildings varied wildly in both design and materials, all imported from a plethora of different cultures across the planes.
Enormous shards of luminous glass levitated above the throng like a thousand Swords of Damocles, any or all of them seeming capable of succumbing to gravity at any moment. In the very center of the moulted husk dangled a great spiralling chrysalis or hive woven of iridescent silk, its function not being immediately apparent to me.
There must have been thousands of people there, and hundreds of merchants hawking their wares. Most of those who looked human still seemed a little off, like they were members of ethnicities that didn’t exist in our world. Some of the beings were near-human in appearance, many seemingly some kind of Fey or Seelie folk. There was even a small handful of people that weren’t remotely human at all.
The only thing they all had in common was that none were native to this world.
“Most of these people are here in person, aren’t they?” Charlotte asked.
“It would’ve been quite a feat for them to have built all of this while astral projecting,” Genevieve agreed.
“But if this place isn’t connected to the Cuniculi, then how did they get here?” Charlotte asked. “We’re on another planet, maybe even in another dimension. If getting here is beyond the Ooo’s abilities, then what sort of ungodly reality benders decided to turn it into a Flea Market?”
“Ladies, gentlemen, and any beings either too ancient and alien or too modern and alienated to settle on one or the other, come bear witness to one of the most astounding and atrocious abominations on this or any other world!” a fast-paced male voice rang out over the din of the crowd.
We turned to see a short, skinny, old-timey sort of carnival barker standing on a literal soap box, placed next to a large object draped in a black tarp.
“For the paltry price of a single three-headed coin, you can peer beneath the veil and behold with your own unbelieving eyes the mangled and mutilated monstrosity that lurks beneath!” the carnival barker continued. “But I must warn you, it is not possible to truly understand what dwells underneath without seeing it first! I cannot guarantee that you will still retain your sanity or will to live after witnessing the proverbial Mountains of Madness, for this low creature is truly like no other and serves only as a grim testament to the cruel sadism of the Lord Above! Anyone plagued by even the faintest lingering doubt as to their spiritual fortitude should not dare to even contemplate what might lie before me! But, for those brave, noble few who are truly dauntless of heart and incorrigible of spirit, I am proud to share with you this rare, unfathomable, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to witness sublime –”
The carnival barker was interrupted by a man yanking the sheet off the object beside him, revealing it to be a mirror.
“Whelp, that was a hell of an Im14andthisisdeep post, eh?” Charlotte mused.
Genevieve and I, however, were far too stunned to be amused; not by the mirror, but by the man who had unveiled it.
“It’s him, Lottie. That’s Emrys,” Genevieve whispered.
We had only seen him briefly once before, more than two-and-a-half years ago, but he was far from what anyone would call forgettable. He was tall and gaunt, with literal blue blood flowing beneath translucent skin. His long, receding hair and regal beard were pitch black, and dark miasma wafted from his eyes, nose, and mouth. He was dressed in dark sable robes with three overlapping Ouroboros’s tattooed on his forehead, with a pair of ophidian pupils lying in the spaces between them.
What stood out the most to us were the six silver Ouroboros chains bound around his wrists, ankles, waist, and neck. These were the chains the Ophion Occult Order had made to limit the power of his physical avatar, and it seemed he had not yet found a way to free himself from them.
“Are you still here?” Emrys asked in exasperation, tossing the veil back at the carnival barker in disdain.
“…Possibly,” the strange man replied evasively. “But not definitively, for purely legalistic reasons.”
“I believe Mathom-meister was quite clear when he said that your rather pitiful chicanery wasn’t welcomed here,” Emrys reminded him.
“And who is he to judge chicanery from cutthroat, capitalistic competition? Should not the Flea Market be a free market?” the charlatan demanded. “And while we’re on the topic of commerce, I don’t suppose you have enough three-headed coins to pay for all the poor souls you have so discourteously exposed to my exhibit against their will? I’d hate to have to start shaking people down to get my due.”
“Hard to believe your own circus threw you out,” Emrys said with a sardonic eye roll as he tossed him a small medallion. “You get one coin. Take it and get out of my sight.”
The charlatan flipped the coin in the air thrice, presumably to confirm it actually had three heads. Satisfied with its impossible dimensions, he shoved it into his pocket.
“It will cover the trolley ride home, at least,” he acquiesced, stepping off his soap box and turning to face his looking glass. “A shame though you can’t see the genius in my little avant-garde performance piece here, Emmy. Even I know that the monster in the mirror is often the hardest to recognize.”
As the man reached to pick up his mirror, his reflection’s arms shot through the glass and grabbed him by the wrists, pulling him in. Emrys immediately tried to chase after him, but bounced off the glass as if there was nothing supernatural about it at all.
“Bastard!” he cursed under his breath, before turning towards us and giving us a small apologetic smile. “I’m sorry you had to see that rather pathetic display. Unfortunately, the few meeting places I know of that are relatively safe from any Ophionic incursion also attract their fair share of other annoying miscreants.”
“If it didn’t attract a little bit of everything, it wouldn’t be a Flea Market, would it?” I asked rhetorically. “Thank you, Emrys, for inviting us. I’ve never been anywhere like this before.”
“And thank you for accepting. Samantha, Genevieve, it’s a pleasure to see you again, and a relief that you have not fallen under the auspices of the Ophion Occult Order,” he said with a gentle bow. “Elam, I remember you as well. Valiant but not reckless, you remained atop Pendragon Hill during my battle with the Darlings until your mistress was well out of harm’s way, and then you got the hell out of dodge yourself. Samantha couldn’t hope for a better Familiar. And Charlotte, any Witch that Samantha deemed worthy to induct into her coven is obviously someone whose acquaintance I am pleased to make. Welcome, all of you, to Mathom-meister’s Flea Market!”
“So this is where you’ve been hiding out the past two years?” Genevieve asked.
“Oh no. Far too Cosmopolitan for my tastes,” Emrys replied. “No, this is just a friendly place to meet those I consider friends – or potential friends, at least. I’d offer to show you around, but I know it’s difficult for you to astral travel for prolonged periods. Come with me to Mathom-meister’s house where we can talk freely, and we’ll discuss the situation with the Order.”
I gave him a small, single nod in response, and gestured with my staff that he should lead the way. He responded by pointing upwards, then vanished into his shadow form. When we looked up, we saw him waving at us from a balcony atop the great silken chrysalis.
We exchanged hesitant glances with one another, but ultimately followed him into the strange structure, moving from the ground to the balcony in an instant by will alone.
“How would an incarnate being get up here if they couldn’t fly or teleport?” Charlotte asked as she peered over the balcony’s teetering edge.
As though answering a summons, a humanoid creature apparated beside her in a flash of dark vapours. The hunched-back entity stood over six-and-a-half feet tall, and was clad in golden-brown erudite robes. Its squid-like skin was of a similar colour, and its entire face was a single gaping orifice that held a wispy, glowing orb in the center of its skull which I immediately recognized as its soul. A pair of long, fanged tentacles lined with pores and tendrils hung down from its head like a long, forked beard, and the seven digits shared by its two hands all bore wicked-looking talons, as did its two-toed, digitigrade feet.
“Not fly or teleport? What sort of pedestrian house guests do you think I entertain here?” the being asked wryly, its voice seeming to come from nowhere in particular.
Charlotte instinctively backed away from the creature and into the protective fold of our coven, but Emrys was quick to hold up his hand to plead for calm.
“Please, there’s no need for alarm. This is our host, Mathom-meister. He’s the only reason any of this is here in the first place,” Emrys informed us. “A year or two ago a companion of his unfortunately became one of the Darling Twin’s victims, and when he heard of my vendetta with them, he tracked me down; which is no small feat, I assure you.”
“It is for us. My people are a race of Planeswalkers. Traversing the many worlds of Creation is second nature to us,” Mathom-meister explained.
“I’ve… I’ve heard of your people, I think,” I said, softly and unsurely. “A friend of mine had an encounter with an artifact that gave her a vision of a race of strange and powerful sorcerers slaying their own god. I take it you’re the ones who slayed this Scarab Titan as well? That’s, that’s…”
“Horrifying, yes. That’s the idea,” he nodded. “You have nothing to worry about, young Witch. My people have no special interest in your world. This is purely personal. My friend is dead, and I want his murderers brought to justice; a goal which Emrys and I happen to have in common.”
“Feel free to share this information with the Ophion Occult Order, Samantha,” Emrys said. “I’d very much like for the Darling Twins to know what’s hunting them. Mathom-meister, please excuse me while I take my guests inside. We do have pressing business to discuss and their time is limited.”
The squid-cyclopes bowed gracefully, and my coven and I quickly scurried after Emrys as he led us inside through a towering hallway and into a large chamber that had been appointed as a living space.
I had thought that Emrys would want to speak with us alone, which was why I was surprised to see a young woman sitting cross-legged on a spongey yet chitinous object that I will for the sake of my sanity call a bean bag chair. Like Emrys, she was pale and blue-blooded, her choppy hair as black as coal. She wore a black robe and heavy black eyeliner, but these could not conceal the fact that she too had thin wisps of miasma emanating from her eyes.
“Is that your… daughter?” Charlotte asked, as baffled by her presence as any of us. The woman smiled warmly at the question.
“In a way. I was dead, and Emrys gave me new life. Now a part of the Outer Primordial Darkness he represents lives in me too,” she said serenely.
Hovering above her left palm were three small bluish-green orbs, lazily going around in a circle. They were translucent and held something inside them that I couldn’t make out, but the orbs themselves appeared to be melting and solidifying by the woman’s will.
“You’re Petra, aren’t you?” I asked as I cautiously approached her. “Chamberlin had mentioned that Emrys had taken an acolyte. I’m Samantha, and this is Genevieve, Elam, and Charlotte.”
“I know. The whole reason we’re here is to speak with you,” she nodded.
“The Ophion Occult Order calls me a soul-flayer, and I’m sure you were all wondering exactly what that meant before you came here,” Emrys said, standing proudly behind his acolyte. “Well, this is it. The Darkness Beyond is now a part of her, and a part of her now lives within the Darkness Beyond. She is not unchanged from what she was before, but neither has what she was been lost.”
“My interpretation of the term ‘soul-flaying’ was the complete removal of a person’s consciousness from their astral and physical bodies to be subsumed by your Darkness,” I countered. “They told me that what you’ve done with Petra here is just the limit of your power while you’re bound in their chains. Are you telling me that if your chains were broken, you wouldn’t be able to do any worse than this?”
“On my physical avatar? No. So long as my astral form remains chained and bound with the World Serpent, I cannot cleave a conscious mind from its astral substrate,” Emrys assured me.
“But that is your ultimate goal, isn’t it? Breaking the chains the Ophion Occult Order put on you is just a stepping stone to breaking the ones the gods bound you with?” Genevieve asked. “You’ve allied yourself with a literal god slayer. Do you expect us to believe that his people’s abilities aren’t something you intend to put to your own ends?”
“I don’t have an ultimate goal so much as I have a fundamental principle of opposing tyranny,” he claimed. “When I was a mere man, thousands of years ago, I was a tyrant. I believed that might made right so unquestionably that when my might began to fail me, the only thing I could think to do was to try everything in my power to restore it. This quest eventually led to me becoming one with the Darkness Beyond, which gave me not only the might I coveted but the wisdom I didn’t know I needed. It gave me perspective. It made me stronger than any human alive at that point but still let me realize how insignificant I was. It was humbling, and enlightening, and filled me both with remorse over my past actions and an impetus to use my newfound gifts to rectify them. I tried to overthrow the gods themselves which, in hindsight, was overly ambitious. I not only failed but had my soul devoured by the World Serpent, where it still resides to this day.
“I am not eager to bring the wrath of the gods down upon me once again. No, for now, I will be content to end the tyranny of the Ophion Occult Order. This is the message I’d like you to relay to them. If the Grand Adderman agrees to unbind my chains and step down from his post, I will spare his life. If he declines, I want the rest of the Order to know that I will show mercy to any who sides with me over him. I am willing to allow the Order to exist so long as it agrees to become more decentralized, democratic, and accountable. They will have to forfeit certain artifacts and individuals in their possession over to me, chief among them the Darling Twins, but I am willing to negotiate. If they aren’t, then I will overthrow the Grand Adderman by whatever means necessary and see the Order scattered to the four winds. It is entirely up to them whether or not the conflict between us escalates to full-on war. Have I made myself clear, Samantha?”
“I think so,” I said as I pensively considered everything he had said. “Why should they trust you to keep your word once your chains are broken? For that matter, why should we?”
He took a moment to consider his response, eyeing me over as though he was trying to divine something that would win over my trust.
“Samantha, you made a pact with Persephone to get your Spirit Familiar there; one where she swore by the River Styx. Is that correct?” he asked.
“It is,” I nodded.
“And in the years since, has Persephone ever broken that pact she swore to?” he asked.
“No, she hasn’t,” I replied.
“I may not be an Old God, but so long as my astral form remains bound by their chains, they have power over me,” he said. “Samantha Sumner, Hedge Witch of Harrowick Woods, I swear on the River Styx that I have spoken no lies to you today. I swear by the River Styx that I will abide by any Covenant that I and the Ophion Occult Order agree to in good faith and fair dealing that they do not break first. I swear by the River Styx that when my chains are broken, I will give you no cause to fear me or regret your trust in me.”
I gave a questioning glance to Genevieve, and then Elam, both of whom nodded in the affirmative.
“All right. An oath sworn on the River Styx is good enough for me. I’ll deliver your terms to Seneca Chamberlin,” I agreed. “I’m very grateful for the trust and respect you’ve shown for me and my coven, Emrys, though I can’t say I quite understand it. Out of all the guests that were there on the Hallow’s Eve you were summoned, why did Evie and I stand out to you?”
“The Ophion Occult Order deemed you worthy of inclusion in their cult, an offer you rejected on principle. You cheated Persephone, but you did it not to gain immortality for yourself but to save your friend from hell. You came here, thinking I could very well tear your souls asunder, but did so because you believed it was your duty to prevent needless suffering,” Emrys answered. “You are extraordinary in your craft, courage, and conscience, the latter of which especially stood out among the degenerates at that party. I do apologize if I frightened you at that event. I was a bit… irritable, given the circumstances. I’m glad we were able to meet again under more pleasant conditions.”
“So am I, Emrys,” I nodded. “I’m not sure exactly what this means or how relevant it is, but Seneca wanted me to tell you that he’s able to offer you the Dream Demon Red Ruck as a sacrifice.”
“Pffft. Tell him it’s hardly a sacrifice if I’m getting rid of a boogie man for him,” he scoffed. “In fact, now that you mention it, Ruck’s one egregore that might be of more use to me alive.”
I wanted to ask him what he meant by that, but we were suddenly interrupted by the rapid pounding of a gong somewhere down below. It seemed to be an alarm of some kind, as we could hear the panicked shouting and frantic racing of people either battening down or forsaking the Flea Market altogether.
Mathom-meister apparated into the middle of the room, his facial tentacles reflexively raised in a defensive position.
“Were you outside the market?” he demanded of us.
“The portal we came through deposited us a few miles outside of the market, yes,” I admitted.
“Damn,” Emrys cursed softly, though he sounded more frustrated than angry. “Meister, it’s not their fault. I knew they weren’t experienced Planeswalkers, I could have – ”
“It doesn’t matter!” Mathom-meister interjected. “They need to leave, now!”
“Why, what’s going on?” Genevieve demanded.
“The scarabs are swarming,” Petra explained. “Don’t feel bad; it happens often enough that they’re prepared for it.”
I wanted to press for more details, but I could hear the humming of a vast winged swarm steadily encroaching upon us.
“Don’t worry. Once you leave the swarm will disperse… eventually,” Emrys told us. “We’ve said all that need be said for now. Return home, and I’ll reach out to you again shortly, Samantha.”
Again, I wanted to object, but the swarm outside was growing louder and louder, and it occurred to me that we might not be completely safe from a biblical swarm of insects that could not only sense but evidently sought out souls.
This occurred to Charlotte as well, as she was the first of us to vanish and awaken back in her body. We could all feel the weight of her reembodied soul tugging on us to return with her. Genevieve immediately grabbed hold of my right hand and Elam my left, both of them refusing to leave before I did.
I spared one final glance at Emrys, lamenting that we couldn’t have had more time.
“I’ll relay everything you said to the Order. I’ll make sure they know you’re willing to negotiate a truce,” I vowed.
He gave me a gracious nod, and just as we heard the swarm start to pelt the exterior of the market, I forced my physical eyes open and was back in my body, still safely under a willow tree in my cemetery.
I immediately looked beside me to Genevieve, and saw that she was awake as well, and then around me for Elam, who seemed to be suffering a bit of spectral whiplash from being pulled back with me so suddenly, but was otherwise all right. Sighing with relief, I turned lastly to Charlotte, and saw that she was looking down at the mediation circle in dreaded horror.
Following her gaze, I saw that the Undying Rose was gone – spent, perhaps, in exchange for our passage – and in its place was the inert, and hopefully dead, body of one of the shimmering scarabs.
_____________________
By The Vesper's Bell

“I’m sorry; we’re going to astral travel to a flea market?” Charlotte asked incredulously as she watched Genevieve and I set up a meditation circle under the shade of a towering old willow tree in my cemetery. “What if we want to buy something? How will we bring it back?”
“We’re not going there to shop, Lottie. Samantha’s finally had a vision about Emrys,” Genevieve explained.
The Veil between the Physical and Astral Planes is exceptionally weak in my cemetery, especially at night and on hallowed days. When I sleep there, my subconscious mind is highly receptive to all manner of revelations from the Spirit World. When I saw a Blood Moon rise on the night of May fifth, the same night as a penumbral eclipse, I knew that my dreams would be prophetic.
“I had a dream about him last Friday,” I expounded. “He’s at some sort of otherworldly marketplace, one that’s not connected to the Crypto Chthonic Cuniculi, so it’s mostly inaccessible to the Ophion Occult Order. In my dream, Emrys invited us to come and speak with him while we were lucid. He drew a sigil for me, the same one I’ve drawn in the middle of the mediation circle. He said that all I’d have to do is toss an Undying Rose – the earthly effigy of the rose Persephone used to steal a drop of his blood – into the sigil and it will become an astral portal to where he is.”
I held up the deep purple rose that I had cut from its bush earlier that day. I don’t know for certain where the roses came from, but my best guess is that they were made by the same Occultist who hallowed my cemetery to Persephone; Artaxerxes Crow. They have some connection to Emrys as well, since the only other time I saw someone else use one was when his avatar was summoned into the Physical Plane on Halloween 2020.
Knowing that Emrys wouldn’t dare to set foot in a place that was sacred to the Goddess who was ultimately responsible for his cosmic defeat, I gently tossed the rose into the middle of the sigil.
“He invited all of us?” Charlotte asked with an incredulous raising of her eyebrow.
“He said me and my coven. If he had just meant me or me and Genevieve he would have said that,” I replied. “You and Elam are coming too. I want as many eyes on this place as possible so that we don’t miss anything. We may not get an opportunity like this again.”
“And this is safe? Visiting some random flea market between worlds?” Charlotte asked.
“Samantha and I have visited the Underworld and come back no problem,” Genevieve reminded her. “So long as we’re bound to our bodies and Elam is bound to Samantha, we can come back anytime. Don’t worry; this is going to be a blast! Adventures like these are the best part of being a Witch.”
“The only reason you were able to go to the Underworld is because Samantha’s cemetery came with an astral portal in the back,” Charlotte countered, gesticulating in the general direction of the archway that was still partially visible behind the light spring foliage. “Other than that, when have any of us ever done anything useful with our astral projection? This is still a physical place, right? We don’t have any of our physical senses available to us when we astral project, and I get extremely disoriented trying to navigate the mortal plane with clairvoyance alone.”
“It is a physical place, but one saturated with astral energy and full of occultists and occult artifacts. It will be extremely illuminated to our clairvoyance,” I assured her. “Elam will also be there to guide us. As a ghost, he’s much more practiced at traversing the mortal plane in an astral form.”
Charlotte folded her arms over her chest and turned to look at Elam, who was leaning up against the willow tree as he waited for us.
“I don’t suppose you could go and scout the place out for us ahead of time?” she asked.
“I can’t go too far from Samantha, and definitely not across planes,” he said with a shake of his head. “But Eve’s right. Your astral bodies will be in no danger, and you can return here in an instant whenever you want.”
“But what about Emrys? Didn’t that book Leon gave you say that he’s some sort of soul-flayer?” Charlotte asked me.
“It did,” I admitted. “Keep in mind though, that book was written by his enemies. I want to hear his side of things before this conflict of theirs spirals out of control.”
“Any update from Chamberlin about that?” Elam asked.
“Yeah, he said that after he failed to purify the Sigil Sand, Ivy’s onboard with negotiating some kind of truce with Emrys,” I replied. “The Grand Adderman’s still reticent, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s running out of options. I need to find out if Emrys will agree to peace talks.”
“Um, I get that, but I’m still kind of hung up on him potentially flaying our souls,” Charlotte reiterated.
“If Emrys and the Ophion Occult Order go to all-out war, there’ll be a lot of collateral damage and innocent souls caught in the crossfire,” Genevieve told her, gently grabbing hold of her and looking her straight in the eye. “Samantha, Elam, and I are doing this because if there’s any chance we can put an end to this before it starts, then it’s our responsibility to try. You don’t have to come with us, Lottie, but you’re still a member of our coven. Samantha and I would both feel a lot better with you there to help us.”
“Arghhh! All right, fine! I’ll come with you,” Charlotte gave in, plopping her butt down on the edge of the meditation circle. “If we’re holding hands, that will help keep our astral bodies together too, right?”
“I believe it should, yes,” I smiled at her, sitting down and reaching out for her hand.
Genevieve lit the incense and her bong filled with the entheogenic Delphi Dream, before sitting down to join us. She took a hit from the bong before passing it to me, and then to Charlotte before setting it aside out of the circle.
“Start with taking a deep breath, completely filling the lungs, and holding it for five heartbeats,” she guided us as she took hold of each of our hands. “Exhale completely, and wait five more heartbeats before breathing in again. Eyes closed, in through the nose, out through the mouth. Focus on the astral energies flowing through you with each breath, gently aligning each chakra until those energies are enough to lift you up and out of your body.”
In unison with one another, the three of us slowly breathed in and out, ignoring the material world around us and focusing upon the task at hand. Eve was first, as usual, and because we were all holding hands, Charlotte and I felt her eagerly tugging us up to speed us along.
I opened my eyes, and beheld the dull and muted Physical Plane through my clairvoyance, everything outshined by the radiant forms of my coven mates. I noted that Genevieve had eschewed her normal skyclad form when astral projecting and instead wore a cloak like Charlotte and I.
“Are you worried this place might have a no shirt, no shoes, no souls, no service policy?” I teased her.
“I just don’t want to risk a confrontation over it. I realize how important this is,” she answered. “Though I’m not actually wearing shoes, now that you mention it.”
“Christ, look at the sigil Samantha drew!” Charlotte said, pointing down at the meditation circle beneath us. The sigil wasn’t just glowing but flowing as well, churning the Aether around it in a misty, spectral vortex. “It’s an astral portal, isn’t it?”
“Oh yeah. It’s not stable, though. Good for one trip only,” Genevieve said with a delighted smile. “And Lottie, since we’re Neopagan Witches, try not to swear by Christ, okay?”
“Jesus!” she swore, both in defiance and in genuine annoyance.
“Elam! Elam, come join the circle! I don’t want to take any chances of severing our bond,” I instructed, letting go of Charlotte’s hand and waving him in between us.
Faithful Familiar that he was, he obeyed without hesitation. Despite my concerns, I think that he probably could have stayed behind if he had wanted. The fact that he was willing to follow me to an unknown otherworld without complaint really made me appreciate how devoted he was to me.
“We step in together on the count of three, got it?” I instructed, each of them nodding clearly in response. “One. Two. Three!”
We all extended our right feet into the vortex together, and the instant we did we were swept away, falling out of our own world and tumbling between the cracks of countless others. They weren’t real, I don’t think. At least, not as real as our world. They were potential realities, or realities that could have been once but now can never be, or fantasies that are so persistent in the minds of real people that in some sense or another, they become real themselves. I only saw glimmers of them, glimmers in nebulas made of primeval chaos and uttermost void.
It was outside of time, that place we travelled through, or at least we had no sense of it there. Our souls were haphazardly spat out upon a surreal landscape of earth, sea, and fire. Hilly plains of volcanic ash, incandescent calderas of lava and bubbling hot springs all intermeshed in a chaotic mosaic that didn’t seem to abide by any laws of geology or geography that I was familiar with. A strong but slow wind pushed fractal formations of dark silver clouds through a pale silver sky, illuminated by a single white orb which could have been either a bright moon or a faint sun.
While our spectral feet left no trace upon the ash we now stood upon, our presence nonetheless elicited a response from some of the local fauna. We were just able to catch a glimpse of some kind of shimmering scarabs burrowing themselves into the ash to escape the four otherworldly ghosts that had invaded their territory.
“Holy shit,” Charlotte murmured as we all gazed out upon the strange world we had found ourselves on. “This really isn’t on the Astral Plane. This is a real planet. This a real, alien planet! This is unbelievable!”
Genevieve glided over to one of the bubbling pools and peered into it, looking for any more signs of life.
“There’s some kind of bluish-grey algae growing on the rocks down there, and I think I can make out some small arthropods too. This planet’s alive!” she announced with glee, smiling and looking up at the alien sky.
Conjuring an astral approximation of my staff, I plunged it into a small mound of ash beside me. I watched curiously as the scarabs shot out in all directions, moving too quickly for me to get a good look at them, before scurrying back into the surrounding ash.
“These bugs can sense our presence,” I remarked. “How and why would clairvoyance evolve in insects on this world, and why would their first instinct be to flee?”
“Samantha!” Elam called out. “I think I found the Flea Market.”
We all gathered around him and looked where he was pointing. On a distant dune, we beheld the moulted carapace of a colossal insect, gleaming a brilliant, lustrous gold in the broken white light.
“That’s impossible!” Charlotte claimed. “That thing must be hundreds of meters long! No insect, no animal period could ever get that big on the Physical Plane!”
“It could be the Incarnation of some kind of Titan,” Genevieve suggested. “But… it’s dead. I can tell that even from here. It’s dead. It’s the corpse of a dead god, and now it’s being used as a swap meet with a punny name. Either whatever killed it just abandoned it, or…”
“Or is running the place,” I finished for her. “Well, we should see if we can find Emrys.”
In an instant, the world moved around us until we were at the entrance to the Flea Market. The colossal carapace was hollow inside, of course, and had been filled with a bustling city that looked like it had been created in the most ad hoc manner possible. There wasn’t a single straight street to be seen, and they converged with one another at random intervals. Stalls and buildings varied wildly in both design and materials, all imported from a plethora of different cultures across the planes.
Enormous shards of luminous glass levitated above the throng like a thousand Swords of Damocles, any or all of them seeming capable of succumbing to gravity at any moment. In the very center of the moulted husk dangled a great spiralling chrysalis or hive woven of iridescent silk, its function not being immediately apparent to me.
There must have been thousands of people there, and hundreds of merchants hawking their wares. Most of those who looked human still seemed a little off, like they were members of ethnicities that didn’t exist in our world. Some of the beings were near-human in appearance, many seemingly some kind of Fey or Seelie folk. There was even a small handful of people that weren’t remotely human at all.
The only thing they all had in common was that none were native to this world.
“Most of these people are here in person, aren’t they?” Charlotte asked.
“It would’ve been quite a feat for them to have built all of this while astral projecting,” Genevieve agreed.
“But if this place isn’t connected to the Cuniculi, then how did they get here?” Charlotte asked. “We’re on another planet, maybe even in another dimension. If getting here is beyond the Ooo’s abilities, then what sort of ungodly reality benders decided to turn it into a Flea Market?”
“Ladies, gentlemen, and any beings either too ancient and alien or too modern and alienated to settle on one or the other, come bear witness to one of the most astounding and atrocious abominations on this or any other world!” a fast-paced male voice rang out over the din of the crowd.
We turned to see a short, skinny, old-timey sort of carnival barker standing on a literal soap box, placed next to a large object draped in a black tarp.
“For the paltry price of a single three-headed coin, you can peer beneath the veil and behold with your own unbelieving eyes the mangled and mutilated monstrosity that lurks beneath!” the carnival barker continued. “But I must warn you, it is not possible to truly understand what dwells underneath without seeing it first! I cannot guarantee that you will still retain your sanity or will to live after witnessing the proverbial Mountains of Madness, for this low creature is truly like no other and serves only as a grim testament to the cruel sadism of the Lord Above! Anyone plagued by even the faintest lingering doubt as to their spiritual fortitude should not dare to even contemplate what might lie before me! But, for those brave, noble few who are truly dauntless of heart and incorrigible of spirit, I am proud to share with you this rare, unfathomable, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to witness sublime –”
The carnival barker was interrupted by a man yanking the sheet off the object beside him, revealing it to be a mirror.
“Whelp, that was a hell of an Im14andthisisdeep post, eh?” Charlotte mused.
Genevieve and I, however, were far too stunned to be amused; not by the mirror, but by the man who had unveiled it.
“It’s him, Lottie. That’s Emrys,” Genevieve whispered.
We had only seen him briefly once before, more than two-and-a-half years ago, but he was far from what anyone would call forgettable. He was tall and gaunt, with literal blue blood flowing beneath translucent skin. His long, receding hair and regal beard were pitch black, and dark miasma wafted from his eyes, nose, and mouth. He was dressed in dark sable robes with three overlapping Ouroboros’s tattooed on his forehead, with a pair of ophidian pupils lying in the spaces between them.
What stood out the most to us were the six silver Ouroboros chains bound around his wrists, ankles, waist, and neck. These were the chains the Ophion Occult Order had made to limit the power of his physical avatar, and it seemed he had not yet found a way to free himself from them.
“Are you still here?” Emrys asked in exasperation, tossing the veil back at the carnival barker in disdain.
“…Possibly,” the strange man replied evasively. “But not definitively, for purely legalistic reasons.”
“I believe Mathom-meister was quite clear when he said that your rather pitiful chicanery wasn’t welcomed here,” Emrys reminded him.
“And who is he to judge chicanery from cutthroat, capitalistic competition? Should not the Flea Market be a free market?” the charlatan demanded. “And while we’re on the topic of commerce, I don’t suppose you have enough three-headed coins to pay for all the poor souls you have so discourteously exposed to my exhibit against their will? I’d hate to have to start shaking people down to get my due.”
“Hard to believe your own circus threw you out,” Emrys said with a sardonic eye roll as he tossed him a small medallion. “You get one coin. Take it and get out of my sight.”
The charlatan flipped the coin in the air thrice, presumably to confirm it actually had three heads. Satisfied with its impossible dimensions, he shoved it into his pocket.
“It will cover the trolley ride home, at least,” he acquiesced, stepping off his soap box and turning to face his looking glass. “A shame though you can’t see the genius in my little avant-garde performance piece here, Emmy. Even I know that the monster in the mirror is often the hardest to recognize.”
As the man reached to pick up his mirror, his reflection’s arms shot through the glass and grabbed him by the wrists, pulling him in. Emrys immediately tried to chase after him, but bounced off the glass as if there was nothing supernatural about it at all.
“Bastard!” he cursed under his breath, before turning towards us and giving us a small apologetic smile. “I’m sorry you had to see that rather pathetic display. Unfortunately, the few meeting places I know of that are relatively safe from any Ophionic incursion also attract their fair share of other annoying miscreants.”
“If it didn’t attract a little bit of everything, it wouldn’t be a Flea Market, would it?” I asked rhetorically. “Thank you, Emrys, for inviting us. I’ve never been anywhere like this before.”
“And thank you for accepting. Samantha, Genevieve, it’s a pleasure to see you again, and a relief that you have not fallen under the auspices of the Ophion Occult Order,” he said with a gentle bow. “Elam, I remember you as well. Valiant but not reckless, you remained atop Pendragon Hill during my battle with the Darlings until your mistress was well out of harm’s way, and then you got the hell out of dodge yourself. Samantha couldn’t hope for a better Familiar. And Charlotte, any Witch that Samantha deemed worthy to induct into her coven is obviously someone whose acquaintance I am pleased to make. Welcome, all of you, to Mathom-meister’s Flea Market!”
“So this is where you’ve been hiding out the past two years?” Genevieve asked.
“Oh no. Far too Cosmopolitan for my tastes,” Emrys replied. “No, this is just a friendly place to meet those I consider friends – or potential friends, at least. I’d offer to show you around, but I know it’s difficult for you to astral travel for prolonged periods. Come with me to Mathom-meister’s house where we can talk freely, and we’ll discuss the situation with the Order.”
I gave him a small, single nod in response, and gestured with my staff that he should lead the way. He responded by pointing upwards, then vanished into his shadow form. When we looked up, we saw him waving at us from a balcony atop the great silken chrysalis.
We exchanged hesitant glances with one another, but ultimately followed him into the strange structure, moving from the ground to the balcony in an instant by will alone.
“How would an incarnate being get up here if they couldn’t fly or teleport?” Charlotte asked as she peered over the balcony’s teetering edge.
As though answering a summons, a humanoid creature apparated beside her in a flash of dark vapours. The hunched-back entity stood over six-and-a-half feet tall, and was clad in golden-brown erudite robes. Its squid-like skin was of a similar colour, and its entire face was a single gaping orifice that held a wispy, glowing orb in the center of its skull which I immediately recognized as its soul. A pair of long, fanged tentacles lined with pores and tendrils hung down from its head like a long, forked beard, and the seven digits shared by its two hands all bore wicked-looking talons, as did its two-toed, digitigrade feet.
“Not fly or teleport? What sort of pedestrian house guests do you think I entertain here?” the being asked wryly, its voice seeming to come from nowhere in particular.
Charlotte instinctively backed away from the creature and into the protective fold of our coven, but Emrys was quick to hold up his hand to plead for calm.
“Please, there’s no need for alarm. This is our host, Mathom-meister. He’s the only reason any of this is here in the first place,” Emrys informed us. “A year or two ago a companion of his unfortunately became one of the Darling Twin’s victims, and when he heard of my vendetta with them, he tracked me down; which is no small feat, I assure you.”
“It is for us. My people are a race of Planeswalkers. Traversing the many worlds of Creation is second nature to us,” Mathom-meister explained.
“I’ve… I’ve heard of your people, I think,” I said, softly and unsurely. “A friend of mine had an encounter with an artifact that gave her a vision of a race of strange and powerful sorcerers slaying their own god. I take it you’re the ones who slayed this Scarab Titan as well? That’s, that’s…”
“Horrifying, yes. That’s the idea,” he nodded. “You have nothing to worry about, young Witch. My people have no special interest in your world. This is purely personal. My friend is dead, and I want his murderers brought to justice; a goal which Emrys and I happen to have in common.”
“Feel free to share this information with the Ophion Occult Order, Samantha,” Emrys said. “I’d very much like for the Darling Twins to know what’s hunting them. Mathom-meister, please excuse me while I take my guests inside. We do have pressing business to discuss and their time is limited.”
The squid-cyclopes bowed gracefully, and my coven and I quickly scurried after Emrys as he led us inside through a towering hallway and into a large chamber that had been appointed as a living space.
I had thought that Emrys would want to speak with us alone, which was why I was surprised to see a young woman sitting cross-legged on a spongey yet chitinous object that I will for the sake of my sanity call a bean bag chair. Like Emrys, she was pale and blue-blooded, her choppy hair as black as coal. She wore a black robe and heavy black eyeliner, but these could not conceal the fact that she too had thin wisps of miasma emanating from her eyes.
“Is that your… daughter?” Charlotte asked, as baffled by her presence as any of us. The woman smiled warmly at the question.
“In a way. I was dead, and Emrys gave me new life. Now a part of the Outer Primordial Darkness he represents lives in me too,” she said serenely.
Hovering above her left palm were three small bluish-green orbs, lazily going around in a circle. They were translucent and held something inside them that I couldn’t make out, but the orbs themselves appeared to be melting and solidifying by the woman’s will.
“You’re Petra, aren’t you?” I asked as I cautiously approached her. “Chamberlin had mentioned that Emrys had taken an acolyte. I’m Samantha, and this is Genevieve, Elam, and Charlotte.”
“I know. The whole reason we’re here is to speak with you,” she nodded.
“The Ophion Occult Order calls me a soul-flayer, and I’m sure you were all wondering exactly what that meant before you came here,” Emrys said, standing proudly behind his acolyte. “Well, this is it. The Darkness Beyond is now a part of her, and a part of her now lives within the Darkness Beyond. She is not unchanged from what she was before, but neither has what she was been lost.”
“My interpretation of the term ‘soul-flaying’ was the complete removal of a person’s consciousness from their astral and physical bodies to be subsumed by your Darkness,” I countered. “They told me that what you’ve done with Petra here is just the limit of your power while you’re bound in their chains. Are you telling me that if your chains were broken, you wouldn’t be able to do any worse than this?”
“On my physical avatar? No. So long as my astral form remains chained and bound with the World Serpent, I cannot cleave a conscious mind from its astral substrate,” Emrys assured me.
“But that is your ultimate goal, isn’t it? Breaking the chains the Ophion Occult Order put on you is just a stepping stone to breaking the ones the gods bound you with?” Genevieve asked. “You’ve allied yourself with a literal god slayer. Do you expect us to believe that his people’s abilities aren’t something you intend to put to your own ends?”
“I don’t have an ultimate goal so much as I have a fundamental principle of opposing tyranny,” he claimed. “When I was a mere man, thousands of years ago, I was a tyrant. I believed that might made right so unquestionably that when my might began to fail me, the only thing I could think to do was to try everything in my power to restore it. This quest eventually led to me becoming one with the Darkness Beyond, which gave me not only the might I coveted but the wisdom I didn’t know I needed. It gave me perspective. It made me stronger than any human alive at that point but still let me realize how insignificant I was. It was humbling, and enlightening, and filled me both with remorse over my past actions and an impetus to use my newfound gifts to rectify them. I tried to overthrow the gods themselves which, in hindsight, was overly ambitious. I not only failed but had my soul devoured by the World Serpent, where it still resides to this day.
“I am not eager to bring the wrath of the gods down upon me once again. No, for now, I will be content to end the tyranny of the Ophion Occult Order. This is the message I’d like you to relay to them. If the Grand Adderman agrees to unbind my chains and step down from his post, I will spare his life. If he declines, I want the rest of the Order to know that I will show mercy to any who sides with me over him. I am willing to allow the Order to exist so long as it agrees to become more decentralized, democratic, and accountable. They will have to forfeit certain artifacts and individuals in their possession over to me, chief among them the Darling Twins, but I am willing to negotiate. If they aren’t, then I will overthrow the Grand Adderman by whatever means necessary and see the Order scattered to the four winds. It is entirely up to them whether or not the conflict between us escalates to full-on war. Have I made myself clear, Samantha?”
“I think so,” I said as I pensively considered everything he had said. “Why should they trust you to keep your word once your chains are broken? For that matter, why should we?”
He took a moment to consider his response, eyeing me over as though he was trying to divine something that would win over my trust.
“Samantha, you made a pact with Persephone to get your Spirit Familiar there; one where she swore by the River Styx. Is that correct?” he asked.
“It is,” I nodded.
“And in the years since, has Persephone ever broken that pact she swore to?” he asked.
“No, she hasn’t,” I replied.
“I may not be an Old God, but so long as my astral form remains bound by their chains, they have power over me,” he said. “Samantha Sumner, Hedge Witch of Harrowick Woods, I swear on the River Styx that I have spoken no lies to you today. I swear by the River Styx that I will abide by any Covenant that I and the Ophion Occult Order agree to in good faith and fair dealing that they do not break first. I swear by the River Styx that when my chains are broken, I will give you no cause to fear me or regret your trust in me.”
I gave a questioning glance to Genevieve, and then Elam, both of whom nodded in the affirmative.
“All right. An oath sworn on the River Styx is good enough for me. I’ll deliver your terms to Seneca Chamberlin,” I agreed. “I’m very grateful for the trust and respect you’ve shown for me and my coven, Emrys, though I can’t say I quite understand it. Out of all the guests that were there on the Hallow’s Eve you were summoned, why did Evie and I stand out to you?”
“The Ophion Occult Order deemed you worthy of inclusion in their cult, an offer you rejected on principle. You cheated Persephone, but you did it not to gain immortality for yourself but to save your friend from hell. You came here, thinking I could very well tear your souls asunder, but did so because you believed it was your duty to prevent needless suffering,” Emrys answered. “You are extraordinary in your craft, courage, and conscience, the latter of which especially stood out among the degenerates at that party. I do apologize if I frightened you at that event. I was a bit… irritable, given the circumstances. I’m glad we were able to meet again under more pleasant conditions.”
“So am I, Emrys,” I nodded. “I’m not sure exactly what this means or how relevant it is, but Seneca wanted me to tell you that he’s able to offer you the Dream Demon Red Ruck as a sacrifice.”
“Pffft. Tell him it’s hardly a sacrifice if I’m getting rid of a boogie man for him,” he scoffed. “In fact, now that you mention it, Ruck’s one egregore that might be of more use to me alive.”
I wanted to ask him what he meant by that, but we were suddenly interrupted by the rapid pounding of a gong somewhere down below. It seemed to be an alarm of some kind, as we could hear the panicked shouting and frantic racing of people either battening down or forsaking the Flea Market altogether.
Mathom-meister apparated into the middle of the room, his facial tentacles reflexively raised in a defensive position.
“Were you outside the market?” he demanded of us.
“The portal we came through deposited us a few miles outside of the market, yes,” I admitted.
“Damn,” Emrys cursed softly, though he sounded more frustrated than angry. “Meister, it’s not their fault. I knew they weren’t experienced Planeswalkers, I could have – ”
“It doesn’t matter!” Mathom-meister interjected. “They need to leave, now!”
“Why, what’s going on?” Genevieve demanded.
“The scarabs are swarming,” Petra explained. “Don’t feel bad; it happens often enough that they’re prepared for it.”
I wanted to press for more details, but I could hear the humming of a vast winged swarm steadily encroaching upon us.
“Don’t worry. Once you leave the swarm will disperse… eventually,” Emrys told us. “We’ve said all that need be said for now. Return home, and I’ll reach out to you again shortly, Samantha.”
Again, I wanted to object, but the swarm outside was growing louder and louder, and it occurred to me that we might not be completely safe from a biblical swarm of insects that could not only sense but evidently sought out souls.
This occurred to Charlotte as well, as she was the first of us to vanish and awaken back in her body. We could all feel the weight of her reembodied soul tugging on us to return with her. Genevieve immediately grabbed hold of my right hand and Elam my left, both of them refusing to leave before I did.
I spared one final glance at Emrys, lamenting that we couldn’t have had more time.
“I’ll relay everything you said to the Order. I’ll make sure they know you’re willing to negotiate a truce,” I vowed.
He gave me a gracious nod, and just as we heard the swarm start to pelt the exterior of the market, I forced my physical eyes open and was back in my body, still safely under a willow tree in my cemetery.
I immediately looked beside me to Genevieve, and saw that she was awake as well, and then around me for Elam, who seemed to be suffering a bit of spectral whiplash from being pulled back with me so suddenly, but was otherwise all right. Sighing with relief, I turned lastly to Charlotte, and saw that she was looking down at the mediation circle in dreaded horror.
Following her gaze, I saw that the Undying Rose was gone – spent, perhaps, in exchange for our passage – and in its place was the inert, and hopefully dead, body of one of the shimmering scarabs.

Ok so yes repost again because now I know I’m getting shadow banned for every post I make on every subreddit 😑 I get about 1hr-24hrs before this one too will disappear from view for everyone else… also if anyone knows why this is happening or why I would be shadow banned or even how to get myself unshadow banned I would be so grateful but like books main want :3
also no the info isn’t actually spoilers since that is the description and prologue to the story, the actual manga hasn’t gotten farther then the set up atm (which is why I’m looking for similar stories)
Anyways onto my dilemma Background information at the top request at bottom :3
INFORMATION ON REQUEST Oki so recently on WEBTOON I accidentally stumbled upon a book called “Change Your Story” while looking for chaotic, funny, but romance themed books (because my favourite genre is pure chaos that’s some how romance) and I discovered I love this kind of themed book. The book is about a world where everyone gets a symbol when born saying if they are an extra, background character, side character, main characters best friend, love interest, villain, or protagonist. And it centres around the main character who doesn’t want to be the MC of an action story or even be the MC, but seeing how he can’t escape that fate he decides he will hanged the genre. And seeing as how persistent the villain is at getting to be his villain, he comes to the conclusion the only way to change it is to get rid of a villain…. So well he decides to make the villain love him and to date him, because no villain then no action genre. Living a romance genre life would mean he could finally live peacefully. So like pure chaos…Oh and because like fussy angry nuggets of romantic interest being tamed by fed up calm partner is another of my all time favourite troupes
REQUEST Now I want more manga and books centered around the mc changing a story by making the villain date them :)… and like chaos, lots of chaos! If anyone has any recommendations I would be so happy! 😁 I don’t care if they are MxF or bl or gl, I just need my daily doses of chaos :3 thanks to anyone who can help meeee ❤️

“I’m sorry; we’re going to astral travel to a flea market?” Charlotte asked incredulously as she watched Genevieve and I set up a meditation circle under the shade of a towering old willow tree in my cemetery. “What if we want to buy something? How will we bring it back?”
“We’re not going there to shop, Lottie. Samantha’s finally had a vision about Emrys,” Genevieve explained.
The Veil between the Physical and Astral Planes is exceptionally weak in my cemetery, especially at night and on hallowed days. When I sleep there, my subconscious mind is highly receptive to all manner of revelations from the Spirit World. When I saw a Blood Moon rise on the night of May fifth, the same night as a penumbral eclipse, I knew that my dreams would be prophetic.
“I had a dream about him last Friday,” I expounded. “He’s at some sort of otherworldly marketplace, one that’s not connected to the Crypto Chthonic Cuniculi, so it’s mostly inaccessible to the Ophion Occult Order. In my dream, Emrys invited us to come and speak with him while we were lucid. He drew a sigil for me, the same one I’ve drawn in the middle of the mediation circle. He said that all I’d have to do is toss an Undying Rose – the earthly effigy of the rose Persephone used to steal a drop of his blood – into the sigil and it will become an astral portal to where he is.”
I held up the deep purple rose that I had cut from its bush earlier that day. I don’t know for certain where the roses came from, but my best guess is that they were made by the same Occultist who hallowed my cemetery to Persephone; Artaxerxes Crow. They have some connection to Emrys as well, since the only other time I saw someone else use one was when his avatar was summoned into the Physical Plane on Halloween 2020.
Knowing that Emrys wouldn’t dare to set foot in a place that was sacred to the Goddess who was ultimately responsible for his cosmic defeat, I gently tossed the rose into the middle of the sigil.
“He invited all of us?” Charlotte asked with an incredulous raising of her eyebrow.
“He said me and my coven. If he had just meant me or me and Genevieve he would have said that,” I replied. “You and Elam are coming too. I want as many eyes on this place as possible so that we don’t miss anything. We may not get an opportunity like this again.”
“And this is safe? Visiting some random flea market between worlds?” Charlotte asked.
“Samantha and I have visited the Underworld and come back no problem,” Genevieve reminded her. “So long as we’re bound to our bodies and Elam is bound to Samantha, we can come back anytime. Don’t worry; this is going to be a blast! Adventures like these are the best part of being a Witch.”
“The only reason you were able to go to the Underworld is because Samantha’s cemetery came with an astral portal in the back,” Charlotte countered, gesticulating in the general direction of the archway that was still partially visible behind the light spring foliage. “Other than that, when have any of us ever done anything useful with our astral projection? This is still a physical place, right? We don’t have any of our physical senses available to us when we astral project, and I get extremely disoriented trying to navigate the mortal plane with clairvoyance alone.”
“It is a physical place, but one saturated with astral energy and full of occultists and occult artifacts. It will be extremely illuminated to our clairvoyance,” I assured her. “Elam will also be there to guide us. As a ghost, he’s much more practiced at traversing the mortal plane in an astral form.”
Charlotte folded her arms over her chest and turned to look at Elam, who was leaning up against the willow tree as he waited for us.
“I don’t suppose you could go and scout the place out for us ahead of time?” she asked.
“I can’t go too far from Samantha, and definitely not across planes,” he said with a shake of his head. “But Eve’s right. Your astral bodies will be in no danger, and you can return here in an instant whenever you want.”
“But what about Emrys? Didn’t that book Leon gave you say that he’s some sort of soul-flayer?” Charlotte asked me.
“It did,” I admitted. “Keep in mind though, that book was written by his enemies. I want to hear his side of things before this conflict of theirs spirals out of control.”
“Any update from Chamberlin about that?” Elam asked.
“Yeah, he said that after he failed to purify the Sigil Sand, Ivy’s onboard with negotiating some kind of truce with Emrys,” I replied. “The Grand Adderman’s still reticent, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s running out of options. I need to find out if Emrys will agree to peace talks.”
“Um, I get that, but I’m still kind of hung up on him potentially flaying our souls,” Charlotte reiterated.
“If Emrys and the Ophion Occult Order go to all-out war, there’ll be a lot of collateral damage and innocent souls caught in the crossfire,” Genevieve told her, gently grabbing hold of her and looking her straight in the eye. “Samantha, Elam, and I are doing this because if there’s any chance we can put an end to this before it starts, then it’s our responsibility to try. You don’t have to come with us, Lottie, but you’re still a member of our coven. Samantha and I would both feel a lot better with you there to help us.”
“Arghhh! All right, fine! I’ll come with you,” Charlotte gave in, plopping her butt down on the edge of the meditation circle. “If we’re holding hands, that will help keep our astral bodies together too, right?”
“I believe it should, yes,” I smiled at her, sitting down and reaching out for her hand.
Genevieve lit the incense and her bong filled with the entheogenic Delphi Dream, before sitting down to join us. She took a hit from the bong before passing it to me, and then to Charlotte before setting it aside out of the circle.
“Start with taking a deep breath, completely filling the lungs, and holding it for five heartbeats,” she guided us as she took hold of each of our hands. “Exhale completely, and wait five more heartbeats before breathing in again. Eyes closed, in through the nose, out through the mouth. Focus on the astral energies flowing through you with each breath, gently aligning each chakra until those energies are enough to lift you up and out of your body.”
In unison with one another, the three of us slowly breathed in and out, ignoring the material world around us and focusing upon the task at hand. Eve was first, as usual, and because we were all holding hands, Charlotte and I felt her eagerly tugging us up to speed us along.
I opened my eyes, and beheld the dull and muted Physical Plane through my clairvoyance, everything outshined by the radiant forms of my coven mates. I noted that Genevieve had eschewed her normal skyclad form when astral projecting and instead wore a cloak like Charlotte and I.
“Are you worried this place might have a no shirt, no shoes, no souls, no service policy?” I teased her.
“I just don’t want to risk a confrontation over it. I realize how important this is,” she answered. “Though I’m not actually wearing shoes, now that you mention it.”
“Christ, look at the sigil Samantha drew!” Charlotte said, pointing down at the meditation circle beneath us. The sigil wasn’t just glowing but flowing as well, churning the Aether around it in a misty, spectral vortex. “It’s an astral portal, isn’t it?”
“Oh yeah. It’s not stable, though. Good for one trip only,” Genevieve said with a delighted smile. “And Lottie, since we’re Neopagan Witches, try not to swear by Christ, okay?”
“Jesus!” she swore, both in defiance and in genuine annoyance.
“Elam! Elam, come join the circle! I don’t want to take any chances of severing our bond,” I instructed, letting go of Charlotte’s hand and waving him in between us.
Faithful Familiar that he was, he obeyed without hesitation. Despite my concerns, I think that he probably could have stayed behind if he had wanted. The fact that he was willing to follow me to an unknown otherworld without complaint really made me appreciate how devoted he was to me.
“We step in together on the count of three, got it?” I instructed, each of them nodding clearly in response. “One. Two. Three!”
We all extended our right feet into the vortex together, and the instant we did we were swept away, falling out of our own world and tumbling between the cracks of countless others. They weren’t real, I don’t think. At least, not as real as our world. They were potential realities, or realities that could have been once but now can never be, or fantasies that are so persistent in the minds of real people that in some sense or another, they become real themselves. I only saw glimmers of them, glimmers in nebulas made of primeval chaos and uttermost void.
It was outside of time, that place we travelled through, or at least we had no sense of it there. Our souls were haphazardly spat out upon a surreal landscape of earth, sea, and fire. Hilly plains of volcanic ash, incandescent calderas of lava and bubbling hot springs all intermeshed in a chaotic mosaic that didn’t seem to abide by any laws of geology or geography that I was familiar with. A strong but slow wind pushed fractal formations of dark silver clouds through a pale silver sky, illuminated by a single white orb which could have been either a bright moon or a faint sun.
While our spectral feet left no trace upon the ash we now stood upon, our presence nonetheless elicited a response from some of the local fauna. We were just able to catch a glimpse of some kind of shimmering scarabs burrowing themselves into the ash to escape the four otherworldly ghosts that had invaded their territory.
“Holy shit,” Charlotte murmured as we all gazed out upon the strange world we had found ourselves on. “This really isn’t on the Astral Plane. This is a real planet. This a real, alien planet! This is unbelievable!”
Genevieve glided over to one of the bubbling pools and peered into it, looking for any more signs of life.
“There’s some kind of bluish-grey algae growing on the rocks down there, and I think I can make out some small arthropods too. This planet’s alive!” she announced with glee, smiling and looking up at the alien sky.
Conjuring an astral approximation of my staff, I plunged it into a small mound of ash beside me. I watched curiously as the scarabs shot out in all directions, moving too quickly for me to get a good look at them, before scurrying back into the surrounding ash.
“These bugs can sense our presence,” I remarked. “How and why would clairvoyance evolve in insects on this world, and why would their first instinct be to flee?”
“Samantha!” Elam called out. “I think I found the Flea Market.”
We all gathered around him and looked where he was pointing. On a distant dune, we beheld the moulted carapace of a colossal insect, gleaming a brilliant, lustrous gold in the broken white light.
“That’s impossible!” Charlotte claimed. “That thing must be hundreds of meters long! No insect, no animal period could ever get that big on the Physical Plane!”
“It could be the Incarnation of some kind of Titan,” Genevieve suggested. “But… it’s dead. I can tell that even from here. It’s dead. It’s the corpse of a dead god, and now it’s being used as a swap meet with a punny name. Either whatever killed it just abandoned it, or…”
“Or is running the place,” I finished for her. “Well, we should see if we can find Emrys.”
In an instant, the world moved around us until we were at the entrance to the Flea Market. The colossal carapace was hollow inside, of course, and had been filled with a bustling city that looked like it had been created in the most ad hoc manner possible. There wasn’t a single straight street to be seen, and they converged with one another at random intervals. Stalls and buildings varied wildly in both design and materials, all imported from a plethora of different cultures across the planes.
Enormous shards of luminous glass levitated above the throng like a thousand Swords of Damocles, any or all of them seeming capable of succumbing to gravity at any moment. In the very center of the moulted husk dangled a great spiralling chrysalis or hive woven of iridescent silk, its function not being immediately apparent to me.
There must have been thousands of people there, and hundreds of merchants hawking their wares. Most of those who looked human still seemed a little off, like they were members of ethnicities that didn’t exist in our world. Some of the beings were near-human in appearance, many seemingly some kind of Fey or Seelie folk. There was even a small handful of people that weren’t remotely human at all.
The only thing they all had in common was that none were native to this world.
“Most of these people are here in person, aren’t they?” Charlotte asked.
“It would’ve been quite a feat for them to have built all of this while astral projecting,” Genevieve agreed.
“But if this place isn’t connected to the Cuniculi, then how did they get here?” Charlotte asked. “We’re on another planet, maybe even in another dimension. If getting here is beyond the Ooo’s abilities, then what sort of ungodly reality benders decided to turn it into a Flea Market?”
“Ladies, gentlemen, and any beings either too ancient and alien or too modern and alienated to settle on one or the other, come bear witness to one of the most astounding and atrocious abominations on this or any other world!” a fast-paced male voice rang out over the din of the crowd.
We turned to see a short, skinny, old-timey sort of carnival barker standing on a literal soap box, placed next to a large object draped in a black tarp.
“For the paltry price of a single three-headed coin, you can peer beneath the veil and behold with your own unbelieving eyes the mangled and mutilated monstrosity that lurks beneath!” the carnival barker continued. “But I must warn you, it is not possible to truly understand what dwells underneath without seeing it first! I cannot guarantee that you will still retain your sanity or will to live after witnessing the proverbial Mountains of Madness, for this low creature is truly like no other and serves only as a grim testament to the cruel sadism of the Lord Above! Anyone plagued by even the faintest lingering doubt as to their spiritual fortitude should not dare to even contemplate what might lie before me! But, for those brave, noble few who are truly dauntless of heart and incorrigible of spirit, I am proud to share with you this rare, unfathomable, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to witness sublime –”
The carnival barker was interrupted by a man yanking the sheet off the object beside him, revealing it to be a mirror.
“Whelp, that was a hell of an Im14andthisisdeep post, eh?” Charlotte mused.
Genevieve and I, however, were far too stunned to be amused; not by the mirror, but by the man who had unveiled it.
“It’s him, Lottie. That’s Emrys,” Genevieve whispered.
We had only seen him briefly once before, more than two-and-a-half years ago, but he was far from what anyone would call forgettable. He was tall and gaunt, with literal blue blood flowing beneath translucent skin. His long, receding hair and regal beard were pitch black, and dark miasma wafted from his eyes, nose, and mouth. He was dressed in dark sable robes with three overlapping Ouroboros’s tattooed on his forehead, with a pair of ophidian pupils lying in the spaces between them.
What stood out the most to us were the six silver Ouroboros chains bound around his wrists, ankles, waist, and neck. These were the chains the Ophion Occult Order had made to limit the power of his physical avatar, and it seemed he had not yet found a way to free himself from them.
“Are you still here?” Emrys asked in exasperation, tossing the veil back at the carnival barker in disdain.
“…Possibly,” the strange man replied evasively. “But not definitively, for purely legalistic reasons.”
“I believe Mathom-meister was quite clear when he said that your rather pitiful chicanery wasn’t welcomed here,” Emrys reminded him.
“And who is he to judge chicanery from cutthroat, capitalistic competition? Should not the Flea Market be a free market?” the charlatan demanded. “And while we’re on the topic of commerce, I don’t suppose you have enough three-headed coins to pay for all the poor souls you have so discourteously exposed to my exhibit against their will? I’d hate to have to start shaking people down to get my due.”
“Hard to believe your own circus threw you out,” Emrys said with a sardonic eye roll as he tossed him a small medallion. “You get one coin. Take it and get out of my sight.”
The charlatan flipped the coin in the air thrice, presumably to confirm it actually had three heads. Satisfied with its impossible dimensions, he shoved it into his pocket.
“It will cover the trolley ride home, at least,” he acquiesced, stepping off his soap box and turning to face his looking glass. “A shame though you can’t see the genius in my little avant-garde performance piece here, Emmy. Even I know that the monster in the mirror is often the hardest to recognize.”
As the man reached to pick up his mirror, his reflection’s arms shot through the glass and grabbed him by the wrists, pulling him in. Emrys immediately tried to chase after him, but bounced off the glass as if there was nothing supernatural about it at all.
“Bastard!” he cursed under his breath, before turning towards us and giving us a small apologetic smile. “I’m sorry you had to see that rather pathetic display. Unfortunately, the few meeting places I know of that are relatively safe from any Ophionic incursion also attract their fair share of other annoying miscreants.”
“If it didn’t attract a little bit of everything, it wouldn’t be a Flea Market, would it?” I asked rhetorically. “Thank you, Emrys, for inviting us. I’ve never been anywhere like this before.”
“And thank you for accepting. Samantha, Genevieve, it’s a pleasure to see you again, and a relief that you have not fallen under the auspices of the Ophion Occult Order,” he said with a gentle bow. “Elam, I remember you as well. Valiant but not reckless, you remained atop Pendragon Hill during my battle with the Darlings until your mistress was well out of harm’s way, and then you got the hell out of dodge yourself. Samantha couldn’t hope for a better Familiar. And Charlotte, any Witch that Samantha deemed worthy to induct into her coven is obviously someone whose acquaintance I am pleased to make. Welcome, all of you, to Mathom-meister’s Flea Market!”
“So this is where you’ve been hiding out the past two years?” Genevieve asked.
“Oh no. Far too Cosmopolitan for my tastes,” Emrys replied. “No, this is just a friendly place to meet those I consider friends – or potential friends, at least. I’d offer to show you around, but I know it’s difficult for you to astral travel for prolonged periods. Come with me to Mathom-meister’s house where we can talk freely, and we’ll discuss the situation with the Order.”
I gave him a small, single nod in response, and gestured with my staff that he should lead the way. He responded by pointing upwards, then vanished into his shadow form. When we looked up, we saw him waving at us from a balcony atop the great silken chrysalis.
We exchanged hesitant glances with one another, but ultimately followed him into the strange structure, moving from the ground to the balcony in an instant by will alone.
“How would an incarnate being get up here if they couldn’t fly or teleport?” Charlotte asked as she peered over the balcony’s teetering edge.
As though answering a summons, a humanoid creature apparated beside her in a flash of dark vapours. The hunched-back entity stood over six-and-a-half feet tall, and was clad in golden-brown erudite robes. Its squid-like skin was of a similar colour, and its entire face was a single gaping orifice that held a wispy, glowing orb in the center of its skull which I immediately recognized as its soul. A pair of long, fanged tentacles lined with pores and tendrils hung down from its head like a long, forked beard, and the seven digits shared by its two hands all bore wicked-looking talons, as did its two-toed, digitigrade feet.
“Not fly or teleport? What sort of pedestrian house guests do you think I entertain here?” the being asked wryly, its voice seeming to come from nowhere in particular.
Charlotte instinctively backed away from the creature and into the protective fold of our coven, but Emrys was quick to hold up his hand to plead for calm.
“Please, there’s no need for alarm. This is our host, Mathom-meister. He’s the only reason any of this is here in the first place,” Emrys informed us. “A year or two ago a companion of his unfortunately became one of the Darling Twin’s victims, and when he heard of my vendetta with them, he tracked me down; which is no small feat, I assure you.”
“It is for us. My people are a race of Planeswalkers. Traversing the many worlds of Creation is second nature to us,” Mathom-meister explained.
“I’ve… I’ve heard of your people, I think,” I said, softly and unsurely. “A friend of mine had an encounter with an artifact that gave her a vision of a race of strange and powerful sorcerers slaying their own god. I take it you’re the ones who slayed this Scarab Titan as well? That’s, that’s…”
“Horrifying, yes. That’s the idea,” he nodded. “You have nothing to worry about, young Witch. My people have no special interest in your world. This is purely personal. My friend is dead, and I want his murderers brought to justice; a goal which Emrys and I happen to have in common.”
“Feel free to share this information with the Ophion Occult Order, Samantha,” Emrys said. “I’d very much like for the Darling Twins to know what’s hunting them. Mathom-meister, please excuse me while I take my guests inside. We do have pressing business to discuss and their time is limited.”
The squid-cyclopes bowed gracefully, and my coven and I quickly scurried after Emrys as he led us inside through a towering hallway and into a large chamber that had been appointed as a living space.
I had thought that Emrys would want to speak with us alone, which was why I was surprised to see a young woman sitting cross-legged on a spongey yet chitinous object that I will for the sake of my sanity call a bean bag chair. Like Emrys, she was pale and blue-blooded, her choppy hair as black as coal. She wore a black robe and heavy black eyeliner, but these could not conceal the fact that she too had thin wisps of miasma emanating from her eyes.
“Is that your… daughter?” Charlotte asked, as baffled by her presence as any of us. The woman smiled warmly at the question.
“In a way. I was dead, and Emrys gave me new life. Now a part of the Outer Primordial Darkness he represents lives in me too,” she said serenely.
Hovering above her left palm were three small bluish-green orbs, lazily going around in a circle. They were translucent and held something inside them that I couldn’t make out, but the orbs themselves appeared to be melting and solidifying by the woman’s will.
“You’re Petra, aren’t you?” I asked as I cautiously approached her. “Chamberlin had mentioned that Emrys had taken an acolyte. I’m Samantha, and this is Genevieve, Elam, and Charlotte.”
“I know. The whole reason we’re here is to speak with you,” she nodded.
“The Ophion Occult Order calls me a soul-flayer, and I’m sure you were all wondering exactly what that meant before you came here,” Emrys said, standing proudly behind his acolyte. “Well, this is it. The Darkness Beyond is now a part of her, and a part of her now lives within the Darkness Beyond. She is not unchanged from what she was before, but neither has what she was been lost.”
“My interpretation of the term ‘soul-flaying’ was the complete removal of a person’s consciousness from their astral and physical bodies to be subsumed by your Darkness,” I countered. “They told me that what you’ve done with Petra here is just the limit of your power while you’re bound in their chains. Are you telling me that if your chains were broken, you wouldn’t be able to do any worse than this?”
“On my physical avatar? No. So long as my astral form remains chained and bound with the World Serpent, I cannot cleave a conscious mind from its astral substrate,” Emrys assured me.
“But that is your ultimate goal, isn’t it? Breaking the chains the Ophion Occult Order put on you is just a stepping stone to breaking the ones the gods bound you with?” Genevieve asked. “You’ve allied yourself with a literal god slayer. Do you expect us to believe that his people’s abilities aren’t something you intend to put to your own ends?”
“I don’t have an ultimate goal so much as I have a fundamental principle of opposing tyranny,” he claimed. “When I was a mere man, thousands of years ago, I was a tyrant. I believed that might made right so unquestionably that when my might began to fail me, the only thing I could think to do was to try everything in my power to restore it. This quest eventually led to me becoming one with the Darkness Beyond, which gave me not only the might I coveted but the wisdom I didn’t know I needed. It gave me perspective. It made me stronger than any human alive at that point but still let me realize how insignificant I was. It was humbling, and enlightening, and filled me both with remorse over my past actions and an impetus to use my newfound gifts to rectify them. I tried to overthrow the gods themselves which, in hindsight, was overly ambitious. I not only failed but had my soul devoured by the World Serpent, where it still resides to this day.
“I am not eager to bring the wrath of the gods down upon me once again. No, for now, I will be content to end the tyranny of the Ophion Occult Order. This is the message I’d like you to relay to them. If the Grand Adderman agrees to unbind my chains and step down from his post, I will spare his life. If he declines, I want the rest of the Order to know that I will show mercy to any who sides with me over him. I am willing to allow the Order to exist so long as it agrees to become more decentralized, democratic, and accountable. They will have to forfeit certain artifacts and individuals in their possession over to me, chief among them the Darling Twins, but I am willing to negotiate. If they aren’t, then I will overthrow the Grand Adderman by whatever means necessary and see the Order scattered to the four winds. It is entirely up to them whether or not the conflict between us escalates to full-on war. Have I made myself clear, Samantha?”
“I think so,” I said as I pensively considered everything he had said. “Why should they trust you to keep your word once your chains are broken? For that matter, why should we?”
He took a moment to consider his response, eyeing me over as though he was trying to divine something that would win over my trust.
“Samantha, you made a pact with Persephone to get your Spirit Familiar there; one where she swore by the River Styx. Is that correct?” he asked.
“It is,” I nodded.
“And in the years since, has Persephone ever broken that pact she swore to?” he asked.
“No, she hasn’t,” I replied.
“I may not be an Old God, but so long as my astral form remains bound by their chains, they have power over me,” he said. “Samantha Sumner, Hedge Witch of Harrowick Woods, I swear on the River Styx that I have spoken no lies to you today. I swear by the River Styx that I will abide by any Covenant that I and the Ophion Occult Order agree to in good faith and fair dealing that they do not break first. I swear by the River Styx that when my chains are broken, I will give you no cause to fear me or regret your trust in me.”
I gave a questioning glance to Genevieve, and then Elam, both of whom nodded in the affirmative.
“All right. An oath sworn on the River Styx is good enough for me. I’ll deliver your terms to Seneca Chamberlin,” I agreed. “I’m very grateful for the trust and respect you’ve shown for me and my coven, Emrys, though I can’t say I quite understand it. Out of all the guests that were there on the Hallow’s Eve you were summoned, why did Evie and I stand out to you?”
“The Ophion Occult Order deemed you worthy of inclusion in their cult, an offer you rejected on principle. You cheated Persephone, but you did it not to gain immortality for yourself but to save your friend from hell. You came here, thinking I could very well tear your souls asunder, but did so because you believed it was your duty to prevent needless suffering,” Emrys answered. “You are extraordinary in your craft, courage, and conscience, the latter of which especially stood out among the degenerates at that party. I do apologize if I frightened you at that event. I was a bit… irritable, given the circumstances. I’m glad we were able to meet again under more pleasant conditions.”
“So am I, Emrys,” I nodded. “I’m not sure exactly what this means or how relevant it is, but Seneca wanted me to tell you that he’s able to offer you the Dream Demon Red Ruck as a sacrifice.”
“Pffft. Tell him it’s hardly a sacrifice if I’m getting rid of a boogie man for him,” he scoffed. “In fact, now that you mention it, Ruck’s one egregore that might be of more use to me alive.”
I wanted to ask him what he meant by that, but we were suddenly interrupted by the rapid pounding of a gong somewhere down below. It seemed to be an alarm of some kind, as we could hear the panicked shouting and frantic racing of people either battening down or forsaking the Flea Market altogether.
Mathom-meister apparated into the middle of the room, his facial tentacles reflexively raised in a defensive position.
“Were you outside the market?” he demanded of us.
“The portal we came through deposited us a few miles outside of the market, yes,” I admitted.
“Damn,” Emrys cursed softly, though he sounded more frustrated than angry. “Meister, it’s not their fault. I knew they weren’t experienced Planeswalkers, I could have – ”
“It doesn’t matter!” Mathom-meister interjected. “They need to leave, now!”
“Why, what’s going on?” Genevieve demanded.
“The scarabs are swarming,” Petra explained. “Don’t feel bad; it happens often enough that they’re prepared for it.”
I wanted to press for more details, but I could hear the humming of a vast winged swarm steadily encroaching upon us.
“Don’t worry. Once you leave the swarm will disperse… eventually,” Emrys told us. “We’ve said all that need be said for now. Return home, and I’ll reach out to you again shortly, Samantha.”
Again, I wanted to object, but the swarm outside was growing louder and louder, and it occurred to me that we might not be completely safe from a biblical swarm of insects that could not only sense but evidently sought out souls.
This occurred to Charlotte as well, as she was the first of us to vanish and awaken back in her body. We could all feel the weight of her reembodied soul tugging on us to return with her. Genevieve immediately grabbed hold of my right hand and Elam my left, both of them refusing to leave before I did.
I spared one final glance at Emrys, lamenting that we couldn’t have had more time.
“I’ll relay everything you said to the Order. I’ll make sure they know you’re willing to negotiate a truce,” I vowed.
He gave me a gracious nod, and just as we heard the swarm start to pelt the exterior of the market, I forced my physical eyes open and was back in my body, still safely under a willow tree in my cemetery.
I immediately looked beside me to Genevieve, and saw that she was awake as well, and then around me for Elam, who seemed to be suffering a bit of spectral whiplash from being pulled back with me so suddenly, but was otherwise all right. Sighing with relief, I turned lastly to Charlotte, and saw that she was looking down at the mediation circle in dreaded horror.
Following her gaze, I saw that the Undying Rose was gone – spent, perhaps, in exchange for our passage – and in its place was the inert, and hopefully dead, body of one of the shimmering scarabs.

PART 1

The moment Gray touches my head, static ripples across my skull. I froth at the mouth. Choke. For a little while, I think I’m probably dying, but then I lose all sense of awareness. I’m falling. I’m breaching the atmosphere of my mind and crashing into a dimension outside of myself, outside of everything.
Images flash. They’re like a film reel, playing across my consciousness from every direction. They’re everywhere. Inescapable. It’s as if I’m inhabiting them, as though they were moments in time and everything from sight, sound and smell are collapsing in on one another like a dying star.
Gray calls this ‘disorienting.’
But then, just when I tell myself I want out— that I can’t take it anymore because my disembodied ghost is about to explode… It slows. The whole process hits the brakes. The visual hurricane calms from a category 5 to a 3, and then settles into a 1.
Whew-ie!
Moments float to the surface. Others sink out of sight.
Like a sponge, my mind starts absorbing information– everything from quantum physics to the lyrical discography of Shania Twain. Knowledge becomes trivial. As soon as I want to know something, I reach out and take it.
It’s exhilarating.
But then, something catches my attention. It’s a series of shimmering lights in my lake of thought, gleaming jewels that seem to be drawing me toward them. Somehow, I know that these are why I’ve come here. These are what Gray meant for me to find, the so-called truth that would justify all of the abductions, all of the murders.
So I reach out.
Information bombards me. It carpet-bombs my mind, and in the overwhelming chaos of it all, the entire history of the cosmos is laid bare before me.
I see it. I see everything.
Gray and Teal? Not monsters. An alien species called the Vytar. Their technology eclipses humanity’s, and they’ve existed for billions of years. They’ve done remarkable things in that time, everything from mastering hyperlight travel to creating edible spray cheese. They’ve even charted the entirety of the cosmos.
What I’m saying is they've been busy.
But my revelations don’t stop there. No, they keep coming.
Tragedy.
I see tragedy.
I see it in the Vytar’s search for answers. In their quest to uncover every nook and cranny of the universe, they come across two devastating discoveries. Firstly, they learn that they are alone in the cosmos. Secondly, they discover their species is going extinct.
How?
It happens like this.
Near the edge of space, a Vytar ship discovers life. But it isn’t intelligent. Far from it. This life is microbial, viral, and it infects the explorers. They toss themselves into quarantine. They’re observed, and a shocking discovery is made– this virus?
Not so bad.
In fact, maybe it’s just what they've been looking for.
Soon, Vytarians across the cosmos are lining up to be infected with the virus. Within a century, their entire species are carriers. It jumps between them like the common cold, but they don’t mind. Not at all. Why? Easy. This virus comes with a satisfaction guarantee: biological immortality.
Now there’s a deal.
The trouble is, these Vytar don’t work like humans do. They don’t have sex and make babies and then sleep and then wake up and do it again. No, these Vytar lay eggs. And only certain members of their species lay eggs. And what’s more? They only lay eggs during a specific molting period at the end of their life cycles.
See what I’m getting at?
Biological immortality or laying eggs. Pick one. You can’t have both if you’re the Vytar. But by the time they figure this out, this virus has infected every last colony of their civilization. Unable to reproduce, their population enters freefall. It develops what’s known as an existential crisis, and if there’s one thing civil society hates, it’s dealing with an existential crisis.
Tempers flare.
Emotions run hot.
This brings us to the crux of the Vytarian dilemma. War.
And lots of it.
Worlds erupt into conflict. Galaxies become battlefields, and whole solar systems are laid to ash. If you thought nuclear weapons were bad, then consider what happens when a moon is kicked out of orbit into the surface of a planet. The bloodshed is immeasurable. As the fighting escalates, the stars themselves become weapons. The Vytar discover that if you can just push one toward instability…. Well, boom.
There goes the neighborhood.
These Vytar? Nothing if not creative.
But it’s just this penchant for outside the box problem solving that massacres their species into the low billions. Over a single millenia, the Vytar are swept from an inter-galactic species, to one inhabiting a single world on the edge of space.
Having met their downfall at the hands of their technology, the surviving Vytar turn toward spiritualism. Cults form. Different sects have different beliefs, but one eventually consumes the rest: The Way of the Chosen. The Way promises an end to Vytarian pain.
No more existential crisis.
No more killing.
All the Vytar need to do is open their hearts and minds to a simple three step program:

Show a little pride. We’re the only intelligent life in the universe, so start acting like it!
Persevere. Immortality is our final test. Keep your chin up!
Ascend. Just make it to the heat death of the universe, and you’ll be granted salvation!

Believe it or not, it’s a big hit.
The Vytarians flock to it in droves because it offers what they need– a sense of purpose, and a break from the emotional turmoil that’s consumed them for decades. In a matter of years, The Way becomes the dominant socio-political force across the Vytarian homeworld, bringing the last of the warring factions together.
It’s a beautiful thing.
But what’s the phrase?
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Yeah, that’s it.
Not everybody is a fan of how The Chosen conduct business. But The Chosen make it easy for them– all who disavow their belief system are exiled. It’s for the good of the Vytarians, they say. And maybe they’re right. After all, these are a species of aliens that have seen just what disagreements can lead to.
Fire. Fury. Mass graves and floating corpses in the vacuum of space.
No thank you.
That’s a risk they won’t take.
One of these exiled Vytarians is a scientist. He has no name in the shared memory save for ‘The Heretic,’ and he is both the architect of humanity and the genesis of our greatest threat. In his assessment, the Vytarian extinction is an inevitability. He perceives their current peace as fragile, held up by a corrupt theocracy whose foundations could crumble any moment. Once they do, boom. Back to war. Back to genocide.
It won’t be pretty.
Worse still, when the last of the Vytar perish, so too will the last form of complex intelligence. Their species won’t just die– it’ll be forgotten. The universe will become a barren void, an unconscious minefield of drifting cadavers.
That will be their legacy.
But the Heretic, he’s a mover-and-a-shaker. He’s the sort of individual who likes to solve problems, not create them, and so when he thinks of the Vytarian extinction, when he acknowledges it as a slow-motion inevitability, he isn’t giving up. No, he has a plan. It’s not a great plan, mind you. It’s not even a plan with a high-likelihood of success, and nor, for that matter, is it a plan that’s strictly legal.
But it is a plan.
It goes like this: if the Vytarians are dying out, then something must replace them. There must be intelligent life to take their place, to give warmth to this cold cosmos, and remember their legacy. Since no other intelligent life exists in all the universe, that leaves him a single option.
He’ll just have to make some.
And this Heretic? This mover-and-shaker?
Well, he succeeds.
And really, that’s where this nightmare begins.
_________________________________________________________________________
The helicopter touches down in a clearing that shouldn’t exist.
I step out to find a forest that’s broken, smoldering, one that’s cleaved in two with a cloud of cinders in its wake. This isn’t how I remember this place. Not at all. I remember a wooden bridge over a lazy creek, and tall trees that–
“Mitchell!”
Somebody’s calling my name. Running toward me.
My boss.
Lisa’s got her phone pressed to one ear and her other hand is frantically waving at me. All around us are government personnel, fellow men-in-black types looking equal parts panicked and terrified. Nice to know I’m not alone.
“Mitchell,” Lisa says, breathless. “Finally! Follow me.”
We take a stroll down the newest gully in America. Pieces of splintered metal scatter the ground, and here and there I see techs in hazmat suits brushing dust from the debris. Above us, the moon is being shrouded by a gigantic tarp. They’re extending it across the entire crash-site, likely hoping they can get it up before foreign satellites move into position and stick their noses into our business.
“Looks like a warzone out here,” I say, loosening my tie. Is it hot out, or is my anxiety just turning my body into a furnace? Tough to say.
Either way, Lisa’s not paying attention.
“Understood, sir. I’ll keep you posted with any and all updates as soon as we have them.” She hangs up her phone and turns to me. “Sorry, did you say something, Mitchell? Tonight’s been a nightmare.”
I can imagine.
As we make our way toward the UAP, Lisa tells me the government’s been hounding her for details.
What exactly did we shoot down?
Are we going to war?
She says we’ve probably got three hours until the media wakes up, and then we’ll need to start beating the journalists back with sticks. “This is a fucking disaster,” she tells me, and she reaches into her jacket and grabs a flask. “Whisky?”
I shake my head. “Haven’t touched the stuff for years.”
“Suit yourself.”
Bottom’s up.
She wipes her mouth and shoves the flask back into her jacket, taking the sort of breath you take when you’ve hit your limit. “I should’ve kept on as an accountant,” she says. “I’d still be in bed right now.”
The closer we get to the UAP, the easier it is to see through the haze of smoke. The craft is no longer just a smudge in the distance. Now I can make out its general shape. Its general size. It looks big enough to pass for a stadium, and round enough to sell the illusion.
“A flying saucer,” Lisa says, shaking her head. “You’d think these aliens never heard of a bad cliche.”
We get to the edge of the perimeter and flash our badges. Three soldiers let us through.
“Listen,” Lisa tells me, putting a hand on my shoulder. “Before we go inside this thing, I want you to take a few deep breaths, okay? We’ve had a couple incidents already.”
“Incidents?” I ask.
“Sure. One guy pissed his pants. Another was taking photos of this… corpse in a vat, and he throws up all over the inside– of the vat, not the corpse. Whatever. Point is, he completely fucked the lab team trying to get a sample.” She runs a hand through her hair. Chuckles darkly. “Luckily, there are about a dozen other corpses where that came from, but still. The smell was awful.”
Vats. Corpses. My stomach does a front flip and I almost take a page out of the photographer’s playbook. “So this is the real deal,” I mutter, pretending this whole thing doesn’t feel uncomfortably familiar. “Aliens actually exist, huh?”
“Just wait,” Lisa says, stepping into the dark of the ship. “This next part is gonna blow your mind.”
_________________________________________________________________________
The Heretic creates life in his image, using Earth as his petri dish.
His first lifeforms are what you’d call prototypes. Rough drafts. They’re giant reptiles, dinosaurs, and a scattershot of various traits and biology. They’re a means to discover what works and what doesn’t on the path to evolving complex intelligence. He studies them closely. Then he studies them some more.
But what’s the phrase?
Nothing lasts forever.
Yeah, that’s it.
We’ve covered that the Vytarian are an advanced species. We know that they’re no strangers to space, and we’re well aware that their wars wiped out 99% of their population. But what we haven’t covered, is that some toys are still left-over from those wars.
And The Chosen? They possess almost all of them.
One of these is a fleet of surveillance drones, the sort that drift through the cosmos and ping headquarters if they see something suspect. One of these happens to drift by Earth. Can you guess what happens next?
Images of the Heretic’s well, heresy, are transmitted to The Chosen. Minutes later, he gets a collect call from 40 billion light years away.
What is this, the Chosen High Council asks.
Blasphemer, they condemn.
But the Heretic isn’t shocked by this. He knows that according to The Way, the creation of new lifeforms is the exclusive domain of their deity, The Distant One. He knows that what he’s done is criminal. That maybe it’s also considered an affront against all of existence, and that it’s maybe grounds for execution and inviting the wrath of god upon all Vytarians.
Relax, he tells them.
It’s you or us, they say.
I can explain, he tells them.
Don’t bother, they say.
The line goes dead. The Heretic figures he’s got about a handful of weeks before The Chosen arrive to dish out their justice, so he flees to a neighboring star system. While there, he realizes The Chosen were never aiming for him– only his life’s work. A meteor is propelled into the surface of the earth, and the moment it impacts the planet becomes fire. Six trillion lifeforms scream in momentary agony before turning to ash.
The Heretic weeps.
_________________________________________________________________________
Years pass.
Then centuries.
These turn to millenia, and millenia become eons, and the Heretic decides to risk returning to earth. He wants to find closure for the loss of his creation. He wants to pay his respects. But when he arrives, his sorrow becomes hope. Life, it seems, has survived.
More than that, it has thrived.
Yet this life isn’t the same that he set out to create. No, this life is the biological progeny of tiny balls of fur he created to feed his prototypes. They’re what you and I might call mammals. Except some of these mammals are impressive– they have large brains, opposable thumbs, and what’s more, they look a bit like you and I.
They’re humans. Among the first.
The Heretic is fascinated by these humans. He recognizes they possess complex intelligence, sentience, and a strong sense of adaptability. He observes them as they form social groups, watches as they create the ghosts of language.
Yes, he thinks. This is it. These lifeforms will inherit the universe, and in doing so, immortalize the Vytar in their memories.
But a problem remains. The Chosen.
If they discover the earth is teeming with life, then they’ll circle back and finish the job. This time, they won’t pull punches. The planet will become an asteroid field, and all of its life will be red mist upon the floating rocks.
But what to do?
How to keep humanity alive, to shield it from the overwhelming might of the Vytarian military? It seemed impossible. Equations run through the Heretic’s mind, scenarios infest his thoughts and in not a single one can he fathom succeeding. He has but one spacecraft. No weapons to speak of.
And it occurs to him.
Humans are hardy creatures– adaptable. Given time, they will evolve to reach parity with the Vytarians. Then, their superior numbers could compensate for any gaps in technology. But such a plan hinges upon them getting up to speed, ascending to an evolutionary singularity in which their gains become exponential. He cannot afford to wait millions of years when The Chosen could discover him any day.
No, he’ll need to interfere. Spike the gene pool. Rig the results. He’ll need to give humanity more than a push, he’ll need to throw it down the damn stairs if they have any hope of surviving.
But there’s a way.
Yes, there’s always a way.
He devises a solution called Project Runaway.
It starts by creating a new lifeform. It’s aesthetically identical to a human male, but it’s born from the genetic harvest of thousands of his peers. Each strand of his DNA will be carefully selected for, prioritizing the potential for runaway evolution. Then, these strands will be spliced with Vytarian genes. Not much, but enough to access fragments of the shared memory– the Collective Recall. This will allow the man to gain intuitive understanding of billions of years worth of wisdom. It’ll permit him to think faster. Adapt more quickly.
Then, as this man spreads his genes through the population, his progeny will inherit his DNA. They’ll evolve quicker. Think faster. This is how it works.
This is how humanity inherits the universe.
_________________________________________________________________________
“Watch your step,” Lisa says, stepping into the UAP.
I follow her inside. For a moment, I’m blinded by the glare of industrial work-lamps. Then my senses are assaulted by a cacophony of sound and movement. We’ve entered a hive of activity. Crowds of people buzz around us, some in biohazard suits, others in military camo.
Where we are is a large circular chamber, one surrounded by dark corridors leading to other locations of the ship. Right now, teams are taping those entrances up with plastic wrap. Other teams are setting up perimeters, hanging pieces of paper above archways labeled A through Z.
“You alright, Mitchell?”
“What?”
“Are you alright?” Lisa says, and she’s got her arms folded. She’s looking at me like she thinks I’m about to become her newest headache, maybe piss myself all over the deck.
“I’m fine,” I tell her, forcing a smile. “It’s just a lot to take in, you know? Never been in an alien spaceship before.”
“Sure,” she says, lifting an eyebrow. “Join the club. We’re heading down corridor D to find somebody named Major Luca– I was talking to her a few seconds before you showed up. She said she’s got something to show me. Something big.”
“Spare me the suspense, Lis. What are we after?”
“From the sounds of it? Bodies.”
“Bodies?” I say. “Like those corpses you mentioned, the ones in vats?”
“Not quite. According to Luca, these bodies aren’t exactly… Well, they’re not human. Probably.” She punches my arm, gives me a cheeky smirk. “Relax, Mitchell. The Major confirmed they’re already dead– nothing to be scared of. Let’s go.”
She leads us down the corridor labeled D, and every step I take is worse than the last.
My heart is flying. It’s pounding a million beats a minute. I put on my best poker face, nodding along as Lisa briefs me on the UAP, but internally I’m having a breakdown. It’s taking everything I have not to hyperventilate. The further we get into the spacecraft, the more I’m wondering how much of my dreams were dreams.
The more I wonder if all I am is just some clone with a badge.
“What did the bodies look like?” I ask, clearing my throat. “Did these aliens have scales, and tails…and sort of look like lizards?”
Lisa laughs. “No idea. Luca didn’t give me much of a description, but I’d bet money they were little green men. It’d go with the whole flying saucer motif, don’t you think?”
“Yeah,” I swallow. “Suppose it would.”
She chatters on. This, that, something else. Apparently they’ve got an ironclad alibi to deal with the journalists, something banal enough to keep them far away from the crash site. But I’m too deep in my own thoughts to register what is. I’m too deep remembering all the awful aspects of the dream that wasn’t supposed to be real. I’m remembering him.
The Runaway.
And the more I remember, the more I wish I could forget.
____________________________________________________
The first time the Runway opens his eyes, he’s twenty years old.
He’s laying naked in the jungle, the sun scorching his skin with ultraviolet rays. He sits up. He has no instructions. No guidance. This world is entirely new to him, utterly foreign and in his stomach flutters the first ghosts of adrenaline.
From the outer ring of Saturn, the Heretic watches.
The Runaway rises to his feet. He takes his first shaking, trembling step and stumbles into the grass. He groans. Pain. A new sensation. He gets back up, tries again. It’s harder than it looks, walking when you’ve never done it before, but eventually he gets the picture. For him, it gets easier by the second.
After only an hour, he’s running through the ferns. Climbing trees. And his stomach is screaming.
Food.
He must find food.
But what to eat?
By his third hour alive, the Runaway has learned to forage. By his sixth, he’s consumed enough poisonous berries to floor an elephant, and is writhing on the ground. The poison burns his stomach. It makes his tongue swell and his skin glisten with sweat, but as the seconds become minutes, the agony fades to pain fades to healing.
His body is adapting. His digestive systems are hardening themselves against the poison, and soon, the Runaway rises back to his feet.
Evolution has begun.
As the sun sets, the Runaway collects wild game from crude traps. He has begun subconsciously tapping into the Collective Recall, intuitively teaching himself to skin animals, to make fires, to cook flesh for taste and health.
He is learning.
As the week comes to a close, the Runaway is surrounded. A pack of wolves has been hounding him for days, and now they’ve come to deal with this trespasser upon their territory. They circle him. Their teeth gnash, saliva leaking from their jaws. In their throats is a growl, a threat of death, but the Runaway has learned to handle his fear. Now, it serves him.
His muscles tense. His hands flex in and out of fists, and his eyes follow the beasts as they pad the ground. The large one, he thinks. The large wolf will engage, and the rest will follow. But he doesn’t give it time– he dashes forward, faster than even the wolves can react, and he brings his fist down upon the skull of the largest. The animal is stunned. Dazed. He follows up by grabbing its jaws, and pulling with all of his might.
The other wolves flee. They yelp and they scream as their champion falls to the dirt, dead.
The Runaway dresses himself in its hide.
At the end of the month, the Runaway has evolved to the point he barely needs to eat. Twenty calories a day serve him all that he needs. A handful of berries, and he can operate at peak mental and physical capability. By the close of his second month, he no longer needs to breathe. He fishes hundreds of meters below the surface, fighting off sharks for choice morsels swimming in the deep.
On the anniversary of his birth, the Heretic observes that the Runaway no longer ages. His DNA suffers no damage each time it splits. He has become biologically immortal.
After five years, he transcends humanity. The Runaway is now capable of perceiving individual atoms, and by the sixth year of his life, he can manipulate them. Matter becomes his plaything. The laws of physics become little more than suggestions, and so if he wants to fly, then he does. If he wants to reach into the minds of living creatures, he does that too.
The Runaway has become the most powerful lifeform to ever live. But the Heretic is not concerned.
No, he sees what his creation is. He sees that this anomaly, this Runaway is kind. Empathetic. With each passing year his interest in violence wanes. Before long, the Runaway cuts himself off from humanity altogether, unable to stomach their wonton savagery and thirst for blood. Some have taken to worshiping him. Others, reviling.
To him, they are all the same. Misguided, fearful, and ruled by instincts he has learned to see beyond. These humans may as well be a separate species.
To find respite from this chaos, he meditates. Sometimes he does this at the bottom of the sea. Other times he does this atop high, wind-swept peaks. Anywhere his senses are sufficiently assailed to block out the madness of the world around him.
And it’s while meditating on one of these peaks that the Runaway begins looking to the stars. He wonders if there may be more out there.
Is it possible, he thinks aloud, that there are others like me?
Could I find a companion of my own?
And it’s while he’s pondering these thoughts, while he’s gazing into the deepness of space, that he finds something looking back at him. A lizard. Housed within a strange capsule, floating in the outer rings of a celestial body we know as Saturn.
It is the first time he and his maker lock eyes.
Weeks later, the Runaway’s breached the atmosphere of Earth. A month after that, he’s traversed the solar system and made it to the Heretic’s ship. He’s tapping on the hull. The Heretic welcomes him inside.
“Hello,” the Heretic says, in the ancient tongue of man.
The Runaway peers at him. “Hello…” he says slowly, but it is not in the ancient tongue of man. It is in the low bass of Vytarian. “Your language is… strange… but I believe I can master it. Who are you? Why have you been watching… me?”
The Heretic doesn’t see the point of mincing words. He comes clean about everything– after all, the Runaway is capable of looking into his thoughts. What’s the use of playing coy? He starts with the extinction of the Vytarian people, and ends with humanity’s role as inheritors of the universe, and the Runaway’s role in leading them there.
“Have you any questions?” the Heretic asks.
“Many,” the Runaway tells him. “Above all, why do you fear me?”
“I don’t,” the Heretic says.
“You do. I see it reflected in your thoughts.”
“The fear you see reflected in my thoughts,” the Heretic begins, speaking with careful deliberation, “... it does not belong to me. You are viewing fragments of the Collective Recall, a shared knowledge passed down by my people. You are viewing the beliefs of those of us who remain from the Old War– followers of the Way of the Chosen.”
“These followers,” The Runaway says, his expression twisting with shock and horror. “They think of me as a monster– an abomination!”
“Not exactly,” the Heretic tells him. “Strictly, they do not think of you at all. In order to protect my work, I cut myself off from the Collective sometime ago, so all you’re seeing are faint echoes of their dogma. To them, my work is blasphemy. But yes… I believe that should they learn of you, your vast capabilities would indeed frighten them. They would think you a monster.”
“And to you?” The Runaway asks. “What am I to you?”
The Heretic reaches toward the Runaway, claps his shoulder. He smiles in the human way. “I am a barren lifeform, ravaged by a virus that has stolen the hope of my people. I am unable to achieve my biological imperative. Reproduction is beyond me. You ask me what you are to me? You are my legacy.” He slowly, awkwardly performs the human ritual of embrace, wrapping his arms around the Runaway.
You are my son.
_________________________________________________________________________
I take a breath. It’s brief. Gasping. Gray is standing in front of me, his pupils pulsing, and I’m suddenly aware that his name isn’t Gray it’s Wor. He’s 70 million years old. Not only that, but so is his friend– and his name isn’t Teal, but Kez. They’re both devotees of the Way of the Chosen.
“Did you see?” Wor asks, and he’s no longer using his digital translator. After the thought transference it seems I can understand the Vytarian language, make sense of the various vibrations that previously just seemed like low bass.
“Yes,” I say, leaning forward. “But not everything.” I look up at Wor, and hit him with an accusatory glare. “There’s more to this story, isn’t there? What aren’t you telling me?”
Kez twists his neck to look at us. His pupils are blowing up and shrinking in quick succession– a reaction I now understand to mean I’m pissed. “You have seen enough, human. Prepare for genetic deconstruction and we will be done with this.”
“No!” I exclaim, and I’m surprised to hear my voice rumbling throughout the ship. It’s thunderous. I clear my throat. “No,” I say, and this time my voice is appropriately subdued. Vytarian is apparently a powerful language. “If you want me to jump into a vat and turn into… corpse chili or whatever, then you have to show me it’s worth it.”
The Vytar exchange glances. Wor’s pupils shrink– he’s nervous. Concerned. “To show you more may invite excess unease,” he says. “It was my hope that a brief glance at the history, the origin of everything could provide necessary closure to commence the harvest of your DNA.”
“Look,” I say. “I’ve seen a lot. I know that whatever genetic material you’re grabbing off people is a lot more useful if we’re agreeable. It’s like hunting an animal. Kill it scared, and the meat is tough. It’s a chemical thing– I get that, and I’m telling you that if you show me the rest, I’ll let you do what you need. I’ll play my part.”
“Invalid request,” Kez says. “Such knowledge is beyond your capacity to bear.”
I frown. “It’s him, isn’t it? The Runaway. It’s obvious he’s the source of your fear and this so-called mission to save humanity. Yeah. I might not have all the details, but just looking at your reactions– it’s gotta be. More than that, I can guess you haven’t had much luck dealing with him either.”
Wor and Kez don’t speak a word. Their expressions say everything I need to know.
“The way I figure it,” I continue, getting to my feet and taking a deep breath. “Is that I’m a human too. On some level, I’m like The Runaway, just less… well, terrifying. But maybe there’s something in those visions, something in the Runaway’s actions or his behaviors that only a human could make sense of. Ever think of that? I mean, what if I can help you catch something you’re missing? Isn’t that chance worth taking?”
The Vytar are quiet. They stare at one another for a long while, and their pupils explode in waves of emotion. Kez turns away. He lets out a gruff warble and throws up his arms, cursing Wor and me both.
“What’s his problem?” I ask.
Wor steps forward. He gingerly looks back to his companion, but Kez’s back is turned, hunched over the console in clear disagreement.
“Kez does not wish to harm your mind,” Wor says quietly. “Your story of your sister… this expiring human you call Hope, well, it has moved him. He fears that if I show you the rest of The Runaway’s story it will cause your mind to fracture, shattering your consciousness in such a way that it may not be repaired. There will be no perfect clone. Your sister will find no solace in her dying moments.”
I look at Kez, watch him tap at the console’s controls and I can’t help but feel guilty for judging him so harshly. At the end of the day, he was just looking out for my sister.
But, on the other hand, he also wants to turn me into DNA soup.
“This feels important,” I say to Wor, balling my hands into fists. “If this is really about the fate of humanity, the fate of everything– well, I think Hope would want me to do anything I could to help.” I plaster a weak smile onto my face, trying to hype myself up with fake confidence. “Besides, I can’t imagine it’s that bad, is it?”
Wor places his hands on my temples. Closes his eyes. “You’re right,” he tells me. “You cannot begin to imagine how bad it is.”
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TL;DR - Caught Covid in October 2022. Noticed sleep/tachycardia/anxiety symptoms 3 months in at new job/new apartment. Quit job 6 months in. Symptoms are reappearing despite zero stress environment.
Hello all, thought I'd share what's been going with me the past ~7 months or so and get some community input.
I'll preface everything saying that I definitely did not have a clean bill of health coming in. I've had long lasting nerve pain/burning feet for well over ten years, as well as a myriad laundry list of issues that come and go. I've had generalized anxiety since being a toddler.
I caught COVID late October 2022 at a family dinner. By sheer bad luck this aligned with the start of a new job and it delayed my start date by a few days. My old job, notably, was effectively zero stress. After my first day I drove back home and instantly noticed a cold, uneasy feeling that some people here have described as malaise. For the first 3 months of my job I decided to live and commute out of my parents house as it was marginally closer to work. Only odd, new symptom I noticed was very abrupt mood swing changes in the matter of minutes. Most notably I was sleeping (mostly) well through the night and waking up normally as I've since adolescence.
3 months into my new job I received a reprimand from my supervisor for not being as productive as I could which stressed me out. After that point I was always "thinking" and stressing about work, unable to take my mind off of it. Shortly after I moved into a new apartment. I had lived in this area near this apartment before for a few years during school and quite enjoyed it.
This is where things started going downhill rapidly. The apartment had a lot of noise as it was off a busy avenue. Noise did not bother me at all before in this area, as I routinely kept the windows open. After a week or two of living in this apartment I started waking up with an intense sense of dread and sickness in my stomach and I stopped eating breakfast before work. At work I had a terrible sense of "well-being". Everything felt very cold and "fake" and I felt uneasy. I remember walking around my neighborhood (I had lived here before) and felt derealization/depersonalization. I started sleeping less through the night, sleeping only ~5 hours and feeling unrested. I chalked this up to benadryl, an antihistamine, I had been taking 3-4 times a week for a few years now. I quit the benadryl and suspected I was having withdrawal symptoms. My preexisting burning feet problem was not helping.
Early April I started to contemplate quitting my new job. I started spending the weekends at my parents place, then my last week at my job I started commuting out of my parents place as I did before just so I could be around the comfort/familiarity of loved ones. I started waking up 4-5 times through the night every 90 minutes with my heart racing and anxiety through the roof. I took PTO two days the week before I quit, and remembering standing around in my parents house with my heart pounding through my chest, unable to calm down. Anxiety was 10/10. I contemplated suicide.
I quit my job the next Monday and finally was able to rest with a peace of mind. After a week I started to sleep through the nights again rather soundly. It should be noted I was still waking up with slight tachycardia and dread for most of this period. I started seeing a therapist and chalked this entire episode up as lifelong anxiety I've had since being a toddler. I confronted the fact that my preexisting issues even before COVID probably were connected to a constant tension from anxiety. I started doing lawn care maintenance at a property my parent's owned and Uber driving to keep myself busy and a small form of income coming in.
I gradually improved until this past week. A few days ago after having some caffeine I started to notice some brain fog/head pressure. Best way to describe it was my brain felt "scrambled." Difficult to focus on a task. The tachycardia and sense of dread/unease upon waking started to return. Even shortness of breath. I in a ZERO stress situation at my parents house and am continuing to have symptoms and am suspecting there is a deeper, underlying issues that is not resolved. Does this community have any feedback/second opinions on all this?

While this post will mainly be aimed to find a romantic relationship I'm always looking for more queer friends so if you like what you read, send me a message/chat!
First I want to get out things that have turned even potential friends away and I do understand these circumstances are not for everyone. I am on disability and had to move back in with a parent. I am able bodied and do everything for myself, can drive, etc. I am trying to figure out things I can do from home to supplement my income or hopefully be self sustaining in the future. I'm also a legal medical marijuana patient who currently uses daily but it is not my entire personality.
I am looking for a serious, long term and monogamous relationship. We all have preferences and I am not attracted to masculinity at all, center to fem is what does it for me. I'm 37 and looking for 30-45 year old women. I don't mind going higher in age but absolutely not lower. I am not comfortable posting pictures on here simply for anonymity. But I have no issues sending pictures and have no problems at all if I'm not your cup of tea, we all like what we like. That said I think I'm fairly attractive. As the username suggests I have some greys taking over. I don't label myself, I wouldn't say I'm fem or masc or androgynous. I'm very obviously queer though, I'm sort of hard to describe as far as presentation. I'm 5'6", I lovingly refer to myself as medium chubby, green eyes with long, thick, wavy hair and snake bite piercings. I also have two tattoos, one on my chest and one on my back. I'm white and ask that any other white people who even want to be my friend are working on being anti racist and committed to dismantling white supremacy within themselves.
I have been on a very long healing journey. In the past I have been through lots of therapy and continue to work on myself. I understand that not everyone has access to therapy for a multitude of reasons but I absolutely am looking for someone who also works on themselves and has a strong and growth oriented mindset.
I'm a very straightforward and pragmatic person. I appreciate someone who can also be direct and communicate things well. I've been told I could be a stand up comedian because I'm pretty funny. A little gift from a traumatic childhood. I'm only into monogamy and am loyal to a fault. I'm also a hopeless romantic and very open with my emotions, again looking for the same. Avoidants need not apply. I'm autistic (self diagnosed) and ADHD (diagnosed professionally). I would prefer a neurodivergent partner, I feel even if our way of expressing doesn't line up we understand each other far better. This combination plus my own strong intuition gives me the ability to recognize patterns and read people exceptionally well. This can sometimes be off putting so if you don't like being seen and someone who can possibly tell you things when you have not disclosed them first then I'm definitely not the one for you.
I'm a bit of a contradiction in that I love being a homebody but also need to get out and do new things now and then. I can't stand doing one or the other for too long. My hobbies and interests include hiking, photography, art of all mediums, writing(mostly poetry), nature in general, animals of all species, astrology, tarot, spirituality in general, quantum physics and things like string theory, I also love some conspiracy/creepy pasta stuff for simple entertainment now and then. I am also a dog mom and my little guy is my absolute world.
Overall I'm looking for someone who is open, communicates well, is self aware, can respect boundaries, has cultivated peace, safety and confidence in themselves. I want someone to share this journey with, who doesn't need me or a relationship but wants true, deep connection and intimacy. Someone who will grow with me while we support each other, someone who will add to the happiness I created for myself, someone who wants to achieve but more so wants to experience this thing called life.
I do ask that if you message me to send me plenty of information about who you are as well and what stuck out to you in my post. I don't do well with surface level conversations and small talk. I'd rather someone over share than be too guarded. Also because reddit is full of scammers please verify who you are if you'd like to talk, I will not waste my time.

Ive been lukewarm for ages and more than a month ago I want to give it all in to Jesus. And He revealed to me that He is not in the center of my 6 yr relationship and I agreed. There was no God in me at that time and it was my fault for not mentioning God in that relationship. So when God gave me a sign, he gave me a courage to break up with Him. I felt peace after.. but got emotionally wrecked later on asking did I made the right decision? Like having doubts.
This guy is like the man any girls could asked for. He has everything but there was so God in him. He knows God. He believes in God and raised to a bible school in England. But I did not see him pray, read the bible, go to church throughout the relationship. I mean I also werent reading the bible and everything.
We are long distance, visiting each other whenever we can and plan to move in together when its the right time! So covid events happened and he dont want to get vaccinated and that means he can’t come to USA as all travelers needed to be vaccinated to enter. So i can only visit him in his country even tho im unvaccinated.
So as you can guess i broke up with him over the phone.. it cruel.. but he couldn’t believe we are broken up. So he tried to go doctors and doctors to get an authorization to come here. They (4 doctors) kept rejecting it even tho he was going to pay them some money. So he felt hopeless… He walked down alone by the beach and sat and pray to God. “Lord, if we are meant to be, you’ll get me a doctor to authorize me to come to my girl”
Next day, he went to another doctor and the doctor grant him in seconds. He’s like what? Thats quick.. so yea he came back to my country finally.. and wanted me back. I could see his efforts that he wanted me back and this guy loves me so. I began telling him my journey with God and he’s listening. I began to pray, read bible with him and I see him willing and listening as I share God with him. So i said ill give you a chance… but after he left, weeks later, i broke up with Him again because i was leaning on the sign that God gave me. He came back again and said “i know you’ve hurt me so much but i have a feeling like something tells me to get you back” im heartbroken to see him hurting. So i said ok, ill give us a chance and im tired of hurting him and dont want to hurt him no more. I love him so much so Imma just give him to God. Im like “God, if whatever im doing is wrong, redirect me to the right path. If we are not meant to be together, remove him from my life. But if we are meant to be, may you guide us and may you be the center of our relationship and may you guide us to overcome the distance between us and grant us to live near each other soon. And i pray that you will come to his heart and show your love to him.”

It’s not really important to detail everything of the next few weeks, word did spread that the Walkers were leaving again, of course, there was no way to keep that secret. Packing had to be done, after all, and arrangements for the house had to be made.
There was simply no way to keep our going ‘completely quiet’. So the neighbors started to come by asking questions.
“Should we leave too?”
“Am I going to end up with more bits of shrapnel in my kitchen?”
“Do I need to get more stuff to patch bullet holes?”
“I assume we go to the same hotel as last time, or will it be a different one?”
It was frequent enough that we held another ‘neighborhood barbecue’ where William explained over sizzling meat and a mix of real beer and that abomination to all civilized species ‘non-alcoholic beer’ that, “You are in no danger. We are leaving for a government assignment, but it is not one that puts any of you at anymore risk than yesterday or the day before. I promise, there won’t be any crazy masked gunmen showing up and disturbing the peace.”
William’s reputation was one of truthfulness, and it probably didn’t hurt that making sure the neighbors were safe had been a priority last time.
‘Last time… for the sake of the void… how many shenanigans are we supposed to get involved in?’ I asked myself that question while sipping on a very large ‘wood bottle’. This was a wonderful innovation in alcoholic beverages. Instead of ‘glass’ this ‘wood’ actually added a wonderful earthiness to the beer, making it smoother and far more full bodied than the glass counterpart.
It had its drawbacks, of course, if you didn’t want that added flavor, you had to use glass, but I found it to be positively delectable, if a little ‘thicker’ than my usual preferences.
I had a great fondness for ales, particularly the more ‘aggressive’ ones with an immediate sort of bite to them. They weren’t to be ‘chugged’ like the bland and fizzy ones that had all the kick of a sleeping toddler. No, no, these powerful ones were meant to be ‘swigged’. You take one big swig at a time, savor the richness, the full flavor, the taste, and the feel of it going down.
It’s about here I should mention that ‘beer clubs’ and ‘bourbon buddies’ were starting to gain popularity among dlamisa.
It began with the Ballyball League of Earth and Dlamias. As part of their training for the sport, teams ‘ran’ a great deal, and they learned of an ancient Earth organization that survived through the centuries called the Hash House Harriers, ‘drinkers with a running problem’ as they are popularly known.
These organizations around the world would lay out trails and follow them in search of alcohol at various stopping points. They would drink together and have a grand old time, and be rather intoxicated by the end of it all. From this my people innovated various ‘fan clubs’ for certain alcohol organizations that would sponsor their runs in exchange for filming their gatherings.
Naturally I set up a few gambling options for people to bet on my players during training, but out of these grew specific off-field rivalries which were now starting to spread to my home world, usually run out of coffee establishments.
This might be the thing that made someone decide to put me at risk. I will probably never know the answer to that one.
It didn’t matter. Not really.
I was standing there among my friends, family, neighbors, with warmth and welcome, with the smell of good food cooking and people wishing me well on my ‘business trip’ and I knew I was doing the right thing.
This was the reason, this was the point of it all, to bring ‘this’ not just to me, but to everybody.
Every drop of blood that spread in my arena, every credit that flowed into my exponentially growing cooperative organization… all of it was serving this single purpose. ‘I will see my will done. I will bring it all down.’ I vowed and took another swig from my bottle. Latunde was telling a joke, and I huffed politely.
A good man, a good neighbor. And a surprisingly good actor considering he ran a feed store, his pretend police situation when we were making our evacuation a few years ago was really well done.
But I couldn’t pay attention to jokes right then.
I went back into the house and up to Fauve’s room. I knocked, “Come in.” She answered.
I expected this, she was never particularly social, and didn’t care for large gatherings of people. I still wasn’t the biggest fan of those, but…alcohol makes everything much easier.
“Hi.” I said, poking my head in without entering. “How are you?”
She was seated at her terminal, pounding away at ‘nothing’. But she had a virtual headset on so there was ‘something’ to her.
“Fine. I’m just taking care of some things. Writing out some notes, researching the Praeda species that we’re going to meet, writing my will, breaking up with my girlfriend, the usual sort of thing that happens every…single…time I think life is going to finally come out of warp and let us relax.” She said it with such deadpan humor that I almost missed it.
“I’m sorry.” I said and slipped into the room, closing the door behind me, I went and sat down on her bed.
“For what? You didn’t do anything wrong.” Fauve answered, though she didn’t take her attention off her work. “This is just more of the usual, and if anybody is to blame, it’s me. I could have faded into the background. I could have just let everything go back to normal. I could have just shut my mouth after everything was over the first time… but no. I didn’t. I didn’t and now I can’t have a moment’s peace or normalcy. I had to be media personality, a speaker, a filmmaker a….” She trailed off and slapped her palms down on the desk. “I did this to myself. Now I’m going to be alone again because I just can’t say no. Michael is going to lose years with his friends. You’re being thrown back into god knows what, mom and dad are… no, they’re fine, to them this will be a vacation, if anything.” She sighed.
“My point is, Bailey, you don’t have anything to apologize for. I’m just, I’m stressed out a little.” Fauve said to me and I swallowed hard and nodded.
“I know what you mean.” I said, I chose not to mention the pseudo-attempt on my life, but added, “This is a disruption to my life too, and… a lot of things are going to change, even if things go well, maybe ‘especially’ if they do.” I got up and went to put my hand on her shoulder.
Fauve leaned back, rocking her chair so that it hit my waist, her head was against my fur, “And I don’t think I did anything wrong here but… I’m sorry that things aren’t as easy for you as you deserve. I mean that.” I promised.
She cracked a smile beneath her headset.
“Yeah, yeah, well it’s not like space is boring. No human has ever been out that far before, so we get to be a first… but even so? I’m tired of having to end relationships over work. It happened with Halbert, it happened with… wait… has it ever not happened that way?” Fauve stopped and thought that over.
I wasn’t surprised she referenced her first romantic interest. Humans tend to template all later relationships on the basis of their earlier ones, and Fauve tended to be hyperfocusd on what she was engaged in at any given moment, so I wasn’t surprised that she would never have really looked at how something over ‘played out’ in the end. Not until she had a reason to.
“Wow… yeah… everything always ended because of something work related… if not mine, then theirs. Damn.” She sighed as that understanding hit home.
Humans have in my observations, a tendency to blind themselves to what is happening, they don’t always see underlying causes for what goes awry in their lives, and as such they may miss patterns that will not be missed by other species. It makes them interesting to be around, at least.
“I’m taking a long vacation when I get back.” She promised herself and slumped. “Maybe I should sell the rights to that game series and turn my attention to something new… I…” Fauve shook her head, “Bailey, do you think it’s possible to be too career focused?”
I squeezed my hand on her shoulder a little nad cocked my head. “You’re asking me that question? Fauve, I came here on a fifty year doctoral program, I’m the last person you should ask that question.”
She was quiet for a moment before she quipped, “Alright, that’s fair. But after this is over, I’m definitely taking a break. Maybe I’ll just rewrite this breakup note and explain that because of work that we need to ‘go on a break’ no questions asked after I get back.”
It was of course possible that the other person would ‘move on’ and there was nothing to come back to when Fauve did return, however this did leave the possibility open at least. “I think that’s wise.” I said with a gentle voice.
“You should invite them to Waterland Park with everybody else.” I suggested, but Fauve shook her head.
“No. No. I have to face this one on my own. If I can walk in there and walk past that place without a problem, on my own, I can finally put the last bit of that bastard behind me.” She said it with such iron resolve that it was hard for me to imagine she wouldn’t be able to do it.
“You won’t be alone, you know that.” I reminded her.
She smiled again.
“That’s not quite what I mean, Bailey… but thank you. I still have some work to do here, but, would you be a friend and bring me a beer while I finish this up… and maybe a hamburger?” She asked.
“Sure thing, Fauve.” I said, and left her room again.

Zersetzung is a psychological warfare tactic developed by the East German Stasi Secret Police to nuetralize dissidents used by cults such as the KKK, Mormons, Scientology, Freemasons, COINTELPRO, and CIA, FBI, NSA through Fusion Centers using Sattelite Squadron (SS) for electronic harassment and police, Infragard, and Citizens Corps (neighborhood watch) for organized stalking. Scientology calls it Fair Game and Freemasons call it Slow Dagger and sometimes do it to bloodlines for Masonic revenge. Freemasons are widespread in the CIA and USFIVEYES and are a police fraternity tied to the program.

This subreddit has been an amazing resource for my solo trip prep over the last few months so now it's my turn to give back. I did not have a set budget in mind since I save diligently for my trips. I am fairly well-traveled, a late 30s, solo traveler. This was my first time in Japan and my goals were a mixture of eating, exploring history, enjoying some theme parks, and enjoying experiences that only Japan could offer.
Total USD Spend: 17 days (2 travel days) came out to about $4200 USD total: * Flight: $1050 * Accommodations: $1400 * Food and Snacks: $1000 * Transportation (IC card, buses, trains): $250 * Theme Park & Novelty Experiences: $400 * Misc (souvenirs, shopping): $200 I typically budget out about $5K USD for my trips and Japan was definitely on the higher side of the budget, but again, I splurged on some fantastic restaurants, premiere entry at Universal Studios Osaka, along with numerous day trips. As others have mentioned here, I also averaged between 25K-30K steps a day. I’m in decent shape but walking 10-15 miles everyday definitely took its toll and my body shut down for a day.
Day 0: Landed in Osaka in the late afternoon and ended up wandering Dotonbori for a few hours since my hotel was located a block away. Ended up eating some very mediocre ramen at a stand in Dotonbori which was pretty disappointing, but the carbs were enough to knock me out. Day 1: Woke up early to walk around Dontobori at 5am and then headed out to few unique temples, including Namba Yasaka Jinja. Hopped onto the subway to enter Ueno Sky Tower, and overall, it was meh, I didn’t stay long just taking a few pictures and walked around Ueno for a few hours before heading to the Pokemon Cafe in Shinsaibashi. As others have noted, the food was very mediocre, but it was a fun experience nonetheless. Spent the rest of the evening getting drinks in Dotonbori before calling it a night.
Day 2: A full day at Universal Studios Japan to experience Super Nintendo World. I splurged on the express passes that gave me full access to a bunch of rides. SNW is pretty fucking awesome and I had a blast riding the Yoshi and Mario Kart rides, all the while taking taking in the atmosphere. The premiere pass also gave me access to a few additional rides including Harry Potter, Doraemon VR, and Jurassic Park. Had a late dinner at Kyushu Ramen getting their famous chashu ramen and it did not disappoint.
Day 3: Spent most of the day exploring Kuromon Ichiba Market, the local malls, and Dotonbori trying some street food. Went back to my hotel room and just relaxed for the rest of the day since jet lag was still bothering me. Watched some sumo matches on random Japanese tv before calling it a night.
Day 4: Took a day trip to Himeji to see the Himeji Castle. What a fantastic piece of history! I spent hours just taking in the sites and the nearby garden also highly recommended. Afterward, I had my first taste of Kobe beef in the form of a beef bowl at Kushiyaki Kobe Beef. Fantastic little hole-in-the-wall place with some really nice people working the counter. Took the train from Himeji directly to Nara where I was planning to stay the night. Day 5: Spent the entire day playing with the thousands of deer and checking out some local temples, including Todai-ji. I didn't do anything in Nara that hadn't been mentioned enough times here, but as others have said, a day trip or one day is more than enough time in the area. Took a late train to Kyoto. Day 6: Woke up in the early morning to beat the crowds to enjoy Fushimi Inari. Hiked the entire loop (about 2-3 hours) with only a fraction of the crowds, enjoyed some macha soft serve at the peak of the hill, and took my time going back down right rwhen the army of tourists and tour groups arrived. Grabbed an overly expensive Kobe beef stick from one of the food stalls by the temple gates and then spent an hour at a cute coffee shop called Rickshaw Cafe just people watching before grabbing an early dinner at Ramen Sen-no-Kaze. The food was solid, but it took 90 minutes to get a table. Not worth it and in hindsight I would have left.
Day 7: Woke up early again to check out the highly overrated Arashimyama bamboo forest. It was pretty underwhelming, but I did get a few nice photos before the crowds arrived. Strolled through the park and really enjoyed walking along the Katsura River seeing the catfish waiting to be fed and seeing the fishing boats tied up. A very tranquil place. After the nice long stroll, I walked back-and-forth the Togetsukyo Bridge and Kimono Forest (meh). The highlight of the morning was really Tenryu-Ji and the amazing zen garden. After a few hours taking in the peacefulness and silence, took the city bus to Kinkaku-ji, and the crowds were in full swing. Still totally worth seeing in person although it didn’t last very long. Day 8: A full day experiencing the Philosopher’s Path on a gorgeous sunny day. Too sunny since I got some pretty bad sunburns! I visited too many amazing temples, including Kiyomizo-dera, along with old Gion, although I thought the area was bit overhyped. I preferred the smaller, more peaceful temples away from the mass of tourists. Some of my favorites during my day exploring old Kyoto included Eikan-do, a more secluded temple up in the hills, Nanzen-Ji, with its beautiful aqueduct, and just walking the streets aimlessly for a few hours. Went to Nishiki Market and ate some amazing oysters at Daiyasu. If you love oysters, this is the spot to try it! Spent too much money on oysters and decided to go cheap and ate at Kura Sushi. The food was mediocre by Japanese standards, but blows away the quality and cost of the Kura Sushi restaurants in my hometown of Los Angeles.
Day 9: Took an early morning train to Kanazawa. Enjoyed my first ekiben while taking in the sights from the comfort of the Thunderbird Limited Express. Spent the rest of the day visiting the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art (meh) and Kenrou-ken, probably the most beautiful garden in the Kanda province. Wrapped up the day by visiting the D.T Suzuki Museum and wow, the tranquil pool area was amazing. Do yourself a favor and stand on the corner and just stare at the water. You’ll feel like the entire world is moving along on a plane and you’re the one that is frozen in place. It was pretty trippy. Ate well at Mori More Sushi Omicho and stopped by the Pokemon Center to pick up the exclusive Pikachu Kimono figure only available in the Kanazawa store.
Day 10: Torrential rain the entire day but I powered throughit with my trusty umbrella. Enjoyed breakfast and snacks at the Omicho Market, enjoying a tuna-don at one of the stalls, fresh uni, and more oysters. Not cheap but fresh! Walked around the Higashi Chaya District, doing a bit of window shopping and ate some gold leaf macha soft serve at Kaikaro, spending more time people watching. Walked around the Kanazawa Castle Park in all its empty glory as well as the Oyama Shrine. The castle was pretty underwhelming esp. after seeing Himeji so I probably would have skipped it in hindsight. Wrapped up the day visiting the Naga-machi District, probably my favorite part of Kanazawa. Had more sushi at Sushi Rekireki Omicho, an enjoyable omakase.
Day 11: Took the Shinkansen to Tokyo eating the most expensive ekiban I could find, and spent the rest of the entire day in Asakusa in Tokyo. Walked around Senso-ji, had a few beers in Hoppy Street, and finally tried Ichiran. Called it an early day since I would be doing DisneySea in the early morning.
Day 12: Took the express bus from Tokyo Skytree to DisneySea. Thanks to the early forecast of rain, the park was barely 50% full? The longest wait for most rides was under 20 minutes so I was lucky enough to ride everything at least once. My meals consisted of a bunch of unique Dsney parki food: gyoza hot dogs, alien mochi, Mike watermelon bread, etc. Stayed until the fireworks and went straight back to the hotel and crashed. That was a 40K step day!
Day 13: Visited Akihabara, spending way too much money on crane games, browsing retro games, and looking at figures. Headed to Shibuya to eat breakfast for lunch at A Happy Pancake (meh). Went to the Nintendo Store in the PARCO mall, only to be disappointed to find out that all of the Nintendo World store t-shirts were sold out. Actually everything semi-interesting was sold out. Went up to Shibuya Sky to watch the sunset, spending a few hours just watching the day slowly turn into night. Did the Scramble a few times and then headed to Shinjuku where I’d be located for the last few days.
Day 14: Another torrential rainstorm sadly ruined my plans of visiting Shinjuku Gyoen, Meiji Jingo, and Harajuku. Maybe next time. I was hoping to buy Tokyo Giants tickets but they were all sold out so I ended up going to the Tokyo National Museum. I won’t lie, I was pretty bored, and in hindsight I wish I went to the neighboring National Museum of Nature and Science instead. After strolling Ueno Park in the rain, I was craving tonkatsu and googled Tonkatsu Yamabe. Good decision as it was the best tonkatsu I had in Tokyo. Went to a nearby Taito Game Station wasting more money on crane games before heading back to Shinjuku. The area is insane and in hindsight, I would probably pick somewhere like Shibuya or Ueno, somewhere slightly more chill. Day 15: One of my favorite days in Tokyo! Teamlabs Planets lives up to the hype but ONLY if you can get first admission at 9am. It was glorious to be among the first people in the exhibits as I could take in experience the way it was intended. There were only a few people in each room giving each space such a great, peaceful, and chill vibe. Headed to Ginza to the Michelin-rated Sushi Toyama, where I had a chance to finally experience bluefin toro (worth it!). Probably the most expensive lunch ever but it was quite the experience. A sunny and beautiful day, I bought a bunch of souvenirs and clothes (a 12-story Uniqlo with its own coffee shop, Muji Ginza, Ginza Six), checked out my favorite Toy Story in Japan, Hakuhinkan Toy Park, intricate stationary stores like Itoya, and went to a very popular Ginza Starbucks to people watch. Spent the evening in Shinjuku exploring Golden Gai getting swarmed by Nigerian dudes. Wanted to try a hole-in-wall ramen spot in the area but the line was stupid long so I ended up just going to Kyushu Ramen and was satisfied enough. A good day.
Day 16: With the break in clouds the day before, I decided to call an audible and set up a last minute day trip to Mount Fuji. Took an express bus from Shinjuku to Fushiyoshida and got dropped off in front of Chureito Pagoda. It was cloudy for most of the day, but for the last several hours I saw Mount Fuji in all its glory. It was a gray day but no complaints — it was nice to cross another bucket list item from the list.
Wow, this was much longer than I anticipated. Well if you got this far, feel free to ask any questions! In the meantime, I'll be planning my next trip to Japan soon!

Company Name	Title	City
Keefe's	Lead HVAC Installer	Harvey
Keefe's	HVAC Service Technician	Harvey
Solar Alternatives	Journeyman Electrician	New Orleans
Solar Alternatives	Solar Installer	New Orleans
Solar Alternatives	Journeyman Electrician	Shreveport
Rapides Regional Medical Center	Registered Nurse Labor and Delivery	Alexandria
Houston Methodist Hospital	Registered Nurse (RN)	Baton Rouge
Houston Methodist Hospital	RN	Baton Rouge
Houston Methodist Hospital	Registered Nurse (RN) - Relocate to Houston	Chalmette
Houston Methodist Hospital	RN	Chalmette
Houston Methodist Hospital	Registered Nurse (RN)	Chalmette
Houston Methodist Hospital	RN	Gretna
Houston Methodist Hospital	Registered Nurse (RN)	Gretna
Houston Methodist Hospital	Registered Nurse (RN) - Relocate to Houston	Gretna
Houston Methodist Hospital	Registered Nurse (RN) - Relocate to Houston	Houma
Houston Methodist Hospital	Registered Nurse (RN)	Kenner
Houston Methodist Hospital	Registered Nurse (RN) - Relocate to Houston	Kenner
Houston Methodist Hospital	RN	Kenner
Transdevna	Operator - Paratransit FT	Laplace
Houston Methodist Hospital	Registered Nurse (RN) - Relocate to Houston	Luling
Louisiana Restaurant Association	Catering Worker	METAIRIE
Louisiana Restaurant Association	Trade Show Manager	METAIRIE
Louisiana Restaurant Association	Event Manager	METAIRIE
Houston Methodist Hospital	Registered Nurse (RN) - Relocate to Houston	Monroe
Houston Methodist Hospital	Registered Nurse (RN) - Relocate to Houston	New Orleans

Hey guys, here are some recent job openings in la. Feel free to comment here or send me a private message if you have any questions, I'm at the community's disposal! If you encounter any problems with any of these job openings please let me know that I will modify the table accordingly. Thanks!

Hi everyone I’m new here! I just started this show a few weeks ago and since then have not known peace 😂 I binged season 1-3 til like 3 am every night. I love Claire and Jamie, especially in season 1. I’m up to season 5 now and although I’m happy they’re reunited, I find myself missing when the storylines were more centered around Claire and Jamie’s romance. I get it - they’re older now and their love has grown into something deeper… but I still really miss the whole romance aspect of it. Does the rest of the show just carry on like this, not really centered around their relationship anymore? I still like the show… but it’s not hitting the way the earlier seasons did for me.

The time has come to try to unload my entire collection, I've been selling on here for a few years and am an experienced seller and I would love to get these awesome records to some people who will love and appreciate them! Everything is VG+ and well cared for. I will give you a better price for the more you buy! $5 shipping on all orders, US only.
Adventures- Adventures 7"-Pale Yellow-$10
Adventures-Clear My Head With You-Blue-$10
Adventures/Pity Sex Split-Red W/ Blue Color in Color-$10
Adventures/Run Forever Split-Red/ Light Blue-$10
Aeon Station-Observatory-Blue-$15
Alkaline Trio- Maybe I'll Catch Fire-Transparent Orange-$30
American Pleasure Club- A Whole Fucking Lifetime Of This-Purple/Blue-$30
Antarctigo Vespucci- Essential Antarctigo Vespucci Vol.1- Gold-$15
The Appleseed Cast- Low Level Owl: Vol 1 + 2-Jungle Swirl-$50
Archers Of Loaf- Icky Mettle-Blue-$25
Archers Of Loaf-White Trash Heroes- White-$25
Atmosphere- Overcast EP-$14
Balance and Composure-The Things We Think We're Missing-Yellow/Black Haze-$60
Balance and Composure- Light We Made-Flesh- $30
Basement-I Wish I Could Stay Here-Gold-$18
Beach Slang- A Loud Bash Of Teenage Feelings-Blue Starburst-$10
Beach Slang- The Deadbeat Bang Of Heartbeat City- Red-$10
Beach Slang- Cheap Thrills On A Dead End Street- Orange-$15
Beach Slang- MPLS-$5
Beach Slang- Skyway/Old Orchard Beach-$20
Beach Slang- Who Would Ever Want Anything So Broken?-$10
The Beatles- Abbey Road- $20
The Beatles- Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band-Anniversary Edition-$30
Bedhead-Transaction De Novo-$30
Better Oblivion Community Center-Better Oblivion Community Center-Yellow-$50
Big Bite-Big Bite-$15
Big Thief- Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You-Random Color Eco Mix-$35
Black Country New Road-For The First Time-Translucent Blue-$40
Black Country New Road-Ants From Up There-Deluxe Edition-$40
Blonde Redhead- Fake Can Be Just As Good-$14
Boris- Akum No Uta- $20
David Bowie- Space Oddity- $25
David Bowie-Hunky Dory-$30
David Bowie- Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars-$30
David Bowie- Station To Station- $25-SOLD
David Bowie-Lodger- $25
David Bowie- Blackstar-$30
Bright Eyes- Fevers And Mirrors-$25
Bright Eyes- I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning-$30
Broken Social Scene- Broken Social Scene-Clear W/ Red-$50
Bugg- Bugg-Green- $30
Coma Cinema- Loss Memory- $50
John Coltrane- A Love Supreme- Impulse Orange- $15
Converge- All We Love We Leave Behind- Pink/Purple Mix-$50
Mat Cothran- My First Love Mends My Final Days-$40
Crash Of Rhinos-Knots-$30
Cymbals Eat Guitars- Why There Are Mountains- $15
Cymbals Eat Guitars- Pretty Years-Smoke-$25
Daniel Johnston- Fun- $15
Daylight- Dispirit-Yellow Starburst-$20
Daylight- Run For Cover Acoustic Series #3- $10
Deafheaven- New Bermuda-$15
Deafheaven- Sunbather-Yellow/Pink-$25
Kevin Devine-Brothers Blood-$20
Kevin Devine- Make The Clocks Move-Clear Brown- $50
Kevin Devine- Instigator- Red-$15
Kevin Devine- Bubblegum- Clear-$15
DIIV-Oshin-Purple-$30
DIIV- Is The Is Are- Captured Tracks Special Edition- $30
Dinosaur Jr.- Bug- $15
Dinosaur Jr. - Farm- $25
The Districts- Telephone-$15
Dogleg- Melee- Red W/ Blue and White Splatter-$70
Donovan Wolfington- How To Treat The Ones You Love-Clear- $15
Donovan Wolfington- Waves- Pink-$15
Drug Church- Cheer-Red in Beer- $70
Drug Church- Drug Church 7"- White No Sleep Subscription- $20
Drug Church- Party at Dead Man's 7"- $10
Drug Church- Paul Walker-Orange- $40
Drug Church- Swell- Clear W/ Green Haze- $25
Elliott Smith- Alternate Versions From EitheOr 7"- $10
Elliott Smith - EitheOr-$50
Elliott Smith-Elliott Smith-$35
Elliott Smith- Elliott Smith Alternate Versions- $20
Elliott Smith- New Moon-$25
Elliott Smith- Pretty (Ugly Before) 7"- Blue/White-$15
Elliott Smith-XO-Hazel Black Smoke- $100
Elvis Depressedly- Depressedelica-Black and White Galaxy-$25
Elvis Depressedly- Holo Pleasures/ California Dreamin'-Baby Blue in Bone-$20
Elvis Depressedly- New Alhambra-Purple Starburst-$15
Empire! Empire!-What It Takes To Move Forward- Sea Blue/Bone Red/ Bone-$100
Father John Misty- Fear Fun-$15
The Fall Of Troy- Doppelganger-$50
Field Medic-Fade Into The Dawn-Oxblood In Clear- $20
Field Medic-Floral Prince- Red- $40
Fucked Up- David Comes To Life - Yellow- $15
Fucked Up- Year Of The Horse- Gold-$15
Girls- Father, Son, Holy Ghost-$50
Gouge Away- Burnt Sugar-$20
Gulch- Impenetrable Cerebral Fortress- Cyan & Mustard Pinwheel w/ Purple Splatter-$50
Happy Diving- Electric Soul Unity- $20
Hot Snakes-Suicide Invoice-Yellow-$15
Hot Snakes- Audit In Progress-Pink-$15
The Hotelier- Goodness- Fawn & Field-$30
Interpol- Turn On The Bright Lights- 10th Anniversary Edition-$80
Jim James- Regions of Light And Sound Of God- Autographed Test Pressing- $150
Jay Reatard- Matador Singles '08-$15
Julia Brown- An Abundance Of Strawberries- Red- $15
Julia Brown- Library b/w I Wanna Be A Witch 7"- $25
King Tuff- The Other- Rainbow Marble- $15
Knot- Knot- Red-$15
Leatherface-Horsebox- $40
Colonel Les Claypool's Fearless Flying Frog Brigade- Live Frogs- Green- $40
Manchester Orchestra- A Black Mile To The Surface- Clear W/ Black Smoke- $80
Manchester Orchestra - Cope- $15
Margot & The Nuclear So & So's- Not Animal- Pink- $100
The Mars Volta- Deloused in The Comatorium-Sealed 2021 Repress- $40
The Mars Volta- Frances The Mute-Sealed 2021 Repress- $50
Melvins- Eggnog + Lice-All- $20-SOLD
Melvins- Gluey Porch Treatments- Green-$15-SOLD
Melvins- Hostile Ambient Takeover-Pink- $15
Melvins- Nude With Boots- Red-$15
The Menzingers- Chamberlain Waits- $15
The Menzingers- After The Party- Red-$40
The Menzingers- On The Impossible Past-Summer Sky Wave -$40
Mil-Spec- World House-$15
Modern Baseball Holy Ghost- Yellow- $15
Modern Baseball- Sports- Clear-$40
Thelonious Monk-Underground- 2014 ORG Pressing /2000- $50
Night School- Blush- Yellow- $15
Night School - Disappear Here- $12
Old Gray- An Autobiography- Half Pink/ Half Yellow-$60
The Orwells- Disgraceland- $20
The Orwells- Terrible Human Beings- $20
Ovlov-Am- Clear-$50
Ovlov-Tru-$30
Ovlov- Buds- Clear-$30
Ovlov- Greatest Hits Vol.II- $20
Parquet Courts- Content Nausea- $40
Parquet Courts- Light Up Gold- Pink- $30
Parquet Courts- Sunbathing Animal -W/ 7"- $40
Parquet Courts- Wide Awake! - Blue- $50
Pedro The Lion- Control- Yellow- $15
Posture & The Grizzly- I Am Satan- Green/ Milky clear split W/ Splatter- $50
Primus- Frizzle Fry- $Yellow- $45
Primus- Sailing The Seas Of Cheese- $35
The Residents- Eskimo- Clear W Black Swirl- $20
The Residents-Meet The Residents- Lime Green- $30
Rival Schools- United By Fate-$50
Saba- Care For Me-VMP- $40
SALEM-King Knight-Clear w/ Purple Splatter-$50
The Sidekicks- Awkward Breeds- Copper-$50
Sleep- Dopesmoker- Green hazy Translucent-$40
Slowdive- Slowdive- Silver-$20
Tiny Moving Parts- Pleasant Living- Red/ Orange- $40
Told Slant- Still Water- White- $30
Touche Amore- Parting The Sea Between Brightness and Me- Clear Family & Friends Pressing- $80
Turning Point- 1988-1991- Yellow- $50
Turnover- Peripheral Vision- Milky Clea Sea Blue- $50
Valium Aggelein- Silver in Clear-$50
Wavves- Afraid Of Heights- Purple-$70
Wavves- V- Purple- $50
Whirr- Around- Clear w Black Splater W/ Die Cut cover- $$35
Whirr- Distressor EP- Grey W/ Blue & White Splatter- $35
Whirr-Pipe Dreams Redux- Blue-$50
Whirr-Feels Like You- Purple Smoke $250
Yndi Halda- Enjoy Eternal Bliss- Random Color- $40

Im looking for recommendations on a jogging/all terrain stroller that: • folds down - and is somewhat compact folded •has an adjustable backrest •extra padding of any kind would be great (he has epilepsy) •5 point harness •preferably no cup holder or tray for him (from his last jogging stroller - it just got in the way more than it was useful) •weight capacity: 75 pound minimum Would be for everything - outside/inside: hospitals, parks, play centers, aquariums… everything. I was looking at the Joovy Zoom360 Ultralight Jogging Stroller, but it’s a couple hundred over my budget - so If I’m going to commit I want to know everything about it. My son (3 y/o) has starting independently walking but for the most part he still relies on us to carry him everywhere. At his last ortho appointment we were in and out (there for maybe 25mins max) I carried him the whole way, wrangled him in the waiting room & in the doctors office. Which resulted in the entire right side of my body to scream from pain for days.. (also discovered a pinched nerve in my back 2 days later) He is huge, 40 pounds and the height of a 4 and a half year old. I can’t do it anymore… I’m not strong enough to do it anymore, even my partner and my sons dad are having difficulty carrying him. After he outgrew his last stroller we moved to a wagon - which was great for where we lived at the time, we walked everywhere. But we have since moved and would have to cross 2 different sections of the highway to get anywhere worth walking to (park, splash pad etc.) we’ve only used it on the same 4 streets since we moved in January… even though it folds down its just too big to transport in the car. He loves his wagon and going for “wagon rides” around the neighborhood but it’s just not practical anymore.