For those who don't taste the soapiness, how would you describe cilantro flavor? It tastes like straight up Dawn dish soap to me.
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The enclosure he is in came with the snake when i got him from my friend, didnt realize he used masking tape to keep the thermometer secured to the bottom for the heat pad on the hot side and now that strip is stuck to the underside of my ball python. I was going to use some warm water with a tiny drop or two of dawn dish soap(the blue soap with the duckling on it) in it and use some qtips to gently start working the tape off of him instead of trying to peel it off and potentially damaging his scales or causing a tear. Has anyone else had to do this? And if so is dawn dish soap okay to use when diluted into water like that?

Reading others' stories here really helped me so posting mine in case it helps anyone. 😊
TL;DR
Scheduling the snip took awhile.
The actual procedure was about 30 min. The worst part was the numbing shots about a 7 on the pain scale for 5-10 seconds then all was fine.
Recovery has been pretty smooth 3 days in. Little "zings" of pain randomly but they pass quickly. Considering I was cut open, seems legit.
What worked for me was diligently taking the tylenol every 6 hours, doing the ice on/off every 30 min, and holding my balls all the time (on or over the toilet, in the shower, changing clothes).
Lots more detail below for those who want it and happy to answer questions or give more for those looking. This sub really helped me and I want to pay it forward as best I can. 😊
DETAILS
Doc consult took about 4 months. 30 min in the office. Made sure I knew it was permanent. I'd made the appt for the procedure at the same time which was about 8 months out (I think a state law required 30 or 60 days to pass from the consult to the snip).
PREP
I got easy snacks and microwaveable food. I cleaned my bathrooms and did all my laundry before my snip. I put food on the counter so I wouldn't need to bend over and got paper plates, bowls, and plastic utensils so no dishes.
Also got frozen peas which I split into ziploc bags (thanks to someone's suggestion). Numbered them 1, 2, 3 for tracking rotation.
I got a 2 pack of McDavid supporter straps which I washed and took to the surgery (can't paste the link in this post for some reason but will try to add in a comment). Those ended up being my go-to.
I bought a pack of one-size down boxer briefs from target to wear over the strap and hold the peas in place (also thanks to this sub). Needed a small thin washcloth to cover my legs from the peas.
I shaved my sack the morning before. Used a fresh razor and shaving cream. Took my time.
Got 3 clean pillows down on the coffee table at the TV to keep my legs elevated.
SURGERY
I brought a bag with the strap and a few pairs of boxer briefs but ended up only wearing the strap and my shorts out of the office. The doc put a bunch of gauze around my balls and the strap held it in place.
My partner wasn't allowed in (others had theirs allowed). I could have one earbud in with music.
Nurse stepped out I took off everything but my shirt and covered with a sheet. She came back in and got me prepped. I was laying flat. No stirrups I was flat on the table. She put something on my left hip and coated my whole crotch with some numbing gel or something. I stared at the ceiling for the whole time or had my eyes closed taking deep breaths.
Doc came in and did a little more to my balls which I couldn't feel, then said "big stick" and gave me the numbing shot. This was the worst part. About a 7 on the pain scale and lasted about 5 seconds. The rest was them quietly working except my music and didn't feel any pain on the right side.
Same thing left side needed another shot. Ow. It sucked but not unbearable. I did feel a tiny bit on the left side but not like the shot didn't work. I didn't have them stop it was just distantly uncomfortable.
After maybe 30 min I was done. I had a KN94 mask and was taking deep mouth breaths to calm myself and breathe through the experience and never smelled the burning smell others mentioned. Doc gently coated everything in some liquid and a bunch of gauze then stepped out. Nurse had me sit up slowly and check I wouldn't pass out, then I got the strap on gently over the gauze and got dressed and after one last visit from the doc with instructions I waddled out and my partner drove me home.
Overall the surgery was uncomfortable and definitely hurt with the shots, but not terrible.
POST OP
I'm on day 3, about 56 hours post op. Minimal discomfort. Mostly (and surprisingly) no major pain so far. I was super careful when I had to pee to only fold down the top of the strap and hold my balls with one hand and just getting my cock out enough to go. I didn't shake or pull like usual - used toilet paper to dab the extra.
I've been super diligent with the icing and keeping my feet up. I'm fortunate to have the kids at mom's and my partner helping me at home rotate the peas and get me stuff.
Took 2 extra strength tylenol (500mg each, 1000mg total) as soon as I got home and every 6 hours since. Even overnight I set my alarm to wake up with a snack and take the tylenol.
I've had a few "zings" of pain over the last few days that seem random and like a 4 on the pain scale. They quickly pass but hurt a bit.
My doc said "keep em high and tight" so I've never let them dangle since Friday morning. Showering I kept one hand cupping and holding everything up. Gently washed with soap and that was fine. Avoided water hitting right on my incisions, just let it run down and no stinging.
Pooing was same thing kept my balls in one hand then kinda folded my cock over with the other so it could go into the toilet and it was fine. Weirdest positions I've ever done but no pain as others shared so sticking with it for now. Took some getting used to unrolling the tp with one hand to wipe (I also have a bidet which made things easier).
Sleeping I stayed on my back and put pillows under my feet and knees and it was pretty okay. I woke up a few times the first night but no major pain or surprises. By the 2nd night I found I could put a pillow between my knees and gently roll onto my side.
All in all a smooth operation and recovery so far, in large part thanks to this sub and it's advice. I felt really prepared and knew what to do to get myself through it. Thanks all!
If you're considering, feel free to comment or DM me I'm happy to answer what I can.

Will epsion salt and dawn dish soap kill weeds?

Trigger warning: this story has a distasteful element ('Coprophilia') which may bother some readers.
The Earth bore little resemblance to its former self. At least not from the standpoint of what humanity had achieved previously. First the global economy collapsed. As a result, the intimately-connected world we knew was no more. Cities were abandoned. Interpersonal relationships devolved into clan-style family units working together for the basic goal of mutual survival. Sometimes brutally. In just a few years, the priceless wealth of technological knowledge which has been accumulated since the dawn of time, almost completely disappeared.
Predictably, without six millennia of scientific advancement and evolving civility, came revolving waves of disease and premature death. The world’s population dwindled to just a fraction of its former numbers. Our potential for understanding remained, but the desire to flex the intellectual muscles for higher-learning, took a back seat to the daily imperative of simply surviving. There was no time to pursue education when a neighboring clan might try to kill you or seize your food stores at any moment. In only a few generations, 80% of the ’common knowledge’ from the pinnacle of civilization, was unknown to the average person.
Consuming ignorance dutifully filled the void left behind by the collapse. Hunger and the ugliest of primal emotions drove human behavior far more than it had prior to the fall. Rampant starvation and unsanitary conditions were a potent one-two punch in the spiraling descent back to the dark ages. It led to a contemptible practice which would’ve been unthinkable only a half century earlier. The inability to distinguish between justifiable food choices, and ‘things which should never be ingested’.
No, I’m not referring to the abject inhumanity of cannibalism. The unapologetic consumption of human flesh wasn’t surprising in those stark times of desperation. I’m speaking of something far, far worse. The instinct to find feces distasteful was lost in the spiraling downfall of mankind. Those who were old enough to remember the golden era of civilization simply called those who partook in this practice: ‘SE’s. In plainer words, ‘Shiteaters’.
It wasn’t a particularly clever slur but the descriptive euphemism fit well enough. Being labeled that didn’t even qualify as an insult any longer for an entire class of depraved souls who saw no problem with the distasteful practice in the first place. They enthusiastically partook in the disgusting act of coprophilia, out of misguided necessity. Noting went… ahem, to ‘waste’.
Extreme hunger is a highly effective motivator for sure. It pushed them to work past the unpleasant stench and natural gag reflexes which would normally dissuade such abhorrent behavior. In certain unsophisticated circles, the excrement from well-fed scavenger individuals became a ‘delicacy’. Afterward, they were literally ‘full of shit’, if you can forgive the reoccurring string of foul puns.
Understandably, those who held onto some level of prior civility avoided the SE’s at all costs, lest the disgusting practice ahem… ‘rub off’ on them. Distasteful consumption details aside, As with any recycled substance, the level of vitamins, proteins and other nutrients deteriorate with each cycle. That is the law of diminishing returns. Eventually, regardless of portion size, the empty calories contained in their favorite ‘dish’ was no longer enough to sustain regular development.
With the serious level of nutritional deficiency in their daily diet came the side effects of severe physiological and psychological issues. Their intellectual capacity diminished rapidly. In just a short time they lost the ability to speak. For all intents and purposes, they devolved into a lower life form of violent, sub-primates. If a scientific community still existed in academia to label them, they might’ve named this transitory species, ‘Homo coprophilis’.
Despite their diminished cerebral capabilities, they bred in voracious numbers and made up the majority of hominids scavenging the world. Because of their sheer prevalence in numbers, it didn’t matter if they could be individually outwitted. There were too many of them in the wild to completely avoid. If non SE’s were captured by them, they were lucky if they were only held in cages for feces harvesting or forced breeding stock. There were far worse fates possible in the SE dens.
Our community remained lucky for many years. I educated my people the best I could from what remained of books and educational materials. The few brushes we had with the cave dwelling troglodytes were thankfully rare, and led to fortunate outcomes. Sadly, that was all about to change. While we tried to be self-sufficient, we had to go outside our security zone on occasions to get necessary supplies which we couldn’t produce internally. The more frequently we left the relative safely of our compound, the higher risk level we brought upon ourselves.
Their numbers had exploded. They were everywhere and it was only a matter of time before they discovered our tiny little ‘oasis of progress’ and attacked us. My scouts knew better than to retreat back to the compound if they realized they’d been observed. Like a trail of ants, the SE’s would follow them here and find our idyllic home and destroy everything. I believed at the time that the best outcome of any battle was to avoid it completely.
We ‘booby-trapped’ a few pseudo entrances to discourage accidental discoveries, but our biggest danger was to be observed and followed back home. I guess we just took the risk of going outside the compound too many times, or simple ‘dumb luck’ occurred. Either way, they found our home while I was away with my team. We’d spent too much effort in avoiding detection, and not enough planning a defense. Our community was unprepared for an on-site conflict; and with half our most able-bodied warriors on the mission, we took heavy losses. Both in terms of loss of life, and having our remaining people taken prisoner.
My wife was eaten alive right on the spot; while two of my younger children were taken away. Presumably for later consumption, but infinitely worse fates were possible. I shuddered at the thought of what she went through, and what horrors awaited my little ones. The SE’s take immense pleasure in seizing non SE’s and torturing them for being more evolved. They pride themselves in being ignorant and primitive. Furious vengeance boiled in my heart. I wanted to act immediately but I was well aware that raw passion clouds judgement. No matter how anxious I was to save my children and wipe the disgusting scum from the Earth, I had to do it in a meticulous, organized way. The survivors of our village needed a solid plan to strike back.
I gathered every weapon we had at our disposal and assembled our weary band of survivors. Others present in the meeting lost family members too. I had to stop them from rushing to the shiteater cave on a suicide mission. I cooled their rage and tempered my own until we were all better prepared for battle. How do you fight an enemy with no honor? How can you approach a conflict where there is no reason to be had? To suggest it would be a war with ‘apes’ would be an insult to those primates.
Previously I thought the SE’s were a product of the collapse of civilization. Obviously I feared their enthusiastic embrace of primal ignorance but mostly, I just pitied them. If there was one reoccurring theme of universal failure in the remaining history books it was how war is pointless. I hoped to avoid them. As a fellow survivor in the collapse, I tried to coexist. To live and let live but it became glaringly clear they could not be left alive. None of them, or there would never be peace or prosperity for the thinking population. They were a wretched branch of homo sapien species that needed to be permanently snuffed out.
I rallied our reluctant fighters, both men and woman, young and old, able bodied and infirm, to boldly seize the moment. It was our time! It was the human race’s moment to reverse the spiraling collapse. We had to snuff-out the willfully ignorant, sub-human slime holding us back permanently, or there would never be a return to hope and enlightenment. Everyone present accepted the calling. We were going to stop being frightened little sheep. We were committed to fight to the death, but we were also going to do so with technical wisdom and science.
Almost like a grain silo, SE’s were known to keep their fecal ‘food’ stores in a central storage bin. They guarded them almost like bank currency. Their entire community revolved around the supply of manure, so strategically it would be in the center of their caves and living space. More than once, these methane-laden storage areas had been known explode from natural gas build-up and wipe out clans. As a previous pacifist in my worldview and outlook, I’d never considered destroying them with their own storehouse of shit before, but the idea was more than novel in its charm. It was almost poetic in scope.
The only problem lied in the collateral damage to our survivors. How could we get our beloved family members back before annihilating their cave and destroying the sub human vermin? I researched non-lethal means of incapacitating every soul inside so we could rescue our loved ones first. In a medical textbook I’d saved from being burned as fireplace fodder, was a detailed article on anesthesia. Not only did it explain how it worked, but it also offered the chemical compounds necessary to produce it.
As the ‘minister of science’ of our progressive community, I had always tried to keep knowledge alive and maintain a base level of education for our citizens. I taught the children basic chemistry and math, among other things. We had amassed a decent supply of chemicals taken from the crumbling warehouses of the once-great cities near our settlement. It was finally time to put them to use. From those supplies I filled up two canisters of nitrous oxide. My scouts located their lair, and we cautiously amassed there for the extraction and extermination.
Under the cover of darkness we blew the ‘knock-out’ gas into the entrance and waited until they were hopefully incapacitated. Into the lion’s den we crept. The stench of body odor and decay was nearly unbearable. The plan unfolded perfectly. Those we encountered were either unconscious or unresponsive to ordinary stimuli. One by one we dispatched the sub human monsters. There was very little resistance until we reached portions of the cave which our ‘sleeping potion’ didn’t reach. There we experienced some desperate fighting but in the end, we were victorious.
At the center of the dark labyrinth we located the cages and ‘food storage’ area. Thankfully, many of our people and my youngest children were still alive. Sadly not all were physically unharmed and there was no undoing the SE’s carnage and unspeakable acts. I wanted to scream when I witnessed the inhuman atrocities perpetrated on our most innocent but I had to maintain my composure and complete the mission. We carried all the survivors to safety and rigged a time-delayed fuse for explosion at the entrance.
I wasn’t sure how many of the clan were left further back within the cave, but when the methane finally ignited, it was the most powerful man-made explosion in nearly fifty years. Of that I’m sure. The mouth of the cave was permanently closed. Nothing could’ve survived the blast. That was highly reassuring but the vindication I felt was only for the eradication of a single shiteater clan. Globally, there were probably hundreds of others. More importantly though, our little operation to take back humanity was finally underway.
It was day one in the march to rebuild civilization. I discovered other pockets of learning and progress along the way as we explored the larger world. Our small community and the others banded together with the universal goal of wiping out primal clans and rebuilding the infrastructure of the Earth. With a unified group of people worldwide endeavoring to return to a brighter future, we collectively left behind the darkness and despair. Hope has finally returned. It’s a great time to be alive again.

Trigger warning: this story has a distasteful element (Coprophilia') which may bother some readers.
The Earth bore little resemblance to its former self. At least not from the standpoint of what humanity had achieved previously. First the global economy collapsed. As a result, the intimately-connected world we knew was no more. Cities were abandoned. Interpersonal relationships devolved into clan-style family units working together for the basic goal of mutual survival. Sometimes brutally. In just a few years, the priceless wealth of technological knowledge which has been accumulated since the dawn of time, almost completely disappeared.
Predictably, without six millennia of scientific advancement and evolving civility, came revolving waves of disease and premature death. The world’s population dwindled to just a fraction of its former numbers. Our potential for understanding remained, but the desire to flex the intellectual muscles for higher-learning, took a back seat to the daily imperative of simply surviving. There was no time to pursue education when a neighboring clan might try to kill you or seize your food stores at any moment. In only a few generations, 80% of the ’common knowledge’ from the pinnacle of civilization, was unknown to the average person.
Consuming ignorance dutifully filled the void left behind by the collapse. Hunger and the ugliest of primal emotions drove human behavior far more than it had prior to the fall. Rampant starvation and unsanitary conditions were a potent one-two punch in the spiraling descent back to the dark ages. It led to a contemptible practice which would’ve been unthinkable only a half century earlier. The inability to distinguish between justifiable food choices, and ‘things which should never be ingested’.
No, I’m not referring to the abject inhumanity of cannibalism. The unapologetic consumption of human flesh wasn’t surprising in those stark times of desperation. I’m speaking of something far, far worse. The instinct to find feces distasteful was lost in the spiraling downfall of mankind. Those who were old enough to remember the golden era of civilization simply called those who partook in this practice: ‘SE’s. In plainer words, ‘Shiteaters’.
It wasn’t a particularly clever slur but the descriptive euphemism fit well enough. Being labeled that didn’t even qualify as an insult any longer for an entire class of depraved souls who saw no problem with the distasteful practice in the first place. They enthusiastically partook in the disgusting act of coprophilia, out of misguided necessity. Noting went… ahem, to ‘waste’.
Extreme hunger is a highly effective motivator for sure. It pushed them to work past the unpleasant stench and natural gag reflexes which would normally dissuade such abhorrent behavior. In certain unsophisticated circles, the excrement from well-fed scavenger individuals became a ‘delicacy’. Afterward, they were literally ‘full of shit’, if you can forgive the reoccurring string of foul puns.
Understandably, those who held onto some level of prior civility avoided the SE’s at all costs, lest the disgusting practice ahem… ‘rub off’ on them. Distasteful consumption details aside, As with any recycled substance, the level of vitamins, proteins and other nutrients deteriorate with each cycle. That is the law of diminishing returns. Eventually, regardless of portion size, the empty calories contained in their favorite ‘dish’ was no longer enough to sustain regular development.
With the serious level of nutritional deficiency in their daily diet came the side effects of severe physiological and psychological issues. Their intellectual capacity diminished rapidly. In just a short time they lost the ability to speak. For all intents and purposes, they devolved into a lower life form of violent, sub-primates. If a scientific community still existed in academia to label them, they might’ve named this transitory species, ‘Homo coprophilis’.
Despite their diminished cerebral capabilities, they bred in voracious numbers and made up the majority of hominids scavenging the world. Because of their sheer prevalence in numbers, it didn’t matter if they could be individually outwitted. There were too many of them in the wild to completely avoid. If non SE’s were captured by them, they were lucky if they were only held in cages for feces harvesting or forced breeding stock. There were far worse fates possible in the SE dens.
Our community remained lucky for many years. I educated my people the best I could from what remained of books and educational materials. The few brushes we had with the cave dwelling troglodytes were thankfully rare, and led to fortunate outcomes. Sadly, that was all about to change. While we tried to be self-sufficient, we had to go outside our security zone on occasions to get necessary supplies which we couldn’t produce internally. The more frequently we left the relative safely of our compound, the higher risk level we brought upon ourselves.
Their numbers had exploded. They were everywhere and it was only a matter of time before they discovered our tiny little ‘oasis of progress’ and attacked us. My scouts knew better than to retreat back to the compound if they realized they’d been observed. Like a trail of ants, the SE’s would follow them here and find our idyllic home and destroy everything. I believed at the time that the best outcome of any battle was to avoid it completely.
We ‘booby-trapped’ a few pseudo entrances to discourage accidental discoveries, but our biggest danger was to be observed and followed back home. I guess we just took the risk of going outside the compound too many times, or simple ‘dumb luck’ occurred. Either way, they found our home while I was away with my team. We’d spent too much effort in avoiding detection, and not enough planning a defense. Our community was unprepared for an on-site conflict; and with half our most able-bodied warriors on the mission, we took heavy losses. Both in terms of loss of life, and having our remaining people taken prisoner.
My wife was eaten alive right on the spot; while two of my younger children were taken away. Presumably for later consumption, but infinitely worse fates were possible. I shuddered at the thought of what she went through, and what horrors awaited my little ones. The SE’s take immense pleasure in seizing non SE’s and torturing them for being more evolved. They pride themselves in being ignorant and primitive. Furious vengeance boiled in my heart. I wanted to act immediately but I was well aware that raw passion clouds judgement. No matter how anxious I was to save my children and wipe the disgusting scum from the Earth, I had to do it in a meticulous, organized way. The survivors of our village needed a solid plan to strike back.
I gathered every weapon we had at our disposal and assembled our weary band of survivors. Others present in the meeting lost family members too. I had to stop them from rushing to the shiteater cave on a suicide mission. I cooled their rage and tempered my own until we were all better prepared for battle. How do you fight an enemy with no honor? How can you approach a conflict where there is no reason to be had? To suggest it would be a war with ‘apes’ would be an insult to those primates.
Previously I thought the SE’s were a product of the collapse of civilization. Obviously I feared their enthusiastic embrace of primal ignorance but mostly, I just pitied them. If there was one reoccurring theme of universal failure in the remaining history books it was how war is pointless. I hoped to avoid them. As a fellow survivor in the collapse, I tried to coexist. To live and let live but it became glaringly clear they could not be left alive. None of them, or there would never be peace or prosperity for the thinking population. They were a wretched branch of homo sapien species that needed to be permanently snuffed out.
I rallied our reluctant fighters, both men and woman, young and old, able bodied and infirm, to boldly seize the moment. It was our time! It was the human race’s moment to reverse the spiraling collapse. We had to snuff-out the willfully ignorant, sub-human slime holding us back permanently, or there would never be a return to hope and enlightenment. Everyone present accepted the calling. We were going to stop being frightened little sheep. We were committed to fight to the death, but we were also going to do so with technical wisdom and science.
Almost like a grain silo, SE’s were known to keep their fecal ‘food’ stores in a central storage bin. They guarded them almost like bank currency. Their entire community revolved around the supply of manure, so strategically it would be in the center of their caves and living space. More than once, these methane-laden storage areas had been known explode from natural gas build-up and wipe out clans. As a previous pacifist in my worldview and outlook, I’d never considered destroying them with their own storehouse of shit before, but the idea was more than novel in its charm. It was almost poetic in scope.
The only problem lied in the collateral damage to our survivors. How could we get our beloved family members back before annihilating their cave and destroying the sub human vermin? I researched non-lethal means of incapacitating every soul inside so we could rescue our loved ones first. In a medical textbook I’d saved from being burned as fireplace fodder, was a detailed article on anesthesia. Not only did it explain how it worked, but it also offered the chemical compounds necessary to produce it.
As the ‘minister of science’ of our progressive community, I had always tried to keep knowledge alive and maintain a base level of education for our citizens. I taught the children basic chemistry and math, among other things. We had amassed a decent supply of chemicals taken from the crumbling warehouses of the once-great cities near our settlement. It was finally time to put them to use. From those supplies I filled up two canisters of nitrous oxide. My scouts located their lair, and we cautiously amassed there for the extraction and extermination.
Under the cover of darkness we blew the ‘knock-out’ gas into the entrance and waited until they were hopefully incapacitated. Into the lion’s den we crept. The stench of body odor and decay was nearly unbearable. The plan unfolded perfectly. Those we encountered were either unconscious or unresponsive to ordinary stimuli. One by one we dispatched the sub human monsters. There was very little resistance until we reached portions of the cave which our ‘sleeping potion’ didn’t reach. There we experienced some desperate fighting but in the end, we were victorious.
At the center of the dark labyrinth we located the cages and ‘food storage’ area. Thankfully, many of our people and my youngest children were still alive. Sadly not all were physically unharmed and there was no undoing the SE’s carnage and unspeakable acts. I wanted to scream when I witnessed the inhuman atrocities perpetrated on our most innocent but I had to maintain my composure and complete the mission. We carried all the survivors to safety and rigged a time-delayed fuse for explosion at the entrance.
I wasn’t sure how many of the clan were left further back within the cave, but when the methane finally ignited, it was the most powerful man-made explosion in nearly fifty years. Of that I’m sure. The mouth of the cave was permanently closed. Nothing could’ve survived the blast. That was highly reassuring but the vindication I felt was only for the eradication of a single shiteater clan. Globally, there were probably hundreds of others. More importantly though, our little operation to take back humanity was finally underway.
It was day one in the march to rebuild civilization. I discovered other pockets of learning and progress along the way as we explored the larger world. Our small community and the others banded together with the universal goal of wiping out primal clans and rebuilding the infrastructure of the Earth. With a unified group of people worldwide endeavoring to return to a brighter future, we collectively left behind the darkness and despair. Hope has finally returned. It’s a great time to be alive again.

Trigger warning: this story has a distasteful element ('Coprophilia') which may bother some readers.
The Earth bore little resemblance to its former self. At least not from the standpoint of what humanity had achieved previously. First the global economy collapsed. As a result, the intimately-connected world we knew was no more. Cities were abandoned. Interpersonal relationships devolved into clan-style family units working together for the basic goal of mutual survival. Sometimes brutally. In just a few years, the priceless wealth of technological knowledge which has been accumulated since the dawn of time, almost completely disappeared.
Predictably, without six millennia of scientific advancement and evolving civility, came revolving waves of disease and premature death. The world’s population dwindled to just a fraction of its former numbers. Our potential for understanding remained, but the desire to flex the intellectual muscles for higher-learning, took a back seat to the daily imperative of simply surviving. There was no time to pursue education when a neighboring clan might try to kill you or seize your food stores at any moment. In only a few generations, 80% of the ’common knowledge’ from the pinnacle of civilization, was unknown to the average person.
Consuming ignorance dutifully filled the void left behind by the collapse. Hunger and the ugliest of primal emotions drove human behavior far more than it had prior to the fall. Rampant starvation and unsanitary conditions were a potent one-two punch in the spiraling descent back to the dark ages. It led to a contemptible practice which would’ve been unthinkable only a half century earlier. The inability to distinguish between justifiable food choices, and ‘things which should never be ingested’.
No, I’m not referring to the abject inhumanity of cannibalism. The unapologetic consumption of human flesh wasn’t surprising in those stark times of desperation. I’m speaking of something far, far worse. The instinct to find feces distasteful was lost in the spiraling downfall of mankind. Those who were old enough to remember the golden era of civilization simply called those who partook in this practice: ‘SE’s. In plainer words, ‘Shiteaters’.
It wasn’t a particularly clever slur but the descriptive euphemism fit well enough. Being labeled that didn’t even qualify as an insult any longer for an entire class of depraved souls who saw no problem with the distasteful practice in the first place. They enthusiastically partook in the disgusting act of coprophilia, out of misguided necessity. Noting went… ahem, to ‘waste’.
Extreme hunger is a highly effective motivator for sure. It pushed them to work past the unpleasant stench and natural gag reflexes which would normally dissuade such abhorrent behavior. In certain unsophisticated circles, the excrement from well-fed scavenger individuals became a ‘delicacy’. Afterward, they were literally ‘full of shit’, if you can forgive the reoccurring string of foul puns.
Understandably, those who held onto some level of prior civility avoided the SE’s at all costs, lest the disgusting practice ahem… ‘rub off’ on them. Distasteful consumption details aside, As with any recycled substance, the level of vitamins, proteins and other nutrients deteriorate with each cycle. That is the law of diminishing returns. Eventually, regardless of portion size, the empty calories contained in their favorite ‘dish’ was no longer enough to sustain regular development.
With the serious level of nutritional deficiency in their daily diet came the side effects of severe physiological and psychological issues. Their intellectual capacity diminished rapidly. In just a short time they lost the ability to speak. For all intents and purposes, they devolved into a lower life form of violent, sub-primates. If a scientific community still existed in academia to label them, they might’ve named this transitory species, ‘Homo coprophilis’.
Despite their diminished cerebral capabilities, they bred in voracious numbers and made up the majority of hominids scavenging the world. Because of their sheer prevalence in numbers, it didn’t matter if they could be individually outwitted. There were too many of them in the wild to completely avoid. If non SE’s were captured by them, they were lucky if they were only held in cages for feces harvesting or forced breeding stock. There were far worse fates possible in the SE dens.
Our community remained lucky for many years. I educated my people the best I could from what remained of books and educational materials. The few brushes we had with the cave dwelling troglodytes were thankfully rare, and led to fortunate outcomes. Sadly, that was all about to change. While we tried to be self-sufficient, we had to go outside our security zone on occasions to get necessary supplies which we couldn’t produce internally. The more frequently we left the relative safely of our compound, the higher risk level we brought upon ourselves.
Their numbers had exploded. They were everywhere and it was only a matter of time before they discovered our tiny little ‘oasis of progress’ and attacked us. My scouts knew better than to retreat back to the compound if they realized they’d been observed. Like a trail of ants, the SE’s would follow them here and find our idyllic home and destroy everything. I believed at the time that the best outcome of any battle was to avoid it completely.
We ‘booby-trapped’ a few pseudo entrances to discourage accidental discoveries, but our biggest danger was to be observed and followed back home. I guess we just took the risk of going outside the compound too many times, or simple ‘dumb luck’ occurred. Either way, they found our home while I was away with my team. We’d spent too much effort in avoiding detection, and not enough planning a defense. Our community was unprepared for an on-site conflict; and with half our most able-bodied warriors on the mission, we took heavy losses. Both in terms of loss of life, and having our remaining people taken prisoner.
My wife was eaten alive right on the spot; while two of my younger children were taken away. Presumably for later consumption, but infinitely worse fates were possible. I shuddered at the thought of what she went through, and what horrors awaited my little ones. The SE’s take immense pleasure in seizing non SE’s and torturing them for being more evolved. They pride themselves in being ignorant and primitive. Furious vengeance boiled in my heart. I wanted to act immediately but I was well aware that raw passion clouds judgement. No matter how anxious I was to save my children and wipe the disgusting scum from the Earth, I had to do it in a meticulous, organized way. The survivors of our village needed a solid plan to strike back.
I gathered every weapon we had at our disposal and assembled our weary band of survivors. Others present in the meeting lost family members too. I had to stop them from rushing to the shiteater cave on a suicide mission. I cooled their rage and tempered my own until we were all better prepared for battle. How do you fight an enemy with no honor? How can you approach a conflict where there is no reason to be had? To suggest it would be a war with ‘apes’ would be an insult to those primates.
Previously I thought the SE’s were a product of the collapse of civilization. Obviously I feared their enthusiastic embrace of primal ignorance but mostly, I just pitied them. If there was one reoccurring theme of universal failure in the remaining history books it was how war is pointless. I hoped to avoid them. As a fellow survivor in the collapse, I tried to coexist. To live and let live but it became glaringly clear they could not be left alive. None of them, or there would never be peace or prosperity for the thinking population. They were a wretched branch of homo sapien species that needed to be permanently snuffed out.
I rallied our reluctant fighters, both men and woman, young and old, able bodied and infirm, to boldly seize the moment. It was our time! It was the human race’s moment to reverse the spiraling collapse. We had to snuff-out the willfully ignorant, sub-human slime holding us back permanently, or there would never be a return to hope and enlightenment. Everyone present accepted the calling. We were going to stop being frightened little sheep. We were committed to fight to the death, but we were also going to do so with technical wisdom and science.
Almost like a grain silo, SE’s were known to keep their fecal ‘food’ stores in a central storage bin. They guarded them almost like bank currency. Their entire community revolved around the supply of manure, so strategically it would be in the center of their caves and living space. More than once, these methane-laden storage areas had been known explode from natural gas build-up and wipe out clans. As a previous pacifist in my worldview and outlook, I’d never considered destroying them with their own storehouse of shit before, but the idea was more than novel in its charm. It was almost poetic in scope.
The only problem lied in the collateral damage to our survivors. How could we get our beloved family members back before annihilating their cave and destroying the sub human vermin? I researched non-lethal means of incapacitating every soul inside so we could rescue our loved ones first. In a medical textbook I’d saved from being burned as fireplace fodder, was a detailed article on anesthesia. Not only did it explain how it worked, but it also offered the chemical compounds necessary to produce it.
As the ‘minister of science’ of our progressive community, I had always tried to keep knowledge alive and maintain a base level of education for our citizens. I taught the children basic chemistry and math, among other things. We had amassed a decent supply of chemicals taken from the crumbling warehouses of the once-great cities near our settlement. It was finally time to put them to use. From those supplies I filled up two canisters of nitrous oxide. My scouts located their lair, and we cautiously amassed there for the extraction and extermination.
Under the cover of darkness we blew the ‘knock-out’ gas into the entrance and waited until they were hopefully incapacitated. Into the lion’s den we crept. The stench of body odor and decay was nearly unbearable. The plan unfolded perfectly. Those we encountered were either unconscious or unresponsive to ordinary stimuli. One by one we dispatched the sub human monsters. There was very little resistance until we reached portions of the cave which our ‘sleeping potion’ didn’t reach. There we experienced some desperate fighting but in the end, we were victorious.
At the center of the dark labyrinth we located the cages and ‘food storage’ area. Thankfully, many of our people and my youngest children were still alive. Sadly not all were physically unharmed and there was no undoing the SE’s carnage and unspeakable acts. I wanted to scream when I witnessed the inhuman atrocities perpetrated on our most innocent but I had to maintain my composure and complete the mission. We carried all the survivors to safety and rigged a time-delayed fuse for explosion at the entrance.
I wasn’t sure how many of the clan were left further back within the cave, but when the methane finally ignited, it was the most powerful man-made explosion in nearly fifty years. Of that I’m sure. The mouth of the cave was permanently closed. Nothing could’ve survived the blast. That was highly reassuring but the vindication I felt was only for the eradication of a single shiteater clan. Globally, there were probably hundreds of others. More importantly though, our little operation to take back humanity was finally underway.
It was day one in the march to rebuild civilization. I discovered other pockets of learning and progress along the way as we explored the larger world. Our small community and the others banded together with the universal goal of wiping out primal clans and rebuilding the infrastructure of the Earth. With a unified group of people worldwide endeavoring to return to a brighter future, we collectively left behind the darkness and despair. Hope has finally returned. It’s a great time to be alive again.

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A staredown soon ensued.
One that neither of us seemed to be willing to let up on.
But as far as staredowns went, this one was pretty evenly matched as neither of us really had the ability to ‘blink’, or at least as far as an outside observer could see.
My whole schtick was pretty obvious, the tinted lenses were more or less just doing the job for me, taking blinking out of the equation entirely and adding a solid plus ten to my intimidation base stats.
The shadowy cloaked figure’s approach was just downright bizarre though, as instead of eyes, there were just these two trapezoidal ‘lights’ that I assumed were supposed to be a placeholder for his actual eyes hidden somewhere underneath the shadowy void casted by his hood.
A void which was downright pitchblack, and completely impenetrable to the naked eye.
The figure gave off a surreal vibe as his rogue-like attire, coupled with the hood and the impenetrable shadow it casted, looked like it’d been ripped straight out of a Castles and Wyverns art book or a high-fantasy comic. The pitch-black void that obscured his face, and those two trapezoidal eyes that hovered and shifted with increasing scrutiny, just didn’t look real.
While most would leave it at that, I wasn’t one to leave a mystery hanging, I was a human with an entire visual sensor suite to work with for crying out loud. So before I even knew it, I reflexively went to activate my night-vision cameras. Only to see that the shadowy effect covering up his face was still there.
This led me to only one solid conclusion.
ALERT: LOCALIZED SURGE OF MANA-RADIATION DETECTED, 140% ABOVE BACKGROUND RADIATION LEVELS
A quick localized environmental scan made it clear to me that this was yet another one of the Nexus’ weird mana-fueled acts of tomfoolery.
“What say you, first years? Are you here for healing, or are you here for a visit? For as I have stated, the healing wing is not accepting visits at this point in time.” The hooded figure answered with this strange mix between a sing-song voice and an attempt at sounding gruff and gravely.
“We have an unfulfilled point of personal privilege that requires addressment.” Thacea stepped up to the plate, promptly placing herself by my side, then taking several steps forward. “Along with an unresolved conflict which requires immediate resolution by the party with which the aforementioned point of personal privilege was evoked but was halted due to unforeseen circumstances.” The princess began flexing her courtly-talk with the hooded figure, which clearly seemed to have some effect as he reached up a single gloved hand up to where his chin should be, only to have his fingers disappear as soon as they entered the dark shadowy effect currently covering up his face.
“And with whom is this unresolved matter incurred?” The figure inquired plainly, though the way he spoke shifted to something a bit more accommodating, perhaps even a little bit more hospitable than the gruffer tone he’d initially directed towards me.
“An apprentice, good sir. Apprentice Larial to be precise.” Thacea clarified politely, using what I could only describe as this flighty, chirpy, almost haughty tone of voice that was an exaggerated version of the cadence she used during our first interactions together.
“Hmm…” The hooded figure replied with a concerned grumble. “I was going to waive this particular matter, allowing the fair lady-” He paused, before making a point to stare at both me and Thalmin. “-and her two knights to pass on through, under the points of exceptional circumstances.” He continued in a less restrained, more flighty cadence. “However, you must excuse my inability to do so, my lady. My hands are currently tied via the powers that be, and I simply cannot grant your request.” The man began weaving a string of apologetics, giving Thacea a genuine and polite bow in response. “I must apologize for this discrepancy in expectant decorum.”
This didn’t make things any better for our circumstances though.
And it was clear Thacea understood this as she continued pressing forward.
“May I have your name and title, my good sir?” Thacea chirped lightly.
“Appointed-Deputy Magistrate Sir Arlan Ostoy, Senior Apprentice of the Transgracian Academy for the Magical Arts. May I have the honor and the privilege of requesting your name, my fair lady?”
“Princess Thacea Dilani, of the Aetheronrealm, First Year and Scholastic Peer of the Transgracian Academy for the Magical Arts.” Thacea replied with a full bow, and a half-curtsy of her own.
“A pleasure to make your acquaintance.” The shadowy figure bowed yet again.
“The pleasure is all mine, Sir-Magistrate.” Followed by yet another bow by Thacea.
There was some serious song and dance going on here, and one that I was observing with bated breath.
“Might I inquire further as to the particular reasoning behind this unfortunate and unseemly inability to respect the rights of expectant decorum?” Thacea quickly shot back.
“As I have alluded to, your highness, the powers that be prevent me from furthering the natural solution to your particular grievances. If this were any other instance in time, at any other location or place, I am sure this matter would have been resolved in an expedient and timely fashion. This situation, as you have alluded to yourself, results from a very particular set of unforeseen circumstances. Circumstances which currently dictate my actions in a manner which just so happens to be in conflict with your points of personal privilege, your highness.” The man’s posture, the way he stood, even the way he talked seemed very particular when addressing Thacea.
It was at that point that something changed. I didn’t know what, and I wasn’t sure why, but Thacea seemed to be shifting towards a tactical retreat, as she clacked her beak several times before addressing the both of us. “This is absolutely preposterous, I will need a moment to clear my mind but when I do return…” Thacea turned towards the magistrate/guard/apprentice person yet again. “There will be words exchanged.”
At Thacea’s prompting, we all left the room, but not before slamming the door behind us shut in a similar manner to Ilunor’s drama-filled exits.
We continued walking away from the medical wing at a steady pace, until another privacy screen was suddenly brought up.
ALERT: LOCALIZED SURGE OF MANA-RADIATION DETECTED, 275% ABOVE BACKGROUND RADIATION LEVELS
“I have a plan.” Thacea began. “And this is entirely relying on you two having the physical prowess to back up your military backgrounds.” She continued ominously.
“Oh princess, you sully the Havenbrock name if you believe my mercenary heritage is in any way, shape, or form a mere decorative mantlepiece.” Thalmin responded with a sarcastic, yet excitable tone.
“I assure you, Thacea, I think my training has almost every eventuality accounted for.” I added with an affirmative nod.
“So what’s the plan?” Thalmin barked out excitedly as we stopped right in the middle of this long, wide hallway connecting the main castle with the medical wing. Thacea was quick to answer this question by wordlessly gesturing to a lone door on the right side of the hallway.
Windows lining either side of the hallway made it clear that this entire structure was just an elevated bridge connecting the main castle to an entirely separate compound.
This made the presence of a door smack-dab in the middle of its length sort of bizarre.
Upon entering it though, we were treated to an open-air rooftop terrace with a few seats and benches. The whole outcropping gave us an unparalleled view of the roaring waterfall beneath the Academy, and a direct line of sight to the medical wing and its five distinct towers.
The princess continued walking silently as we reached the edge of the terrace’s balcony, overlooking the sheer cliff face at a height that more or less put me in mind of your typical open-air rooftops on your typical Acela Corridor skyscraper.
“I’ve observed that the medical wing seems to consist of a large tower-atrium, with several more towers connected to it via additional corridors. Similar to spokes on a wheel. As you can see from this vantage point, it seems as if most rooms have private balconies. If we cannot make our way to the apprentice via conventional channels, then I plan to reach her via more unconventional means.” Thacea turned towards me with a hardened look in her gaze. “Emma, is your… insect artifice ready for use?”
My eyes widened at that, as I nodded affirmatively. “Just for the record, we call it a drone.” I quickly corrected Thacea. “But, yes, I can designate individuals and targets for it to track down or follow. However, I can’t just have it poking around in every room since there’s no guarantee that the drone will be able to get a lock on them. There’s too many variables involved that would get in the way of the drone actually being able to zero in on a person’s face. From the beds facing the right way, to bandages possibly covering up her face, to-”
“I don’t want your artifice to observe every balcony and window, Emma. That will most certainly take too much time, and as you’ve stated, there’s no guarantee of actually identifying a face considering the multitudes of factors involved.” Thacea interjected. “What I plan to do is to return to the Deputy-Magistrate, and to attempt to reach a compromise that he will abide by. I plan for him to take us, or rather, your drone straight to the apprentice.”
“And how will you accomplish this?” Thalmin whined,his head tilted in curiosity.
“I will draft a letter, addressed directly to the apprentice, and request that it be taken straight to her room. This way, the Deputy-Magistrate will in a sense be able to accomplish his obligations to the Expectant Decorum, and in doing so he will lead your insec-, drone, straight to the apprentice’s room.”
I stared at Thacea with wide eyes, as her back and forths with the deputy-magistrate began taking on a completely different meaning in this new light.
“That way, we can find out exactly which room the apprentice is in.” I replied bluntly.
“Correct. However, from there, I cannot say my plans are in any way foolproof.” Thacea replied with a sullen coo.
“Well go on, princess, it sounds pretty good so far!” Thalmin urged.
“Ascertaining the apprentice’s room is only half of the stated objective. Actually getting there is another matter entirely. Because depending on where the apprentice is located… my idea for the latter half of this quest involves you two scaling your way towards her room.” The princess spoke with an immense level of trepidation. “On the exterior aspect of the castle, if that needed to be said.”
My heart skipped a beat as the princess laid out her plans. I looked across the absurdly spindly hallway-bridge that this little terrace was somehow attached to, and towards the five towers that made up the medical wing.
Thalmin did the same, although his face seemed to indicate that he was at the very least, considering the plan at least somewhat seriously.
“Alright.” I muttered out loud, instinctively trying to place a palm on my forehead, only for the glove to bonk straight off. “I have several ideas. First, we might be able to do this remotely. I’m thinking once we find out which room she’s in, we fly in a larger drone, one carrying with it a deployable holographic projector or some other two-way communications device so that we can talk to her remotely.” As soon as I spoke that idea out loud however, things started to fall apart. “But because of how thick the walls are, and considering the distance between the tower and our dorm, I might have to deploy repeaters in order to daisy-chain the connection all the way back to the dorms. I mean, we can’t just set up shop out here in the open after all. At which point we’d have a continuous chain of signal-repeater drones flying all across the Academy… which wouldn’t be ideal. No, scratch that, that won’t work.”
The pair stared at me with varying degrees of confusion, but seemed to have collectively decided to ignore the idea after I’d scrapped it.
“I say we just climb it!” Thalmin yelped out, but not before another idea hit me. One that could work, but that required me consulting Thacea first.
“I mean, we could, but…” I turned to face Thacea. “What’s the Academy’s policy on noise? Or rather, do you think we could get away with something really really loud, buzzing outside of the towers?”
Thacea once more stared at me with a look of just utter confusion, but shrugged it off and went with it anyways. “I would highly recommend against generating too much noise for this particular quest, Emma. It would most certainly garner a lot of unwanted attention.” Thacea spoke plain and simple.
I couldn’t help but to groan internally in frustration at that.
That makes flying over there a no-go… it would’ve made things so much easier though…
“Alright, well, that more or less places us in a very awkward situation with not a lot of options available to us, huh?” I thought to myself outloud again, as I craned my head over to an excitable Thalmin.
“I guess I have to climb on over.” I stated in no uncertain terms.
“Wait, I?!” Thalmin responded with a shocked and incredulous bark. “There’s no way I’m allowing you to climb over there yourself without assistance or-”
“Thalmin, there’s no need for you to climb on over with me.” I interjected. “This whole mission is hedged on me talking to the apprentice one-on-one. Remember the gardens? The apprentice wouldn’t allow you anywhere near us when we started talking. It’d be a waste of time, energy, and more importantly… a huge risk to your safety. I don’t want to risk your life needlessly, Thalmin. Not especially for a fight that isn’t your own.”
“Well you’re part of our peer group, so it’s my fight as well.” Thalmin replied with a dejected growl, but eventually relented. “But you’re right, Emma. I hate to admit it, but you’re right.”
I nodded at Thalmin’s slowly. “Besides, there’s an important job I need you to do.” I began scrounging through one of my pouches, and began palming for my spare in-ear earpieces. “I need you on lookout, to keep me aware of anything fishy developing in case I need to pull out.”
Thalmin looked over the side of the terrace, towards the raging waters beneath this side of the Academy as he let out a sigh. “That shouldn’t be too hard. Hardly anyone will be passing by this terrace, and beyond that there’s no way anyone can spot you from below, given there’s nothing but the cascading rapids below us. There’s no one that can spot you from here, save for perhaps the foxes in the library. We’re most certainly on the right side of the Academy for this quest, that’s for certain.” Thalmin pointed at the library in the far distance.
“Oh, I’m not too worried about anyone seeing me. I’m more concerned about someone compromising my extraction point, i.e. this little terrace here.” I acknowledged.
“But, surely you must be worried about someone seeing you scaling the walls…” Thalmin scanned me up and down, as if wanting to comment about my size but- “You’re massive.”
“Okay, first off, rude.” I spoke sarcastically, and raised both hands up for added effect. “But in all seriousness, I have another device that can mask my visual presence.” I pulled out a plastic-like poncho from one of my pouches, activating it, and revealing its active-camo properties as it projected whatever was behind it, albeit with some imperfections. “It isn’t perfect, but from afar it should actually work pretty well.”
Both Thalmin and Thacea stared at each other in utter shock as they saw this.
“A mana-less-”
“I think… this is a matter worth discussing another time, Princess.” Thalmin interjected with a polite exasperated breath. “But I expect a good explanation for this one, Emma.” Thalmin pointed a finger right at me.
“In any case, I will be diverting the Deputy-Magistrate’s attention by preoccupying him with needless and vapid chatter. This should take attention away from the apprentice and your intrusion, Emma.” Thacea quickly added, and promptly tied this whole impromptu operation up nicely.
“Alright, let’s get this show on the road then. We’ll head back to the dorms and get that letter drafted so-”
“Already done.” Thacea interjected, bringing up a parchment that she promptly began sealing into an envelope.
“Wait, when did you-”
“Whilst we were talking, I used a dictation spell. The letter is written and signed.” Thacea spoke nonchalantly, as she held a neatly sealed envelope in one of her talons.
“Wait, what, when did you, how did you-?”
“I carry a quill and extra parchment in my bag of holding. This is to account for any eventuality where a statement in writing, a legal affidavit, or a notarized letter may be required.” Thacea responded a-matter-of-factly.
“Alright then.” I tapped the pouch with the INFIL-DRONE, the small little thing peeking its head out much to the visible disgust of the pair. “So we’re ready for phase one of the operation. Misdirection and information gathering. We’ll go in, drop the letter, and have the drone do its thing. After that, we wait for the drone to return, and we’ll take it from there on whether or not we can continue with Phase Two: penetrating the enemy lines.”
“What would be stopping us from continuing with phase two?” Thalmin quickly asked.
“Well, simple. If the apprentice is still conked out from her injuries, there wouldn’t be any point in attempting to meet her. So hopefully, she’s going to be in a good enough state to talk to. We’ll know when we get the drone footage back.”
“Fair point.” Thalmin nodded.
“So, is everyone ready to begin?” Thacea asked.
A series of affirmative nods later, we began our quick walk back over to the atrium.

The Transgracian Academy for the Magical Arts, Extraction Point Alpha (Open Air Terrace Overlooking the Medical Wing). Local Time: 1420 Hours.
That took way more time than I’d initially thought.
In fact, it took so long that I was beginning to wonder how two people could have an unending conversation where nothing of value was spoken and nothing of value was gained.
It was basically elevator small talk, but written by the same writers who wrote Bridgerwesson Lane, and adapted to a theatrical release with a trilogy that ended with a movie arbitrarily cut up into a two-parter.
I honestly zoned out for a few moments during those hours, as I decided to use the spare time to review the grappling hook and mountaineering gear I’d be using on this little quest.
Eventually however, the Deputy-Magistrate relented, at which point I let loose the INFIL-DRONE to do its thing.
It’d been twenty minutes since we left and made our way back to this open-air terrace, and all of us were waiting with bated breath for the results the drone had in store.
“So, how fast can that drone of yours fly anyways Emma-”
Thalmin was immediately cut off as the drone in question buzzed right by his ears, causing them to flick this way and that, before flattening out entirely.
“Speak of him and he will come.” I chuckled, as I outstretched a gloved hand over for the little drone to perch atop of.
Once again, the pair stared at it with a look of mild disgust, and then panic as it crawled all the way back into its docking port, and began uploading the data we needed.
“Alright, let’s see what we have here.” I spoke to no one in particular before shifting my attention to the EVI. “EVI, isolate and replay relevant footage, and calculate the target’s location.”
“Acknowledged, parsing…”
“Location Parsing. Footage isolated. Play Footage?”
“Affirmative.”
I immediately pulled out my data-tab for the gang to be able to watch as well, as the footage began just as the Deputy-Magistrate, and by extension the drone, arrived at the apprentice’s room.
The door, and all details posted in the front were all captured, and so too was the state of the apprentice revealed to us in short order as I braced myself for a mangled and bandaged-up mass of broken bones.
What I instead saw, was… still a heavily bandaged up figure. However, the most important thing was that they were awake.
And what was remarkable, was the fact that they were able to move without assistance. As the apprentice reached over to receive the letter wordlessly, shifting a bit in bed as she did so.
“This is a letter addressed from a Princess Thacea Dilani of the Aetheronrealm. I have fulfilled my duties and obligations as per the Expectant Decorum. I will now take my leave, Apprentice Larial.” The deputy-magistrate spoke with the same air of overbearing properness, seriously making me consider whether or not this was how he was all the time.
Whatever the case may be, the apprentice seemed to be healed enough to move her arms at the very least, as she grabbed the letter and spoke hoarsely back in response. “Thank you Senior Apprentice.”
There wasn’t much to the footage beyond those interactions, but it was good enough for the purposes of this mission.
“Alright.” I spoke, as I pocketed the tablet. “We have our answer. The apprentice seems healed up enough to speak to, so phase two of this operation is a-go.”
The pair nodded in response, just in time for the EVI to be done with whatever calculations were needed to determine the apprentice’s precise location.
I turned to the tower, as the room and its balcony was highlighted.
It was just about five stories above from where we were.
Meaning it’d be a hell of a climb.
“The room’s about five floors up.” I announced with a sigh.
“Are you sure you can make that journey, Emma?” Thacea responded worryingly. “I… I will be honest, Emma, I am having some second doubts about this whole idea. The concept just came to me as flying between tall structures and towers is just second nature to us Aetheronrealmers. Considering the heights involved, and your inability to fly, I’m wondering if this whole quest was a folly of my own shortsighted-”
“It’s fine, Thacea.” I cut the avinor off. “I can do this, trust me.” I placed a single hand on the princess’ shoulder, and squeezed it once for effect.
Meanwhile, the EVI began doing what it did best: attempting to minimize the risk associated with my hairbrained schemes, as it deployed the suit’s primary lookout drone in order to start mapping out the best possible route forward.
This spooked the pair yet again, as they both jolted backwards.
Thankfully, the drone was deathly silent, so it shouldn’t bring too much attention to it.
It was at this point that I brought out a pair of earpieces I was scrounging my pouches for earlier, one for Thacea, and another for Thalmin.
“These will help you stay in contact with me throughout the climb.” I stated plainly, as I attempted to latch it onto my own ear for demonstrative purposes, only to realize that I could not, given the suit was in the way.
I sighed, as I turned towards Thalmin. “Do you mind if I put it on for you?” I asked sheepishly.
“Erm, what is it, Emma?”
“It’s…” I paused, as I attempted to find the best way to describe this without taking up too much time. “It’s a communication artifice, Thalmin. It’ll allow us to talk to each other remotely, relying on that drone there-” I pointed at the lookout drone still flying away from us. “-to relay our voices to each other.”
Thalmin, as expected, looked at me with an expression of partial dumbfoundedness whilst Thacea seemed completely transfixed by the earpieces I held in my hands.
“So it’s like a hearing-sense?” Thalmin responded with a questioning bark.
“Look, I’ll just demonstrate.” I managed out with a sigh as Thalmin reluctantly nodded and allowed me to begin hooking in the earpiece, looping it around his fluffy triangular ears.
This inevitably resulted in my hand brushing over the lupinor’s fluffy head a few times, which seemed to elicit some large tail-wags and a dulcet rumble.
I tried to ignore that, as I pulled back and began demonstrating. “I’ve turned off my speakers, can you still hear me, Thalmin?”
“Yes, I can.” The lupinor spoke after clearing his throat.
I turned my speakers back on immediately after. “Alright, I’ll get into the specifics of how it works later, but as for now, just know that I can hear whatever you say.”
“I’m afraid I don’t think that artifice will be compatible with my… anatomy, Emma.” Thacea spoke calmly, as she pointed at several aspects of the earpiece that required an actual ear canal to fit into, and an earlobe to loop around.
“This complicates things a bit, but it shouldn’t be too difficult. How long do you think you can keep up the distracting conversation with the deputy-magistrate for, Thacea?”
“We just went through several hours discussing nothing in particular, I can most certainly continue that trend from dusk till dawn.” The avinor spoke confidently, and frankly, rather proudly. “The issue lies not in how long I can manage to maintain the conversation, but in how long it will take you to accomplish this quest, Emma.” Thacea shot back.
“An hour.” I nodded confidently. “Twenty minutes to scoot my way over there, twenty to talk to the apprentice, and twenty to get back.”
“I’ll make that two hours then.” Thacea responded without a second thought. “We need to account for potential complications, and an extra hour of senseless dialogue will most certainly not be an issue for me.”
With an affirmative nod from me, and an approving glance from Thalmin, I now turned towards the exterior of the two hundred foot corridor leading to the concourse, and the extra five hundred feet it would take to get from the atrium to the tower in question.
It was at that last minute that the EVI brought out another suggestion, one that was formulated with the aid of the new datasets provided by the FEBNPMS lookout drone that had been busy mapping out the best route forward.
It was… an inherently riskier approach, one that my aunt would definitely not approve of, but it definitely beat scaling a wall and wedging spikes into it.
“Actually… I have a better idea than simply scaling the walls.”

The Transgracian Academy for the Magical Arts, En Route to Medical Wing Tower C, Room 705. Local Time: 1430 Hours.
“Grapple secure.”
I will never forget the feeling of falling.
The very wrong feeling that came with leaping off of solid ground into empty sky, of suddenly seeing and feeling the world whizzing by me.
It was a visceral feeling, a gut-churning sensation, dominated by an overbearing sense of impending doom that takes over your terrestrial brain that wasn’t designed to feel the ‘freeing’ sensation of being unbound to the ground beneath you.
Leaping over from the edge of the terrace was the worst part of it. But after that tentative jump, things started to become just a little bit easier.
The Academy’s proclivity for over-aggrandized architectural design would finally serve a purpose beyond just decorative aesthetics.
Because it was clear that the walls weren’t really designed to ward off anyone daring to scale them. As there existed several, if not hundreds of these little greebles and outcroppings that served no purpose but to act as decorative pieces on the side of the castle. Some held stone flowers, whilst others had lamps or other light pieces of varying designs.
No matter what they were, or what meaning they held, all were equal and valid targets in the eyes of my grappling hook.
As I dangled there from the first outcropping, held in place by a single high-tensile cable, I looked up to see Thalmin looming over the edge “EMMA?!” I heard him shout in a panic. It was clear that he was unable to see anything, as my light-refraction cloak was currently doing its job well.
“I’m still here, Thalmin. You can’t see me but I’m dangling from this weird outcropping that looks like an overinflated vase.”
“NEXT TIME, BE SURE TO INFORM ME AS TO THE NATURE OF YOUR IMPOSSIBLE ARTIFICES BEFORE USE, UNDERSTOOD?!”
“Of course. You’ll know if I’ve fallen if you hear a long scream followed by a large splat.”
“That’s not funny!”
I chuckled nervously in response, before turning to face the grueling, gut-churning journey ahead of me. “Humor’s my way of dealing with stress, and trust me, I have a lot of stress to work through right about now.”
First Previous Next
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(Author’s Note: Hey guys! Time for some unconventional solutions courtesy of Emma and the gang! We're going to meet the apprentice one way or another! I hope you guys enjoy! :D The next Chapter is already up on Patreon if you guys are interested in getting early access to future chapters!)
[If you guys want to help support me and these stories, here's my ko-fi ! And my Patreon for early chapter releases (Chapter 34 of this story is already out on there!)]

i drank probably 24oz of water from a water bottle that i soaked with dish soap this morning, it was sitting in my car for probably a month. After i drank like 3/4 of it, i smelled it and it smelled like sweat/musty. will i get sick? i drank a lot of water, it’s like hydro flask size. idk why it smells if it had dawn soap in it. i am at a concert rn and i cannot get sick.

It slowly died after I sprayed a mixture of dawn dish soap, water, and high percentage vinegar. It’s basically dead in these photos. Twitching, but close to dead.

So I let our budgie out of it’s cage for free time this afternoon and he flew into the sink where my husband had the NASTIEST bacon pans soaking).
We think he was maybe in there for about 10 minutes fully immersed, with his head just above water. Thank goodness the water was just lukewarm soaking and not as hot as usual.
We fished him out as soon as my husband came back to finish the dishes. Tried to put dish soap on him to get most of the grease off (the water was black with burnt on food, and thick oil, he had burnt a bunch of bacon on an oven sheet) so there was thick thick bacon grease all over)
But the little guy was shivering so bad and I didn’t know if he was otherwise injured didn’t want to spend to much time before getting him dry. Wrapped him in a little dry washcloth and put a hair dryer on gentle until he stopped shivering.
Well he’s dry now and eating but he’s soooooooo greasy still.
What should I do? Will it just go away on it’s own after a long time? This is our first bird. I don’t know what I’m doing. Thankfully he can still fly.
Can I take him somewhere to be cleaned off? Is that a thing? Where is ducks unlimited when you need them?! He smells like burnt bacon!
How do I get the grease off my budgie? There is soooo much!

i drank probably 24oz of water from a water bottle that i soaked with dish soap this morning, it was sitting in my car for probably a month. After i drank like 3/4 of it, i smelled it and it smelled like sweat/musty. will i get sick? i drank a lot of water, it’s like hydro flask size. idk why it smells if it had dawn soap in it. i am at a concert rn and i cannot get sick.

I use GOT2B for daily wear and i've noticed that if, in between washes, I do a lazy-wash where I just wet it and brush it out and leave it out to dry afterwards it looks REALLY...frayed once dried and doesn't just 'fall on my head' to naturally blend
The Reason I do this is to get any goop out of the hair near the hairline and also wash the got2b spray off the base
Would conditioning instead of just lazy water-washing help? What about dawn dish-soap? How do I avoid this? Do I just not get it wet at all except for the 2X Weekly wash? How would I clean the poly-base in between or is it fine to just leave it alone between washes? That would be 2-3 days in between washing the poly base off.

Part 18 A Delicate Situation (Part 1) (Part 17)
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"Aho, Zim, ni je na?" Msko was the first to notice and greet the relatively short, stout, and furry being that just waddled into The Hammer’s Control Center.
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"Ah, Administrator Zimuzari, I am honored you could join us." Atxika's eyes quickly shot up from the holographic display being projected from the table she was leaning on and landed on Kyim'ayik colony leader. "Have you had an opportunity to read through the initial report we sent you?"
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"Hello there, Mkso, Admiral Atxika. It's…" The reddish-brown ball of fur paused his adorable squeaking, half covered his mouth with one of his paws, and let out such a tremendous yawn that Atxika could see both the massive front incisors as well as the not quite as large, but still impressive, set of canines behind them. "My apologies, I woke up less than half an hour ago. But it is good to see you both, as well as an honor and privilege to join you in your Command Center, Admiral."
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"The honor and privilege are mine." Atxika bowed slightly with her pleasant smile still wide. "And I would like to apologize for waking you. It will still be a few days before we arrive at our destination and this strategy meeting could have waited."
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"No, no, no, that's alright." Zim quickly replied with his species' high pitch and chirpy version of galactic common while stretching out and flicking his long, shiny whiskers as he approached the military leaders. "I've already gotten about nine hours of sleep. Skipping the last hour or two has killed me yet! And I’d rather get started on this sooner rather than later.”
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Admiral Atxika had to put in real effort to prevent herself start cooing at the delightful manner with which Zim made his way over to the holo-table and climbed the stool-like chair designed for his anatomy. The long, wide, and flat tail distinctive of the Kyim'ayik was lifted just off the ground and stretched far back to balance the rest of the being’s body weight while the relatively short hind legs carried him along in an awkward, though comfortable, bipedal gait. With the limited range of motion in the squat, fuzzy man’s leg-like arms as he stretched, it was clear his species was more intended for quadrupedal locomotion. Despite that fact, the posture of the Kyim'ayik Administrator while he walked was far more similar to her own, or a human’s, than what she had remembered from her previous interactions with the species. However, as Zim stretched out his back to its full length, adding good chunk to his overall height, and began climbing the stool so he could have a proper view of holographic display, Atxika was suddenly reminded of a domesticated species of vermin-hunting musteloid from her species’ homeworld that were quite popular pets. Even though she knew this furry little man was a well respected guest on her ship, and a being from an Ascended species, she couldn’t get over how adorable he was.
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“I hope you didn’t wake the misses.” Msko commented with a sarcastic tone while shooting the beaver-otter a cheeky wink.
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“Nah, that woman could sleep through an atomic detonation.” Hearing the galactic common word for ‘atomic detonation’ be said with such an endearing squeak was pushing the Admiral to the absolute limits of her self control.
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“I can have some food and refreshments brought, if you like.” Atxika interjected while doing her best to keep her smile from growing too wide and showing all of her teeth.
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“Oh n-” Zim was about to politely decline before Msko interrupted him with a bit too much energy.
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“Yes, please!” The War Chief blurted out. “That restaurant Tens took me to in your Amenities Section was amazing! I knew this ship had a huge manufacturing capability, but I didn’t realize you’d have freshly grown food.”
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“I’ll have the private command facilities prepare something.” The Admiral quickly replied to ensure that Zim couldn’t refuse. “How does a zetloxoni platter sound?”
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“What are-” Zim began to ask before Atxika realized her mistake and explained.
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"Zetloxoni are fish fillets, rolled in a semisweet and highly nutrient-rich grain, and occasionally topped with more fish or other ingredients." The Admiral replied while typing into the display to bring up a holographic representation of the sushi-like dish she was describing. "This is what I was thinking."
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"That actually looks amazing!" The Kyim'ayik ears suddenly perked up and eyes grew wide with delight.
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"Wonderful! It's settled then." Atxika pressed in a few more commands to place the order then tried to redirect the conversation to reason for the meeting. "I find it is often easier to address delicate situations with a clear mind and full stomach."
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"Delicate?" The squeaky reply carried a noticeably sarcastic tone as Zim shifted his attention towards the holographic representation of a planet and saucer shaped ship orbiting it. "That looks like Arnehilians. Ain't nothing delicate about the Grays, except maybe their physical forms."
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"Well, they're definitely Arnehilians but…" Msko interjected with a hesitant tone that caught his Kyim'ayik friend off guard. "We don't think they're Grays."
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There was a second of confused silence as Zim stared into the War Chief's eyes to see if this was a joke. Before Nishnabe could bring himself to explain, however, Atxika chimed in to give the proper explanation.
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"What I am about to say is Level 8 classified information from Military Command and should be treated with the appropriate amount of secrecy. Do you understand?" After an incredibly professional and understanding nod from the Administrator, the Admiral continued. "We have confirmed the existence of a non-aligned, neutral-standing collective of decentralized Arnehilian groups who refer to themselves as, quote, 'the Greens', or the Free People of Sundered Arnehil. According to all reports, they are an ecologically-minded, nomadic, agricultural society who regularly travel in such a way as to avoid any means of tracking or detection by their… less peaceful cousins. However, there are a few who regularly check in with Military Command to avoid potential confrontations. There have been no indications that any of their groups discovered so far are violent, nor even capable of galactic standard levels of self-defense."
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"I thought those rumors were just misinformation or propaganda." Zim was now much more earnest as gazed upon the holographic saucer floating above the planet. "And you say they're even ecologically-minded?"
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"Our drones haven't detected any significant environmental disruptions." Msko sounded far more nonchalant about this situation than his long-time friend was expecting. There was no aggression or anger in his movements as he indicated towards a highlight portion of the holographic planet floating above the table and prompted the display to project a new hologram. "Their settlement is using solar and wind energy to operate their infrastructure and accumulate power reserves. From what we can tell, they're only a week away from finishing their agricultural harvest and two weeks away from their power reserves being fully recharged. If we had been delayed a month, there's a good chance we would have missed them completely."
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“What kind of resource impacts would I have to account for?” The Administrator quickly followed up.
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“Maybe a couple hundred tons worth of basic elements and organic matter.” It was clear Msko had already scoured everything and couldn’t find any reason to be concerned. “But the drones' sensors can’t detect any real difference between now and six months ago. Like I said, if we were delayed a month, we might not have even known they were ever there.”
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"I see…" There was a moment of pause as Zim stared at the highly detailed holographic representation of a temporary settlement located only a couple dozen kilometers from where he had been planning his own colony.
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The two military officers remained silent to give the Kyim'ayik Administrator all the time he needed to think about what he had just been told. Each species, without exception, had some unique form of architectural design and aesthetic, and the variety of buildings Zim was looking at were no different. The extensive use of cheap, easy to produce polymers, the simple, module construction, and rounded, nearly circular, aesthetic to all of the building were all clearly Arnehilian. However, there was something humble, almost intentionally so, about the lack of silver-metal detailing combined with the way the structures simply flowed into the untouched trees around them. Rather than a budding slaver-colony run by beings who thought themselves entitled everyone and everything, this looked like the respectfully maintained dwelling of a temporary guest who wished to remain discreet. Though the Administrator knew his duty to his people would normally demand he evict these uninvited squatters from his land, he couldn’t help but feel something almost kindred in what he was seeing.
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"Have you made contact with them yet?" Zim flatly asked, though he could already guess the answer. "Do they know we're coming?"
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"No and no." Atxika promptly answered, while letting her smile fall into a more professional expression. "Their ship is inactive, seems to be in a state of disrepair, and is currently in a free-floating, low orbit. According to our scans, their ground-based sensor systems are incapable of detecting our reconnaissance drones. However, they would absolutely notice our fleet entering the system."
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"Well, we don't wanna scare them." Zim finally squeaked out with a slightly giggle that sounded more like a chirp. "Reptiles always freak out when you startle them."
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It had been nine hours of working in the greenhouse when Mayor Harideth noticed the young dark gray-skinned, olive-drab clad messenger running towards him at full speed. Though he had known this young woman her entire life, she was a member of her community after all, he had never seen her running this fast. It wasn't the speed of her approach that made him stop what he was doing, rather it was the unadulterated fear plastered across her face. As Nalhilum sprinted down the path between the vertical hydroponic racks, a few of the Arnehilians in the greenhouse took notice, though didn't stop their work. When the young woman came to a sliding halt just in front of the Mayor, it looked like she was about to keel over from exhaustion and stress.
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"My dear, please." Harideth had a genuinely concerned expression on his scaly face as he quickly moved to brace the young woman and prevent her from falling over. "You are too young to give yourself a heart attack running like that. Whatever is happening, you don't need t-"
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"Mayor, we've been detected." The dread that came out of Nalhilum's voice and the tears in her eyes as she looked up at her community leader shattered the man's soul.
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"Do not fear, Nalhilum, my dear. Please sit and rest. We will be fine. I promise." Harideth helped the young woman slowly lower herself into a seated position, plucked a just-ripe fruit from a vine he had been tending, and handed it to her before turning towards the closest other people in the greenhouse. "Maricha, please see to Nalhilum and ensure she recovers. I am needed in my mayoral duties immediately."
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In the few seconds it took for the worker to be at the young woman's side, she had already begun nibbling on the sweet treat, savoring it as this was her last opportunity, and the Mayor had given her a gentle kiss on the forehead then began running out of the greenhouse. Though Harideth felt he had a personal duty to stay at his messenger's side until she had fully recovered and ensured she wouldn't need further assistance, he had a greater duty to his community as a whole. Despite feeling the same fear that he saw in Nalhilum’s eyes, and wanting to ball up and hide with every fiber of his body, he charged as fast as he could towards the town hall building. Though he knew running this fast was not good for his health, especially in his old age and after working all day, the only thing on the Mayor’s mind was the safety and future of the people who trusted him with their lives.
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“Please don’t let it be the Oppressors.” Harideth muttered to himself as he ran as fast as his legs could take him. “By the Gods of Old, please don’t let it be them.”
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For nearly a millennium now, his people had been free of those who flew the red and gray flag and, despite the many hurdles and setbacks, they had found their own form of happiness. After the Dynastic family who had kept his working-class ancestors in literal chains had been dealt a devastating blow when their capital ship was overrun by a group of abducted, pre-Ascension beings, it sparked a revival of the Free People’s ideology in the slave population. Stories of people living together in mutual aid, love, and respect once only told in hushed whispers were shouted from the rooftops as most of the surviving members of the Dynasty were thrown from them. Once all of the slaves of the other species were freed and on their way back to their respective homes, the budding groups of Greens scattered into the interstellar winds to avoid reprisal from other Dynasties which were sure to want revenge. There was even a dream that they would find other groups of Free Arnehilians living among the stars.
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It was a blessing that their rebellion had initially gone unnoticed by the rest of the Arnehilian Dynasties and the greater community as that gave his ancestors time to disperse beyond the ability to be completely tracked down. Even if a few scattered communities eventually met their death or worse, the end of their freedom, there would be some who were able to survive and thrive. Though Harideth had assumed his nomadic village may eventually run into someone, he put a great deal of effort into minimizing that potential. In fact, he chose this very planet as their temporary stopping grounds specifically because it was far out of the way of most civilizations and people. After spending nearly a full season on this beautiful world, he had even started to grow attached to it and was looking for an excuse to postpone their migration in order to facilitate repairs to their ship. Being detected after so long, and with only a few weeks until they would have been ready to leave on their own, was something the Mayor could have never been prepared for.
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“Make a hole!” A person wearing a dull green cap shouted down a rather cramped corridor that Harideth was barreling towards at full speed before quickly pulling back and nodding towards the man as he passed.
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“Thank you, Chuzikum.” Harideth faintly mouthed while darting past the person and into the now cleared passageway that led outdoors.
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Finally outside, the man only slowed his sprint to turn a few corners and avoid running into the few unwary people who had failed to notice him coming. He was less than a hundred meters away from the town hall building housing his destination, the command and control room, and he couldn’t stop now. Regardless of how hard his heart was beating, how much he felt his body overheating from the strain, and how much he wanted to just collapse, he couldn’t fail his people. As the building got closer and closer, Harideth tried to think through all of the possibilities of who it could be that had detected them. Though none of the options that came to his mind were particularly pleasant, from Bendari pirates to Qui’ztar law enforcement or even the Oppressors themselves, he was already trying to work out contingency plans as he finally approached the already open door and his assistant waiting for him beside it.
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“Please close the door behind us, Marlati.” Harideth’s request was just barely audible as he crossed the threshold of the door and was quickly followed by his assistant who did as she was asked. “Who is it and what do they want?”
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“The communication signal we are receiving registers as the Qui’ztar Third Matriarchy, Mayor Harideth.” Marlati quickly and quietly replied as she followed the man towards the command and control room.
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“Oh, thank the Gods.” The Mayor stopped mid step and placed a hand on the wall next to lean and catch his breath for a moment. “This could still be very bad, but it could have also been so much worse.”
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“Um, sir?” The Mayor’s assistant watched him with a hint of concern as she could see how much he was overheating. “Would you like me to get you a cooling pack?”
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“Oh, no, that’s alright.” Harideth stood back up straight and continued towards his final destination, though a bit slower than before. As he turned back to his assistant, he gave a compassionate nod of approval. “You are too kind, my dear. This is just a…” The man’s voice trailed off as his thoughts began to concentrate on a plan of action.
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“A what, sir?” Marlati nervously in a manner which caused the Mayor to look back at her. “I’m sorry sir, but this is the first time this has ever happened in my entire life.”
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“First time for me too, Marlati.” Harideth admitted with a hit of nervous laughter. “But I do know enough about the Qui'ztar to not be issuing an immediate emergency evacuation order.”
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“That’s not very reassuring.” Though the whine that just came his assistant would have been grating in any other circumstance, she was right and the Mayor knew it.
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“That is the name of the game you help some of the children play, something of the magical planets?” Harideth stopped at the door to the room which separated him from his responsibilities as a Mayor.
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“Adventures of the Magical Worlds, sir?”
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“Yes! I believe there is a moral alignment chart in the rules somewhere.” Though it was clear that his assistant didn’t quite know what he was getting, it became incredibly obvious as he explained. “If I remember correctly, everything I’ve read about the Qui’ztar would put them roughly in the ‘hierarchical neutral’ category.”
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“Ah…” The assistance was quite hesitant as she knew what that actually implied. “That still isn’t very reassuring.”
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“They’re here to do a job. And as long as we comply and don’t get in their way, we’ll be fine.” The Mayor was doing his best to hold up his mask of confidence and not let this young feel what he felt.
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“And what if their job is to kill us?”
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“Then they wouldn’t have made their presence known. They would have simply shown up and sent us all to the next life.” However morbid that statement was, it actually did give the Marlati a small sense of real relief in the fact they weren't already dead as the door to the command and control room opened and the pair slowly walked in.
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"Sir! Thank the Gods you're here!" A communications specialist shouted from his seat in front of a terminal towards the Mayor as he quickly approached.
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"Of course, Telucima, I wouldn’t make you talk to them all by yourself." Harideth tried to crack a joke to the young woman behind the terminal in a vain attempt to calm her obviously flustered nerves. Though Telucima’s dark gray skin was never as shiny as a royal's, her face was especially dull and pale at the moment and the Mayor couldn’t help but empathize with her. “Now, please, give me your report. What do we know?”
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“Well…” Telucima made a gulping sound as she swallowed some of the semi-poisonous saliva that had been building up in her mouth as a fear response. “There is a fairly substantial colony fleet headed our way being escorted by the First Independent Fleet of the Third Qui'ztar Matriarchy. They have stated that we are inhabiting an unregistered settlement on a planet that has already been claimed by the Kyim'ayik. However, they have not yet made any demands, claimed our settlement is in violation of any laws, or even made any threats. I am absolutely sure they know who we are, but they didn’t explicitly identify us in their message. I’m not exactly sure what it is going on, but the signal strength and delay indicate they are still a day or two away.”
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“Interesting…” The Mayor commented with a more curious than scared tone while rubbing the top of his head in contemplation. “No demands, threats, or attempts to justify the use of force through galactic law… Is there any way we could get a real-time communications link established?”
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“Sir? You want to talk to them?” Marlati could barely contain her fear as she interjected. “I thought every species hated us, and you want to talk to them?”
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“They hate the bastard Oppressors, Marlati, though maybe not as much as we do.” Harideth knew this would be his one and only chance to make a good impression on what could otherwise be their impending doom and he was doing everything in his power to muster the inner courage needed for this conversation. “They may not know the difference between us and… them… yet. But something tells me they might.”
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“Sir,” Telucima had redirected her attention back to her terminal and was running through the system to facilitate the Mayor’s request, “I can establish a quantum link, though it would require me to activate the relay on the ship. If there are any oppressors nearby, there’s a chance they could detect our presence and attempt to use the trace to track us down.”
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“Do it.” The Mayor ordered with a tone that implied he knew the risks. “I want to see if these Qui’ztar would be willing to allow us to stay for the few weeks required to complete our harvest. Worst comes to worst, we’ll have to start packing everything up early and delay the repairs for another season.”
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The next few moments were nearly silent aside from the sounds of a tapping keyboard and the occasional digitized ping from the terminal. Telucima had begun the task of awakening the ship, configuring the communications channel, and activating the relay through text-based commands on a simple, monochromatic screen, while the other two people clad in simple olive-drab clothing could do nothing but fester in their thoughts. While Harideth was busy planning out how he was going to grovel and beg for permission to finish his people’s desperately needed harvest of fresh food, Marlati was simply doing everything in her power not to shake in fear. When the final confirmation ping came from the terminal and Telucima began pressing her headset tightly to her ears, the faint whispers of a translated voice could be heard.
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“Yes I can understand you…" The communications specialist, though lacking much previous experience in speaking with a member of another species, seemed to be focused solely on her job and not her fear. "Oh no, I'm sorry, this terminal doesn't have that function. It's… Yes, I can absolutely do that. Just give me one moment to set up the connection and I'll be right back with you."
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In a flash, Telucima had taken off her headset, stood from her console, and was moving to a nearby bag resting on a table, much to the shock of the other Arnehilians. Before either the Mayor or his assistant could question the young woman, she was triumphantly holding up her personal data-tablet and was returning to her seat.
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"What-" Harideth began before the young woman cut him off while pulling her tablet into the terminal.
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"Ope, sorry about that, sir." The specialist cut off her mayor and began to explain in a rush. "I was speaking to a communications officer and she wanted an audio-visual feed to link to her commanding officer. This terminal doesn't haven't that functionality, but I can just just patch a link through my tablet. It's got a mic and camera and we can use it as the display."
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“Good thinking, Telucima.” The Mayor laid a gentle, compassionate hand on the woman’s shoulder after she had placed the tablet at a good angle and sat back into her chair to type in the commands. “I knew you were the right person for this job.”
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“It was the communications officer’s idea, sir.” Telucima couldn’t help herself but to be honest regardless of the praise. “I’m just glad there were instructions for this kind of patch in the training manual. It should just take a moment to load.”
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When the relatively small screen came to life in front of the Mayor’s face, he saw three faces looking back at him with expectant eyes, and he froze in shock. Though none of the expressions looked out right hostile, he could tell none of those individuals would tolerate anything less than submission. Despite only ever seen descriptions of the being he was now looking at, all three could easily be identified. Even without his tail being visible, the furry, large-toothed person on the right was clearly a Kyim'ayik. The large, mostly-hairless, blue primate with pronounced tusks in the middle was, without a doubt, a Qui'ztar of particularly high rank. However, the not-as-large, similarly hairless, but copper-brown primate on the left was a species Harideth had a special fear, and particular reverence, for.
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“Are… Are you a Nishnabe?” Harideth stammered out before even introducing himself or allowing these beings to introduce themselves, which prompted the Qui’ztar and Kyim'ayik to turn to the now confused human.
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“Yes…” Msko replied hesitantly. “I take it you are aware of my people?”
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“Aware…” Harideth couldn't stop the heartfelt smile from forming across his scaly face. “You… Your people… the Vanquishers of Tyrants, the Bane of Oppressors, the Unstoppable Rage, and the Saviors of the Oppressed… Your people are the reason my people have been blessed with a thousand years of freedom!”

Water filter, Pots and pans, Plates, Mason jars/cups, Mugs, Sheets, Coffee pot, Cooking utensils (spoon, silicone spatula, Turner), Utensils, Dish soap, Laundry soap, Little blender, Hangers Electric toothbrush.
I considered toilet paper and paper towels, however, I don’t think I would have a great space to store them at my place; it’s a one bedroom apartment.
If you have any other suggestions I’d love to hear it!