Liquor store near hilton hawaiian village

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For those who want to go back to the beginning, here's a link to book 1 chapter 1.
An image of Lon'thul
Of Men and Dragons, Book 3, Chapter 45
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The order had finally been given. A bellow arose from thousands of argu'n before everyone surged forward. Dak'ton felt his blood thirst rise as he launched himself ahead, albeit a little more slowly encombered as he was by the new tool Lord B'arthon had insisted they bring with them. Then there was a shout from the enemy lines that preceded the first volley of small spears launched toward them.
Dak'ton hadn't believed they could be thrown this far, but judging by the path they were arching in his general direction, the warrior was suddenly grateful for the large thick wooden planks Lord B'arthon had insisted they carry with them. Raising it over his head, he could hear impacts all around him and a few screams as the wooden planks proved insufficient for some in the face of such a barrage. Dak'ton himself felt a jarring impact as one small spear hit his shield and a second impact as it pierced through the wood and hit his chest plate.
The warrior froze momentarily, wondering if he was dead, before realizing the combination of wood and his bone plates must have saved his life. However, Dak'ton was further delayed by trying to wrench the spear from his chest and planks as more warriors ran past. Finally, there was a sharp jolt of pain as he pulled the spear free. He was dismayed to see a trail of blood leaking out of a wound in his chest, but it wasn't deep enough to be a serious concern, so with a grunt, he threw the spear to the ground and resumed his charge.
Looking around, it was clear others weren't as lucky as him. Several were down when the spears impaled their legs where the wood hadn't protected them. Others had spears piercing through their wood like Dak'ton had, but the spear had gone on to hit them in more lightly armored areas like their arms or sides. One unlucky warrior had his wood now pinned to his arm as he screamed and grasped the small spear in an attempt to pull it out.
As Dak'ton gained more ground, another shout went out, and he raised his wood planks again, this time bracing in place, feeling his blood rush in fear as he waited again for impact. However, he didn't have to wait as long this time and again felt a jarring impact. This time the spear pierced through his planks higher up, punching all the way through and continuing to the ground beside him, narrowly missing his head. Around him, others fared worse a second time. A few had dropped their planks after the first barrage, having been unable to wrench the spears free, and were now paying the price.
Dak'ton blinked stupidly a few times before dropping his planks as instructed and running toward the enemy lines again. Lord B'arthon had told them the enemy would only have time for two barrages before they closed the distance, and rushing there after the second would eliminate the risk of a third, and all Dak'ton wanted was to never experience something like that again. Those small spears traveled so much further and faster than normally thrown spears, and they hit much harder despite their small size.
That was when he looked at the enemy and realized Lord B'arthon had made a mistake. Only half the enemy had fired the second round. The other half was still waiting with those odd spear throwers ready to unleash their second round. Dak'ton had a moment of grudging respect for those workers' discipline before a third shout was followed by more spears launched in their direction. Without the protection of his wooden planks, a spear hit Dak'ton clean in the shoulder, and he felt himself being pulled back as if some large creature had ahold of him and was pulling him bodily to the ground. That was when the searing pain came, as though his shoulder was on fire, and Dak'ton's screams joined the chorus of those screaming around him.
-
Lack'nul had no idea how Jack had foreseen the enemy would have those wooden planks, shields he'd called them, but the guard captain was glad he had. Perhaps the human had even more magic than he let on? He'd even been right about the enemy dropping the shields before engaging in melee, saying they would likely be too crude to wield while fighting due to rushed production. Because of that, the second half of the second volley devastated the enemy's front line in the section in front of his workers.
Further down the line, the warriors of the hill people were hurling more traditional throwing spears to lesser effect, but thankfully the enemy didn't seem to have enough shields to arm their entire front line with, so the spears were still effective.
The spears and belly bows had thinned the enemy front lines, but they were still drastically outnumbered. Lack'nul shouted for the workers to discard their belly bows and take up their spears. The workers threw the bows to the ground a few feet in front of them, hoping to trip up the enemy, then raised their spears and braced for impact.
-
A'ngles frowned from his position overseeing the battlefield. The second half-and-half volley had been unexpected. Not that it had cost them too much in the way of manpower, he estimated in total they'd lost maybe a hundred warriors between all three volleys and perhaps a hundred more across the rest of the front lines to the more traditional spears, only a fraction of the two thousand warriors charging in at the moment. Still, it definitely had an impact on the morale of that all-important center formation. Moreover, they'd slowed enough that the front line had bowed back slightly in the middle. Between that, the enemy's armor, and the obstacle the bulky weapons presented on the ground, the eventual charge had much less impact than he'd expected, with more of his own men going down in the initial exchange than the enemy.
Even all this wasn't nearly enough to change the battle's outcome, but it was just a few reminders that this wasn't their usual opponent, and only the gods knew how many more surprises they had in store.
-
The fighting was starting to get desperate. Lack'nul parried blow after blow with his sword, trying to create openings for the workers next to him to take advantage of with their spears. Occasionally an enemy would go down, taking the spear with him, but then the hill people behind them would hand the worker a new spear, and the fighting continued. Then there were the longer spears being thrust from further behind by the hill people. They didn't account for much in the way of killing blows, but they were one more complication the attackers had to beware of, preventing them from striking with total confidence.
It was strange for the guard captain to be fighting on the side of the hill people against what were likely guards from other villages, but he shoved that thought out of his mind as he parried another couple of spear thrusts around him. He wondered if any of the workers he was now familiar with had already died, but again shoved the thought from his mind as he took advantage of an opening and shoved his sword through an enemy warrior's midsection.
His victim grabbed hold of the blade as he fell, and rather than fight for the weapon and leave himself open for others to take advantage of, Lack'nul let go of the weapon and shouted behind him. "Spear!" Soon enough, the shaft of a spear was pressed into his waiting hands, and the guard captain resumed the fight, spinning the end of his spear in a way meant to shake loose his opponent's grip on their own weapon before thrusting forward and scoring a grazing attack his across the warrior's throat. It wasn't deep enough to kill but more than enough to spook his opponent, who drew back for a moment in shock.
That created enough of an opening that Lack'nul should have been able to get another kill, but then he noticed a spearhead flying toward him from the side, forcing the guard captain to step back and bring up his own spear, spinning the shaft in a way to deflect the strike and allow him to bring his own spearhead around to strike, driving his second foe back before turning his attention to the first, swiping with the butt of his spear before bringing the head around for another strike more designed to buy a moment than land a killing blow.
The guard captain was breathing heavily, wondering how much longer he should try to hold this spot.
-
A'ngles watched intently as the fighting continued, focusing most of his attention on that all-important center line. He could see individual fighters moving back and forth on both sides. Occasionally some fell and were replaced, but the armor on the workers kept them alive longer. But, of course, that also meant they were constantly fighting for extended periods, unable or unwilling to switch out with the less well-armed and armored allies behind them. In a massive battle like this, endurance was the key to victory, and it was just a matter of time before his greater numbers took their toll. Perhaps it was simply his imagination, but it seemed like the enemy line was starting to bow just the slightest amount in the middle. He just had to keep the pressure on...
Turning to two of his aide, the Village Lord issued his orders. "Send a runner to either flank and order fifty warriors from each to peel off and reinforce the center."
The aide nodded and repeated his orders to two runners as the old Lord continued to observe the battle.
-
Lon'thul traveled through the forest with an arrow knocked but not drawn as he crept ahead of the rest. Aside from Jack, Angela, Em'brel, and the wolgen all at the rear, the rest in their group were all hunters, used to moving quickly and silently through the underbrush, but even compared with the proud hunters of the hill people, Lon'thul was the undisputed master of his trade. So he walked ahead of the rest to look for ambushes.
It could have been just another day on the hunt if it weren't for the sounds of battle a little to his right. The hunter was glad non of his friends could see him at the moment, or else they'd notice his characteristic grin was absent in favor of a more stern expression. Something felt off about the forest, and he couldn't quite place a talon on what it was. He felt as if a presence had passed through not long ago, but the only person who could move this subtly was...
That was when the hunter noticed another scout ahead of his position. By Lon'thul's standard, he was moving loudly and clumsily. Looking around to ensure there wasn't anyone else present, Lon'thul took aim while inhaling silently. Once he had his target, he began exhaling while drawing back on the string, letting loose the arrow when he was about halfway out of air. After long hours of practice and countless hunts, he knew the arrow would fly true. However, he couldn't help but momentarily hold his remaining breath as he waited anxiously for a fraction of a second it took the arrow to clear the distance to its target.
As expected, the arrow embedded itself into his target's throat, pinning him to the tree behind him as the scout struggled briefly before falling limp. After ensuring there was no other movement to indicate another watcher, Lon'thul crept up and silently removed the arrow. Jack had once again been proven correct. It looked like B'arthon had sent an ambush to cut off their flanking maneuver. However, if the hunter could get enough of their scouts quickly enough, they might be able to ambush their ambushers. Cupping his hands around his mouth, he mimicked a kovaack's grunt to signal a halt. To his ears, it sounded nothing like an actual kovaack, but other hunters had told him it had an uncanny similarity from a small distance away.
Assuming one to two hundred warriors, they probably had ten to fifteen scouts. As the hunter snuck through the brush, he kept his ears open for any minor disturbances. A shadow out of place, or the sound of a twig cracking where he knew no animal would be. After an agonizingly long minute during which he tried to not think about what was happening in the main battle, he found another hunter, but this one was dangerously close to a second.
Lon'thul frowned, sliding sideways to get a shot from their flank with his back to the position of the one he'd already taken out so he could sneak closer to take his shot. Finally, after a few more agonizingly long seconds, he was in position, and the hunter knocked another arrow.
Standing and drawing in one smooth motion, Lon'thul took quick aim at the further of the two hunters before either knew what happened and loosed his arrow. However, rather than wait for his arrow to hit the target this time, Lon'thul dropped his bow while drawing a knife in one smooth action and flung the blade at the second scout, who was already starting to move at the appearance of the enemy from his supposedly protected flank.
Once again, rather than wait, Lon'thul leaped at his target, who was starting to fall, opening his mouth to shout out, but the hunter wrapped his arm around his victim's throat, slamming his mouth shut on his tongue, turning the scout's shout into a loud whimper as the hunter finished the job.
Lon'thul grabbed his knife and slunk back into the shadows, waiting for more scouts to come to check on the sounds of the scuffle. It was only after none appeared for over a minute that the hunter retrieved his arrow and returned to his bow with a frown. He was confident he'd been quiet enough to avoid detection by the main force, but the next scout over should have heard the twigs snapping as the two combatants struggled. Had he simply run back to report the disturbance without checking on the source of it? Given Lon'thul's reputation, it might have been a good move, but then the whole group would be "ambushing" every medium-sized animal in the forest, giving away their position! It didn't make sense...
The hunter calmed himself. Rather than jumping to conclusions, the only thing for him to do was precisely what he thought they should have done, go and check it out. He'd simply have to trust Angela to inform the rest if he walked into some ambush since she was silently watching everything from his headset.
As he rounded another tree, he found some disturbed underbrush roughly where he expected the next scout to be. As he crept closer, he realized there was a body there. The scout was already dead!
Lon'thul froze, holding his bow and ready to draw in the blink of an eye if any threat presented itself and thought rapidly. He knew he was the only one of his people's scouts out this far, so it couldn't have been any of his men. But what purpose could they have for placing this body here? He'd suspect a trap, but it made no sense. Still, it wouldn't help anyone if he stayed here any longer than he had to, so Lon'thul resumed movement, redoubling his efforts to remain silent and hidden as he moved.
After another moment, he came to another likely location and, after a moment of observation, found another dead scout. This time the hunter crept closer, inspecting the body. The sout's throat had been slit, likely from behind. He could even imagine someone's hand wrapping around the poor scout's mouth to silence any shout before the knife had done its work. That meant someone had walked right up behind the scout as he'd been searching for his own prey. Lon'thul might have been able to pull that off on a good day, but he'd never have risked it with so much on the line. Remembering the presence he'd felt earlier, he realized only one other hunter could pull something this brazen off...
Now Lon'thul was fully alert, scanning every shadow and listening for even the slightest disturbances while waiting with an arrow ready. This time he didn't have the luxury of waiting for his opponent to act first. He had to take the initiative and do it now! But beating his father in a duel wasn't his objective. Outmaneuvering the enemy force was. Putting a hand on the headset, the hunter activated the com and broke silence for the first time. "My position may be compromised, but if you move fast, you can still take the enemy unaware. Tell Jack to charge now!"
Putting his hand down, Lon'thul settled into position and readied another arrow. He knew his father wouldn't kill him like the other scouts, but that didn't mean the old hunter wouldn't try to pull him out of the battle now that he'd given away his location. The younger hunter would just have to be even faster this time...
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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.

1.) I think it's kind of popular bcoz where I live only the populaunpopular kollywood movies are shown (whether a box office Hit or not). My mind has stored the ML as the actor Suriya and the FL as Kajal aggarwal or Samantha. But i am not so sure about this casting.
There is a fair ML. He wears glasses and is tall. The FL upon seeing him says to her friends that he isnt her type and she prefers talk dusky men or smthing like that (or maybe he was dusky and she said that she prefers fair men. I am sorry i watched it when i was 14). There is some weird other world or parallel world and supernatural mysteries. Like i dont know much about what it is supposed to be but in one of the scenes the ML is standing in the middle of huge stairs with a lot of people passing by and gets some weird sense of realization as if he found out something about the other world. I am really sorry i can only remember this much. I was once very close to finding a movie like it after going thru the movies done by the aforementioned actors but I lost the name again(😭).
2.) It has Motta Rajendran (or an actor who resembles him too much) in the cast. I tried to search thru his list of movies but it is way tooo long.The movie has this monster who lives in a cave in the jungle. They never truly fully show him during the first hour of the movie. The ML and FL are going to get married/are in love and one of them is from this village near the jungle. Half of the movie has ppl being attacked by the monster when they try to cross the jungle. The fl and ml tried that too. Midway thru the movie the villagers decide to kill the monster. I also remember the movie being longer than 3 hours.
Thats it. I am really sorry for such vague infos. But thats all i could remember.

Looking for a small rural village or town in Ohio, within an hour-ish drive of Columbus or Cincinnati (and not on a route that would be a terrible commute). Things I’m seeking:

• houses (with ~an acre or more of land) in the $150k range
• near bike paths
• in a county with lower taxes (local, sales, income, property)
• good public schools
• family friendly. A place where you see kids running around outside, walking around town with friends, etc
• safe, not high crime
• low cost of living
• reliable internet

Bonus points:

• within 30-ish minute drive of a Mennonite church
• walkable/bikeable within the town/village
• a grocery store in the village/town
• some level of racial diversity, no big KKK reputation (will be adopting in the future and their race is unknown)
• if there is a college within 30 minutes
• if there is a nearby hospital
• doesn’t get a lot of tornadoes or flooding

We enjoy spending time outside (bike, backpacking, hike, camp, kayak), going to the library, participating in community events and festivals, walking around downtown, parks. Want to have a small homestead (garden, chickens, etc). Looking for a community with charm and welcoming people. Perhaps some community events throughout the year. Let me know of any nonprofits doing neat things! Enjoy volunteering for things related to foster youth, special needs, public health, habitat for humanity, animal welfare.
We don’t drink and mostly eat at home, so those things are not important to us. Not needing a place with nightlife.

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This my first time posting so if screw up my grammar and spacing I apologize. Okay to start context I had decided to join a ongoing campaign that my brother was the dm for and was playing a wood elf moon Druid who I will refer to as me. Another character was playing a grim reaper character that had many hombrew abilities that were annoying for my brother to deal with. For reference there’s a good amount of hombrew in the campaign. Anyway I started at the same level as the rest of the party(the grim reaper character and my brother are the ones that caused problems for me) immediately first combat encounter on a boat going into a new area in which my brother sicks a a kraken and another high level monster on the party. Before combat begins I get dragged under due to poor rolls by the time I got back onto the ship I had 6 health left out of my max 66 health. Grim knows my brother is gunning for himself so he and another character decided to make a final stand and make certain I could escape once the two go down the season would end. On a side note if grim truly wanted to his character could’ve survived that but he wanted to play a new character and knew my brother would continue to try to get rid of his character. Little did I know it was a taste of of what was in store. The next character that he’s still playing is a homunculus who started out normal enough but due to some shenanigans in a mini Easter adventure the party ended up scattered around a Scandinavian themed region comprised of a crap ton of tiny villages and kingdom at the center.
This season we were warned not to mess around because my brother was feeling evil and wouldn’t hesitate to off a character. Grim now playing his homunculus character enters one of the small villages and a group of guards recognizes what he is tell him to leave to which he proceeds to attack the guards. Turns out without another character present he temporarily becomes a murder hobo. After eventually being forced to flee he finds out that he was facing royal guards that were designed to be overpowered. I enter the same village a hour or two after he left and ask what happened to the village when noticing the damage. I hear about his rampage and am asked if I knew him to which I responded with “I am aquatinted with with him” in my mind meaning that I know of him and but I’m not necessarily associated with him. Apparently in my my brother’s mind that meant that I admitted to working with him and he proceeds to have the guards nearly kill my character and then capture her.
The prison break After learning that if I am found to be associated with a homunculus it’s the death penalty for my character I put a plan that I had been given by a fellow ttrpg player not in the campaign. The plan was simple make a exit of some kind and create a cavity under the cell to hide myself inside and wait for the guards to exhaust themselves looking for me everywhere EXCEPT the cell. Everything went according to plan I shattered the bars by encasing them in ice and used mold earth to create the cavity but in order to do both I had to roll performance checks the first didn’t matter much as long as I succeeded the second would determine how obvious it was that I was doing what I was doing. Where the plan went wrong was when a guard had noticed that I was no longer in my cell and calls over four more guards who ALL DO INVESTIGATION CECKS on my cell. I end up my hiding spot was found so I used mold earth to tunnel my way out of there. Later I called him out on it and he told me for some reason he had the same royal guards from earlier guarding my cell as the reason for the five investigation checks and when I pointed out that my character nearly died because they said that they knew of the homunculus he responded with but your character survived right? So what do you want me to do? Was I a asshole?
I fell the need to clarify about the homunculus player’s incident he intended to do as much damage as possible and as a side note abuses polymorph.

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like i very well(and probably) am getting more drunk more often but holy shit no fucking WAY i’m spending that much
he was holding up the line like fuck, so annoying
i only buy cheap shit and like seltzers and other mixed drinks
i need to stop so bad

I've finished the vast majority of moving. I've even got a lot of my room set up. I've also put strips of LED stuck on one of the walls and it looks very cool. I told myself that I would stop drinking once the stress of the move was over, and I had one beer two nights ago, none last night and don't plan on drinking tonight. I just want a nice, relaxing evening of anime.
This. This is what TSM has truly given me. Choice. It's given me my choice back on whether I want to drink or not. I can use alcohol as an easy coping skill when my mental load is too high and I don't want to have a meltdown or psychotic episode.
I know that alcohol isn't the best coping method, but there is a negative symptom of schizophrenia called avolition and it's where it becomes impossible to do stuff. Not because of a lack of desire or being to lazy to do stuff(like higher effort coping skills), but it's the lack of initiation to even start to progress on them. Like there is a hole in your brain where you want to do something, a common example is taking a shower, where you know you like taking showers, and you really want to take a shower, and you enjoy smelling nice and how the hot water feels as it runs down your body, but something is just broken in you and you can't just go take a shower. It's infuriating and I don't know when it will hit or how hard, and I have lots of stuff set up to make things easier for me, like having baby wipes so I can just wipe myself down when a shower is impossible.
It's avolition that has me coming back to alcohol every so often to de-stress and relax because it's very easy to just get to a liquor store, buy a couple beers, wait my hour, and then drink. And I get that relaxation from alcohol, and, you all know the rest.
I've now quit smoking, moved houses, started setting up my whole, new, big room, and I feel really accomplished and content with myself. Things are coming along nicely. I'm happy. The grocery store is literally 500 steps from my house and I can be like some kind of European and just pop by the shop to pick up fresh ingredients for food.
Now, I'm not stuck binging every night while being unable to fully quit because I just couldn't resist buying enough to get drunk. Being free from that cycle of abusing myself every morning for being unable to stop and then relenting every evening to stave off the withdrawals. Now, after a period of increased drinking(a "spike" or "extinction burst") and I can say, "just one/two tonight, just to be safe" in order to ensure there are no withdrawals because those scare the fuck out of me. I can trust myself when I say that.
So I guess, when it boils down to it, TSM and naltrexone have given me back two major things. Trust in myself with regards to alcohol, and choice in whether to drink or not. Two big things that I lacked for nearly 10 years. I'm sure a lot of people here know that loss of trust in yourself. That cycle of telling yourself one thing and doing the opposite. I still feel that way about other stuff, like fast food, or ordering from amazon. But it's not the super destructive fast track to death that alcohol is.

Next
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Victor turned around for one more look at what had been his childhood home. It was a three bedroom apartment on the four hundred thirty third floor in the Manchester district of the hive city New Avalon. It did at least have one window facing the outside of the hive, which made it an instant selling point.For which he was glad, it was part of his new inheritance from his parents who had recently died in the latest rounds of terrorist bombings against Canary Corps headquarters, which they both were middle management.
His military leave was coming to an end, his amassed two week respite was only due to his twenty years of service in the imperial guard. As a Captain and veteran of the Emperors many campaigns, he could pull rank when needed.
In five short years he would be able to retire a full citizen. Something his father scoffed at, but that was nothing new, his father scoffed at anything he had ever done. His everything ached, as he turned his back on his former home and made his way towards the transmat pad. Selling the apartment and consolidating his assets weren’t the only thing he was doing on Terra.
He spent those two weeks getting augments that would have been out of reach to a lowly Captain of the Imperial guard. Gene-mods were common throughout the Empire, but there were gene-mods, and then there were gene-mods. His were now top of the line, far beyond the mil-spec given to him in officer school. That, combined with his new dimensional storage add-on allowed him to purchase and store massive amounts of goods for his upcoming retirement.
Some things you could only get on Holy Terra, a nano-forge capable of making anything you have a SBC to construct could be found on most technological worlds. A nano-foundry to make the nanites the nano-forge uses can only be purchased on select worlds of the Empire.
But SBCs can only be found on Terra, and are heavily restricted. But some connections in Imperial Guard logistics pointed him to some people who might have some SBCs that may or may not be considered illegal to own. That combined with raw materials, a habitat module, weapons, food, mining drones, security drones, and forge spiders now filled his dimensional storage.
“Next!” Shouted a bored looking transmat officer in front of Victor. To which he sighed and presented his Imperial Guard ID and his permissions to be transported to Andosious Prime. The officer looked him over in his Imperial Guard Armor, a bit battle worn, but impeccably maintained. It felt much lighter with the upgrades, which was the point. Two hundred kilos of light power armor is still heavy even with the minor gene-mods of the guard. Now he barely felt it as he stood before the officer.
“No baggage Captain Cane?” He asked looking down at this console.Victor kept his face emotionless, something driven into him by officer training. “The guard provides me with all I need officer. No baggage today.” He lied through his teeth.
The officer nodded, that was the proper response, “Thank you for your service Captain, next stop, Andosious Prime!” He said with a flourish as he pressed a button on his panel.The universe went white, time fell away, then he felt like he was falling. This wasn’t what normally happened on a transmat. Suddenly the world came back into focus, blue sky followed by a green forest followed by a brown ground coming up fast.
His mental commands screamed through the interface nodes imbedded all over his body into the scout armor. Retro-rockets fired as he made a hard landing in the clearing of a forest. Two weeks earlier something like that would have hurt bad, if not caused serious injury. Now it just added to his aches.
He looked around, his heads-up display noting the fauna, surprisingly it came back as all Terra based equivalents. Well, they would have been if most of them didn’t say EXTINCT beside their classification in red.
“Captain Cane to Guard unit 117154, please respond.” The hud responded with something he had never seen before. NO SIGNAL.
“What the hell?” He asked himself. He had never been without a signal. “Computer, run diagnostics, maybe the transmat damaged something.” He watched as the diagnostic finished running, no errors, no signal.
He looked up, the sun would be going down in a few hours, he could use the celestial navigation software in his armor to find his location anywhere in the galaxy. Emperor above, he hoped the transmat hadn’t put him on a Xeno world.
He activated his jump pack to launch himself up for a better view of the land. About a thousand meters up he saw smoke coming from a medium sized village… maybe? He could work with that, maybe he was in a non-technological world of the Empire, even those had outposts to get a signal out from.
The jump pack’s capacitors would need to recharge before he could use it again. Nothing to do but start walking towards the village. With any luck he would reach it before nightfall, from there he’d get some answers.
He did not get to the village before nightfall. The terrain made going slow, the ground was soft and muddy, the forest was densely packed with oak trees and rocks. He had to use his jump pack to clear a particularly deep gully and it was slowly recharging.
As he looked down on the village he remembered his navigation software, he looked up to the sky and let the computer gather data. Location confirmed, Holy Terra, New Avalon, District 334.He sighed and looked back down to the village, “Either my suit is borked, or I’m back in the distant past.” He muttered. His armors’ limited AI printed something new on his hud. CONSTELLATIONS OUT OF SYNC BY 4271 YEARS.
Victor froze at the revelation. All the physics classes he took in his youth stated going back in time was impossible, something about paradoxes prevented it. “Computer, do you have any information on transmat failures?” The AI showed it was indexing before coming back with an answer, LOST MATTER IN TRANSMAT HAS ALWAYS BEEN PUSHED PAST THE FINITE CURVE OF THE UNIVERSE. NO FURTHER INFORMATION AVAILABLE.
Victor sat on a tree stump taking in the information. “Well, I’m not in the Empire anymore, even if the computer thinks I am. Nothing to do but head down to the village.” He pushed up from the stump and made his way in the dark towards the oddly ancient eastern looking village.
There was a road leading into the village, a sign stood crookedly at the crossroads, his AI translated it as Wuzhen, with other arrows pointing to Tongxian, Jiaxing, Huzhou, and Wujiang. “Computer, what language is this?” IT IS A DIALECT OF ANCIENT CHINESE, ADJUSTING GENE-MODS TO FOR TRANSLATION.
His vocal cords did that weird thing that happened whenever the AI needed to translate from Terran to another language or dialect. How the gene-mods did it was beyond his pay grade, but everyone always complimented him on his accent, so apparently the technology was sound.
He saw figures up ahead with a ox and wagon. His enhanced vision showed him about what he expected, peasants bringing their wares to town for sale. That was, until he saw the woman had goats eyes. The man had goats horns curling from his forehead but in all other aspects looked Human.
“Emperor above, what is going on?” He thought to himself as he decided he may not want to walk into town in green and black scout armor. He reached into dimensional storage and found a large trench coat that would fit over his armor. He pulled it out and put it on, then sent a mental command to retract his helmet as it whooshed back into the backpack portion of his armor.
As he walked up to the gates he was met with a solitary guard, this man had human features but a monkey’s tail. “Hurry up and get in, we’re about to close the gate house.” Victor pointed a thumb backwards, “There are two people behind me on a wagon coming.” The monkey guard yelled out as Victor stepped into the village past the walls.
“Hurry up you dumb turtles, instinctive are on the prowl and won’t think twice about making a meal of the lot of you!” The guard yelled. This seemed to put some fire under them, as they cracked their whip on the ox yelling for it to move. He sub-vocalized to his AI, “Does the term instinctual in reference to ancient china mean anything?”
The computer spoke back in his inner ear, CHINESE MYSTICISM STATES PRACTICERS OF INSTINCTIVE CULTIVATION BECAME ANIMAL LIKE AND OFTEN CANNIBALISTIC. Victor looked around at the village, seeing the sign for what must be an inn, he made his way across the street narrowly avoiding a steaming pile of horse manure.
The inn was bustling, barmaids with cats ears or pigs snouts served drinks and food to tables and people seemed to huddle close to the strange hearth like fireplace of the inn. It wasn’t like any fireplace he had ever seen. He sub-vocalized the question to his AI and it responded with the word “KANG”.
He found a chair near the front of the inn, far away from the kang and watched the locals. It appeared that coinage was copper discs. He turned his head from the inn and ducked down to bring his helmet back up, “Computer, replicate those discs in the nano-forge from copper ingots, have them ready for me to pull out of dimensional storage, we’ll need currency.”
His helmet slid back into his backpack and he raised his head and turned around just as a barmaid noticed he had no food or drink. “We have veil or pork, beer or wine. What can I get you?” Victor kept his face neutral, something that would have been impossible before his training with the Guard, she looked Xeno after all, the snout was all that was out of place on an otherwise attractive woman.
“I’ll have the veil and wine. Also, who do I see about a room?” He asked.
The boar-kin woman turned her head towards the bar, “Old man Huang would be the one to check with, don’t know if we have any open tonight. We have a lot of refugees from Huzhou after all.”
Victor raised an eyebrow, usually refugees meant something bad, “Refugees you say? I’m new to these parts, what happened?”
The barmaid snorted, which was ironic considering she was a boar-kin. “You must be new, Huzhou was raised to the ground by the instinctives, the Empress has sent a small contingency of the sect of the Iron Paw to defend Wuzhen, as we are a central transport hub.” The barmaid then looked over to a table of women in much more elaborate dress than the commoners, each with a jade talisman on their wrist.
Without another word she brought more drinks to their table, on it stacked plate after plate, bowl after bowl of food. After setting down the drinks she bowed until her snout almost touched the table before hastily retreating from their prescence.
Victor’s AI chimed in his ear that fabrication was complete and he reached under the table to access his dimensional storage, grabbing two handfuls of copper coins he put them in his trench coat pockets. He noted that although the inn was crowded, everyone else avoided the table with the sect women. It was almost as if others had moved their tables and chairs away, as if there were danger near them. The women didn’t look especially tough, they were armed with swords, but mostly dressed in robes of fine silk, no armor to be found.
He also noted they all had traits of tiger in them. Some had tails, some had the ears, some had the eyes. He supposed that was why they were called the Iron Paw sect, not very creative, but he doubted he could do better.
The barmaid came back with a plate of veil, steamed vegetables, and a large cup of wine. As she sat it down she said quietly, “Stop staring at the cultivators, do not draw their notice or they will decide they need make an example of an upstart mortal.”
Victor kept his face stoney as he accepted the meal and looked elsewhere while he ate. The food was quite good although he didn’t like the turnips. The wine was made from rice, and quite strong. He was about to wave the barmaid back over when a bell started ringing. Everyone in the inn froze, well all but the cultivators.
They pushed their plates to the center of the table, stood as one, and marched out of the inn. As they reached the door conversations started up. With Victor’s enhanced hearing he heard variations of ‘They must have spotted instinctuals’, or ‘I hope the iron paw is as fierce as they are rumored to be.’
Victor stood up, asked the barmaid for the tab, placed some copper on the table and raised his collar as he walked out of the inn. He noticed none of the other patrons followed him out, if anything they huddled away from the door. Seeing no-one was around he jumped using the armors powerful servo motors to propel him onto the roof of a two-story store. He almost didn’t clear the roof, landing with a slight thud and breaking roofing tiles as he made his way to the peek of the roof.
He watched as the women of the sect bounced almost weightlessly off of the rooftops reaching the guard tower at the east gate. Bringing his helmet back up his hud instantly targeted over 30 creatures rushing the east gate at monstrous speed. 160 KM/HR, ETA 45 SECONDS his AI helpfully informed him.The creatures were vaguely humanoid, they resembled ware-wolves, and ran on all fours. He watched as the cultivators drew their weapons as one, the human guards dropped from the wall and grabbed long pike-like weapons.
WAR MODE ENGAGED, EVASIVE ACTION REQUIRED fired through his ears as his armor spun from a crouching position and narrowly avoided a sword that stabbed through the ceramic tile of the roof to nearly the hilt. Before him stood a woman with the ears of a tiger in a blue silk dress.
His AI relinquished emergency control of the armor back to Victor as she spoke. “You are fast for a male. Surrender to this Mei, and I will make sure your execution is quick.” Victor cocked his head to the side before partially raising a hand. The bolter pistol appeared in his hand from dimensional storage as he pulled the trigger.
Mei’s eyes were round as the roof beneath her feet vanished in a hail of ceramic and wood, a noise as if a volcano had exploded right next to her severely stunned her more sensitive cultivator ears as she fell through to the second floor. Victor turned to the east wall in time to see a mass of bodies, all female it appeared, as he had never seen ware-wolves with breasts, leap the ten meters or so to the top of the wall. Howls pierced the night air as some were impaled on swords, others lashed out with razor sharp claws tearing into members of the Iron Paw sect.
It was obvious they would not hold that position. If they didn’t retreat they would all be lost, some of the smarter or luckier of the sect began to tactically retreat, fending off claws and teeth with their swords. Victor turned and saw the highest structure in town, a bell tower that stood about five stories high. That must have been where the warning came from, he could get a better vantage point from there.
Suddenly he heard a growl and the woman he had unceremoniously dropped through the roof jumped through the opening and landed as if gravity held no sway over her. “You have made a grave mistake instinctual, for this Mei will end you this…”
____________________
She didn’t get to finish her sentence as she watched the black armored figure with a strange brown robe suddenly launch himself on wings of fire from the roof to the top of the bell tower.
“Mei, Mei! Where are you, we are being overrun!” She heard from the east wall as her sect sisters were back pedaling as the mass of instinctuals climbed over both their own dead and her sisters. She turned away from the strange male and leaped from rooftop to rooftop to aid her sisters in battle.
She landed next to Xiang, who now had a gash across her cheek from combat, “There is someone else here, a male!” She shouted as she drove her sword into one of the wolf-kin that came too close. It howled in pain and retreated, but she knew it was not a fatal blow.
Xiang parried a high swipe of a claw and with a spin kick sent the instinctual she was fighting flying backwards only for it to catch itself with its claws and grind to a crouching halt. “Who? We are in the backlands of the Empire, and why would they send a male, he would surely be courting death against foes such as these!”
Mei blocked a razor sharp claw with the blunt edge of her sword before parrying backwards, “It doesn’t matter, our orders are to protect this town at all costs, don’t let them push us into a blind ally or somewhere we can’t defend ourselves.”
___________________
Victor watched as the tiger ladies tried desperately to fend off the ware-wolf ladies. It was not going well for the tigers, it seemed that although the instinctuals didn’t use weapons, they were faster, bigger, stronger, and meaner on average. His hud counted six cultivators down, two of which were being eaten by the ware-wolf women, the remaining five were being pushed towards center square.
What they couldn’t see was a group of four cultivators coming up on their flank from the south. It seems that even though these sect ladies seem haughty at best, they are the closest thing to the good guys in this fight. Victor cursed as he reached into his dimensional storage, a mark 8 flamer wrapped itself lovingly around his scout armor, as his hands wrapped around the handle and nozzle.
He leaped from the bell tower, shattering roofing tiles and bricks as he dropped the five stories to the ground before firing the retro-rockets in his boots, hitting the ground behind the Iron Paw sect before pouring withering fire from the flamer into the four instinctualists rushing from the south. They howled in agony as napalm lapped at their fur and burned them as they wallowed on the dirt road of the town square trying to quench the fire.
Victor turned around as the women of the Iron Paw were forced back to his position, which worked out fine, now they weren’t in the way. He poured burning liquid napalm into the ranks of the instinctuals. Those that could turned on claws and ran, those that didn’t burned in the street.
He turned around and ordered his helmet to retract, the four standing sisters of the Iron Paw leaped a step back bringing up their battered swords. He allowed his flamer to dissolve back into this dimensional storage. “Stand down ladies, the threat is over.” If anything this made them bring their swords up more.
Mei was the first to find her voice, “You are obviously a master of fire to dispatch so many of the betrayers instinctuals. Who sent you?”
Victor’s face remained impassive, this was new information, the instinctuals betrayed the Empire in some way. “No one sent me, I was in the area, and you apparently needed aid.” Let them decide with that what they will.
Mei slowly lowered her sword, before starting to laugh without much mirth, “In our darkest hour a hidden master appears and saves us from death. You would think we were part of a play or poets story.” The other women lowered what was left of their weapons as well.
Xiang looked Victor up and down, “I have never heard of male becoming a cultivator of war, that is usually the domain of females. I have also never seen clothing or armor like you wear, are you from the Empire?”
Victor sighed, well, here goes. “I am not from the Empire, I am from a far away land called Terra, and at the moment, I am merely passing through.”
The smaller one known as Li spoke up, “One does not simply pass through the Celestial Empire! The wall has stood for millennia untold, only the Immortal Empress remembers when it was built. How did you cross it?”
Victor only shrugged, “Who said I crossed the wall?” As he turned around and walked to the inn he only recently left. The crowd of people parted as he walked in.
_____________________
Xiang turned to Mei, “He is a foreigner wandering our land, Shihan must be informed of his presence and bring it before the court.”
Mei nodded her head turning to the final woman left standing, “Hua, travel to Wujiang, let our sisters know what has transpired here and have a message sent back to the Imperial Palace about this newcomer and what we should do.”
Li spoke, “Should we not attempt to capture him ourselves? After all, a male cultivator is a rarity indeed.”
Mei looked over to the smaller Li, “He burned down instinctuals with what appeared to be the forgotten Concept of Fire, for that was the Sixth Level Yang Fire, something we females who cultivate yin are incapable of. No, we would court death trying to capture a hidden master of his power. Did any of you even feel his Chi?” They all shook their heads.
Mei continued, “Then he is hiding his true power from us. When I first saw him leap from the ground to the rooftop I thought him a spy for the instinctuals. When I tried to attack he moved with a speed even I could not match. When I threatened him he simply ignored me, and throughout that I never once felt his Chi. This is a male we must be careful around sisters, now go Hua.”
_____________________
Victor watched as the people in the inn parted before him. He noticed many of them bowing as though he were part of the Imperial family of Terra. He reached the bar where the innkeeper, what was his name again? HUANG his AI chimed in.
“Huang, I require lodgings for the night. Do you have a room available?”
The Ox-Kin bowed so low as to touch the bar, “This lowly one will gladly provide you with a room hidden master.” He raised his head and waved the boar-kin barmaid over to him in a frenzy, “Chun, find the hidden master a room.”
Chun rushed over and bowed before Victor, “Please follow me hidden master?”
“Victor, my name is Victor Cane. Please, lead the way Chun.”
As he followed Chun upstairs to an empty room Victor closed and locked the door, if they want to think he is a hidden master then let them. In the meantime he needed sleep. He reached one more time into his dimensional storage and pulled four small security drones and paired them to his armor’s AI.
One flew out the open window to watch from outside, one crawled under the door to watch the inn, the other two sat inside the room.
Once he felt all was secured he settled into the not so great bed and closed his helmet. He’d worry about everything else tomorrow.

..which I feel outrageously guilty for thinking.
Here’s the story (buckle up, we’re going back a bit):
Me 31F, husband 31M, sister 29F.
In August of 2015 mum (now 59F) is diagnosed with Stage IV colon cancer with mets in her liver. The life expectancy for this diagnosis is a 10% chance of living to the 5 year mark (aka not great odds). She undergoes extensive chemo and multiple surgeries. We nearly lost her so many times.
Through amazing medical care coupled with some miracles along the way she’s made it to the 8 year mark. It’s truly incredible. But because of the sheer magnitude of this journey I’ve been grieving her for the last 8 years. She might still be *alive* but she’s far from healthy. And I know it will probably be different when she does pass, but at this point I feel like I’ve cried all-the-tears. I genuinely anticipate feeling relieved (followed by more guilt) when she does go but those are thoughts-for-a-therapist.
So one of the things she deals with is called “hepatic encephalopathy” (say that 5x fast). Basically her liver is so messed up from all the beatings its taken that it doesn’t do its job properly anymore and toxins it’s supposed to filter out end up in her bloodstream and then her brain. Our guess is that while she is technically free from her colorectal cancer, complications from the treatment regime and its effects on her liver are going to be what eventually does her in.
Essentially, she’s not the same person she used to be. Her brain is fuzzy, her words are slurred, she’s nocturnal, it’s a whole tragic thing.
Cue yesterday: I receive a call from her at around 3:45pm. She usually texts and work was pretty slow at this point so I picked it up.
She is in hysterics -- just absolutely wailing into the phone. “I think I’ve been scammed! I think I’ve been scammed!”
“Mum, breathe. Breathe. Banks are great at getting back scammed money. We will open a dispute and report the charges. Just tell me what happened.”
“I think I just lost $8500!”
“Tell me what happened. I want to help you but I don’t know what’s going on.”
“I just deposited $8500 into a Bitcoin machine. He was so convincing. SO CONVINCING. How could I have fallen for this?! I’m so f***ing stupid!”
At this point my heart sank.
That’s all her money. She lives off disability cheques and that’s the last of her savings.
She went on to explain how she had gone to the bank (at the scammer’s convincing), was told by the scammer that she was helping to find a “fraudster within the bank” so she shouldn’t tell them she was on the phone with him in case it gave wind and “spoiled their operation”, requested to withdraw $8500 cash, when questioned about it lied to the teller and said she was helping me open a restaurant (wtfriggg), then drove a few communities over and deposited the money into a Bitcoin machine located in a liquor store. Not only that, but the machines operate in max $1000 transactions. So she did 9. individual. transactions.
She’s distraught and devastated.
And here I am, adrenaline pumping, shaking slightly, head in my hands, thinking how could this happen? She knows all about scams like these! There were so many opportunities for it to sink in that this was a scam. So many opportunities for her to say hey this seems fishy. So many opportunities for her to call me and ‘double check’ this was legit.
This sickness has destroyed almost every aspect of her life. As I’m writing this I literally just got a text from her that said, “I really wish I were dead because life sucks so much except for you guys. But don’t get worried I’m not doing anything drastic. It’s more like just let this cancer come back and get me. I’m just so tired of trying to be strong all the time.”
She may be physically alive but her quality of life is non-existent. She’s so embarrassed, humiliated and broken. And I hate that there are people out there who exploit vulnerable populations. My anger towards this man knows no bounds. There has to be a fresh place in hell for individuals who take advantage of others at their weakest for their own monetary gain.
I want my mum to live, to really live. I never thought I’d say that dying is preferable to losing $8500.. but she is an unrecognizable shell of herself, a broken body she is stuck gasping for breath and grappling for purpose in.
She might be alive, but she’s not living. And I don’t know how to help her.

As the Roaring Twenties drew to a close, it was obvious to the American public that the “noble experiment” of Prohibition was a complete failure. Despite the promises of religious leaders and lawmakers, the total ban on the manufacture and sale of all alcoholic beverages had led to an increase in crime and violence throughout the United States. A lucrative black market for illicit alcohol had created a climate that allowed organized criminal syndicates to flourish. Public sentiment was turning against Prohibition, and more and more voices called for its repeal.The shrewder gangsters realized that Prohibition would soon no longer be the law of the land and they would need to find alternate sources of income. As the more prescient mobsters made plans to go into alternate ventures such as gambling, sex work, narcotics, or labor racketeering, it was clear there would not be enough business to go around. Competition would have to be eliminated. The long established partnerships between Italian, Jewish, and Irish gangs began to fray. The former two, in many cases, conspired together against the Irish mob. Irish immigrants had arrived in the US earlier and possessed the advantage of already speaking English on arrival. Irish gangsters enjoyed exclusive connections with politicians and law enforcement officials- connections that the Italian and Jewish gangsters knew they would need for themselves once the country went “wet” again.
Accordingly, from the years 1928 to 1933, there was a wholesale massacre of top-ranked Irish mobsters and bootleggers all over the United States. In St. Paul, MN, “Dapper” Danny Hogan started his car and was blown to pieces by dynamite planted by his Jewish counterparts. In New Orleans, the Italian mob gunned down Bill Bailey in a drive-by shooting. In Brooklyn, Charles “Vannie” Higgins was shot and killed in front of his 7 year old daughter. Similar stories were happening in many major cities throughout the United States.
Rumrunning in Providence, RI, was largely done by Danny Walsh. Born to Irish immigrants in 1893, Walsh was a true underworld success story. When Prohibition became the law of the land in 1920, he was a lowly clerk in a hardware store. Fast forward only five years, and Walsh was a multimillionaire with multiple country estates and luxury apartments in Providence. Walsh had assembled a fleet of boats and airplanes that supplied the thirsty Rhode Islanders with liquor under cover of darkness. His fortune grew further when he became involved in the lucrative world of horse racing. Even the stock market crash of 1929 hardly slowed down the bootlegging business. Despite a few minor brushes with the law- including a much-publicized 1929 incident when the Coast Guard killed three of his men- Walsh seemed largely untouchable. Like many gangsters of this period, he was something of a public figure, the local press often reporting on the exploits of his gang.
Walsh consolidated his power by making connections with the elite of the both the upper crust and the underbelly. His friends in Boston included both the notorious mob boss Charles “King” Solomon and a fellow Irish-American powerbroker by the name of Joseph P. Kennedy- though you may be more familiar with his children and grandchildren. Known as a gangster who preferred to settle disputes with a handshake rather than a tommy gun, Walsh was reportedly respected and well-liked even among his fellow criminal kingpins.
Someone clearly felt otherwise.
On January 24, 1933, King Solomon was shot dead in the men's room of a Boston nightclub he owned. With Solomon dead, Walsh no longer had the protection offered by his alliance with a larger outfit. This may have been a contributing factor to what happened next.
On February 2, 1933, Danny Walsh met six associates at the Bank Cafe in Pawtuxet Village, RI for a business dinner. These six men saw him off as he got into his car to drive home. They were the last people to ever see Danny Walsh.
For several days there was no leads for any of Walsh's family, business partners, or underworld partners to follow. Finally, an anonymous note was delivered to Walsh's brother Joseph- a ransom demand for $40,000 to be delivered to the Copley Plaza Hotel in Boston. While the idea of kidnapping a mob boss for ransom might seem laughable today, the “snatch racket” was hardly uncommon at the time, especially as the Depression forced more and more people into financial desperation. Criminal operations usually considered it more pragmatic to simply pay the ransom and recover their operatives rather than lose whatever talents or skills they possessed, which would cost them more money in the long run. Joseph and a few of Walsh's most trusted lieutenants complied with the demand, bringing $40,000 in cash to Boston and handing it around a hotel room door to a man they could not see. They returned to Providence and awaited word of Danny's release.
Word never came. It became increasingly clear that Danny Walsh had vanished without a trace and was never coming back.
Rumors spiraled in the press, the underworld, and even in an inconclusive federal investigation. There were reports of Italian men being spotted in the act of digging a large hole on one of Walsh's properties and sprinkling lime into it, but nothing came of further investigation. Some newspaper articles at the time gave lurid accounts of Walsh being stood in a tub of cement until it hardened around his feet and then hurled into the ocean- the first appearance of the “concrete shoes” trope that appears so often in gangster fiction. These, too, were dismissed as fabrication.
The disappearance of Danny Walsh has entered Rhode Island folklore. As recently as 2017, unidentified remains found in the area have been seriously investigated as possibly being his corpse. This practice will no doubt continue until a definite ID is made.
What became of Danny Walsh? In light of the wider wave of murders targeting Irish racketeers, it seems probable he was murdered. But who is responsible? Where are his remains? Was the unidentified man who collected a ransom at the Copley Plaza Hotel the real culprit or simply an opportunistic scam artist?
It seems probable that anyone with firsthand knowledge of this crime is long dead. Perhaps one day a corpse will be found that will answer at least one question, but until then this remains unsolved. Danny Walsh is doubtlessly but one of many victims of violent crime from the “noble experiment” of Prohibition.
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If you're interested in learning more about the story of Danny Walsh, here's a few good articles.
A writeup by the New England Historical Society
An article about remains that were investigated as possibly being those of Walsh
An interview with a descendent of Walsh

I loved the whole event, and finished it today due to Genshin burnout which I’ve just come back from. The last bit totally destroyed me though.
When we got to Vimara Village, I had no clue what was waiting in store. Then, out came the living creator of TCG and then came that fucking cutscene.
My best friend recently died from cancer. It’s been nearly 2 months, yet I miss her more and more with each passing day. I did the same thing as the dude who lived: I kept denying her illness, not acknowledging it, I said she would be fine, I’ve known people with cancer and they’ve lived, she’ll be fine! She never liked acknowledging it either, but all this time, she knew she was going to die, and never told me. She never let it show either, her weakness, her deteriorating health. She saw her strength slowly go and still acted totally normal to me. She had stopped her chemo for 3 weeks. Then, I didn’t hear anything for her for 3 days. The day before my birthday, she was gone.
I made so many fond memories with her. From playing roblox, to telling secrets, to dreaming about our future together. Unfortunately, she’ll never see it.
This Genshin event was great, but i defo won’t be able to play TCG for a while cause everything is still fresh and that last cutscene totally destroyed me. Though, I feel a sense of solidarity too from that character. I felt guilty, because I never got see her in her last moments. I really desperately wish I did. Genshins stories have really been hitting home recently and it kinda makes me feel a little less alone about it.

Hi all, I am posting this as a trip report more than anything else so enjoy the read :)
I have recently returned from a 9 days long trip to the Balkans. I let my excitement calm down over the past week or so and I am now ready to share my experience! I will be discussing the budget at the end!
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WHERE?
I visited 3 countries: Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia
WHEN?
8th until the 17th of May
ITINERARY
8th-11th in Pristina, Prizren and Peje in Kosovo
12-15th in Budva, Montenegro
16th-17th in Belgrade, Serbia
The plan was that there was no plan. I knew what is where and what cool things I can do but unfortunately I didn't enjoy good weather as it was raining for 7 out of 9 days. In Kosovo I travelled with two friends from Korea which I will mention later. We had a rental car from Pristina Airport which allowed us to go around the country easily and allowed us to avoid places with worse weather.
As I was not travelling alone for parts of the trip, I was flexible with activities which unfortunately were very limited due to the aforementioned weather conditions. Whenever we could we were out and about.
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THE EXPERIENCE
The highlight of the trip for me was definitely Kosovo. Amazing place so different to any country I visited before! Beautiful villages, cities, nature and all of that within reach as the country is small. It makes for a good short trip especially if you have a car, which is very easy to get! Prizren was our favourite city. Good hikes, beautiful views and good food! We also stumbled upon a locally owned liquor store where we bought our first bottle of Rakia, lovely owner!
On the last day we returned our car in the morning and took a bus from the airport to the city centre from where we took a bus all the way to Budva, Montenegro passing through beautiful Albanian mountains on the way south.
I had high expectations for Budva and Montenegro in general. I knew the weather was not going to be great but I tried to make the most out of it. The bus from Kosovo arrived around 1am so I already knew my next day is going to be slow. On the first day I appreciated the beautiful surroundings. That is also the day when my experience started to go south. I got scammed out of 40euros by a taxi driver for a 15 minute ride, why does it always happen in beach destinations? I spent the day swimming in Sveti Stefan, drowning the sorrows of loosing 40 euros. The water wasn't warm but it was the only day of sunshine I had so I had to enjoy it, it was my first time at the Adriatic Sea after all!
I quickly realised that 3 days in Budva are too many especially considering the weather. After my nice swimming/sunbathing day I found myself mostly just strolling around the Old Town(which did surprise me in a good way!). I decided that going to Kotor or anywhere else in the area doesn't make much sense and I will leave it for another trip later this summer. I spent my evenings at the beach next to Old Town, drinking and listening to waves crashing against the walls until late hours of the night every night. That was probably the nicest thing about my stay in Budva, as for a person that doesn't do partying on trips like this, it was a pretty boring and empty tourist town.
Last day in Budva was the bus-catching day. I read a lot about bus services in the Balkans so I was prepared to just let things happen the way they should. And so my ticket was for a 12:30 bus from Budva to Bar. The bus didn't arrive until ~13:00 and I was told by the driver this is not the correct bus despite it being clearly stated on the ticket that it was. Happens, I thought. I asked the ''bus station person'' what to do and they just put me on the next but to Bar at around 13:30, which was completely fine by me.
Why would you go from a tourist town of Budva to a tourist town of Bar some may ask? Well, for the past two years I dreamed about experiencing the Belgrade-Bar railway journey, rumoured to be one of the Great Train Journeys. And so I was finally there, in a random restaurant/bacafe next to a very Soviet-looking Bar Train Station. I bought my ticket for a couchette in a 6-bed compartment for ~24 euros one-way all the way to Beograd Centar. It was 16:00 and my train, Lovcen, didn't leave until 19:00. I spent that time looking for an ATM, eating at a Burger King with a parking lot the size of a country and chilling next to the station, great atmosphere in that area! Very quiet and for someone who hasn't travelled to the east it was very surreal to see palm trees, soviet architecture and Cyrillic all around next to each other. I felt like it was a good time to say bye to Montenegro for now.
The ride was incredible. Yes, if you, like me, can't sleep anywhere outside of your own bed properly you're most likely not going to sleep on this train either. But the sleepless night was worth every minute of the breathtaking scenery of the Montenegrin Mountains as we climbed higher and higher. Having come in May, I only had about ~2 hours of daylight to look out the window and I made sure to not loose a single second of it. If you ever thought about taking the trip, I couldn't recommend it enough. Yes it's not the fastest, most comfortable way to get to Belgrade, but it was an experience I will not forget!
Takeaways from Montenegro:

• do not use ATM's other than the ones from a bank which name I don't remember but it started with an e. All other ATMs charge 5eur for every transaction no matter how much money you want to withdraw. That is another way that I lost ~40 euros.
• Restaurants add service charge not on the bill but by word of mouth which confused me many times but I complied since I didn't know the rules. If that is indeed customary then I would avoid pricier restaurants as the charge waiters were quoting was about 20% of the bill, way too much and a cold shower after Kosovo where I ate a 2-course meal with 2 of my friends for 14euros TOTAL.
• People gotta chill out, no need to get mad at a bus being late, its just the way it is, plan for that in advance and you will be perfectly fine
• More tourists than I expected, especially for May, the rainiest month

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Next stop was the great city of Beograd. After my ~13hour train journey I arrived at Beograd Centar Station (confusing af!) at around 7:00am. My check-in time was 13:00 so I had a lot of time to kill even though I was already dead. I tried looking for a way to get to city centre because don't be mistaken, Belgrade Central Station is NOT in the centre. During my walk I found an exchange office which didn't scam me so I was off to a good start. With my 6000 dinars I strolled the city looking for food.
Later I saw the pedestrian, ''tourist'' area, the Castle, the riverside and some random streets and local markets. Overall, though I may be biased because of lack of sleep, Belgrade felt a little bit boring. Yes, I saw many people out and about but it felt too quiet. Serbia on the other hand, I will have to visit again as the people and the culture intrigue me!
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BUDGET
I got tickets from London Luton to Pristina, Kosovo for around £40 and back from Belgrade Airport to London Luton for £45. I didn't hold back on anything really. I was booking AirBnb's on the day of arrival usually especially in Kosovo.
Flights: £95
Car rental in Kosovo £135(fuel included, cost divided by 3 since I was with friends = £45)
AirBnb ~£90 in Kosovo
Budva accommodation ~£50
Belgrade accommodation ~£35
Train ticket from Bar to Belgrade in a sleeping car - £20
Scam ATM's - £40
Food is a tricky one since I didn't exactly track my expenses but I had a lot of seafood and kebabs on the trip. I would say ~£300 for the 9 days. Keep in minds I never cooked a single meal it's all for eating out.
All in all I spent about ~£600 for the 9 days of exploring which works out to between £65-70 per day. Not bad but I know next time what to do to lower the cost. I am fully aware this trip could have ended up £200 or more cheaper but I am satisfied with what I got.
Thoughts? Tips on next time in the area? I definitely need to go back, especially to Bosnia and Herzegovina and Albania. Hope you had an interesting read!